First John-Introduction-First John: Historical Background of Johannine Epistles
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday February 1, 2017
First John: Historical Background of Johannine Epistles
Lesson # 3
It is extremely difficult to establish the background for the Johannine epistles from the Scriptures themselves.
There is much speculation regarding their background.
The book of Acts provides historical background for the Pauline epistles, but this is not the case with the Johannine epistles.
There are many historical allusions in the Pauline epistles that can be readily identified but such is not the case with the Johannine epistles.
John’s epistles contain no references to known persons or places.
The tradition of the church is mainly responsible regarding the origin of the epistles of John.
Traditions are largely responsible for providing the historical background for interpreting these letters.
The tradition of the church has recognized the apostle John as the author of both the gospel of John and the Johannine epistles.
The church has maintained throughout the centuries that he wrote these from the Roman province of Asia and in particular, the city of Ephesus.
It has also been maintained that the occasion for which John wrote his epistles was to refute an incipient form of Gnosticism or Cerinthianism or a combination of both.
Since early church tradition associates John with the Roman province of Asia (in western Turkey), it has often been thought that the readers lived there.
This may well be true especially since this association is confirmed by Revelation 2 and 3.
This epistle was written during the last third of John’s life.
He made his home in Ephesus after the Jewish War that began in 66 A.D. and ended in 70 A.D., which ended in the destruction of the Jewish Temple.
Before this took place, James the Lord’s half-brother and Peter who together with John had formed the leadership of the early church (Gal. 2:9), had both suffered martyrdom, as also Paul.
Thus, John was left alone.
At that particular time, the church in Ephesus, established by Paul, was being bombarded with false teachings regarding the person and work of Christ.
So to meet the need, Paul had put the church in Ephesus under as F.F. Bruce calls it a “mild martial law” with Timothy, who served as Paul’s delegate to the Ephesian church (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:11; 5:17-22).
However, with Paul’s death and Asia the focus of Satanic activity in the form of Emperor worship and an incipient form of Gnosticism, John lived in Ephesus to provide stability to the churches in the region.
There are two sources which support Asia as the place where 1 John was written: (1) Irenaeus (Contra Haereses 3.1.1) (2) Polycarp of Smyrna (To the Philippians 7:1-2; cf. 1 Jn. 2:24; 3:8; 4:2-3).
Many church fathers help provide information about the location of the Johannine letters.
For example, Irenaeus (writing ca. 180 A.D.) says that after the writing of the other Gospels, John, the disciple of the Lord who reclined on his bosom (an allusion to John 13:23, 21:20), published his gospel at Ephesus.
Justin Martyr lived at Ephesus himself ca. ad 135, and speaks of John, one of the apostles of Christ, as having lived there previously.
This evidence is important because it is so early and it also comes from the same city.
Eusebius also records that John the apostle lived at Ephesus.
The apocryphal work known as the Acts of John written by Leucius Charinus ca. 150 A.D., tells of the ministry of the apostle John at Ephesus.
Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus, writing to Pope Victor of Rome in approximately 190 A.D., claims that John the apostle was buried at Ephesus.
His statements are preserved by Eusebius.
There is also evidence from excavations at Selçuk, which is a hill in the vicinity of Ephesus, beneath the basilica built later in honor of the apostle John which show the existence of a mausoleum dating from the third century.
F.M. Braun thinks this confirms the testimony of Polycrates.
The Syriac History of John places the arrival of John at Ephesus quite early (adding that his banishment took place under Nero).
He was supposedly still a youth when he came to Ephesus, and for a long interval, after the other gospels had been written, hesitated to write until he was prevailed upon by Peter and Paul, who visited him in Ephesus before going on to see James in Jerusalem.
Although this account states that the apostle John lived to the age of one hundred and twenty, it places the composition of the Fourth Gospel before the deaths of Peter and Paul (the latter of whom, it agrees with other traditions, was martyred by Nero).
Unfortunately, however, this work is of very dubious historical value since it dates to the fourth century and contains fanciful accounts of miracles worked by the apostle John at Ephesus where he purportedly worked as an assistant attendant at the public baths.
Ignatius of Antioch wrote a letter of his own to the Ephesian Christians, which alludes to the ministry of Paul among the Ephesians but says nothing of the apostle John.
Certainly Ignatius’ writings are closer in time to the composition of the Johannine letters than any of the other evidence, but any argument on the basis of his failure to mention the apostle John at Ephesus is an argument from silence and must be balanced against the actual statements found in the other sources.
In 730 A.D., the English theologian and historian Bede said in the prologue to his exposition of the Catholic epistles that the Greek bishop Athanasius of Alexander believed 1 John to have been written to the Parthians.
There are only three Greek manuscripts in existence that carry such a designation for one of the Johannine letters, and it is 2 John, not 1 John, that each of the three designate as “to the Parthians.”
These Greek manuscripts, beginning with the oldest, are: (a) 89, an eleventh century minus¬cule; (b) a supplement to minuscule 30 dating from the thirteenth century; and (c) 62, a fourteenth century minuscule.
Wherever the designation “To the Parthians” came from, it is so late and based on such slim evidence that it makes it highly unlikely that there is any historical basis behind it.
It stands against the much earlier and far more widespread evidence connecting the Johannine letters with Ephesus and vicinity.
These primary sources, which deal with the locale in which the Johannine epistles were written leads us to conclude that the best and earliest evidence points to Ephesus.
The traditional site associated with the publication of the fourth Gospel by the apostle John appears as the most likely location from which the epistles were written as well.
