What would Christianity look like had the Gospel of John not been written?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The Book of John is one of the most popular books of the New Testament among Christians.  It is, of course, the newest gospel about Jesus, and it's also the one that makes the most suspect claims about Jesus' mysticism and is heavily depended on by commonly held doctrines, such as those of the Trinity and Incarnation, as evidence of their authenticity.  It also gives us "Doubting" Thomas the Apostle and numerous other characters, some of which whose existence has been disputed.  (This article breaks it down nicely.  Yes, yes, it's a Spong piece, but I think he provides valuable insight nonetheless.)

John is obviously not the only book of the New Testament to attribute divine features to Jesus, yet it devotes more of itself to describing those features than any other gospel or epistle.  So to that I ask, how would Christianity have turned out if it were not for John's gospel?  Would there be any less emphasis on Jesus' miracles within modern evangelical circles absent that book?

[DC Al Fine]

Yes, yes, it's a Spong piece, but I think he provides valuable insight nonetheless.)

I dispute that

John is obviously not the only book of the New Testament to attribute divine features to Jesus, yet it devotes more of itself to describing those features than any other gospel or epistle.  So to that I ask, how would Christianity have turned out if it were not for John's gospel?  Would there be any less emphasis on Jesus' miracles within modern evangelical circles absent that book?

I think the biggest issue would be the Trinity. I think you can still arrive at the Trinity via Paul's letters but its more likely that something like Arianism would be orthodoxy today.

As for the miracle emphasis in evangelicalism, I doubt anything would change. There are still plenty of miracles in the Synoptic Gospels to use (healing the leper, healing the paralytic, feeding 5000 etc.)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yes, yes, it's a Spong piece, but I think he provides valuable insight nonetheless.)

I dispute that

I'm referring more to the way he breaks down the gospel itself.  I've been studying the NT in depth lately and I'm coming across a lot of controversies within Christian scholarship that I was not aware of until recently; the discrepancies regarding John is one of them.

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I think the biggest issue would be the Trinity. I think you can still arrive at the Trinity via Paul's letters but its more likely that something like Arianism would be orthodoxy today.

As for the miracle emphasis in evangelicalism, I doubt anything would change. There are still plenty of miracles in the Synoptic Gospels to use (healing the leper, healing the paralytic, feeding 5000 etc.)
[/quote]

But would Paul have been inspired to write about the Trinity had it not been for the influence of John?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

But would Paul have been inspired to write about the Trinity had it not been for the influence of John?

Since the Pauline Epistles predate John, yes.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

But would Paul have been inspired to write about the Trinity had it not been for the influence of John?

Since the Pauline Epistles predate John, yes.

Ah, that would make sense, then.

[The Mikado]

So, just to be clear, this isn't "substitute in something else for John," it's just the NT with three Gospels (and presumably leaving the three epistles attributed to John in)?

You can easily get divine Jesus without John, but, as discussed above, without the whole "The Word was with God, the Word was God," "You cannot reach the Father except through me" "Before Abraham was, I am," etc. you're going to have a hard time portraying Jesus as a coequal eternally-existing member of the Godhead rather than as some sort of lesser divine being.  Jesus without Gospel of John might be the Archangel Jesus, greatest of the host of God the Father, or might be Jesus, the divine Son of God who is most certainly not God the Son.

Without John, we still have the Revelation of...well...John and that gives us Jesus the lamb, Jesus of the Last Judgement, Jesus the king whose kingdom will be without end...all very exalted stuff.  Dropping John doesn't give you human prophet Jesus, it just might lose you God the Son Jesus and leave you somewhere in between Muslim Jesus and Arius Jesus.

[Meursault]

The main historical consequence is that the Logos remains associated with the pagan philosopher Heraclitus, which means the arch-Lutheran Hegel never formulates his dialectical theory, which in turn means no Marxism.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

The main historical consequence is that the Logos remains associated with the pagan philosopher Heraclitus, which means the arch-Lutheran Hegel never formulates his dialectical theory, which in turn means no Marxism.

Which means no Soviet Union, which means no mujahideen, which means no 9/11?

[bore]

These sort of questions just can't be answered well without considering the butterfly effect. I don't know what Christianity would be like without John, but I'd be willing to bet that the difference to it, and history as a whole is inconceivable to us.

[Meursault]

Yes, indeed. As a matter of fact, sola scriptura itself is probably Biblically unjustifiable without the metaphysicization of God's Word inherent in "... And the Word was God".

Lutheranism and the Reformation as we know it probably never happens.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes, indeed. As a matter of fact, sola scriptura itself is probably Biblically unjustifiable without the metaphysicization of God's Word inherent in "... And the Word was God".

Lutheranism and the Reformation as we know it probably never happens.

While there would be a lot of other butterflies caused before Luther's time, I'm very doubtful that equating the Logos with Jesus would not have occurred were there no Gospel of John.  The concept of the Logos was a sufficiently major one in Greek philosophy of the time that whatever work took the place of the Gospel of John as the spiritual gospel would have at the very least dealt with the Logos, even if it did not give it the importance that the Gospel of John does.

There have been two questions that so far have been missing from this discussion.  I've just addressed one of them: "What would have taken the place of the Gospel of John as the fourth gospel?"  After all, there were some theological reasons why the number of gospels were fixed at four and John addresses an aspect of Christianity the Synoptics don't really tackle.  I find it unlikely that there would have be no spiritual gospel at all in the canon.

The other question that has been ignored so far is "Why does the Gospel of John not get written?"  Does the author die before he writes it?  Perhaps there is a more outlandish reason that affects what gets written in the Synoptics such as it being John and not Judas who delivers Jesus up for trial.

[politicus]

The other question that has been ignored so far is "Why does the Gospel of John not get written?"  Does the author die before he writes it?  Perhaps there is a more outlandish reason that affects what gets written in the Synoptics such as it being John and not Judas who delivers Jesus up for trial.

That is only interesting if the gospel was in fact written by John, which is doubtful. It is likely the last of the gospels, so it could simply be, that the New Testament was established as a compendium at an earlier date.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The other question that has been ignored so far is "Why does the Gospel of John not get written?"  Does the author die before he writes it?  Perhaps there is a more outlandish reason that affects what gets written in the Synoptics such as it being John and not Judas who delivers Jesus up for trial.

That is only interesting if the gospel was in fact written by John, which is doubtful. It is likely the last of the gospels, so it could simply be, that the New Testament was established as a compendium at an earlier date.

While it appears likely that the gospel, the epistles, and the apocalypse have three different authors, they are fairly clearly a product of a spiritual Johannine church that took John the Apostle as its founder, so that even if the Apostle wrote none of them, it can also be said none of them would have been written without him.

[CatoMinor]

I would actually argue that Christianity would look more or less the same. Even if it were not replaced and left with the 3 synoptic gospels the same story is being told, with Jesus still performing miracles. On top of all of this there is still the confession of Peter which should cement trinitarian beliefs in the church. Really the only thing missing is John's perspective told through his gospel.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

On top of all of this there is still the confession of Peter which should cement trinitarian beliefs in the church.

Not really. Classical Christian Unitarianism never denied that Jesus is the Son of God or that the Holy Spirit exists, so the confession of Peter is not antagonistic to Unitarianism at all.  Historically the difference between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism was that Trinitarianism held that all three aspects of God have existed from the beginning while Unitarianism held that initially there was only God the Father with the Holy Spirit and God the Son coming into being later.  John 1 provides much of the basis for the Trinitarian belief that both the Father and the Son have both existed since the beginning.

[CatoMinor]

On top of all of this there is still the confession of Peter which should cement trinitarian beliefs in the church.

Not really. Classical Christian Unitarianism never denied that Jesus is the Son of God or that the Holy Spirit exists, so the confession of Peter is not antagonistic to Unitarianism at all.  Historically the difference between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism was that Trinitarianism held that all three aspects of God have existed from the beginning while Unitarianism held that initially there was only God the Father with the Holy Spirit and God the Son coming into being later.  John 1 provides much of the basis for the Trinitarian belief that both the Father and the Son have both existed since the beginning.

Ah, I was under the impression that Unitarian beliefs differed in that they did not hold all 3 parts as equally God.

[anvi]

I don't know what Christianity would look like without the Gospel of John.  But, if it didn't exist, Christianity would be missing a gospel that at once had some of the strongest anti-Jewish rhetoric of any early Christian literature as well as a gospel that features some of the most beautiful passages in all the canonical Christian scriptures.  For as much as I cringe when I read passages in John when Jesus excoriates the Pharisees, I always loved John 1:14, the first phrase of which the Greek, I'm told, means: "And the word became flesh, and fixed his tent (tabernacle) with us..."