Friday, 13 January 2017

The Oral Gospel Tradition,
James D. G. Dunn, Eerdmans, 2013
Chapter 7, "John's Gospel and the Oral Gospel Tradition", page 188

In the first of a short series of quotes from James Dunn's important book about the orality of the gospels, he makes an important statement that distinguishes John from the Synoptic gospels:

The data strongly suggests that many if not most of the principle themes of the Johannine discoures are the fruit of lengthy meditation on particular sayings of Jesus or of characteristic features of what he said and of how he acted. In other words, they exemplify not simply the passing on of Jesus tradition, but the way that tradition stimulated their understanding of Jesus in the light of what had happened subsequently. John himself attests and justifies this very process ...

Dunn then goes on to illustrate how John does this.