Jewish wisdom and the Gospel of John: Toward a more critical determination of its influence.

摘要

This dissertation concerns the determination of criteria as verification and falsification controls in the assessment of textual parallels from the Jewish Wisdom tradition and The Gospel of John. The results of a careful analysis of three hundred and twenty possible parallels between these textual traditions are presented. Among the results are two key findings. First, a threefold overlap between the figure of Wisdom and the person of Jesus is indicated through the study (i.e. Wisdom and Jesus are presented as: (1) Preexistent, (2) Invitational and (3) Life-giving). Second, and more broadly, the analysis indicates that in the past, the manner in which scholars have put forth Wisdom-Gospel proposals has been rather arbitrary. Yet, scholars should by no means discount the influence of Wisdom on the Christology of The Gospel of John. However, sound criteria and adequate testing will be required in order to authenticate such proposals. Thus, a procedure of inquiry is presented that will allow scholars to examine texts from the Jewish Wisdom tradition to determine with greater precision if they have influenced the presentation of Christology in the Fourth Gospel.