EMERGENCE OF THE GNOSTIC CHALLENGE TO THE JOHANNINE LOGOS
Keywords:
Gnosticism, Johannine Logos, Revelation Discourse, Acts of JohnAbstract
The presentation of Jesus as the Logos (Word) become incarnate is an insight that is peculiar to the Johannine vision of the significance of the Christ-event. Among the New Testament authors it is in fact John alone who clearly states this (In I :14). Although in the Gospel of John the word Logos is used to designate Jesus only in its Prologue (In 1 : 1-18), the perspective of Jesus as the incarnate Logos is amply reflected throughout this writing, and what is stated in the Prologue serves as an anticipation and summary of the Christological and soteriological statements that follow. This can be asserted without excluding the possibility that the Prologue as a hymn had an independent origin and it was added to the main body of the Gospel later as an overture.'
References
E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 2 (ed. by W. Schneemelcher; Eng. trans). ed. by MeL. Wilson), London (SCM) 1974.
Duncan Greenlees, The Gospel of the Gnostics (The World Gospel Series, Vol. 13), Adayar, Madras, 1958 (p,., 91-113).
