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This chapter studies a climate of Gospel production and interpretation that could lead to the pericope adulterae's incorporation within an already published Gospel of John. While it is true that the pericope was not likely to have been materially present in the earliest copies of John, its absence from the fourfold Gospels would not have prevented interpreters from highly regarding the story. Moreover, with books produced by hand and distributed within circles of affinity groups, it would have been difficult for even the staunchest editor to prevent an interpolator from going about his or her work. Once placed within some copies of John, few would dare to remove it.

The Logos of John 1 is rooted in God's speech acts in Genesis 1. This creative Logos is best explicated by recourse to the remainder of the Gospel (the word Logos occurs a full forty times in John; the biblical resonance of the number is likely not an accident). Taking this approach, we learn that the handing over of the act of creation to the Messiah serves the deeper purpose of enacting and nurturing the Father's love for the Son. The logic of John 3: 35 is that the Father has given all things over to the Son because he loves him. It is in the very nature of the Father to share all things with the Son because of his love for him. The Messiah fully participates in the life and work of God, including the work of creation. Far from being a mere tool in creation, or even a kind of cosmic organizing principle, Christ as Logos is the fully personal executor of God's will. He is the one who brings to realization the desire ‘Let it be’.

This chapter looks at editorial work, Gospel translation, traditions for reception, and attitudes toward the fourfold Gospels among late ancient scribes and scholars to illuminate the evidence of the pericope adulterae appearing only “in certain Gospels.” After nearly two centuries of spirited defense of the fourfold Gospels, as well as an uptick in biblical scholarship, the difficulty presented by the omission of the pericope adulterae from the four acknowledged Gospels had finally emerged as a worthy topic, at least in some quarters. Among Latin-speaking Christians, the story found a safe home and was incorporated in Jerome's new translation. In exclusively Greek contexts, however, the story was initially ignored, probably because it was omitted from many of the available copies of the Gospel of John.

Although the New Testament does not contain an explicit theology of the Spirit’s procession (as later theology would understand it), the Bible does contain several important pneumatological principles that would later guide East and West in their respective claims vis-à-vis the filioque. This chapter examines those principles and the proof texts that both sides used to support their thinking on the procession. If East and West came to read these texts differently, it is perhaps understandable given the fact that very often the authors of the New Testament did not always express themselves with a great deal of precision, and that the various “movements” of trinitarian revelation contained in Scripture, read in isolation, easily lend themselves to diverse, and even incompatible, understandings of relationships within the Trinity.

This chapter evaluates the modern scholarship on the pericope adulterae. Debates about the pericope adulterae have been central to the development of both modern textual criticism and historical-critical approaches to the Gospels, as these disciplines emerged in the nineteenth century. When nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars advocated for the necessity of correcting ancient scribal error, they did so in part on the basis of this pericope, which was relegated to brackets or margins and thereby effectively removed from the canonical Gospel of John. The displacement of this story, as well as a few other passages, was inextricably linked to a new scientific approach to textual editing that finally overturned the Textus Receptus, the Greek text that had been employed in Europe since the Renaissance.

This chapter examines the pericope adulterae in the Latin West. Approximately two-thirds of extant Old Latin manuscripts included the story, and mixed texts invariably either included it or show an awareness of its presence elsewhere. Only one-third of the Old Latin copies exclude it altogether. Fourth-century Latin Christian writings and copies of John preserving Old Latin texts therefore confirm the widespread inclusion of the pericope adulterae within John in the Latin West. By the end of the fourth century, however, there was also already great textual diversity in the Old Latin tradition in general, and the pericope adulterae in particular, which is evident from a comparison of these extant Old Latin manuscripts and citations by Latin fathers.

This chapter tells the story of how the Gospel of John and its interpretive traditions and trajectories functioned in the culture of polemic surrounding the Trinity, particularly how exegeses of specific texts were contested, and became a liminal space where multivalent notions of orthodoxy and heresy were formed and controlled. It analyzes the exegetical and theological disputes surrounding the Gospel of John in early modern Europe, with particular attention to the way these debates further shaped the culture of English Christianity. It examines the politics of translation in which disputes over the Geneva Bible glosses, the Douay–Rheims New Testament, and a number of Annotations on the Gospel of John simultaneously clarified and clouded the issues surrounding Trinitarian orthodoxy. After a detailed analysis of a few key Trinitarian treatments of the Gospel of John, the chapter focuses on the various interpretive trajectories of the anti-Trinitarian Johannine exegesis, both Continental and English. It shows how a Huguenot pastor in London, Jacques Souverain, managed to synthesize previously radical ideas which saw the Gospel of John itself as a departure from primitive Christianity, and how the influence of the putatively Platonizing divinity, which he saw as an unbridled abuse of allegorical hermeneutics, further corrupted Christianity.

Chapter 5 synthesizes a broad range of texts in order to show the shifting relationship between begotten and adoptive metaphors during the first four centuries of Christianity. These texts show how the resonance of “son of God” changed over time. Many authors of the first and second centuries, when describing the divine sonship of Christ and Christians, mixed the begotten and adoptive metaphors. But by the fourth century, adoption was no longer a crucial, visible component of imperial ideology and thus lost some (but not all) of its appeal as a metaphor of power and exaltation. The chapter offers a view of several interweaving themes on the road to Nicea: begotten and adoptive metaphors of divine sonship; the sonship of Christ and the sonship of Christians; Christ as unique and Christ as exemplar; philosophy and narrative; theological doctrine and liturgical practice.

Hilary's understanding of scripture and its normative use in discussions about God does not proceed on apologetic grounds. The challenge faced by Hilary is that his Homoian opponents routinely insist that their theological assertions are rooted in scripture. Hilary regrettably acknowledges throughout De Trinitate that his opponents not only assign scripture a normative role in their arguments but also promote what he considers faulty theological positions by appealing to scripture only. Hilary recognizes that the dispute over scripture is not on its place in theological reflection but over its employment and the assumptions made about the text. This first half of this chapter surveys Hilary's understanding of scripture. The second half of the chapter looks at two key texts from the fourth-century Trinitarian debates: Proverbs 8 and the prologue to the Gospel of John. These texts demonstrate not only Hilary's theological and exegetical development in the various editorial stages of De Trinitate but also show his careful handling of scripture in securing a pro-Nicene theology.

Editors are not supposed to hide their identities in order to address readers' concerns through making use of prefaces, appendices, commentaries, and other such remarks that entail redaction, which the author collectively refers to here as editorial notes to the reader. As we may have already observed, such an editorial note is shown in Jn 21. The author, in this chapter, asserts that Jn 21 may have gotten reference not just from John's Gospel but possibly also from the Four-Gospel Book. Apart from examining the relative chronology and the arrangement of the Gospels, we also consider how the Book of Acts, 2 Timothy, and 2 Peter may also reveal implications of the editorial concept attributed to the final redaction of this edition.

Historical influence of the Gnostic religion of Simon Magus on the formation of the first Johannine community; Gnostic storyline of the Gospel of John that has been obscured for centuries by inaccurate translations; Gnostic controversy in the epistles of John. Engages the movie, “The Dark City.”

This introductory chapter provides a background of the pericope adulterae—the episode involving Jesus and a woman caught in adultery. The pericope adulterae boasts a long, complex history of reception and transmission, which, at least early on, placed it on the margins of Christian interpretation. Today the story is so widely known, so widely quoted, and so often alluded to in art, literature, film, and public discourse of all sorts that “throwing stones” serves as a cliché. Even so, the textual instability of the episode has not been forgotten, especially by biblical scholars, who continue to debate the implications of its unusual past. By now, most scholars have concluded that the pericope was not original to the Gospel; rather, it was added by a well-meaning interpolator at some later date, after the Gospel of John was already circulating.

Chapter 5 presents the presence of competitive textualization in John’s Gospel and the Gospel of Thomas. The chapter argues that the Gospel of John claims superiority to prior Jesus books at John 20:30–31 and 21:24–25, the so-called Johannine “colophons.” Particularly in reference to the knowledge of other Jesus books reflected in John 21:24–25, the chapter also suggests that these texts support arguments that the author of John’s Gospel knew one or more of the Synoptic Gospels. The chapter then highlights how the incipit of the Gospel of Thomas continues attempts to outbid predecessors by portraying its Gospel as dictated directly from Jesus.

Much has been written drawing on the sparse data pertaining to the origins of the birkat haminim. This chapter reviews that data and the literature on it, looking first at the inner-Jewish discussions, then at the Christian evidence, and concluding with a synthesis and critique of modern scholarship. It argues that evidence for the origins of the birkat haminim is ambiguous and that unambiguous testimony to its existence dates only from Epiphanius and Jerome in the late fourth century, not from Justin Martyr in the second, the Gospel of John, or Yavneh. Even then, we know only of a few words from the prayer: Christians, minim, and zedim. Retrojection of texts from the geniza or late rabbinic texts is unwarranted.

This chapter examines Meister Eckhart's commentary on the Gospel of John. It first considers Johann Gottlieb Fichte's conception of man and mind in The Way towards the Blessed Life (Berlin, 1806) before turning to Eckhart's commentary on John. In particular, it discusses three important innovations in the commentary: first, Eckhart clarifies that he will demonstrate the unity of the Gospel and metaphysics; second, he developed his metaphysics of the verbum; and third, he uses the Aristotelian-Averroistic theory of the unity of the knower and the known to explain how the just man is within Justice. Eckhart's explanation of his method shows that he is making his intention known with regards to his interpretation of John and in all of his works: to demonstrate the truth of Christianity philosophically and to prove the bases of natural philosophy of the Gospel of John with philosophical argumentation.

On the basis of the analysis of the Gospel of John given so far, and in particular the celebration of Pascha that began with him, this chapter offers a radically new interpretation of the Prologue to the Gospel of John. Rather than a pre-existing hymn to the Word adopted and modified by the Evangelist, or a Prologue to the Gospel written by the Evangelist himself, explaining how the Word became flesh as the prelude to the narrative that follows, it is argued that the Prologue is best understood as a Paschal hymn in three parts. The first verse celebrates the one who is in first place, the crucified and exalted Jesus Christ, on his way to God, and as himself God. Verses 1:2—5 speak not of creation and the presence of the Word in creation before his sojourn on earth, but of how everything that occurs throughout the Gospel happens at his will, specifically the life that comes to be in him, a light which enlightens human beings, that is, those who receive and follow him. The third part, verses 1:6—18, are a chiastically structured celebration of what has come to be in Christ, where 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt in us’ refers to the Eucharist, the flesh that he now offers to those who receive him and so become his body, following on from baptism in verses 1:12–13; the chiastic center of this section is 1:10–11, his rejection by the world but reception by his own, and the beginning and end of this section is the witness provided by John the Baptist.

This chapter discusses Baur’s epochal study of the Gospel of John. It starts by surveying the state of Johannine studies prior to Baur. John was the favorite gospel of many of the great figures in the history of the church, including Schleiermacher. But Baur concluded, a few years after Strauss’s Life of Jesus, that John could not be a historical gospel like the others, and that all attempts to harmonize John with the Synoptics must fail. Rather John sets forth its own idealizing interpretation of Jesus, written at a quite late date. While questioning the late dating, the author proposes that this is Baur’s great contribution, but that Baur’s Hegelianism predisposed him to favor the Johannine theological framework with its Logos-Christology, and it is suspicious of Baur’s attempt to construct history in idealistic terms.