The destination and purpose of the Fourth Gospel

Dewane, Michael Henry

The destination and purpose of the Fourth Gospel

Master Thesis

1976

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Religious Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

It is not only the "contents" of the Fourth Gospel that have taxed the skills of exegetes and biblical scholars down through the centuries, simple though the language and style appear to be at first reading; practically everything else that has been said about or claimed for this gospel has been challenged or at least questioned at some time or other. This means that in most areas of Johannine studies there appears to be very little agreement or unanimity on what can definitively be accepted as being the true position. In the absence of such knowledge about what many would consider to be basic questions surrounding the gospel, the scholar can choose one of two possible courses of action. Firstly, he may decide that unless basic questions about the Gospel have been satisfactorily answered and placed beyond reasonable doubt, then there is no advantage to be gained from proceeding further as one's foundations and initial hypotheses would be suspect from the start. This in turn would place a question mark over the value of subsequent findings. On the other hand, the scholar may choose to make certain well-founded assumptions on the basis of all available information. Such "assumptions" will be necessary at times not only about matters that can be classified as peripheral questions, but also about aspects of the gospel that can be considered to be basic to and at the root of our whole understanding of the gospel. Fortunately most scholars opt for the latter course of action, for it must be accepted that such assumptions are necessary if any progress is to be made in the field of Johannine studies. It is always recognized, of course, that these assumptions may, at a later date, have to be reassessed and even reformulated in the light of any new information that is discovered. When studying a question such as that of the destination and purpose of the Fourth Gospel what has been said above is particularly apposite. It is first of all necessary to clear the ground, so to speak, by stating the position that will be adopted in this thesis on what many scholars would consider to be fundamental questions in the field of Johannine studies. The "assumptions" to be made will, in so far as this is necessary, provide the framework within which the problem under review will be investigated. These "assumptions" will be grouped together under general headings.

Keywords

Theology - Christian Religion

Religious Studies

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Masters

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