John's prologue : a suggested interpretation

Abstract

The prologue of John's Gospel remains a perennial challenge to exegetical endeavour. The reasons are not difficult to divine: the prologue is important and hard to understand. The present study suggests an interpretation of the prologue. The study does not attempt a "proof' for what will be suggested; it will simply offer a number of indications which, to the present writer at least, commend themselves as plausible l)by reason of the unified view of the prologue which they represent and, 2) by the reason of their agreement with various aspects of the rest of John's Gospel. That is to say, two suppositions of the present study are 1) that the prologue of John's Gospel is a unified whole and, 2), that it has a close relation to John's Gospel as a whole.