Världens frälsare. En text- och tolkarorienterad läsning av några avsnitt och teman i Johannesevangeliet

Sammanfattning: My thesis is an analysis of exclusive and inclusive features i the Gospel of John, focusing on the inclusive elements which comprise the world and all its people. These questions are the issue of my thesis: How does the Gospel of John present Jesus and the results of his work with regard to the universal and inclusive features which are in the Gospel? How do they relate to the presentation in general and the exclusive features which also are there. How can these features be explained? This thesis attempts to give answers to these questions by combining a text-oriented and an interpreter-oriented reading of the text. I assume that the Gospel of John was produced by the Johannine community at the end of the first century. Markers in the text are assigned meaning from four different aspects: the life of the historical Jesus (Aspect One), the Jewish context (Aspect Two), the Johannine Christians (Aspect Three), and the world and all its people (Aspect Four). I assume that universal and inclusive features could be found in the early Jesus tradition, but the reflection and experience of the Johannine Christians have in many ways formed the text as we now have it. Jesus can be understood in entirely Jewish term. He fulfils the Jewish tradition, but he also supersedes it. It is the Johannine Christians who have the right opinion about Jesus, and this opinion is profiled against a Jewish context. The faith of the Johannine Christians gets excluding features that strengthen their identity and their group. In this process the question about the right belief is altered to questions about why people believe and how they can believe. The excluding features are seen in a new perspective and get a universal and inclusive function. The tension between these dualistic features is not diminished in the text. The belief has a special profile, one must be able to say what is right and what is wrong. At the same time it is hard to say what is right and what is wrong. There is great difficulty in believing in God and in Jesus. The belief must be shared in a group, but the life together in the group is wholly dependent on the accomplished work of the Father and the Son, on the saving capacity of Jesus’ death and resurrection.