Andre Abija’s Reviews > Jesus as Mirrored in John: The Genius in the New Testament > Status Update

The gospel’s title. The assertion that the gospel was named after John the Baptist is unconvincing.

I’m frustrated by the confident assertions that aren’t adequately proven. E.g. suggesting Polycarp didn’t know of the gospel because he didn’t quote it alongside Matt. But in context he referenced the sermon on the mount, of which there’s no equivalent in John, so referencing John wouldn’t make sense

Chapter 17 was an exploration of whether Ira possible that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene based on the wedding at Cana and the post resurrection garden scene. There were some interesting observations about the stories, but this chapter epitomized what irks me about biblical scholarship, lots of speculation built on speculation that is then taken as a certainty or at least more likely than not

The author tries to make the case that the Beloved Disciple is Thomas not John. He makes an interesting point about the book ending with Thomas’s confession (assuming chapter 21 is an appendix), but my reading is that this theory relies on a selective reading of John and a refusal to interact with the other gospels

Chapter 13 focused on comparing Qumran, John, and the Odes of Solomon. The conclusion is that John and the Odes (Christian documents) were influenced by the dualism of the Essenes (especially the light-dark trope) but unlike Qumran, focused on human choice in salvation as opposed to pure predestination

This section compares the Odes of Solomon to the Gospel of John. Many scholars assume the Odes depend on John, but that is not backed up by thorough analysis, but instead assumed with a priori assumptions. Charlesworth makes the case that the Odes and John are not directly dependent on one another, but that they were written in the same community/theological environment

The thrust of this section is that the author of John knew about 1 Enoch and in John 3:13 is claiming Jesus as the Son of Man and refuting that Enoch was. Interestingly, my big takeaway is that Charlesworth claims NT scholars can be myopic and don’t touch 1 Enoch because it’s not easily accessible to them (Ethiopic not Greek). Good to know NT scholarship can miss things by not collaborating with other specialists

This section compares the Son of Man trope in the Self Glorification Hymn and the Gospel of John. The Hymn is pre 70 and the similarities show that John’s Christology has basis in Second Temple Judaism

This section compared the philosophy of Qumran and the Gospel of John. John uses a lot of terms that, as far as we know, are unique to Qumran, thus suggesting that John’s ideas are in fact 1st century Jewish and not 2nd century Greek. The amount of term similarity makes it likely that John knew Qumran theology and used those concepts to convey his message about Jesus being the Messiah