My Foray into Johannine Literature – first impressions

Next year I will be teaching Exegesis of the Gospel of John at the seminary level.  My focus will be on the theological, literary, and social dimensions of the text.  And, of course, we will be talking considerably about the ethics of the text.

This has led me into the “Johannine” academic world- a land strange and confusing to Paulinists!  I am trying to get a lay of the land and it is difficult because so many elements are still without a consensus:

-authorship – John the apostle? John as a disciple, but not the son of Zebedee?  Lazarus? Unknown?

-Beloved disciple – Is this the same person as the author?  Is it a made-up figure?

-community – is there a community with problems that gave rise to the gospel?  What kind of problems were they having? Is the “community” a figment of scholarly imagination?

-relationship to synoptics – was the 4th Gospel written with knowledge of any of the others?

-purpose – is this more of an evangelistic text or one to support and encourage believers in Jesus?

-sources – what kind of sources did John use?  A “signs” source?  Where did his “I am” language come from?

My head is spinning from trying to navigate through where there is any agreement.  Here are some other observations:

1. Thanks largely to Richard Bauckham, scholars are now starting to take seriously the historical accuracy of many parts of John. Evangelicals (like Craig Blomberg) have been doing this for some time, but Bauckham has taken the discussion to another level.

2. There are few treatments of the theology of John.  I know that Craig Koester has an excellent one called Word of Life (Eerdmans) and Andreas Kostenberger has recently published one.  I think we are need of a few more!

3. Scholarship, again thanks to Bauckham, is moving away from the community theory, though there are certainly still a significant group that continues to work with the community paradigm.  However, it is no longer the “standard” assumption.

SCHOLARS

As I am trying to catch-up on decades and decades of scholarship, I am starting to get a sense for who are the movers and shakers in this world.

The Top Dogs of the Past: John Ashton, J. Louis Martyn, Raymond Brown, C.K. Barrett, Robert Kysar

Top Dogs of Today: D. Moody Smith, Sandra Schneiders, Ruth Edwards, Wendy Sproston North, Andreas Kostenberger, Richard Bauckham, Gary Burge, Craig Koester, Craig Keener, John Painter, Jan Van der Watt, Marianne Meye Thompson, Andrew Lincoln, D.A. Carson, Gail R. O’Day, Paul Anderson, Robert Fortna

Up and Coming Scholars: Edward Klink III, Tom Thatcher

I am preaching on John 16 and the Paraclete in May and I look forward to spending time thinking about John’s vision of worship and the believer’s communion with God via the Spirit.

More on Johannine scholarship to come…