Background Information on the Gospel According to St. John Part One

This is an info graph of the infancy and early ministry of Jesus taken from:http://biblia.com/books/fsbinfographics/media/path/final_images_png_thelifeofjesusinfancyandearlyministry.png

Introduction

John's Gospel is usually the one that pastors or teachers of the Bible will tell their new converts to read before starting any other books of the Bible. Why is that, at least, I have always wondered? It is because John's version of Jesus' life has been seen more as a theological interpretation of Jesus' time on earth. Some scholars believe that John complements the Synoptic Gospels. He fills in the missing pieces that are not there. John is a good starting point for getting to know God the Son--Jesus our Lord.

Icon of St. John taken from:http://catholic-resources.org/Images/Evangelists/john-icon.jpg

Who was the Author?

Raymond Brown was a Catholic priest and New Testament and Johannine Scholar. He wrote an outstanding introduction to the New Testament. In it he explains the traditional view of authorship: "Irenaeus (ca. AD 180) identified the Disciple as John (one of the Twelve) who lived  at Ephesus till Trajan’s time (ca. 98). (As a boy Irenaeus had known Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who is supposed to have known John)” (Brown, Introduction to the New Testament, 368). The reason tradition held to John as an the author comes from the last portion of the text: 

This is the [Beloved] disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.  (John 21:24, NRSV).

However, Brown tells us that most scholars today do not believe that the traditional view of John, son of Zebedee, was the Beloved Disciple. He states that they have found that the 2nd century beliefs came from a sense of needing authority from the writer more than the actual author (Brown, Introduction, 368). Brown, also tells us that there are three theories on who the Beloved Disciple actually was: He was an actual NT person; that he was not a real person at all, but meant to portray the perfect disciple; and last he was someone, not an important NT figure, but one who was there that started the Johannine community and became the ideal disciple opposite of Peter in the Synoptic Gospels. For Brown, the answer is the third option (Brown, Introduction, 369).

Mark Allen Powell, a professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, explains a bit more of what we just saw from Brown. For Powell, the author is John the Elder (the author of the Johannine Epistles), edited the material of the community of the beloved disciple; thus the name of John being forever attached this Gospel. This is because, as he states, there were three or four possible authors to the Johannine corpus--John the Apostle, the beloved disciple; an unknown author of the first epistle; the Elder (known as John); and John the Seer, who is also the author of Revelation. Powell says that most scholars believe that a whole community was involved in the penmanship of these texts. He says they call this “a Johannine school." This is because, whoever the beloved disciple was, he was more of an interpreter than an eyewitness (Powell, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels, 124-25). As for me, I do not see why this Gospel could not have been orally presented by the Apostle John and later compiled into a Gospel and a rule (much like the Scroll of Discipline in the Qumran community). I believe this, because there are we statements in this Gospel. Just look at John 21:24 again.

When did the Author Write?

The dating of the text falls around the beginning of the second century. This is what most scholarship believes. For me, I think it was compiled at the beginning of the second century, which took from oral traditions of the Apostle John in the middle of the first. Powell states that this Gospel has always been seen, by the early Church, as a late one. He then says that most modern scholars align themselves with this thought. However, Powell believes that there is evidence that states an earlier composition. According to this evidence, the use of Rabbi as a title for Jesus was still being used (this was dropped by Christians in later generations), the Temple was still standing (the significance of this is that in the original Greek of the Gospel, the Temple is presently standing at the very moment of the writing), and that there are differences between the followers of John the Baptist and Jesus’ own disciples. In order for this to work, Powell says, scholars have attributed a belief that this Gospel was written in stages. In other words, it took almost fifty years for the text to be completed. Believing this, Powell thinks that the final version of the text should be dated around 90-100 C. E. (126).

John's Christology

In the late Roman Empire, Jesus was mixed with the view of the Emperor. Romans saw beards as barbaric. When Constantine was converted to Christianity, the image of Jesus began to change too. Jesus was seen as the Emperor of the Universe and the Caesar was His vicar (representative to the people).Image taken from: https://media.biola.edu/gbb/photos/2012/Oct/19/cache/christ%20triumphant_half.jpg

In Ernst Haenchen's Hermeneia commentary, he says of John’s Jesus: “in this Gospel Jesus is pictured and extolled in many narratives as the great miracle worker and his miracles are thus conceived as proof of his divinity” (Haenchen, John, 94). In Jesus, the spiritually dead find life. We need not wait till death, to find our salvation--it is here and now. Haenchen puts it like this: 

It is not important that Jesus causes a lame man to ‘rise’ (5:8), but that he causes the (spiritually) dead to rise (5:21: [the Greek means ‘make alive’]), like the Father does. It follows that the time of salvation does not just dawn on the other side of the grave but here and now, at the moment any one whom the Father has given to Jesus hears his word (Haenchen, John, 95).

Jesus is sent to do what the Father wants. Jesus did not come because he wished it, but because the Father sent him. Therefore, Jesus does not speak and act on his own merit, but on the Father’s (Haenchen, John, 96). Jesus acts, kind of like an apostle, yet he is more than an that. The word apostle comes from the Greek, apostolos, which means one sent. However, it actually has a deeper meaning than this. This word was used politically. When someone was an apostle of their master, it meant they carried that lord's authority. For example, if a lord of a city had two other places under his charge, he could not be in all three cities at once. What he must do is send an apostolos, someone who could carry out the authority of the master since he could not be there himself (are we following?). Haenchen explains it like so:

Jesus is the divine legate and a legate fulfills his commission all the more thoroughly the more he is simply the expression, the mouth and the hands of his lord. It is then and only then, when he has no political ambitions of his own, but lives entirely in the service of his master, indeed, lives precisely out of this service (4:34), that he is one with his sovereign and has genuine claim to the honor that is due his lord...for us he stands in the place of his lord, the Father, as the one sent, who has devoted himself entirely to his master (Haenchen, John, 96).

Rudolf Bultmann, former professor emeritus of New Testament at the University of Marburg in Germany, says that John's Jesus was very different than the traditional view made by the Synoptic versions: 

In John, Jesus appears neither as the rabbi arguing about questions of the Law nor as the prophet proclaiming the breaking in of the Reign of God. Rather, he speaks only of his own person as the Revealer whom God has sent (Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 4).

For the more conservative view of the Christology of Jesus in John's Gospel, three scholars help us out. D. A. Carson, J. Moo, and Leon Morris. In their introduction to the New Testament, it's all about the title of the "Son of God." In John’s Gospel, Jesus is the “Son of God,” though this term can also be used of the Messiah it is vitally important to the Christological status of Jesus. Only Jesus can show who God is, since Jesus is the “Son of God” and God is the “Father.” Therefore, Jesus can only say and do as God tells and shows him, John 5:19 (Carson, Moo, and Morris, Introduction to the New Testament, 174).

With this information in mind, we will do better when we dig into the Gospel of St. John. Later, this week, I plan to have up more background information on the Gospel of St. John. We need to understand first century Judaism and we need to know about the socio-political setting of Palestine and the Roman Empire before we head into the text. Till next time fellow followers. 

C. Bohall

 Bibliography

Brown, Raymond E. Introduction to the New Testament. New  

York: Doubleday Press, 1997.

Bultmann, Rudolf , Theology of the New Testament, vol. 2, trans. 

Kendrick Grobel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955.

Carson, D. A., Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris. Introduction to 

the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

Haenchen, Ernst. John I. trans. by Robert Funk. Philadelphia: 

Fortress Press, 1984.

Powell, Mark Allan. Fortress Introduction to the Gospels. 

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.