Re-interpretation and Re-modelling in John’s Gospel from Different Backgrounds

Table of Contents

In John’s Gospel, we find flavours of Gnosticism. There is polarization of reality, otherwise called dualism: God and the world; light and darkness; truth and falsehood; spirit and flesh. There is also an appropriation of the theology of the wisdom literatures including Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom of Solomon. Finally, John does not seem to quote the Old Testament like the other Synoptic, but he prefers to interpret OT passages and present its meaning rather than quote. So we have in John three major influences or target mind-set: Gnosticism, Hellenistic Thought and Old Testament background.¹

1. Jewish Background

If John was written by a Palestinian Jew, then the Palestinian Jewish background should be given primary importance in understanding the fourth Gospel. Palestinian Judaism itself should be studied in three categories: the Old Testament, Qumran Judaism and the Rabbinic Judaism.

1.1 Old Testament

Numerous terms and concepts from the Old Testament are used in John. John uses the fulfillment formula in connection with Jesus, His suffering and death. The fourth Evangelist was heavily dependent on the Old Testament in presenting the Gospel of Christ. The book of Genesis influenced John which is evident in the first verse “In the beginning”. In exodus he used the concept of tabernacles, indwelling, grace and truth, the description of Jesus as the Lamp of God (1:29, 36) as the Passover lamp for sacrifice for the freedom of the people of Israel. Many citations can be seen from the prophetical books and the I Am sayings is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 42-43). The God who worked in the history of Israel revealed Himself in the life and ministry of His Son Jesus and therefore New Testament concept of Christ can be rightly understood only in the light of Old Testament.

1.2 Qumran Judaism

Qumran is the people from a priestly family who broke away from the main stream of Judaism. Before the discovery of Qumran scrolls the Gospel’s scholars was depending on the Hellenistic and Gnostic sources for dualism found in the Gospel. It is to be noted that just as the Qumran documents identify the spirit of truth with the Holy Spirit, John identifies both. In John the “world” represents darkness (1:5, 3:19, 12:46) and thus the “the angel of darkness” of Qumran is the same figure as the John’s prince of world. Both John and Qumran, being Palestinian Jews, could have drawn sources from the Old Testament. Jewish tradition as Qumran could have been a source of inspiration for John.

1.3 Rabbinic Judaism

Another important Jewish background in John’s Gospel is the Rabbinic Jewish ideas. It is a reformed movement group of Jesus’ time formed from Pharisaic Judaism to revive the Jewish religion. The literature consisted of the Mishnah, the Talmud and the Midrashim, written in Hebrew during 2nd century AD to 5th /6th century AD. It is evident that rabbi’s forbade Jews from eating Samaritan’s cooking’s and do not associate with them and had no ritual relations between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus asking water from a Samaritan women fits well with the context. He also shows knowledge of certain processes of criminal law expressed in rabbinic literature. An accused person must be given the right to speak before Judges (7:51); and a testimony of at least two witnesses is necessary to establish a fact (8:17).

2. Hellenistic

Scholars who have studied the Johannine literature have suggested that John used the ideas drawn from Platonism and Stoicism. Plato spoke of a real world, invisible and eternal, of which this world of appearance is but a transient and imperfect copy. John also speaks of two different worlds referring to two spheres of life: the world above and the world below. The Johannine Jesus claims that He is from above and His opponents are from below and of the world (8:23, 18:36). The same idea is reflected in the testimony of John the Baptist who introduces Jesus as the one who comes from above in contrast to the one who is from the earth and therefore who speaks one from the earth (3:31).

The Logos, for stoics, is the self-expression of the Supreme Being. For John Logos is not just the mind of God, but He is God Himself who lives with God the Father; He is the agent of creation who revealed Himself in the spatio-temporal order in human flesh.

3. Hellenistic Jewish

Philo of Alexandria (20BCE – AD 50) is the only Hellenistic Jew contemporary with the origins of Christianity whose writings provide a formidable background for understanding such a first-century document as John.

Dunn who has done a useful study on Philo’s Logos doctrine, points out that the Logos for Philo is “God” in the sense that He is “the God” in his knowability and the one who stands for a limited apprehension of the one God.² Philo’s Logos doctrine is a close parallel to the Johannine presentation of the Logos who was living in close communion with “the God”. John also agrees with Philo that the Logos and the light is the self-manifestations of God to human beings. For John Logos and God live in oneness within each other, whereas in Philo the oneness perspective in terms of mutual indwelling is absent. D. L. Mealand thinks that the indwelling motif of Philo may serve as a background for Johannine theme of ‘mutual indwelling’.³

4. Christian Background

We can notice the influence of Christian tradition underlying the synoptic Gospel in John. For Paul the content of Christian message is Christ Himself. This is what is reflected in John too. For Paul Christ is a paschal Lamb who has been sacrificed (1 Corinthians 5:7). This belief is embedded in John’s Gospel which describes Jesus’ death as happening on the same day and at the same time when the Passover lamb was slaughtered in the temple. Paul and John use the wisdom motif to describe the saving work of Jesus, John by using the term “Logos” in identity with wisdom.⁴

5. Gnostic

Gnosticism focuses on gnosis (knowledge) to attain release/salvation. Gnosticism believed in dualism, i.e. belief that consists of life and death, truth and falsehood, salvation and ruin of human life. The parallels with Johannine thought are very interesting. Bultmann says “John is directly dependent on Gnostic tradition and he uses these traditions in far greater measure than Philo and other Jewish writers”.⁵ John uses dualism in the Gospel. The notion of creation markedly differentiates John from the Gnostics, for John sees creation made by the Logos, the one who was preexisting with God (1:1-3), unlike the Gnostics who believed that the world was created by evil forces.⁶

Conclusion

The deep root which John had in Palestinian Judaism does not mean that John was unaware of the Hellenistic world of syncretism. He does use the languages and concepts familiar in Hellenistic, Hellenistic Jewish and gnostic circles. But that does not mean that John was influenced by these ideas. Biblical revelation is grounded in history and not in philosophy and mythology, for God of the Bible is the God who reveals and acts in human history. The author being a Jew had a natural affinity to Jewish sources, traces of which can be found throughout his Gospel. However he knew that the message of Jesus Christ can be proclaimed in the current religious and philosophical terms in order to convince the wider audience that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by believing in whom one can receive heavenly life from God.

Footnotes

Joseph Crehan, The Theology of St. John (London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd., 1965), 19. ↩
Dunn, Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM Press, 1989), 24. ↩
David L. Mealand, The Language of Mystical Union in Johannine Writings (England: Downside Abbey, 1977), 9-31. ↩
There is enough evidence that prologue of John (1:1-18) was originally a hymn ascribed to wisdom which John adapts to his wisdom Christology and that (6:35) recalls wisdom making a feast and calling people to go and eat with her (Proverbs 9). ↩
R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 9. ↩
Jey J. Kanagaraj and Ian S. Kemp, Gospel of John (Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 2000), 60. ↩

Bibliography

Crehan, Joseph. The Theology of St. John. London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd., 1965.
Dunn, James D. G. Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation. London: SCM Press, 1989.
Mealand, David L. The Language of Mystical Union in Johannine Writings. England: Downside Abbey, 1977.
Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971.
Kanagaraj, Jey J., and Ian S. Kemp. Gospel of John. Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 2000.

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