John - Book Review

The book of first John is one of a distinct nature and character, a book that stands in a sense on its own, a book that by the questions about it's authorship and structure proclaims it individuality and inclusion in the canonical structure of the scriptures themselves. We see in the book of first John, the dealing with a very specific issues, a sort of which carries with it a legacy to our contemporary times, in it's relevance and subject. With a distinct vantage point in a temporal sense, the epistles of John shows how the theologies of the apostles where specific, logical, and Christ focused, a focus that history has a way of distorting. The author(s) of the Johannine epistles had a clear focus on the fellowship of the body of Christ, the logical defense of the nature of Christ and a need to confirm the loving nature of the Son of God in both action and deed. Through a thorough examination of the historical, literary and theological distinctives of this book, we come to a fuller understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and the nature of both his divinity and humanity.

The Historical Issues

Because of the nature of the texts in the Christian scriptural canon (i.e. their age) it is often left up to many different theologians and historians to debate the nature of different characteristics of the different books, characteristics like the authorship, dating, recipient groups, historical setting and vantage points of said recipient groups. For the book of first John these debates are not lessened. For example the author of the epistles recognized as the apostle Johns, is debated widely. There are those that believe that the author of John has always been unanimous (even historically) that the author of the fourth gospel and the epistles are not only one in the same but also apostolic in nature, or written by the apostle John (son of Zebedee, brother of John (Matthew 4:21), adopted son of Mary mother of Jesus (John 19:25-27)) (Plummer, xxxvii). There are others who on the issue of authorship would disagree with Mr. Plummer and say, as Thomas F. Johnson says in the New International Bible Commentary on the subject, that because of the verse in John chapter 21 verse 24c, that the original text of the gospel of John had been altered or edited ("his") and that therefore the eventual author of the gospel of John was probably not only different from the original author of John but also that of the epistles too (Johnson 2).

There are many other questions and historical issues within the scriptures that are commonly recognized by the evangelical churches of today, for example the question of the time period in which the first epistle attributed to John was written, in that there are some who say that the apostle John live past 100 AD or partially through the persecution of Domitian and they can coin the age of the authorship of 1 John much later. For example William Barclay who states that the book of first John was written after 100 AD (Barclay 3) where as others dispute this fact, like again mr. Alfred Plummer who says that John probably died around 100 Ad, and the persecution of Domitian started around 95 AD, about ten years after the fall of the temple in 85 AD, probably showing that the first epistle of John was penned between 85 and 95 AD (Plummer xliv-xlv). Part of the argument that Plummer makes is that we get a sense that it is an older man guiding or sending his last remarks in a sense to a church of a younger generation. (xlv).

As I've stated before one of the most important issues in the evaluation of the first epistle of the apostle John is that of the historical context to this letter of sorts, just as with almost all of the letters we find in the New Testament. The state of the church being addressed or written to is the foremost important issue addressed by authors in the New Testament, whether it is peter, Paul or John writing. In this situation in 1 John, there is evidentially a developing or widening rift in the community of believers, probably in Asia Minor or specifically the church in Ephesus (the traditional home of the apostle John and his focus in ministry) (Burge 17-18). To understand better the context of this rift lets look at the setting, the history and then lastly the context of this letter. Tradition hold, quite unanimously that the apostle John was sent to the frontiers of Judaism (Burge 22) to work in Asia Minor, specifically to create fledgling churches in places like Ephesus, the long time home of John, and as Eusebius tells us, it was probably the burial place of John as well (or at least to two different locales who currently hold to be the burial place of the apostle)(Burge 21-22). It's interesting to see that also it is said that the apostle who Christ loved, planted churches all throughout out the region we now call turkey, because of it's relative seclusion from the Jewish church, but nonetheless this is where the ministry of John happened and where the gospel of John was developed and eventually created a hold theologically. We take from the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo, a word about the tradition of the first epistle of John, and that is that it was written to the Parthians (Plummer xlii-xliii), probably another title for the church in Asia Minor, but as again, Mr. Plummer shows us through the Latin there is a good chance that it was a mistake taken while coping down the title of John the virgin (for as tradition says John, like timothy, died a virgin) (Plummer xlii-xliii). We take a number of our next clues about the context of the church to which this letter is written straight from the text.

The greatest point of reference or contextual vantage point for the book of 1 John is the rift that had evidently risen up in the church. As Gary M. Burge points out, John was probably writing to validify his gospel and defend logically against a divisive part of the church community who were disagreeing with his interpretation of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Burge 17-18, 24). We also see that there are a number of characteristics of these dissenters as Mr. Burge summarizes "...these were a select group of Johannine Christians who knew the Fourth Gospel well, claimed to be inspired by the Spirit, and challenged John's understanding o Jesus Christ's personhood and work." (Burge 24). These characteristic are mostly extrapolated straight from the text, for example there was a terrible fight between this group and the church and a splitting that was painful (1 John 2:19-26) and there is a very good chance they still had a sway in the church community because there was warnings against liars in 2:22. We can also assume that the arguments were coming with claims of spiritual revelation 2:20 and 4:1-6 show perfectly how we sometimes can be misguided (Burge 24-25) ( New International Version