Different authorial perspectives in 1 John.

[Ben C. Smith]

I am not sure what to make of this observation yet, but it seems clear to me that the epistle of 1 John has two rather different things going on between its prologue (or an extended version of it: 1.1-5) and (most of) the rest of the epistle. Here is the (extended) prologue:

1 John 1.1-5: 1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life — 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us — 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

In this passage "we" are a different group than "you" are. For "we" have seen and heard and touched, but "you" apparently have not, so we are announcing these things to you. This "we" is exclusive. Also, "the beginning" mentioned right off the bat in verse 1 appears to be the beginning of the whole movement: whatever was seen and heard and touched that served to inaugurate things.

But immediately after this passage the pronouns change their significance:

1 John 1.6-10: 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

Now "we" and "you" are in the same boat; "we" are all to have fellowship and not deceive ourselves; "we" all may sin; "we" all must confess our sins. This "we" is inclusive.

This inclusive "we" is maintained throughout the rest of the epistle, so far as I can tell, with one possible exception:

1 John 4.14: 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

This verse seems to go back to that element of "we" being able to witness and testify; but there is no "you" this time who would have to have it announced to you, so this may be no exception at all.

With that single possible exception (I think), the rest of the epistle goes with the inclusive "we" instead of the exclusive. When the author wishes to be exclusive, now it is "I" (singular) writing (instead of a plural):

1 John 2.1a: 1a My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

1 John 2.7-8: 7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. 8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.

1 John 2.12-14: 12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake. 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father. 14 I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

1 John 2.21: 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

1 John 2.26: 26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.

1 John 5.13: 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5.16: 16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.

Notice now, also, that there are things that "you" may have seen from the beginning; this beginning, far from being the beginning of the entire movement (which "we" participated in but "you" did not), is the beginning of "your" faith, evidently. Other examples of this "beginning" are:

1 John 2.24: 24 As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

1 John 3.11: 11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

Still other instances of "the beginning" are to be found in 2.13-14; 3.8, in which "the beginning" is something even more primitive than "the beginning" of the movement (it is the beginning of the world, perhaps).

Christian writers are capable of pulling early events forward and treating them as if they themselves had participated in them:

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.1.1: For in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had become man. For no other being had the power of revealing to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word. For what other person "knew the mind of the Lord," or who else "has become His counsellor? " Again, we could have learned in no other way than by seeing our Teacher and hearing His voice with our own ears, that, having become imitators of His works as well as doers of His words, we may have communion with Him, receiving increase from the perfect One, and from Him who is prior to all creation.

Here the "we" must be all believers as a class; Irenaeus is not claiming that he himself belongs to the eyewitnesses to the earthly career of Christ. But this device is generic, applying to all believers at once. What we find in the prologue of 1 John is specific only to the "we" and not to the "you" who had to hear it from "us" (so to speak). So I do not think this is the same phenomenon.

At any rate, the perspective shifts very early on in this epistle. The exclusive "we" melts away into an inclusive "we" which includes both the writer and his readers. I am still working on what this might mean for the authorship and other matters having to do with the Johannine materials.

Ben.

ETA:

Charles Talbert, Reading John, pages 6-7: 6-7 Recognition of 1 John as beginning with a quotation of known eyewitness tradition (1:1-5) and as followed by its exposition by one who was not an eyewitness (1:6–5:12) offers the most assistance in understanding the document. Like 2 Peter, which is a farewell speech in letter form, 1 John is an exposition of eyewitness tradition in what is arguably a letter form.

[Secret Alias]

Interpolation(s)

[Ben C. Smith]

On pages 105-106 of his commentary on the gospel and epistles of John, and also on page 389 of his Introduction to the New Testament, Raymond Brown lists differences between the epistles and the gospel. This is the version from his Introduction (the two lists are the same in substance, but differ slightly in wording):

Yet there are also some surprising differences:

1. The Prologue of I John does not emphasize the incarnation of the personified Word, as does the Prologue of John; rather it testifies to the word (message) of life which was seen, heard, and felt - the human career of Jesus.
2. I John assigns to God features that the Gospel assigns to Jesus, e.g., in I John 1:5 God is light (cf. John 8:12; 9:5); in I John 4:21 and II John God gives the commandment to love one another (cf. John 13:34).
3. There is less epistolary emphasis on the Spirit as a person, and the Gospel term "Paraclete" is never used of the Spirit (Christ is the paraclete or advocate in I John 2:1.) There is a warning that every spirit is not the Spirit of Truth or the Spirit of God, and so spirits must be tested (4:1, 6).
4. Final eschatology is stronger in I John than in John, where realized eschatology dominates. There is more emphasis on the parousia as the moment of accountability for Christian life (I John 2:28-3:3).
5. Especially as to vocabulary, the Dead Sea Scroll parallels are even closer in I John than in John.

Some of these differences give the Epistles the air of being more primitive than the Gospel, but they may reflect the author's claim to be presenting the gospel as it was "from the beginning" (1 John 1:1; 3:11). Overall they suggest that the same person may not have written the Epistles and the Gospel.

I would say that yes, some of these differences do give 1 John "the air" of being more primitive than the gospel. It honestly surprises me that the majority view in scholarship seems to be that the gospel precedes all three epistles. Sometimes it is granted that the appendix (John 21) and a few redactions may postdate the epistles, but the main body of the gospel is commonly thought to have been written first.

The reason I bring this up here is because John 1.14 may contain a phenomenon similar to what I pointed out in Irenaeus in the OP:

John 1.14: 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This immediacy need be no more than what we saw in Irenaeus: the pronoun "we" means "we in general," either "we humans" or "we believers" — there is no distinction between those who saw and those who did not. But the prologue to 1 John seems different to me; it comes across as a claim of direct autopsy on the part of the writer(s) in contradistinction to the reader(s), who must hear the message from the witness(es). Now, it may be a fraudulent claim, but it is a claim of a different kind than John 1.14. If genuine, however, it is another indicator that makes 1 John seem earlier to me than John.

[davidbrainerd]

. 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

I.e. God is not the creator who made both light and darkness, good and evil. Fits well with 2:15-17.

[arnoldo]

Paul N Anderson attempts to make a connection between Acts 4:20 and 1 John 1:3 in his Bi-Optic Hypothesis. From a purely literary perspective there is an air of plausibility that the Johannine statement "we cannot help but speak about what we have seen and heard" is echoed in Acts however Anderson offers no empirical evidence to back up this claim.
http://bibleinterp.com/articles/john1357917.shtml

[Ben C. Smith]

Paul N Anderson attempts to make a connection between Acts 4:20 and 1 John 1:3 in his Bi-Optic Hypothesis.

Thank you. I am quite open to that correlation.

[arnoldo]

. . .
At any rate, the perspective shifts very early on in this epistle. The exclusive "we" melts away into an inclusive "we" which includes both the writer and his readers. I am still working on what this might mean for the authorship and other matters having to do with the Johannine materials.

Ben.

R. Alan Culpepper goes into considerable depth into this in his book Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. The book takes a literary approach to examine how the Johannine writings reflect who the narrator, narratee, audience, implied reader, etc are. The shifting use of "we" in the letters may be indicative of a Johannine community responding to circumstances sometime after the events depicted in the GJohn. Another book from Culpepper in regard to this issue is The Gospel and Letters of John: Interpreting Biblical Texts Series
https://books.google.com/books?id=ecsaU ... ty&f=false

[Ben C. Smith]

. . .
At any rate, the perspective shifts very early on in this epistle. The exclusive "we" melts away into an inclusive "we" which includes both the writer and his readers. I am still working on what this might mean for the authorship and other matters having to do with the Johannine materials.

Ben.

R. Alan Culpepper goes into considerable depth into this in his book Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. The book takes a literary approach to examine how the Johannine writings reflect who the narrator, narratee, audience, implied reader, etc are. The shifting use of "we" in the letters may be indicative of a Johannine community responding to circumstances sometime after the events depicted in the GJohn. Another book from Culpepper in regard to this issue is The Gospel and Letters of John: Interpreting Biblical Texts Series
https://books.google.com/books?id=ecsaU ... ty&f=false

Thank you for that. I will look into it.