Johannesevangeliets tilblivelse

In discussion with a recent article by Jesper Tang Nielsen on “Åndsforestillinger og deres enhed i Johannesevangeliet” (“Conceptionsof Spirit and their Unity in the Gospel of John”, Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift 81, 2018, 18-40), this article addresses three issues: 1) Is it possible, and even necessary, to connect in thought what John says of the pneuma (“spirit”) in the three groups distinguished by Tang Nielsen (1. Jesus and the pneuma, with synoptic parallels; 2. the pneuma and believers, with parallels in Paul and the liturgical practice of the Johannine congregation; 3. the pneuma-“Paraclete”, with some parallels in Paul)? The article argues for a positive answer by analysing John 1,32-34 (in context) together with the whole of John ch. 3. 2) Is it possible, and even necessary, to find an important overlap in thought between the socalled “Prologue” of John and the rest of the Gospel? The article argues for a positive answer by analysing John 1,1-18 together with John 12,35-36 and 12,44-50. The “Prologue”, so it is claimed, is woven into the rest, and the rest could not have been written without it. 3) How should one imagine “John” setting about writing his Gospel? In the light of the answers given to the two previous questions, it is claimed that the best way of doing this is to see “John” as attempting to produce a single, coherent text (John 1,1-20,31) that would build upon and try to articulate the inner coherence of the practice and thought to be found in all its three “predecessors”: congregational practice, Paul and Mark