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The Gospel of John

John is the last of the Gospels. It is analytically interesting, in that the signs of rearrangement and extension during its formation process are more widely acknowledged than with the Synoptics: more than one recent commentator has posited three stages in the formation process, the first stage being closest to the outline inherited from Mark. The task is to follow up these signs, arrive at a core text, and evaluate the core and the later modifications as evidence for part of the history of the early Jesus movement.

It is obvious that John knew of the previous Gospels and thought to replace them with a more internally consistent and theologically advanced product; in this sense, John is a second Luke, and Luke is clearly the Gospel which the author of John has most clearly in mind. Specific connections remain to be clearly tracked (for a beginning, see Synoptic Contacts, below). The present material is organized around the recovery of the oldest state of the text, by eliminating the additions and as far as possible undoing the rearrangements made during its formation process.

• Description
  • Overview
  • Synoptic Contacts
  • Notes on Selected Passages
  • A Sampline of the Scholarly Literature
• Previous Reconstructions
• Benjamin Bacon (1933)
• Robert Fortna (1970, rev 1988)
• Urban von Wahlde (1989)
• Paul Anderson (2006)
• Additions and Rearrangements
• Jn 21
• Jn 15-17
• Item
• Item
• Conclusion
  • The Core Text
  • Chronology
  • The Purpose of John
  • The Beloved Disciple

John ends by being indebted to Luke in many ways, not only in further developing some of Luke's departures from his own Synoptic precedents, but also by replicating in part the development of Luke itself, from a first state rather close in narrative outline to Mark, to a final state characterized by rearrangements and extensions which have an ultimately Jerusalem focus.

22 Dec 2010 / Contact The Project / Exit to Biblica Page