PROLOGUE OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: A RHETO-PHILOSOPHICAL INTEPRETATION

Abstract

Over the years, Biblical interpreters shunned the use of classical rhetoric to interpret the Bible. The major reason for this is that rhetoric is a philosophical method and hence considered unsuitable for biblical interpretation. However, the growing knowledge of how pervasive rhetoric was when mostof the books of the scripture were written and the difficulties scholars face while attempting to understand the Biblehave led to increasing interest in the rhetoric criticism. This study applies the rhetoric criticism to the prologue of the Gospel of John. The decision to do this is motivated bythe near consensus that the Gospel was written in a Roman province, possibly Ephesus where rhetoric was pervasive and the fact that interpreters of the prologue have used other methods without been able to reach agreement both on the relation between the prologue and the rest of the Gospel and the central message in both the prologue and the gospel. The study discovered that there are rhetorical elements in the text, strengthening the assumption that it can be approached rhetorically. Also, it discovered that the central message of the text is the sonship/messsiaship of Christ. Based on this, the paper concluded that the prologue makes more meaning when approached as a composition in Greco-Roman rhetoric. In addition, the fact that the prologue and classical rhetorical exordium bear a lot of similarities, provides insight for a better understanding of the extent of the influence of classical rhetoric not just on the rest of the gospel but on the whole scriptures itself.