Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century: The Search for the Wider Context of the Johannine Literature and Why it Matters

Description

This book is an exploration of three distinct cultural and religious backgrounds against which scholars have proposed that the Gospel and Letters of John are to be read and understood.1 As will be seen in whatfollows,there are features within the Gospel and/or Letters of John that do in fact suggest that they were in uenced either by Gnosticism, Docetism or one of the variant forms of Judaism. However, in each case, while some of the evidence suggests a particular background, it is equally evident that not all of the evidence suggests the same background. Acknowlegments xiii Abbreviations xv Introduction xvii Prequel THE COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1 1. The Basic Proposal 1 2. An Overview of the First Edition 2 3. An Overview of the Second Edition 7 4. An Overview of 1 John 13 a. The Views of the Opponents 14 b. The Views of the Author 15 c. 1 John as a ‘Handbook’ for Understanding and Dealing with the Community Crisis 16 5. An Overview of the Third Edition 17 6. The Plan of the Book 22 Part I GNOSTICISM AND THE JOHANNINE TRADITION Chapter 1 GNOSTICISM AND THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 27 1. Past Attempts to Articulate the Relation of the Gospel of John to Gnosticism: Gnostic? Anti-Gnostic? Proto-Gnostic? Gnostic Milieu? 27 2. A New Perspective 31 3. The Prerogatives of the Eschatological Outpouring of the Spirit 32 4. A Means of Proceeding 33 5. Prominent Features of the Gospel Commonly Thought to be Related to Gnosticism 34 a. The Importance of Knowing and Knowledge 34 b. Jesus as Revealer 37 c. Jesus as a Heavenly Redeemer 38 d. Dualism 40 e. Attitude Toward the Material World 43 f. Determinism 45 g. Lack of Ethics 46 h. Discourse Material 48 i. ‘I AM’ Statements 51 j. Humanity as Composed of Sparks of Light in a World of Darkness 52 k. Mythopoeia 54 6. Conclusions 55 Part II DOCETISM AND THE JOHANNINE TRADITION Chapter 2 DOCETISM IN THE FIRST LETTER OF JOHN 61 1. Docetism 62 2. What Are the Criteria We Should Use for Evaluating Such Proposals? 65 3. Deliberate Anti-Docetism in 1 John (Schnelle, Strecker) 66 a. Passages Thought to Re