Midterm 1: Chapter 10-11

Question 1

Beloved Disciple

Answer 1

Nickname for the “disciple whom Jesus loved” in the Gospel of John, who plays a prominent role in the Passion narrative but is never named. Older tradition identified him as John, the son of Zebedee, and claimed that it was he who wrote the Gospel.

Question 2

Christology

Answer 2

Any teaching about the nature of Christ. See also Adoptionism; Docetism.

Question 3

Farewell Discourse

Answer 3

The final discourse that Jesus delivers in the Gospel of John (and not found in the Synoptics), chapters 13-16 (sometimes thought to include Jesus’ prayer of chap. 17 as well); this discourse may have been created by combining two different accounts of Jesus’ last words to his disciples before his arrest

Question 4

Genre

Answer 4

A kind of literature with specific literary features; in the modern world, for example, there are short stories, novels, and limerick poems (each with their own distinctive features); in the ancient world, there were biographies, epic poems, general histories—and many other genres. The major genres of the New Testament are the ospels (which are most like religious biographies), Acts (most like general histories), epistles, and apocalypses

Question 5

“I am” sayings

Answer 5

A group of sayings found only in the Gospel of John in which Jesus identifies himself. In some of the sayings he speaks in metaphor (“I am the bread of life,” “lam the light of the world,” “I am the way, the truth, and the life”), and other times he identifies himself simply by saying “I am”—a possible reference to the name of God from Exodus 3 (“Before Abraham was, I am’; John 8:58).

Question 6

Johannine Community

Answer 6

The community of Christians in which the Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles were written. We do not know where the community was located, but we can reconstruct some of its history using the socio-historical method.

Question 7

Redaction Criticism

Answer 7

The study of how authors modified or edited (i.e., redacted) their sources in view of their own vested interests and concerns.

Question 8

Docetist (Docetism)

Answer 8

The view that Jesus was not a human being but only appeared to be; from a Greek word meaning “to seem” or “to appear.”

Question 9

Gnostics

Answer 9

A group of ancient religions, some of them closely related to Christianity, that maintained that elements of the divine had become entrapped in this evil world of matter and could be released only when they acquired the secret gnosis (Greek for “knowledge”) of who they were and of how they could escape. Gnosis was generally thought to be brought by an emissary of the divine realm. See also Sethians, Valentinians.

Question 10

Nag Hammadi

Answer 10

Village in upper (southern) Egypt, near the place where a collection of Gnostic writings were discovered in 1945.

Question 11

Secessionists

Answer 11

Members of the Johannine community who, according to the author of | John, had “seceded” (i.e., left) the community to form a community of their own. | John, which calls these people “antichrists,” suggests that they had adopted a docetic Christology, not allowing that Christ was fully human.

Question 12

Johannine Love Command

Answer 12

Love one another = serve one another (Model is Jesus’ foot washing)
(1 John 2:7-11; 3:11; 4:7-12)
Love one another, just as I have loved you

Question 13

Golden Rule

Answer 13

Found in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, this is Jesus’ saying that you should “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A similar teaching can be found in various pagan and Jewish ethical teachers both before and after Jesus.

Question 14

“Love your enemy”

Answer 14

Instead of loving neighbors and hating enemies, Jesus says love your enemies

Question 15

Divine

Answer 15

Only the Gospel of John identifies Jesus as “Divine”