Why Read the Bible under an Indian Candlelight?
Why should we read John’s Gospel under the ‘candlelight’ offered by Hinduism or Buddhism when we have ‘sunlight’ offered by the original contexts of the divinely inspired Hebrew Bible and the New Testament?
I do have my reservations concerning certain commentaries and articles on John’s Gospel authored by Jey J. Kanagaraj and Thomaskutty.
I taught John’s Gospel for several years in an international school, preparing students for Cambridge A-level examinations. That curriculum is comparable to courses offered by MDiv programs in seminaries. I had to refer several commentaries during those years. Kanagaraj’s commentary was one of them.
The views expressed by these Indian theologians may appear to be fascinating. Which Indian won’t like it when he’s told that Indians have an edge over all other people when it comes to understanding John’s Gospel?
Kanagaraj and Chacko reread the Fourth Gospel using their chosen frames of reference. There is an inherent danger in the “rereading” of biblical books.
Jesus taught his apostles to reread the Hebrew Bible in the light of the Christ-event. The apostles were thrilled to discover Christ on every page of their beloved scriptures. The authors of the New Testament – especially Matthew, John, and Paul – incorporated their new insights in their works. But if we reread the books of the Bible using our favorite frames of reference, that exercise will not only lack the authority of Jesus Christ but also create numerous problems.
I did my senior secondary schooling in a Hindu mission school. We had to attend lessons on the Gita. One day, the Brahmachari (monk) who taught us said to our class, “Even Jesus believed in reincarnation. He said, ‘Before Abraham, I am.’ Surely, Jesus was talking about his previous incarnation.” I was stunned! How could a Hindu dare to reread John’s Gospel that way? In 2019, while browsing through a book on Hindu philosophy in Ernakulam Public Library, I stumbled upon another strange rereading of John’s Gospel. The author claimed that John 3:3 was about re-incarnation! You must be born-again … and again … and again!
We must faithfully exegete each book, including John’s Gospel, in their own context. We must study biblical books inductively instead of using a deductive approach. A careful inductive study discovers evidence in the text rather than rely on guesswork or external sources (including Christian commentaries). Inductive study enables us to focus on the text and, thereby, to flesh out ‘internal evidence’ that is hiding in plain sight.
Many New Testament scholars who write commentaries, unfortunately, do not read the biblical text as closely as they should. I have come across glaring errors in commentaries on John’s Gospel authored by reputed authors. They wouldn’t have written what they had written if they had spent more time with John’s Gospel than with other books.
Of all the Gospels, only John’s Gospel has a clear statement of purpose.1 He wanted to prove (through a set of carefully selected signs and sayings of Jesus) that Jesus indeed was the Messiah (Christ). Only one group of people were expecting a Christ—the Jews. John’s gospel was therefore primarily addressed to the Jews of the first century—especially the Jews of the Diaspora. There is enough evidence within that book to support this view.
Besides, John knew that his Gospel would be read by non-Jews as well. That’s why he was careful to introduce Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Jesus was the “Savior of the world” (4:42) and the “light of the world” (8:12) who came to “save the world” (12:47). Yes, God so loved the world …. But the people of the world will not be able to fully understand John’s Gospel unless they are well-versed in the Hebrew Bible. The Fourth Gospel is so saturated with direct quotations from and allusions to the Hebrew Bible—not to mention the ubiquitous “echoes” of God’s past dealings with Israel.
The Fourth Gospel has secondary objectives, too, such as John’s desire to fight the influence of Gnosticism on the Church. Another objective was to assert the right of the small group of Jesus-followers to call themselves the children of God. The Jews thought that they alone where God’s People or God’s children. It must have taken a lot of courage for John to state that the Jews who once were God’s children had forfeited their right to that title because they rejected Messiah Jesus. Further, he went on to say that anyone who believes in Jesus would have the right to become children of God! Even though he was a Jew, John refused to identify himself or other Jesus-disciples with the dominant, adversarial group that he called “the Jews.” In that sense, the Gospel of John was certainly written from a subaltern perspective.
Although the Jews dismissed Jesus as a man from the Galilean “outback”, John made a concerted effort to present Jesus as a Judaean by highlighting his ministry in Judaea. In almost all of the Fourth Gospel, we find Jesus in Judaea or Jerusalem except during a few short “visits” to Galilee.
A number of scholars once said that John was influenced by Greek philosophy just because John used the Greek word Logos to refer to Jesus. Ask the Hindus. They will tell you that John was refering to the “primordial sound of the universe” ऊँ (Om).
When it comes to interpretation, context is king. The literary context of John’s prologue does not tell us anything about a Hellenistic or Hindu influence. Instead, it tells us about Moses. It’s Moses – not Plato or Aristotle – who is pitched against the Logos. The Logos is called the true light in comparison with the Torah’s light! Therefore, it is clear that John was using the Jewish concept of Wisdom (the Logos, in Greek) to convince Jews about the plurality in the Godhead. The Logos was with God. The Logos was God. John found his inspiration in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible where wisdom is personified as Lady Wisdom.
If we accept a Hellenistic rereading of John’s Gospel, there is no reason why we should not accept a feminist or Communist or a Hindu rereading of the Fourth Gospel. In certain cases of rereading, it is evident that readers are engaging in anachronistic reading. That amounts to eisegesis. These so-called contextual rereadings, despite their claim to cultural relevance, are more harmful than useful.
A historical-grammatical exegesis is the only way for us to get closer to what the author meant. Our postmodern climate might deny that there is one right way to interpret a book or a passage. But authors of these contextual theologies want their readers to understand their viewpoint they intended it. It is not unreasonable to believe that the authors of biblical books, too, had a similar expectation. Therefore, there is a right way to interpret a passage. When we stray from it, the human authors may not rise from the pages of the Bible to register their protest. But the divine Author who inspired the biblical text reserves the right to disapprove certain workers. We are commanded to work hard at “rightly dividing” God’s Word so that we may be found approved unto God. A sincere student of the Bible must strive to understand what the author meant and how his original readers must have understood the author’s work.
Reader-response criticism is unsuitable for biblical interpretation. The meaning resides in the text, not in the mind of the reader. Yet, Thomaskutty is not interested in what the Apostle John meant; he wanted to interpret the “character of Jesus” and Johannine spirituality according to the impressions the biblical text creates on the Indian reader! He interprets the Logos as “the Sat/Cit, the Avatāra, and the Adisabda.” The adisabda is the primordial transcendental sound ऊँ (om).2 The Avatāra is the Hindu concept of incarnation. In Hinduism, their god Vishnu takes the form of several creature at various times. Such a mythological concept of incarnation has nothing in common with the biblical, historical event in which “the Word became flesh.” Even a mere attempt to compare Jesus’s historical incarnation with a mythological avatar is an insult to the Son of God.
Is this how contextualization should be done? Exegesis is the necessary precusor to interpretation. During exegesis, we address the question, ‘What does the text say?’ At that stage, we need not consider any context other than that of the text (which includes the context of the author and the original audience). The goal of interpretation is to answer the question, ‘What did the text mean to the author and his original audience?’ Once we answer that question, we can ask ourselves, ‘What does that mean for us today?’ That is application. Contextualization must happen during the application of the message of the text. Due care must be exercised during contextualization. In no way should we legitimize a faulty worldview or values of our hearers. Thomaskutty is careless in this regard in more than one way.
Authors like Thomaskutty inject the reader’s context into the process of exegesis and interpretation. This creates confusion rather than clarity. His claim that Jesus’ reference to Nathanael being under the fig tree “resembles in many ways Buddha, who sat under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya and was enlightened” is nonsensical and irresponsible. Indian Christians must recognize such deceptions and speak up against such liberal intellectual excursions.3
Buddism is an atheistic religion that rejects the notion of an external, personal God. The enlightenment it claims to offer is the realization that every human is god. That sounds more like the gospel of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. A Buddist notion of enlightenment has nothing to do with the Bible. In fact, John’s Gospel does not say that Nathanael was enlightened while he was under the fig tree. He was enlightened by his encounter with Jesus Christ, the True Light.
John’s Gospel must be interpreted in its Jewish context and in the light of God’s exclusive revelation to the Israelites and their Patriarchs as recorded in the Hebrew Bible. No other religion or spirituality had the privilege of receiving God’s special revelation. Indian religions, spiritualities, and their holy books must not be accorded the privilege of even being compared with the divinely inspired Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.
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