Some Johannine ‘Herrnworte’ with Parallels in the Synoptic Gospels
The question whether or not the Fourth Gospel is based upon the Synoptic Gospels has been discussed endlessly, and will no doubt continue to be discussed. The divergent conclusions which different critics draw from the same body of evidence (for it is seldom that really fresh evidence can be adduced...
| Published in: | New Testament studies |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1955
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| In: |
New Testament studies
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | The question whether or not the Fourth Gospel is based upon the Synoptic Gospels has been discussed endlessly, and will no doubt continue to be discussed. The divergent conclusions which different critics draw from the same body of evidence (for it is seldom that really fresh evidence can be adduced) largely depend on their presuppositions. In particular, if the critic takes the view that the writings of the New Testament form a series of literary works in an orderly sequence of development, each depending on its predecessors and influencing its successors, even though some links in the chain may be lost, then wherever the contents of the Fourth Gospel coincide more or less with those of the Synoptic Gospels, he will be disposed, prima facie at least, to see an instance of a writer's use of written sources. Such was, in the main, the presupposition, even if not always the avowed presupposition, of nineteenth-century criticism of the Gospels, and it is by no means entirely abandoned. But the whole course which the investigation of the history and literature of primitive Christianity has followed in the period since the first world war has tended to weaken this presupposition. It suggests that the early Church was not as bookish a community as that, and it tends to emphasize the importance of oral tradition, not only in the dark years before any of the extant Christian writings appeared, but all through the New Testament period. It is not denied that in some cases New Testament writers were probably dependent on written sources, extant or lost, but it is no longer safe to entertain a general presumption that any coincidence of content is due to literary dependence. To prove such dependence some specific evidence is required—some striking or unexpected identity of language, for example, or some agreement in an apparently arbitrary arrangement of material. The question of the relation of John to the Synoptics needs to be closely re-examined from this point of view. In this article I propose to take, as specimens, four dominical sayings in the Fourth Gospel which have parallels in the Synoptics, and to ask whether, if there is no general presumption of literary indebtedness, the phenomena are such as to suggest indebtedness, or whether they rather point to independent use of a common oral tradition. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-8145 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: New Testament studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500000424 |