John’s Gospel is a beacon of uniqueness, particularly in its rendering of the prologue. Like Mark, John doesn’t start with Jesus’s birth narrative but with John the Baptist’s testimony about the historical Jesus. John sets his Gospel apart by adding a preface to John the Baptist’s testimony. With few but profound words, before introducing the … Read more
The nominal κῆπος occurs three times in John 18-20 (18:1, 26; 19:41). The inclusion of κῆπος in the passion and resurrection narrative is unique to the Fourth Gospel (FG). Unlike the Synoptics, the FG explicitly mentions that the arrest, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ had taken place in a garden (κῆπος, 18:1, 26;19:41). Johannine … Read more
The Fourth Gospel (FG) opens with the expression Ἐν ἀρχῇ which coheres exactly with the Greek Septuagint (LXX) of Genesis 1:1. The explicit lexical and thematic correspondence between the FG and Genesis has long been noted by scholars like C.K. Barret, D.A. Carson, Craig Keener, Andreas Köstenberger, Brandon Crowe, and Edward Klink III among others. … Read more
Studies on characterization have proliferated in Johannine circles as an ongoing conversation that engages a deeper understanding of the narrative and theology of the Fourth Gospel. As scholars have examined John’s characters, more developed readings have emerged. From representational models to narrative criticism, the journey of Johannine characterization has come to consider several theories that … Read more
Many Johannine scholars over the last several decades have noted the prominence of the theme of “witness” in both the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. On the one hand, both the verb μαρτυρέω (33x) and the noun μαρτυρία (14x) are used more frequently in the Fourth Gospel than in any other book … Read more
A cursory summary of English translations reveals agreement on the translation of παράκλητος as “advocate” in 1 John 2:1, but the other four occurrences of the noun in John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7 reveal a stunning lack of agreement: “advocate,” “helper,” “comforter,” and “counselor.” Commentators discuss the translation problem, but do not solve it, and … Read more
This study will adopt a sociolinguistic approach to the first and second person in 1 John. It will demonstrate how the author of 1 John portrays social distance to influence his audience to align with his point of view. The outcome of this study will enhance our understanding of 1 John’s persuasive strategy related to … Read more
This paper will make the case that πνευ̂μα in Jn. 6.63b is best interpreted contextually as the Holy Spirit, and that the statement has special significance in the Gospel’s seven sign structure and Spirit-Christology, such that it is key for how we receive the benefits of Christ’s work—feeding on his body and blood as true … Read more
While the perfect tense-form of ἀναβέβηκεν has been presented as the solution to this cryptic verse by adherents of Verbal Aspect Theory (Pierce and Reynolds 2014; Porter and Pitts 2017), no fully satisfactory explanation of the perfect tense-form in this verse has yet been given. It remains “the hard example for everyone” in explaining the … Read more
The cosmic conflict between good and evil is one of the themes of the Bible and culminates in the book of Revelation. Scholars studying the struggle between good and evil mainly focus on Rev 12-14, which depicts the war in heaven. In this article, I show that the letters to the seven churches are an … Read more