Many scholars have concluded that the Fourth Gospel has been composed in a series of stages. Raymond Brown, for example, developed an elaborate theory correlating different compositional layers with the different historical phases of the ‘Johannine community’ (See Brown 1979), a theory that to some scholars seems to push the evidence too far. Debates about the unity of John 11.1-44 have, indeed, been evident in previous scholarship, with critics making a great variety of proposals relating to the impact of source and redaction. Thus, Brown also argued that John 11 —12 was among the material added at the very last stage in that history (See Brown 1966, pp. XXXV—XXXIX). Yet, as we shall see, even these chapters show some evidence of having had a compositional history of their own. There is, however, little consensus about the precise compositional and redactional history of this material. Jerome Neyrey considers the problem of the death of believers to have been addressed in the ‘first redaction’ of the source. The ‘second redaction’ emphasized the high Christological claims attributed to Jesus ( See Neyrey 1988, pp. 81-93, 150).
More recently Michael Labahn has discussed John 11 as a development from the traditions in the Secret Gospel of Mark and the special Lucan material’ (See Labahn 1999, pp. 378-465), while W. E. Sproston North has considered the Johannine account in relation to traditions found in x John, as well as elsewhere in the Gospel and the Synoptic accounts (Sproston North 2001). Most interpreters consider that there was a ‘redactor’, an editor, who compiled the Gospel in much the form in which we now have it.
We consider that John’s Gospel was written for a particular section of the Christ-movement late in the first century cE. We do not accept the arguments of Richard Bauckham and his collaborators that the Fourth Gospel (or any of the canonical Gospels) was originally written for ‘all Christians’ (see Esler 1998a, Sim 2001 and Mitchell 2005). We are of the view that each of the Gospels reflects a position attuned to the original local audience for which it was written.
A powerful argument supporting the distinctiveness of the Johannine audience within the Christ-movement at large can be derived from those references in the Fourth Gospel that indicate an awareness of the existence of Christ-followers who are not of the group most directly addressed by John. This is most clearly indicated in passages such as John 1ro.14-16. In the preceding verses in John ro, John has described ‘his own’ using the metaphor of his sheep, whom Jesus knows by name and leads (cf. John 10.3-5). Shortly after, in a contest between Jesus and the Judeans, the latter are described as not believing because ‘you do not belong to my sheep’ (10.26). These are sheep — the term used for Christ-followers — for whom Jesus accepts some responsibility, but who are still to be united with ‘this fold’, probably a reference to the Johannine group. These other sheep are described in a way that suggests their present existence; they do not appear to refer to future converts (O’Grady 1999, p. 47). Our view is close to that of J. L. Martyn, who argues that the other sheep are ‘Jewish Christians’ belonging to conventicles known to but separate from the Johannine community (ibid, p.164), except that we would not wish to identify these other Christ-followers under the label ‘Jewish Christians’. Barnabas Lindars thinks there are two groups referred to in John 10.16: Judean Christians (this fold) and ‘Gentile’ Christians (other sheep). He bases this in part on the reference to the scattered children of God in John 11.52 (a reference he believes to refer to the Dispersion), but there is little in the context of John ro to support such a definition of the groups.
It was written sometime after the year 100, with a discussion of the possibility that the Fourth Gospel was composed or redacted in several stages.
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