Epistles of John

• Matthew
• Markus
• Luke
• John

• Roman
• 1 Corinthians
• 2 Corinthians
• Galatians
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Colossians
• 1 Thessalonians
• 2 Thessalonians
• 1 Timothy
• 2 Timothy
• Titus
• Philemon
• Hebrew

• Epistle of James
• 1 Peter
• 2 Peter
• 1 John
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Judas

The Epistles of John are three books of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Included among the first letter of John, 2nd Letter of John, 3rd Letter of John.

Author question

The question of the author of the three letters of John is very controversial. Conservative boom emphasize the vast tradition of the Church Fathers who see the Evangelist John the author of the three letters. They are based, inter alia, their views on the substantive and stylistic similarities of the three Epistles of John and the Gospel of John. Other interpreters distinguish between the author of John's Gospel and the Epistles of John, where they assume that the three epistles of John were written by the same author. More recently, several boom tend, even in the three Epistles of John by various authors assumed. The different style form in the Letters of John - see below - has led to the assumption that the first letter of John was not written by the same author as the other two letters. Theology and Greek vocabulary, however, tend to favor an author of all three letters of John.

The following general observations on the three Epistles of John playing a role in the question of authorship:

• In none of the three letters you will find a unique Responsibility. This is usually only the Hebrews the case with the New Testament epistles. In the 2nd and 3rd Letter of John is found as Responsibility only ο πρεσβύτερος ( the Elder or the Old ). In 1 John there is no Responsibility.

• 2 and 3 John have the classical structure of ancient letters on with Introduction, Superscriptio for piccolo, adscriptio and salutatio and letter with closing greetings. The first letter of John follows a different construction scheme.

• The first letter of John has the structure of a treatise, a treatise. Topic: About the message of life (Greek peri tu tes zoes logu, 1 John 1:1). The first letter of John may have been written as a doctoral thesis to the Gospel according to John ..

In addition to St. John the Evangelist and the so-called Presbyter John is listed as the author for at least the 2nd and 3rd Letter of John from a variety of arms. He is mentioned about 130 AD, in a note of Papias of Hierapolis. That would be - cover with the mentioned in the two small letters Responsibility - in the opinion of this boom.

Drafting times

The exact sequence and timing of writing the three letters of John, there is no general consensus. The question of writing very much is related to how to evaluate the relationships of the three letters to each other and to the Gospel of John. Here are the two little letters of John, similar to the question of authorship, considered to be contiguous, and made ​​close in time. In 3 Jn 9 is considered by many booms a reference to the 2nd John saw, so that the second John would precede the third time John. The first John is then fixed by some booms before the other two letters, on the grounds that these are based on 1 Jn. Other interpreters put the 1 Jn later. Substance is that, inter alia, by some interpreters so that the two small letters were written by the Presbyter John, who in their eyes is the founder of the Johannine circle. The first John would be that the scripture of a student of the presbyter.

The opinions about the date of composition of the letters generally range from the view that the letters were written in the period of 90 to 95 AD, to believe that they were created in the first half of the 2nd century. As a place of composition of all three letters Ephesus is usually specified.

John AT Robinson dated these three letters to " about 60-65 ". Klaus Berger dated now even earlier, he sets 2 and 3 John to " around 50 AD " on, then follow 55/56 AD of 1 John