THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
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John is known as the most difficult of the gospels to understand. However the gospel is shorter, does
not have as many stories or obvious interconnections with the other gospels and it was
apparently written later than the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke
. Why is it hard to understand? Much of the text appears to be taken up with debates between Jesus and the Jews. But in fact there is also a debate going on beneath the text between early Church leaders and Christian Jews some decades later, when John was writing the gospel. What was the rift about? Even in the story of Acts the community had fallen into two sections, people from a Gentile background and people from a Jewish background. The division was such that "false brothers" were prepared to try and kill Paul. |
Some of the antagonism towards Paul could have come from Essene members
of the new community. It is only now that the involvement of this sect in the early church
is coming to light. The Qumran texts (connected to Essenes) were only discovered in the 1940's
and took about 50 years to translate.
John the gospel writer is not only taking up the internal debate within the early church. He also picks up themes that were introduced by other gospel writers and develops these further. For instance Acts shows the authenticity of a wide range of people. He also shows the presence of the "Word" amongst many people and in many situations. The reader of Acts is presented with the sense of both a living authority and a living voice or "word" to be found across a community. In John's gospel he immediately identifies this "Living authority and Word" as Jesus who lives on in the community and indeed lives on in the world. In a sense the rest of John's gospel is an establishment of this initial claim. |
