John 1:19–2:25 as a Synopsis of John’s Gospel

Abstract

Using the ideas of bishop Kassian (Bezobrazov) and biblical studies which were summarised by revd. R. Braun, this article proposes to distinguish in the Gospel of John a special section, which contains a brief summary (“synopsis”) of the whole Gospel history. This section has probably a sevenfold structure, and includes the Gospel story from John’s testimony to Passion and Resurrection. Each so called “day” introduces one of the key themes of the Evangelist, i.e. testimony, staying-abiding, believing, signs, fullness of life, Passion, it also introduces key Christological titles. The subsequent story develops these themes in detail through the examples. Isolation of this synopsis and its description aff ords to eliminate the problem of harmonisation of the Gospel’s chronology (i.e. double proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah, renaming of Peter and cleansing of the Temple), helps to understand the text itself and the key ideas of the author about obtaining faith and life for the readers of the Gospel.

Keywords

• biblical studies
• exegesis
• hermeneutics
• theology of john’s gospel
• structural analysis
• expanded introduction
• synopsis
• seven days’ theory
• библейские иссследования
• экзегеза
• герменевтика
• богословие евангелия от иоанна
• структурный анализ
• расширенное введение
• синопсис
• теория семи дней