New Test. Stud, aj, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC pp. 1-31 R. ALAN CULPEPPER THE PIVOT OF JOHN'S PROLOGUE The prospect of writing anything further about the prologue of John reminds one of the verdict quoted by W. C. van Unnik in a similar context some twenty years ago : ‘ the new things he said were not true and the true things were not new ’. 1 The prudent course may, therefore, be to refine an already established position with the hope of being able to say something true, even if it is not altogether new. The thesis of this article is that the prologue is a chiasm with verse 12 b at its centre. 2 That the prologue is chiastic is not a new thesis; that its centre is 12 . עb is. The first part of this paper attempts to establish this thesis. The second part studies the key phrase in v. 12 b, τ έ κ ν α Θ ε ο ϋ , and the implications of its position in the prologue. I. THE STRUCTURE OF THE PROLOGUE This study is concerned only with the structure of the present form of the prologue.3 Although several significant efforts have been made to identify the ‘ hymn ’ which probably formed the source of the prologue, there is little agreement as to the extent, content or structure of that hymn. 4 In addition, the tendency has been to focus attention on the structure of the hypothetical source primarily in order to argue that since some symmetry, pattern or structure is discernible, the author ’s source analysis is sound. Consequently, relatively little attention has been given to the structure of the present text of John I. 1-18. Assuming there was a source or hymn underlying the pro- logue, both the alterations of the source and the structure of the resultant text would be significant evidence for understanding the meaning of the prologue and the rest of the gospel. If, however, as C. K. Barrett and others have contended,5 there was no source and the evangelist composed the 1 W. C. van Unnik, ‘The Purpose of St John ’s Gospel’, Studia Evangelica, TU, Bd. 73 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1959), p. 383. * ‘Chiasm’ is defined below, p. 6. 3 The text used here is that published by the United Bible Societies, third edition, 1975. This text differs from the Nestle-Aland text (25th edn) only in the punctuation of the end of v. 3. Unless otherwise indicated English translations of biblical passages are taken from the Revised Standard Version. * The following works provide surveys of recent source analyses: R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, Anchor Bible, Vols. 292 ־ga (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday and Co., 1966-70), 1, 22; E. Lopez, ‘Dos siglos de critica literaria en torno al prölogo de San Juan ’, Studium Ovetense, ι ( ‘973)1 ‘6578' !7 ־; J. S. King, ‘The Prologue to the Fourth Gospel: Some Unsolved Problems ’, Exp. T. lxxxvi (1975), 372-3. 6 C. K. Barrett, The Prologue of St John's Gospel (London : Athlone Press, 1971). Barrett concludes: ‘ The Prologue is not a jig-saw puzzle but one piece of solid theological writing. The evangelist wrote it all . . .’ (p. 27). Cf. his The Gospel of John and Judaism, trans. by D. M. Smith (Philadelphia: 0028-6885/79/2828-4860 $02.00 © 1979 Cambridge University Press NTS XXVII I