Concentric Canons

So, I'm reading one of the major books by my favorite theologian, whose name scares people so I refrain from using it.  Half the book consists of giving historical context to the NT apart from the synoptic Gospels, which he dealt with in his previous book.  Anyway, I'm working my way through his take on the Gospel of John.  

I think I knew I had some problems with John before reading this.  I could never put my finger on exactly what it was that I didn't like, I just knew there was something.  

According to many scholars the Gospel of John as well as the Epistles of John were written by a Samaritan church outside the major cultural centers of Antioch, Rome, and Jerusalem.  It is essentially a Palestinian Gospel.  The letters are all written in the context of serious persecution by the local synagogues.  It appears that Christians in John's church were significantly outnumbered, and were still clinging to their Jewish roots.  Under the social pressure from the synagogue, many Christians were turning back to Judaism.  So, what's the answer?

For John, it is to increase the polemic against the Jews and turn inward as a community.  So, in the Gospel we find all sorts of statements excluding Judaism, and meanwhile trying to increase the strength of the community.  On the one hand we have and increased call to love one another, which I appreciate highly.  Yet on the other hand, John tries to lay down doctrinal guidelines to cement a community identity.  This is done to force the people on the fence to choose a side.  This is an aspect I'm not such a fan of.

I could go on and on, but that would be tangent to what I'm really concerned with here.  The fact of the matter is that I don't like, nor do I respect, the Gospel of John on the same level I do the synoptic Gospels.  Just the same as I have an extremely low estimation of the pseudo-Pauline epistles, whereas I actually like authentic Paul quite a bit.  So, yes, I'm guilty of having a 'canon within a canon', as is so often referred to with denigration.  Seriously though, I think it's normal, if not necessary, to do so.

Judaism does this.  Esther is not taken with the same seriousness as Genesis.  The Proverbs are often given less precedence than the Psalms.  Isaiah is really seen as a prophetic commentary on the Torah, and so is not held on the same level.

For me, the core of the Christian faith is the person of Jesus.  This sounds simple enough, but it's really not.  It requires me to make completely subjective choices as to who I think that is, and what that would look like in my context.  I don't really think there's anything cut and dry about it.  The picture offered in the synoptics is quite divergent from that offered in John, and personally I think the synoptics offer a much more important and applicable picture for my context.  

That doesn't mean I cut John out of my Bible.  It just means I don't take it with the same seriousness which I extend to Matthew, Mark and Luke.  It would be good to glean from John and pseudo-Paul as much as I possibly can, they still have a voice I should take seriously.  But, the theology that I shape my life around need not be structured around their concerns.  I feel their are core concerns in the pastoral epistles that I disagree with entirely.  I don't believe that the preeminence of the patriarchal household is something that Christians need to hold central to their faith.  Nor do I feel an inward facing community under Jewish persecution deserves to be a major driving voice in the theology that guides me as an American Christian in 2008.