Introduction to the Johannine Literature

The Johannine literature is distinctive in several respects. John is the only Gospel in the New Testament that has letters related to it. The relationship is much closer than the Gospel of Luke and the Letters of Paul, or the Gospel of Mark and the Letters of Peter.

John differs from the other three canonical Gospels so dramatically that they are called Synoptic Gospels ("seeing alike"), whereas John is unique. John has its own language and idiom, its own chronology of the ministry of Jesus, its own view of Jesus' identity and works, and its own theology.

John is arguably the most influential book of the New Testament. It alone depicts Jesus as the Word (Greek, Logos), a fact which has made John the seedbed for much of the church's theology. One has only to think of the doctrine of the Trinity to see the importance of John for Christian thought. The relationship of Jesus to God as Son to Father breaks through only occasionally in the Synoptics, but it emerges full-blown in the Fourth Gospel. The double nature of Jesus as human and divine also confronts us more dramatically in John than elsewhere, and John has more to say about the Holy Spirit than any other writing in the New Testament.

The engaging factor is that John is at once the simplest of the Gospels and the most difficult. It is the Gospel most frequently translated into other languages and the Gospel written in the easiest Greek. But it can also be difficult to understand. The Gospel always calls us to walk further with it and ponder it longer. In this respect, it is both a home and a horizon, a place of security and a place of challenge. (Because of this, you might wish to preface your study of John and your reading of this book by turning first to chapter 10 to gain an overview of some of the ethical, theological, and historical challenges these writings pose to communities of faith today.) I hope that you will find the study of this Gospel so engaging that it will never let you go. If this happens, you will gain a lifelong source of intellectual and spiritual stimulation that will never let you stop probing its mysteries.

WHAT IS JOHN?

Is John best understood as history, theology, or literature? John is a narrative that presents Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God who lived at a particular time in history. As a historical narrative it raises problems of the relation of history to faith, God to humanity, and time to the eternal. How could a writer convey the significance of the advent of the eternal Son of God in human history? Neither an unvarnished historical account nor a theological treatise would be adequate. The event was both history and revelation, so the events and content of that revelation interpret one another, and this in a narrative context.

As we wrestle to understand John and discern the extent to which it is history, we will learn that the evangelist is writing for a particular believing community facing a specific set of historical conditions. So, revelation both emerges out of history and is interpreted back into history. From your study I hope that you will also see ways in which the revelation imparted in the life of Jesus and interpreted for the Johannine community can reach into our own historical circumstances.

John as Literature

Suppose that you wanted to write a story about a divine being who had come to earth in human form—perhaps a script for a television series. What form might the story take? What plot lines would be open to you? There are two basic options that grow out of the premise of the story. The first would be, How does anyone know that this human figure is a divine being if he looks, talks, and acts like a human being? How does his identity become known? That is the plot of the Gospel of Mark. According to Mark, no one knew at first who Jesus was, and even those closest to him only discover who he really is at or after his death and resurrection. The voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism is addressed to him alone. We readers know that Jesus is God's Son, but no one around Jesus knows until his death, and it is his death and resurrection, not his power or teachings, that make his identity known.

In John, by contrast, Jesus tells everyone who he is. From the very first chapter both he and others use the church's lofty titles to describe his identity. There is no question about how people discover who Jesus is—he tells them, and tells them repeatedly. Now the question becomes, How do people respond to his claim to be the Son of God? Why do some believe him and others do not? What different responses can we see in the Gospel, and what are the different levels or stages of faith?

While the Gospel tells the story of Jesus, it also draws us as readers into it and seeks to move us along the continuum of responses to a higher level of response to Jesus as the Revealer.

John as History

John is paradoxically both the most and the least historical of the four Gospels. Good arguments can be raised in favor of the accuracy of John's geographical references, its chronology of the ministry and death of Jesus, the nature of the debates or trials that led to Jesus' execution, and the relationship of Jesus to John the Baptist—to take only a few illustrative points. On the other hand, the style of Jesus' speech in John is thoroughly Johannine, resembling more nearly the way the author of the Johannine Epistles writes than the style and idiom of Jesus' teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. In John, Jesus usually speaks in long discourses rather than in the short sayings and parables characteristic of the Synoptics. In addition, Jesus speaks more explicitly of his identity and messianic role in John than in the Synoptics; this suggests that John reflects later Christian response to Jesus more explicitly while the Synoptics preserve the actual sayings of Jesus more accurately. Even where the Synoptics may be more accurate historically, however, John perceptively highlights elements of truth about Jesus.

John as Theology

The Gospel and Letters of John were written in the midst of fierce theological debate. One's place within the community was defined by one's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. At first, believing Jews distinguished themselves from others in the synagogue by their confession that Jesus was the Messiah. Then, when the community of believers separated from the synagogue, their confession defined them over against the pagan, Greco-Roman world. When divisions developed within the community over...