Authorship and Purpose of the Fourth Gospel

Overview

Recall questions on the Gospel's stated purpose, the spiritual gospel, Jewish and Gentile readerships, fulfilment of scripture, the traditional attribution and its difficulties, and Brown and Dodd on its origin and aim.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What purpose does the Fourth Gospel state for itself?

   Model answer

   Towards the end it says that the signs recorded were selected from many others and written so that readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they may have life in his name. This makes the book explicitly persuasive rather than merely informative, and it links the two great titles to the promise of life that runs through the whole work.

2. 2

   Why has the Fourth Gospel been called the spiritual gospel?

   Model answer

   The description goes back to an early Christian writer who observed that the other three had set out the outward facts and that this one, encouraged by those who knew him, composed a spiritual account. The label captures the Gospel's concentration on the inner meaning of events, its long reflective discourses, its symbolic use of ordinary things and its interest in the relationship between Father and Son rather than in a chronicle of activity.

3. 3

   What is the case for reading the Gospel as directed at Jewish readers?

   Model answer

   It is saturated in Jewish scripture, festival and Temple imagery, it argues throughout that Jesus fulfils what Moses and the prophets set out, and its debates concern the law, the Sabbath, Abraham and the sanctuary. Its sharp language about expulsion from the synagogue suggests a setting in which Jewish believers were being separated from the wider community, which would make the book both a defence and an appeal.

4. 4

   What is the case for reading it as directed at Gentiles?

   Model answer

   It explains Jewish terms and customs that a Jewish reader would not need explained, translates Aramaic words, uses a philosophical vocabulary at the outset that a Greek-speaking public would recognise, and reaches beyond Israel with its language of the world, the light of all people and other sheep not of this fold. The episode of Greeks seeking Jesus is often read as a signal of that wider horizon.

5. 5

   How does the Fourth Gospel present Jesus as the fulfilment of scripture?

   Model answer

   Less by formula citation than by structural substitution. Jesus is set against the Temple, the Sabbath, the manna, the festival water and light ceremonies, the bronze serpent and the vine that was Israel, and in each case he is presented as what those institutions pointed towards. Scripture is treated as testimony to him rather than as a set of predictions to be ticked off.

6. 6

   What is the traditional view of the Gospel's authorship, and what supports it?

   Model answer

   The traditional view identifies the author with John the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve, writing in old age at Ephesus. It is supported by second-century testimony, by the closing claim that the book rests on the witness of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and by the narrative's detailed knowledge of Jerusalem topography and Jewish festival practice, some of which has been confirmed archaeologically.

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