4. John Theology or History.mp4
4. John History in Disguise.mp4
4. John_Gospel_is_History_Not_Theology.m4a
This scholarly topic challenges the traditional view that the Gospel of John is purely theological rather than historical, arguing instead that it is a form of Greco-Roman historiography that fits within the flexible genre of ancient biography. The primary evidence for this classification lies in John's consistent literary features, particularly its pervasive use of precise topographical and chronological details (such as multiple Passovers and exact locations) which exceed the level of specificity found in the Synoptic Gospels. The text further shows that John adheres to historiographical ideals through its judicious selectivity of events, its frequent narrative asides from the author, and its emphasis on eyewitness testimony. In conclusion, the author asserts that due to these formal characteristics, John’s Gospel would have appeared to contemporary readers as closer to the exacting demands of ancient history writing than its Synoptic counterparts.
For centuries, readers and scholars have treated the Gospel of John as the odd one out. Matthew, Mark, and Luke—the Synoptic Gospels—tell a roughly parallel story of Jesus’s life, ministry, and death. They are often seen as the historical accounts, full of short sayings, parables, and rapid-fire events. John, by contrast, feels different. With its long, philosophical speeches and soaring theological language about "the Word became flesh," it has earned the title of the "spiritual gospel."
This perception is so deeply ingrained that it has long been guided by a simple, powerful dictum in modern scholarship:
"The fourth Gospel is theology, not history"
This view, which sees John’s primary purpose as theological to the detriment of historical fact, suggests that any reliable history found within its pages is almost accidental. But what if we've been asking the wrong question? The debate has usually centered on whether John’s account is reliable by modern standards. A more fundamental question, however, is whether it was intended to be read as historiography in the first place.
This post will explore four surprising characteristics of John’s Gospel that suggest it was constructed using the specific literary conventions that ancient readers—those familiar with historians like Polybius, Lucian, or Tacitus—would have recognized as the hallmarks of serious historical writing. Far from being the least historical, John may have appeared to its original audience as the most sophisticated work of history of them all.
Contrary to its reputation for abstract theology, John’s Gospel is meticulously detailed in its geography and chronology. For its author, the story of the divine Word becoming human was not a myth floating in the ether; it was an event that happened in a real place, at a real time. As one scholar notes, "Nothing keeps readers more constantly aware that the story is that of the Word made flesh than the topographical and chronological precision of the narrative. The story can be located and dated like any other human history."