The Conceptual Worlds of the Fourth Gospel: Intertextuality and Early Reception

Over under and through Johns story of Jesus are unforgettable ideas and concepts profoundly simple and simply profound for the authors own audience and beyond. These ideas did not originate in a vacuum. They have recurred and been repeated before and after the writing of the Fourth Gospel. For this reason we will examine the meaning of its words and themes in the context of its Jewish-Greco-Roman milieu. Much of our intertextual understanding will be derived from alleged parallels that involve comparisons of similar vocabulary and phrases as well as parallel concepts and images from the Old Testament the Dead Sea Scrolls Philo and other relevant writings. Such parallels will help to determine the meaning of a word or expression the translation of a particular language determining any direct influences upon the Fourth Gospel parallel traditions or the influence of its ideas as a creative and inspiring work of later antiquity.