Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 74 No. 3, 2004.
Original scientific paper
The Rejected Messiah - the Exiled Community. John's Picture of the Community Towards the First Christian Century
Ivan Dugandžić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
John's writings witness not only to the distinctive life of the early Christian community but also of the depth of its theology, and also of its tumultuous history. Newer research reveals a deeper interconnectedness between history and theology and their mutual conditioning. John's community finds its roots from the Judeo-Christianity, rapidly growing into conflicts with the Jews who refused to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. There further existed a conflict with the disciples of John the Baptist who continued to work in the spirit of their teacher, baptizing with water. Both of these conflicts resulted in the renewal of a messianic Christology which had long ago been overcome by the idea of preexistence and incarnation and enriched by numerous and more important Christological titles. John's Gospel is written in such conditions, whose author has the goal of strengthening faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God (20:31). Excluded from the sinagogue community (Jn 9:22; 12:42; 16:2), because of the threat to the Jewish faith in one God (Deut 6:4), John's community developed a Christology in which faith in God and in Jesus did not compete with one another, but went hand in hand. Jesus is prescribed not only as the one who comes from the Father and speaks in his name, but the one who is one with the Father (10:30). Not all the members of the community agreed with this type of Christology, resulting in an internal schism, and causing John's community a heavy blow from Jewish hostility. This allowed the community to strengthen themselves the Church and so save not only their personal Christian existence, but also their riches and peculiar heritage.
Keywords
John's community; Judeo-Christianity; Jews, Sinagogue; Christ-Messiah; John the Baptist; Elias; Prophet; anti-Semitism
Hrčak ID:
25593
URI
Publication date:
11.1.2005.
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