The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times

This study in Johannine ecclesiology reconstructs the history of one Christian community in the first century, a community whose life from its inception to its last hour is reflected in the Gospel and Epistles of John. It was a community that struggled with the world, with the Jews, and with other Christians. Eventually the struggle spread even to its own ranks. It was, in short, a community not unlike the Church of today. This book offers a different view of the traditional Johannine eagle. In the Gospel the eagle soars above the earth, but with talons bared for the fray. In the Epistles we discover the eaglets tearing at each other for possession of the nest. This book pulls together 25 years of the author's research into John. It explains why he calls Johannine thought "the most adventuresome theology in the New Testament."