(DOWNLOAD) "Us Or You? Persuasion and Identity in 1 John." by Journal of Biblical Literature * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Us Or You? Persuasion and Identity in 1 John.
- Author : Journal of Biblical Literature
- Release Date : January 22, 2008
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 198 KB
Description
The dominant model for interpreting the Johannine Epistles over recent decades has been to locate them in a very specific context, to determine their Sitz im Leben. Of necessity this external world is reconstructed by reference to the texts themselves. Indeed, herein lies the irony; for many interpreters, 1 John, as much as if not more than any other NT letter, can be understood only with reference to a specific context, although it, more than any other NT letter, most lacks any explicit identifiers. (1) Author, audience, location, and any indication of date are systematically left anonymous. As often noted, this results in a circular argument--the setting is deduced from the letter and the letter is then interpreted with close reference to the hypothetical situation. More fundamentally, this approach is dependent on a set of prior assumptions about the strategy of the letter: first, that it is inherently polemical--even if polemic serves a primary pastoral purpose; further, that the key to the polemical occasion is the oblique reference in 2:18 to the antichrists who "went out from us but were not of us." These assumptions generate the basic plot: the audience has experienced some form of schism, whether passively or actively as its initiators; the author is seeking to reassure them in the face of the assault on their (deterministic) sense of assurance, but also to retain their loyalty. The problem that divides the two parties is understood as christological and behavioral, although the precise balance between these two aspects is open to debate inasmuch as it depends on interpreting other earlier nonspecific references (e.g., 1:6, 8, 10; 2:4) in the light of 2:18. Once described, it may be illuminated by reference to known christological debates in the early church even if it is not to be identified with any one of them. (2) Although attacked at a number of key points, this reading has shown remarkable resilience. (3) Thus, subsequent interpreters have rejected the apostolic authorship of the letters, have questioned the common authorship of Gospel and epistles, have redefined the theological position held by Cerinthus, and have doubted whether anything quite so precise can possibly be read into or out of the enigmatic christological statements in 1 and 2 John. Yet commentators have only tinkered with the underlying approach to reading the letters as polemical documents. (4)
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