“The World” in the Gospel of John : a message through a prism

Abstract

The Gospel of John tells the story of Jesus of Nazareth in such a way as to engage the reader in its world and in the system of values it contains within its narrative. Each Johannine character is faced with “the decisive question whether he will accept or reject” the Logos who became flesh. This alternative between believing and not believing in Jesus as the one sent by the Father forms part of the dualistic ideology which permeates throughout the whole narrative of John’s Gospel. “John knows only of negatively coded black and positively coded white with nothing in between.” It is hard to miss the polemic quality of such language which many Johannine scholars associate with the traumatic expulsion of the Johannine community from the synagogue. This situation seems to provide a historical context to the Johannine negative use of “the Jews,” a term associated with “the world,” both terms forming part of the Fourth Gospel’s system of religious thought which hangs within a dualistic framework. This study will examine the different uses of the term “the world” – ho kosmos - within the narrative of the Fourth Gospel by trying to show how its different meanings attached to it seems to reflect different stages in the composition of this gospel. [Excerpt]