"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through Him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world."

Without entering into the evidence for authorship, it is sufficient to adhere to the canonist position and accept the authority recognised by the church fathers. Bearing this in mind the Johannine material constitutes John's gospel, the 3 epistles and the revelation of Jesus Christ . Dating for John is relatively late, possibly post-Temple destruction, some suggest as late as 100CE (Martin:1975:282).

The Sitz im Leben has long been a perplexing question for those engaged in NT studies, and yet in addressing the question Martin (Ibid) observes that "a correct exegesis of 20:31 would help to decide the answer ..". Another point in uncovering this is to establish whether John's intent was confirmatory or evangelistic (Ibid:283). Lohse (1976:274) implies that John's material is polemical in that they "stand clearly in opposition to gnostic falsification of the gospel". Martin (1975:281) however attempts the reconstruct John's setting by suggesting, John the Presbyter sets out in a polemic and evangelistic tract the authentic teaching of John the Apostle as the former confronts a new situation in the Dispersion in the light of the old Palestinian debate in which the apostle had been engaged. Suffice it to say, John no doubt was addressing his gospel ecclesiastically and the myriad of concepts and ideas present within his material - which gives his gospel universal appeal - most likely serve to show the growing influence of these issues emerging within the growing Gentile Christian community of the late first century, early second century.

In one sense correct understanding of the Sitz im Leben does not necessarily detract from the exegetes task in draw out plain meaning (Ibid:283), this could be mainly due to the nature of John's literary approach which is very conceptual, symbolic and, as Clement of Alexandria labels it, timeless (Ibid:284).

John's gospel differs markedly from the synoptics:

1). Over 90% of his content is absent from the synoptics (Enns,1989:134)

2). Makes specific and repeated reference to particular words &/or concepts; e.g., light, life love, believe, witness, truth.

3). Parabolic material is not included, but these are displaced by lengthy discourses which are essentially didactic (Ladd,1993:251).

4). It is an overtly "private" gospel, that is, John focuses predominantly on the one on one personal conversations he had with people as opposed to the more public nature of the synoptics.

The first 18 verses of John is a self contained unit of material which should not be broken down any further. Verse 19ff is the beginning of the narrative proper which further explains the earlier comments made in vv6-8,15. To adequately exegete vv1-9, vv 10-18 need to be taken into account as this confirms the limits of the passage. Verses 1-18 is more narration than narrative.

John traverses from eternity to the Incarnation in time. We take Christ's journey from heaven to earth, we are given a glimpse of the ultimate to the finite. The prologue is theological, conceptual, symbolic, it is lofty, it is difficult, yet it is majestic. E.C. Hoskins (quoted in Martin:1975:273) says of the prologue that it is "not so much a preface to the gospel as a summary of it". It is rich in theology, almost overwhelmingly so! Some feel it is a primitive Christian hymn to Christ (Ladd,1993:274), and these hymns, Osborne (1991:186) tells us, "provide excellent evidence for the possibility of blending the poetic format and the highest possible theological message in Biblical times ". So is it poetry? It is also symbolic and dualistic which is characteristic of apocalyptic, and the symbolism is personified adding more weight to this possibility as "the Book of Revelation [also] contains many personified symbols ..." (Ibid:108).

The unit of material is identified by the phrases "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God", and No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.". John draws out the two themes of the eternal God, and the revelational God, Jesus is God and as God He reveals God to the world. This is the essential message of the prologue, and of the whole gospel. Within this though are many concepts and ideas which were common to John's audience which he adapts to convey this essential message.

In vv1-9 "The Word" is mentioned 3 times, "life" twice, "light" 7 times, "darkness" twice, "witness/testify" 3 times, "believe" once, and "world" once. In vv10-18, "world" is mentioned 3 times, "witness/testify" once, and "The Word" once. Both the "Word" and the "World" are mentioned equally in their respective sections, the conflation of which culminates in the statement, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The word most dominant is "light", seven times in this prologue, and 36 all up in all of John's works. This repetition is deliberate and becomes determinative thematically of John. If it is accepted that the prologue is a compendium of the gospel then we should expect to see these themes developed throughout. This is the case. Important thematically is "The Word" (1:1 cf 21:25), "Witness" (1:8 cf 21:24), "Life" (1:4 cf 20:31), "Belief" (1:7 cf 20:31). Over-riding these crucial themes is John's preoccupation with Time and Eternity, which may explain why he chooses to identify "Eternal Life" with the "kingdom of God". A characteristic of apocalyptic is it's supradimensional perspective, that is, it lapses from heaven to earth and back again quite freely and this is evident when reading the prologue. The suggestion here is that time, and in particular "the hour" functions interpretively within the gospel. Martin (1975:273) agrees, [John] .. pinpoints Jesus' time before and after his 'Hour', and the structure of the gospel conforms to this single idea (2:4; 7:6, 30; 8:20; 12:23,27; 17:1; 19:25-27).

Textual variation exists in the fourth verse, it is not however a difficulty as the sense of the content is not hindered in any overt or dramatic way. The variant reads, "In [one thing. Which has become in] him life was, [is,] and the life was the light of the men."

Significant words in this passage are:

1). Word (Logos)

2). World

3). Light/Darkness

4). Witness

5). Belief

6). Life.

Word John appeals to a universal concept which relates to both Judaistic and Hellenistic mind sets. He adapts the concept to describe Jesus. In rabbinical Judaism there was an assimilation of the Messiah and the Spirit of God who partook in God creation activity and therefore John infers this same equation of Jesus and the creative word of God (Fawcett,1973:66). Hebrew thought is concrete in content, this led to the poetry treating inanimate ideas as though they were personal (LaSor,1982:550), and John, in part, bases "the Word" on Proverbs 8 and the personification of Wisdom . It could therefore represent "the creative and revelatory word of God, now incarnate in Jesus". In Greek philosophical thought it represents "a metaphysical principle of the cosmos and is another name for God"(Martin,1975:284). Philo speaks of logos as a mediator between the celestial and terrestrial (the raw material of creation), but to him is impersonal (Ibid). The focus for John is in terms of creation and revelation, and he expresses this christologically. World For John kosmos is set to contrast the Word and it functions as part of the dualistic terms which are implemented as a form of literary device. Ladd (1993:259) tells us that John's dualism is vertical: "a contrast between two worlds - the world above and the world below". This applies also to the understanding of both "light/darkness".

Light/Darkness - Everything which pertains to the world below relates to the darkness, including sin and death. Light is all that pertain to the world above and constitutes all that it entails - life, love, salvation etc. (Ladd,1993:260)

Witness - Is used is the sense of authentication, and a validation of the claims made by the author.

Belief - This the purpose of John writing as seen evidenced from 1:7-20:30-31. Gilbrant (1989:191) asserts, "everything that Jesus says and does is intended to lead men to salvation and eternal life through life. He emphasises that faith in Him is tantamount to faith in God (Jn 12:44).

Life - This life is both eternal (17:3) and abundant (10:10). Becoming a participator in the kingdom of God is equal to receiving the life offered by Jesus. It's abundance is in the fact that the life of the world above can be now lived within the world below, yet even when to world below no longer exists, life in the world above will continue forever.

Jesus is God who is eternal and active within creation, it casts the Hebrew mind back to the primeval creation account where God speaks. John masterfully give a human face to the Gnostic, Hellenistic and philosophical concepts and ideas in his description of Jesus as the "Word". Jesus is essential in creation, as well as "uncreate", He was not "made". Jesus is the very source of life, and because John's emphasis weighs heavily upon the idea of "life" as opposed to the kingdom of God, it is Jesus' very life which is imparted through the belief evoked within people. The correlation between life and light serves to show the ramifications of the life imparted, consequently light becomes representative of the "life" of the world above which is lived within the world below. The contrast between light and darkness is John's way of expressing the fact that the world above has broken into history in Christ, and by His very presence in the world below or the realm of sin and death comes to stand against all that it is in every possible way, and in doing so overcomes it. How can it be established that this is in actuality true? In verifying this John emphasises the theme of the "witness", the witness "testifies" to the validity of the claim. The truth is therefore objective and subjective, and the resultant desire of this being to illicit belief within the individual. John goes to great pain to distinguish between the Baptist and the Christ, for there will be many witnesses and all these witnesses testify to the same source - Christ. This Christ embodies in physical form the world above, this is heaven, eternity and all that pertains to it, and through grace gives that world to everybody without distinction by coming into this world.

Barclay,W., The Daily Study Bible: John volI , ( St. Andrew Press , 1975 ).

Enns,P.P., The Moody Handbook of Theology , ( Moody Press: Chicago , 1989 ).

Ladd,G.E., A Theology of the New Testament , ( Eerdmans , 1993 ).

LaSor,Hubbard,Bush, Old Testament Survey , ( Eerdmans , 1982 ).

Lohse,E., The New Testament Environment , ( Abingdon: Nashville , 1976 ).

Martin,R.P., New Testament Foundations (rev. ed.) , ( Eerdmans , 1975 ).

Osborne,G.R., The Hermeneutical Spiral , ( IVP: Illinois , 1991 ).

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