Themes in the Gospel of John

In this gospel, Jesus becomes a multifaceted symbol of life and nurturance, whether through the metaphor of the living water (3:121) or through the metaphor of Jesus as the bread of life (as in John 6:41). Fiorenza (1983) divided this gospel into three different sections: Jesus' public ministry and the book of signs, which includes chapters 112; instructions for the disciples, chapters 1317, and the passion and resurrection narrative, which includes chapters 1820. She indicated chapter 21 was probably added by a later redactor.

John's gospel is the latest of the gospels, located in time about 2030 years after the Markan account. It is quite different in its use of symbols, which is fully developed. One of the important ways in which John uses symbols is by adapting important symbols from the Jewish tradition for application for Jesus. These either associate Jesus with the symbols or identify Jesus as the symbols themselves.

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e of the community. Those within the community understand Jesus' symbolladen speech. They understand that they can be reborn by participating in baptism. On the other hand, the Jewish leaders are outsiders now. They do not understand the language and they are not part of the new community. Some of the people, however, clearly do understand and respond to Jesus' message. Martha is one of those figures, as is Mary. After Lazarus' death, when Martha goes out to meet Jesus, she confesses her belief in his role, serving as an example of the faithful member of the Christian community who responds to Christ in complete faith (John 11:27). The whole story of the Samaritan woman is a good example of the use of both symbols and representative figures in this gospel. In the first part of the story, Jesus speaks to her in symbols, noting that if she knew who he was, she would ask him for the living water (4:10). Again, she does not immediately understand him. Unlike Nicodemus, however, she does come to understand who Jesus is and what he is offering to her and her people. At that point, she becomes a representative figure. She is representative both of the Samaritan mission or community as a whole, and of the ministry to that com
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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