Gospel according to Jean

The Évangile according to Jean (in Greek grc Κατά Ιωαννην, Kata Iōannēn ) is the canonical fourth Évangile of the New Testament. It does not comprise a name of author, but is traditionally allotted to the apostle Jean, and this, as of second half of the 2nd century, by Saint Irenee.

Like the three Gospels Synoptic (Matthieu, Marc and Luc), it brings back some of the actions and the words of Jesus, but is characterized some by its èthos and its emphase theological. He insists on the cosmic mission of Jesus of Rédemption of humanity rather than on his terrestrial ministry to teach, drive out the demons and to comfort the poor.

In the doctrines trinitaire, the Gospel according to Jean is most important as regards Christologie, because it states the divinity of Jesus implicitly.

Summary and structure of the Gospel according to Jean

After the famous prolog: “ At the beginning was the Verb, and the Verb was with God, and the Verb was God. ”, the account of the Gospel starts with verse 6, and can be separate in two parts, that Raymond E. Brown calls the delivers Signs (or miracles) and the delivers Glory . The first part (1: 6-CH. 12) tells the public ministry of Jesus since his baptism by Jean the Baptist until his arrival in Jerusalem. This first part insists on seven miracles (" signes") of Jesus. The second part (CH. 13-21) presents the dialogs of Jesus with his principal disciples (13-17) and described his passion, its Crucifixion and its appearances with its disciples after his resurrection (18-20). In the final chapter (21), d'" forms some; appendice" , Jesus forgives with Pierre his disavowal, its death predicts to him, and speaks about dead about the " disciple that Jesus aimait" ; he asks moreover Pierre, by three times, to feed his herd.

Plan

1,1-18 : Prolog
1,19 - 12,50: The " deliver of Signes"

1,19 - 2,11: Beginning of the revelation of Jesus with his disciples
2,12 - 4: First with the second miracle of Cana (Wedding at Cana, water changed into wine; purification of the Temple of Jerusalem; Nicodème; Samaritaine; cure of the son of a civil servant)
5 - 10: Replacement of the fasts of the Old Testament -

5: Jesus renews the command of the rest of the Sabbat
6: Jesus replaces the basket of the Exodus by the Bread of Life
7 - 10,21: the source of running Water and the Light of the world replace the ceremonies (water and light) of the Fête of the Gate vaults
10,22-42: Jesus is devoted to the place of the furnace bridge of the Temple of Jerusalem

11 - 12: Resurrection of Lazare and end of the public ministry of Jesus (death sentence by the Sanhédrin; oiling with Béthanie; entry in Jerusalem)

13 - 20: The " deliver of Gloire"

13 - 17: Cène last and last speech of Jesus

13: Meal, rectal injection of the feet, treason of Judas, beginning of the speech (command of the love; treason of Pierre)
14-17: Last speech of Jesus

14: departure of Jesus, remains divine, sending of the " Défenseur" (Paraclet)
15-16: vine and vine shoots, hatred of the world, testimony of the Paraclet
17: sacerdotal prayer

18 - 19: Passion and dead (arrest, interrogation in front of the large priest and disavowal of Pierre, lawsuit in front of Pilate, crucifixion and died, burial)
20,1-29: Resurrection (two scenes with the tomb, two with the Coterie)

20,30-31: Conclusion of the Gospel
21: Epilog (appearances of Jesus ressuscity as a Galileo; second conclusion)

Manuscripts

Oldest known Manuscrit of the new will is a fragment of the Gospel according to Midsummer's Day. This fragment of papyrus, of the size of a credit card was discovered in Egypt in 1920 and is now preserved at the Bibliothèque John Rylands of Manchester, under the P52 reference. It contains pieces of the lawsuit of Jesus by Pilate (on a side and other). It is generally gone back to approximately 125. The difficulty in precisely dating a fragment by the paleographic methods , however authorizes a fork from 100 to 175. The small size of the P52 fragment makes that, although a plausible restitution can be made for the majority of the 14 lines present, it is hardly usable for the textual analysis.

The oldest about complete version is that of the Papyrus 66, of the foundation Bodmer in Geneva. The Papyrus Bodmer were found in Egypt in 1952. The text is dated from the middle of the second century. It misses there in particular the passage of the Adulteress.

Attribution and dating of the text

The attribution of this Gospel is a subject of controversy since at least the II° century. In the Christian tradition the author is the Apôtre Midsummer's Day the evangelist. This point of view is always defended by certain Christian scholars, but for the majority of the modern experts the author (or authors) is an unknown, not-contemporary of Jesus, the text having been written towards 90 (with a fork going from 60 to 140). For attribution the questions which arise are the following ones:

can one identify “ the disciple that Jesus liked ” and the author of the Gospel?
can one identify them (together or independently) with the Jean apostle?
the texts of the new will traditionally allotted to Jean, the Gospel, the 3 epistles and are the apocalypse (also called written johannic) same author?

The disciple that Jesus liked

Neither the name of the author, nor that of the Jean apostle, one of the principal disciples in the synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, appear in the Gospel according to Jean .

The expression the disciple that Jesus liked or the beloved disciple , is used on several occasions in the Gospel according to Jean , whereas it does not appear in any other text of the new will. In the Gospel according to Jean , at the time of the Cène, it is the Beloved Disciple, who, " slept on the center of Jésus" , asks him which will betray it (). Later to the Crucifixion, Jesus entrusts his mother Marie to the Beloved Disciple, to which he says: " Here your mère" . When Marie-madeleine discovers the empty tomb, it runs to say it to the Beloved Disciple and to Pierre. It is the first to reach the tomb, but Pierre is the first to enter there. (). It is still the Bien-aimé disciple who recognizes the first Jesus with the Lake Tibériade after his resurrection (). Finally in the epilog, Pierre enquiert with close to Jesus of the fate of this disciple (). The text is completed on two verses: “ It is this disciple who returns testimony of these things, and which wrote them. And we know that its testimony is true. Jesus still did many of other things; if one wrote them in detail, I do not think whom the world even could contain the books that one would write. ”, (), the passage to the first nobody allowing, according to traditional interpretation, to identify the author of the Gospel with the Disciple that Jesus liked. The critical judge that the abrupt passage of the third to the first nobody in verses 24-25 shows that the author of the epilog is based on the testimony of the beloved disciple .

In the Christian religious art, the beloved disciple is generally represented like a beardless young man. He often appears in the major scenes of the Gospel according to Jean , particularly Cène (where he is represented resting on the chest of Jesus) and Crucifixion.

Although the identification of beloved disciple with the Jean apostle most current and is established, other identifications were proposed in a more or less marginal way, in particular with the ressuscity Lazare and even Marie Madeleine.

Traditional Saint Jean attribution the evangelist

One finds in the Apologie for the Christians of Justin Martyr (~100 - ~165), sent to the Roman Emperor Antonin towards 150, quotations of the Gospel of Jean. First mention of the Gospel as such, and its attribution with the Jean apostle is that of Irenee of Lyon (~130-207), which will have a determining influence on the definition of the gun of the four Gospels (and the rejection of the Gospels apocryphal books) and the assertion of its divine inspiration. According to Eusèbe de Césarée (~265-339), one century and half later, Irenee held this information of Polycarpe of Smyrna, itself disciple of Jean

Nevertheless, according to the father of the church Épiphane de Salamine (~315 - 403) a sect of primitive Christianity, the Alogiens, allotted this writing to gnostic second century, Cérinthe. But according to Eusèbe de Césarée (in its ecclesiastical history , 7,25,2), Denys of Alexandria (death in 265) affirms that the Apocalypse of Jean (but not his Gospel) was allotted to Cérinthe by some of its elder. This discussion on the alogiens is the only example of a divergent primitive attribution of the later tradition

With regard to the dating, according to Clément of Alexandria, quoted in the ecclesiastical history of Eusèbe, Jean would have written his Gospel like a supplement with the three other Gospels, which explains its traditional place in the new will.

Modern attribution

It is starting from the nineteenth century that the critical historicism will question more before johannic paternity of the text, stressing that this one had been written decades after the events which it describes. The academics of this current support their opinion on the linguistic differences of the Greek inside even of the Gospel, on the ruptures and the inconsistencies noted in certain passages, on the repetitions of the speech as well as the insertion of sequences of texts very clearly out of their context, which suggests several authors and of the rehandlings. The historians generally consider that the Gospel of Jean was composed by layers, the dating of the first difficult remainder (between 50 and 70 after J.C) and being completed for the last one towards 95-100. This last date would correspond to the second or third generation of disciples after the death of Jesus (towards 33), within a group of Christians called Communauté Johannique.

Raymond E. Brown, university specialist in the study of the Johannique community identifies three layers of text:

an initial version whose Brown believes that it is based on a direct witness having met Jesus;
a literary production structured by an evangelist who adds additional sources;
the version published that the reader of today can read (Brown, 1979).

Comparison with the synoptic ones

The fourth Gospel dissociates synoptic Gospels in a particularly clear way: it omits 90% of the narrative material of the three other Gospels. In particular, the fourth Gospel, who does not come or does not indicate to come from the Jean apostle , is often challenged like historical reference in its conventional meaning. Its author agreed greatest freedom, transposing of the events to light them of a new day, writing itself certain speeches and illustrating certain concepts by images being clean to him . And thus, if one cannot deny with his work certain elements of the tradition, its authority concerning the life of Jesus is prone to guarantee. Only a fraction of what he tells is accepted by the majority of the historians to the historical direction of the term .

Since the advent of the critical historicism, the historical contribution of the Gospel of Jean is regarded as less reliable than that of the synoptic ones. Certain academics of the 19ère century went even until affirming that the Gospel of Jean was not of any value for the historian. Nevertheless, of the specialists like Rudolf Bultmann and Charles-Harold Dodd, after meticulous studies, found that there were historical data of importance in this Gospel. Part of the current specialists consider that part of the Gospel represents a historical tradition independent of the synoptic ones, while other parts of Jean are the reflection of later traditions. In spite of certainly legitimate doubts on the historicity of the writings johannic, those remain a capital document to often include/understand Christian theology, even more important than synoptic themselves.

Sources

Theory of Rudol Bultmann

In 1941 Rudolf Bultmann suggested the existence of an oral tradition, even of a manuscript, centered on the miracles of the Christ and who would have been independent of the synoptic Gospels. This " Gospel of the signes" would have circulated as of before 70. Its traces would be visible thanks to remanences of a structure of account accompanying the miracles specific to the fourth Gospel (which one does not find in the synoptic ones). The signs (name employed in the fourth Gospel for miracle, semeia in Greek) which one does not find that in Jean always happen in the presence of Jean, they have a connotation unusually dramatic and, contrary to the synoptic Gospels, they are not a consequence of the faith: they are there to cause it (Jean, 12:37). These miracles being different at the same time from the other miracles of the fourth Gospel and those from the synoptic Gospels, Bultmann concludes from it that the author reinterpreted a primitive tradition of Christianity hellenistic. This assumption, in spite of the great reputation of its author, hardly found echo positive in the community of the researchers.

Common elements with the Gnostic thought

Although it would be inaccurate to call it gnostic, the Gospel of Jean contains some elements well leaving think of a possible Influence or crossings with the Gnosticisme. It is almost certain that the gnostic ones read the Gospel of Jean, since one finds passages in their texts of them. The principle of the gnosticism is that safety comes from the gnosis, a secret knowledge. During the near total of the five chapters of the last speech of Christ to the disciples (Jean 13,18), Jesus speaks only to the twelve apostles. Jesus existed before his carnal birth, there is designated in the prolog (Jean, 1) like " the verbe" (Logos). All that could approach the gnostic definition of the æon (an emanation of God) envoy since the Plérôme (area of the light) which comes to give to human the knowledge necessary to join themselves the plerome. The contempt johannic of the flesh opposed to the spirit is also a strong topic of the gnosticism.

Christology

Stephen L. Harris affirms that Jean described Jesus like " a short manifestation of the Verb eternal, whose immortal spirit remains always present near the Christian fidèle." The Gospel of Jean concentrates much more than the others on the mystical relation which links the Father and the Son. It is often affirmed that it is while resting on this one that the doctrines of the Trinity were produced. The fourth Gospel treats more specifically than the others of the relation of the redeemer with the believers, of the advertisement of the Paraclet, compared to the the Holy Spirit, like comfort and defender. What marks before all the spirits, it is of course the development of the topic (johannic par excellence) of the primacy of the Amour in the Christian doctrines and the life of the Christian.

The absence of Parousie

A very important point théologiquement, in the Gospel of Jean, is that it does not contain an explicit reference to the Parousie, name which one at that time gave to the return Christ. Certain academics even suggested that for Jean, Christ already returned spiritually.

See too

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