What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present and Future of Johannine Studies

Preface: THE PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THIS BOOK

xv A few months before this book was finished, my longtime friend and mentor Robert Fortna called to raise a concern. “Your title,” he said, “‘What We Have Heard from the Beginning’—I’m not really sure what that’s all about. Obviously that plays on some references in 1 John, right? But there that means that the reader is supposed to accept John’s teachings about Christ, ‘what they have heard from the beginning’ about the orthodox faith. That’s not what this book is really about, is it? I think that will be confusing to people.” Further reflection led me to agree that the title might be confusing, so here I offer an explanation that will, I hope, provide a rationale for the existence of this book. Until about 1993, I had no real interest in the Johannine Literature . I had heard, I am sure, occasional sermons based on verses from the Fourth Gospel and 1–2–3 John, and had probably read through all four books for private edification (at least, I think I had), but I had never studied them in a systematic fashion. I knew about the Gospel of John’s awkward relationship with the Synoptics and had heard some things about the Johannine christological formulas, which I tended to view through post–Reformation theological categories as a sort of generic summary of orthodox theology. I had also read Alan Culpepper’s Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel as a seminary student, but while that book had a dramatic Preface THE PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THIS BOOK Tom Thatcher impact on my thinking about the literary nature of the Bible, it did very little to interest me in deeper Johannine things. Essentially, the Johannine Literature was “just there” to me, a division of the canon that seemed fairly repetitive and essentially unremarkable. Then, I participated in a doctoral seminar on the Johannine Literature led by Gerald Borchert, who was at that time writing his two–volume commentary on the Fourth Gospel for the New American series. I have never confessed this to Dr. Borchert, but I took this particular course only because it happened to be offered at a convenient time and because the workload seemed manageable. I was more interested in method than in any section of the canon and was looking for a dissertation topic that would be readily amenable to interdisciplinary approaches. Yet Prof. Borchert’s enthusiasm, and the wise counsel of senior peers on the value of choosing a thesis in line with the current interests of one’s advisor, led me to explore avenues outside the boundaries of the required reading list for the course. These preliminary soundings suggested that the Johannine Literature was a ripe target for the approaches that interested me. Scrapping my proposal on “Negative Theology in Paul,” I produced a new dissertation outline that would initiate me into the guild of Johannine scholarship. I soon began a regular dialogue with Robert Fortna, whose work was critical to my own study simply because I intended to oppose his thinking at so many points. Together, Professors Borchert and Fortna led me through the maze of theories and the massive bibliography that comprise Johannine Studies. Now, having lived in the Johannine world for some fifteen years, two things become very clear as I reflect on the development of my modest academic career. First, I now realize that I was born during a golden age of Johannine Studies, and while this can be intimidating at times, it also has allowed me to reap what many others have sown. The monumental monographs and commentaries produced during what John A. T. Robinson called the “New Look” era—roughly the mid–1950s through the 1990s—had already established the issues, methods, and credibility of Johannine Studies long before I came to the table. Viewed in retrospect, the scholarship of the generation before me was remarkable not only for the volume of its output but also, and especially, for the unprecedented sophistication of its investigations into the history behind the Johannine Literature, the unique theological outlook of this remarkable branch of early Christianity, and the literary style and structure of the respective books. Second, I am now increasingly aware of the extent to which the work of this great generation has influenced my own thinking. In general, I characterize myself as a person who is always looking for a new angle on things, as one who tries to say something different—note that the terms...