id="ulink_b3554dcb-ccc8-5e42-b841-9da30768c478">10. Brown, Introduction to the NT, 368.
11. Bultmann, Gospel, 12.
12. Brown, Community, 18.
13. Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy (New York: Paragon, 1992) 224.
14. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, edited, updated, and concluded by Francis J. Moloney (New York: Doubleday, 2003) 238.
15. 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17.
16. White, From Jesus to Christianity, 228; see Mark 8:38—9:1 and 13:30–32.
17. Matthew 10:22–23, for example.
18. Acts 2:17; White, From Jesus to Christianity, 258.
19. Brown, Introduction to the NT, 238.
20. Brown, Gospel, cxvii–cxviii.
21. This description follows John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
22. J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003).
23. Bultmann, Gospel.
24. Robert Allan Hill, An Examination and Critique of the Understanding of the Relationship between Apocalypticism and Gnosticism in Johannine Studies (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1997).
25. Brown, Community.
26. Ashton, Understanding.
27. Ashton, Understanding.
28. Ashton, Understanding.
29. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, Book VI, Chapter XIV. http://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texs/eusebius/eusehe6.html#XIV.
30. Tricia Gates Brown, Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-Scientific Perspective (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2003) 13.
31. Bultmann, Gospel, 692.
32. Brown, Community, 28–29.
3 / Summary of the Courages in John
The courage to:
• Raise Christology
• Employ Gnosticism
• Discard Apocalyptic
• Dismiss Parables
• Leave Home
• Leave Momma, Papa, and Abba
• Revise Eschatology
• Call for Decision
• Set Sail
• Re-imagine the Gospel
• Use Gnosticism against Gnosis
• Diminish the Baptist
• Displace Peter
• Eliminate the Sacraments
• Trust the Truth
• Offer Jesus Only
• Dare to be Different
• Risk Di-Theism
• Probe Divine Relationships
• Declare Words more durable than deeds
• Use Legal Language
• Enter Night Talks
• Jazz the Gospel
• Discard the simple direct faith of signs
• Write Theology
• Rewrite the Gospel
• Make a Meta-Gospel
• Enlarge Christianity
• Name a culpable blindness
• Include many formal contradictions
• Not only leave the synagogue but also take up gnosis
4 / Two Battles
John 1:1–18
“These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
This year we will scale a great promontory, the highest peak in the Bible, which is the Gospel of John. John is Slide Mountain in the Catskills, Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks, Pikes Peak in the Rockies, Mt. Everest in the Himalayas, the Matterhorn in the Alps, Mt. Fuji in Japan. John is the bride, the Synoptics are the bridesmaids; John the groom, the others the ushers. John is the gospel for which the others were made. Before John, the rest is prelude.
The Gospel of John is a story of dislocation and disappointment. Your life is such a story, too. In fact, these are the two battles of salvation, the two great battles of the salvation we work out daily in fear and trembling, are battles with dislocation and disappointment. The Gospel of John brings grace for dislocation and freedom in disappointment, and hence is great and good news!
The Battle for Identity
A freshwoman sat last week between her mom and dad, having a sandwich at the Colgate Inn. They were tightly seated, mom and dad and daughter, although the room was not full. They huddled together, like geese heading for the water. Mom and Dad drank coke and spooned soup,
