This story starts nearly at the end of John the Evangelist's life as he is exiled on Patmos with a small cadre of followers, all waiting for Jesus' return. John was promised that Jesus would come back before John's death. As the community has aged, younger members start wondering how much longer John can possibly live...and then wonder if he is mis-remembering...and then thinking that it must be because of [some unnamed] sin that Jesus hasn't returned...and then that Jesus may not return after all because after all the Son of God couldn't actually die....OK, so if you haven't followed the early fractiousness of the Church in the first century after Jesus' death and resurrection, much of this is going to come over as completely confusing, and some as absolute heresy. Well, some if it was determined to be heresy in a later council (Nicaea? I'm not sure).
What this book is doing, I think, is trying to show how John got from being a follower and friend of Jesus to evangelist to Church Father and author of the fourth gospel. It also explains why the tone and focus of the gospel of John is so different from those of the other three gospels.
Nice book. Confusing, a bit, and it would be good for a book club for that reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment