The Gospel of John has not been discussed because its narrative about Jesus is different from and probably independent of the Synoptic tradition. At least we can say it radically departs from it. The literary relationship among Matthew, Mark, and Luke indicates that they share a similar form, structure, and content. All three Synoptic Gospels, on the one hand, use many of the same sources and traditions to tell the story of Jesus. Their authors edited the material in ways that reflected the concerns and interests native to the communities and contexts in which they were writing, but Matthew and Luke are essentially following and adapting Mark’s story of Jesus. The Gospel of John, on the other hand, is so different from the Synoptic Gospels that we must begin with what is distinctive so that John’s story of Jesus can be interpreted on its own terms.
On a basic level, the chronology and geography of the Gospel of John are at variance with the Synoptic Gospels. In the Synoptic Gospels, the temple incident is the turning point in the plot of the story inasmuch as it leads to his trial before the Sanhedrin and, ultimately, to his death. In the Gospel of John, the incident in the temple occurs at the beginning of the Gospel, in chapter 2. Jesus moves back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem throughout the Gospel. John and the Synoptic Gospels are obviously referring to the same incident, even though they place it at different points in the chronology. They also interpret its significance in different ways. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’ prophetic challenge to the temple administration belongs to a longer section that deals with temple themes and sees his trial and execution as the direct consequence of what he said and did in the temple. In John, the plot to kill Jesus is hatched after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:45–53), something that does not happen in the Synoptics.
Among some of the other important differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels is the fact that in John, Jesus’ ministry spans three years, while in the Synoptic chronology it lasts only a year. There are no exorcisms or parables in John. There are fewer healings and other deeds of power in John, and those that are narrated are called “signs.” In the Synoptic Gospels, the exorcisms, healings, and other deeds of power are evidence of the presence of the “kingdom of God.” But the “kingdom of God” is not the focus of the Gospel of John. Rather, the “signs” serve to reveal the true identity of the one who performs them. Perhaps the most striking difference between John and the Synoptic Gospels is the manner in which Jesus speaks. Instead of short, pithy sayings, or parables, Jesus speaks in long, extended discourses. The metaphors and symbols of John are also different from those in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus’ metaphorical way of speaking is self-referential and does not point to the “kingdom of God,” the root symbol of the Synoptic tradition. This is because John depicts Jesus preeminently as the “Revealer.” He comes from God and he reveals God. Even the healings are occasions for long monologues in which Jesus “reveals” the deeper significance of his identity and the nature of his work.
The Gospel of John begins with a hymn that succinctly tells the story of Jesus in poetic form. John’s prologue sets out many of the main themes and the essential plot of the Gospel. At the outset, the hymn evokes the creation and introduces the “Word” as the central character who “was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:2–3). In Stoic philosophy, logos, translated “Word” here, referred to the cosmic reason holding the universe together. The counterpart to this idea in Judaism was the important concept of Wisdom as a preexistent divine being. This personification of Wisdom found in Proverbs 8 and other Jewish literature is probably the frame of reference for this poetic description of the descent of the Word into the world. Wisdom was perceived to be a female figure, present with God at creation, who comes to dwell on earth. In Jewish tradition, she is identified with Torah, but in John, Jesus is the expression of this divine Wisdom.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the incarnation of this preexistent divine Wisdom. He came to “take up residence” in the cosmos in order to lead people to life (John 1:14). But as the prologue and the Gospel both attest, this story takes a tragic turn when those who inhabit the cosmos reject this particular embodiment of the divine presence. Another feature that makes this Gospel so different from the Synoptic Gospels is that it is plotted along a vertical axis, whereas the Synoptics are plotted along a more historical, horizontal axis. John’s Jesus is the “man from heaven” who “tabernacles” among the people of God, only to return to the Father. Although the Synoptic Gospels affirm the divine presence and power in and through Jesus, they do not go so far as to suggest that he was with God from the beginning. John tells the story of Jesus as a cosmic tale, while in the Synoptic Gospels the story unfolds on the horizontal plane of history (see figure 4).
FIGURE 4. Vertical and horizontal axes of the Johannine narrative.
So while the Johannine Jesus moves back and forth between Galilee to Jerusalem and interacts with various characters, the main narrative arc is from heaven to earth and then back again. What Jesus says and does, the conflicts he is embroiled in, and even his death and resurrection are presented from the point of view of the cosmological tale set out in the opening hymn. John essentially replaces the Synoptic Gospels’ proclamation of the kingdom of God with a present experience of “life” that is “eternal” (see John 3:15–16; 4:14, 36; 5:24, 39; 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68; 10:28; 12:25, 50; 17:2). The phrase “eternal life” (zōē aiōnion) in John virtually replaces the proclamation of the kingdom and denotes a quality of life peculiar to the new age that is experienced in the present.
The clearest window onto the world behind the text of this Gospel is the skillfully narrated healing of the man born blind in John 9. This healing story operates on at least two levels, in the sense that the story of the blind man who receives his sight also discloses something about the story of the Johannine community. After Jesus heals the blind man, he is brought before the Pharisees to be interrogated. Since the Jewish authorities do not believe the man had been blind, they call the man’s parents to explain how he now sees. They reply:
“We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Judeans had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. (John 9:20–22)
There are other references in the Gospel to being put out of the synagogue (12:42; 16:2). We should, however, be careful about taking such statements at face value as indicating believers were actually expelled from the synagogue. This Gospel was written fifteen to twenty-five years after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, during a time when Jewish leaders were shoring up boundaries as they attempted to redefine what it meant to be Jewish in a world without a temple. As a result, there developed some kind of strife between the Johannine community and the local Jewish community. The language of enmity against “the Jews” in this Gospel was born of intense emotional pain and social bereavement due to strained relationships with and perhaps separation from their Jewish compatriots. The Gospel itself suggests that the main issue may have been the community’s claims regarding Jesus’ unique relationship to God. There was a perception among Jewish rabbis early in the second century that Christians believed that there were “two powers in heaven.” This was thought to compromise the foundational monotheistic confession in Judaism that there is one God. There are passages in John that suggest this may have been a point of contention between the Johannine community and the synagogue.