Interpretation of God and Scripture: John's Biblical Analysis

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of John's Scripture, focusing on the portrayal of God and Jesus Christ within the text. It begins by introducing the concept of God's existence and His manifestation through the Flesh, as revealed in John's writings. The essay aims to understand the meaning of God's revelations through various hermeneutical methods, including historical criticism, the canonical approach, and narrative criticism. The analysis delves into the significance of the term "Word" as a representation of Jesus Christ and God's omnipotence. The canonical approach is used to interpret the verses of John's Scripture, demonstrating how biblical texts are interpreted. The paper explores the importance of God's omnipotent powers and the significance of Jesus Christ's resurrection, highlighting the importance of faith and truth in life. The essay also discusses the implications of the Hebrew Scriptures and the role of the canon in providing authoritative and normative guidance for believers. The canonical approach emphasizes the cohesive message of the Bible, rendering only one God and one way from Genesis to Revelation. Overall, the essay provides a comprehensive understanding of God and Scripture based on John's Gospel, offering insights into the interpretations and critical approaches to the subject.

Running head: GOD AND SCRIPTURE
God and Scripture
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1GOD AND SCRIPTURE
Introduction
In the Scriptures of John, many stories have been revealed regarding the existence of God
in the world and His becoming through the Flesh. The factor that people did not recognize God
at the beginning of the world has been unfolded in these scriptures as well. The aim of this paper
is to get through the scriptures and understand the meaning of the revelations of God in new
manners. The three important methods will have to be discussed under the lens of these
scriptures of John. In his scriptures, John has always put up the claim of the understanding God
and having faith in him properly. Through these scriptures, people get to know that this Universe
was not a Genesis rather it had been created. In the scriptures of John , faithful followers of God
get an idea about the primary understanding about the benevolence of God.
According to the scripture of John, God is the only omnipotent being who has created the
Earth, Sun, Moon and all other components of the entire universe. Apart from that, this paper
will shed its light on the interpretation of the Biblical Scriptures of John through the three
methods like Historical criticism, canonical approach and narrative criticism. In the beginning of
the Scripture in John 1:1, he has begun the proceedings with the understanding o God through
the term Word. This term actually signified Jesus Christ and this also means the fact that God
had existed from the very beginning of the universe. In the Old Testament, Jesus Christ had
appeared as th God. On the other hand, His appearance proved to be the human reincarnation of
God as well. The hermeneutical theology deals with the existence of God from the beginning of
the universe and how it has changed from time to time.

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Description and analysis of the John’s Scripture
The entire analysis of the John’s Scripture has centered on the fact how the God and
Jesus Christ has been portrayed in the Bible and the Scriptures. The omnipotent powers of God
have been portrayed properly in this Scripture. The Gospel or Scripture has opened with the
sentence “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word as God”.
Therefore, this line signifies the importance of God in the universe (Green, 2011: 56). The use of
the term word has signified the importance of the opening section of the Book of Genesis where
God has created the world with the power of His speech. The Word, or the Greek word logos has
signified the fact of the God’s omnipotent power where he could create and order the life of
creatures on this earth. In this Scripture John has also highlighted the importance of God through
the lines like “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory
as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth”. Therefore, this line suggests that God is the
torch bearer of faith and truth in life (Spellman, 2014: 88). This has suggested the fact that the
Jesus of Nazareth was the embodiment of the Word of God. Thus, Jesus Christ was truly
believed as the human embodiment of the omnipotent God.
As a part of God’s existence or His Word, Jesus Christ had the liability of carrying out all
the creative works of God that is also life giving as well. Jesus Christ’s resurrection also signifies
His triumphant outcome from the jaws of death through crucifixion. This is why the entire verses
of this Scripture have looked into the interpretation of the Bible from the beginning of the Word
and how it began the universe in different ways (Green, 2011: 56). The Word or Jesus Christ
lived among the human beings and this is one of the biggest factors to understand that the glory
of Jesus Christ has been very much important for all the human beings in the world. The Gospel
of John or His messages through the Scriptures are regarded as the most metaphysical of all the

3GOD AND SCRIPTURE
four Gospels. Therefore, it will be very much crucial to for God to look after His children or all
the human beings in this world. The dwelling of God with all the people of the earth is symbolic
to the fact that God and Jesus Christ are always there to look after the common people of the
world by all means (McGlasson, 2019: 39). In the later lines of this Scripture, it has also been
revealed that the Jesus Christ was fully God because He was the external Word. In the New
Testament, Jesus Christ’s entity had been affirmed as God Himself since He was able to show to
the world that He was the true power in the universe but his powers were not recognized or
acknowledged by the common people.
Interpretation of the Scripture through Canonical approach
The method that has been chosen in this context to interpret the verses of John’s Scripture
is the canonical approach. This will be based on the book of Joel B. Green. This description will
demonstrate how the Biblical texts will be interpreted using the canonical approach. Different
interpreter have interpreted the texts in different times and the texts of Bible have acquired
different meanings. The beginning of the Word mentioned in the Biblical texts will be
discovered in this paper. The primary purpose of the faith community is to develop a group of
people who will ensure people have faith in one true God.
Through the interpretation of this Scripture, it can be found that the God created the
world with a Word. After that He gave all His powers to this Word. Apparently, the world will
not afford any living thing when the world is empty. This term Word means the source by which
all the universal things had been created. In the verses of John 1:1-15, it has been said that there
was a person who was sent by God. His name was John. It was thought that the true light of God
could be believed by the initiatives of John. It is very clear from the Scripture and the New

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Testament that John was not the light. Rather he was given with the power to spread the light
among all human beings. Jesus Christ was indeed the person who was sent by God, His father.
The purpose of the Almighty God was to eradicate all the evils and sins from the world. It has
become impossible for the darkness to understand the light. This light always shined amidst the
utter darkness. The message of God, the father had been spread by Jesus Christ, the Son. People
die in the worldly atmosphere but they are reborn in the spiritual manner. This had been
proclaimed by John the Baptist in John 1:1-15 verses.
The historians of Bible have been continuously trying to understand how Biblical canon
can approach the scriptures if the Bible can form the theological ideas from the interpretation of
the different verses of the Bible. The sentence in this Scripture stating “God is light and in him,
there is no darkness at all”. This is why it seems that God has all the light in Him and He can do
no wrong at anytime (Green, 2011: 58). The Canonical criticism or approach of the Bible is
something that has focused on the Biblical canonical text as the final product. This is why it is
quite important to note that the current interpretation of the Biblical should be taken up as the
main element for the Biblical canonist approach. Many new approaches have been developing
within the community (Akala, 2014: 20). Therefore, it is quite clear that two main ideas will
have to be considered in this discourse so that the concepts of the John’s Scripture could be
understood thoroughly. The proper concepts could be understood then. These two ideas or
concepts will have to be discussed in this discourse. The first concept is the fact that the
canonical collection of writing in the Bible is quite interesting from several angles. This will
focus on the final literary outcome of the Biblical stories. This is called the norma normata
(Ogden, 2014: 29).

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As per the second form, it deals with the canonical collection of writings that have a lot to
do with the current religious traditions and functions. This is often called Norma Normans. In
this canonical approach of the Bible, the hermeneutical value is quite interesting as well.
Through this, the believers of faith would gain normative written evidence about the existence of
Christ (Green, 2011: 56). Through the canonical approach, one is offered with a different type of
exegesis of John in the Bible. He has used the Greek grammar to use the personification within
the Scripture (Ogden, 2014: 29). The Godness had already existed in Jesus Christ but this is not
the message that John gives through the writings. As per the overall context of this approach, the
Bible is rendered as an overall text. Thus the discriminations between the Old Testament and
New Testament is no more in practice. The inspiration given by God to His servants has a
cohesive message within. Through the description of this method, only one God has been
rendered here along with only one way resulting from the Genesis to the Revelation. This is why
this approach by Brevard Childs is looked upon as one of the most crucial factors for the success
of identifying the main points in the Scripture (Akala, 2014: 20).
In this Scripture, there are several implications of the Hebrew Scriptures to be precise. In
this process, canon takes up the role of being authoritative and normative in certain angles. The
proponent of Canonical approach, Brevard Childs has denied any sort of connection between the
Bible being a collection stories and historical texts. The Bible will go on to show the path of
truth and faith to the believers (Bultmann, 2014: 17). It should also be said in this context that the
early conflict between Judaism and Christianity was a very crucial one that had shaped the
history in this manner. The essence of the Hebrew Scriptures is very well maintained in the
various lines of this Scripture where the significance of the term Word has been used. Several
ways have been identified of how canonical approach has showed the importance of John 1:1-14.

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Critics have admitted that the existence of Jesus Christ before His birth as a human has been
subjected to considerations. There are many alternative explanations regarding the translation of
the Scripture. After going through these discussions, it can be found that the there is only one
God and Father and one Son named Jesus Christ (Green, 2011: 59). Jesus Christ has been placed
in the beginning in 1:1-2 at the beginning of the world in different ways. Many allegorical
languages have been used by the Jewish critics as well. According to the canonical approach
framework, it can be interpreted from John 1:1-14 that God had planned to eradicate all the evils
from the world to get the desired salvation in the world. Some critics have also said that Messiah
was among the seven things that existed before the creation of the Universe. Messiah came into
existence in this world after this universe was being created (Bultmann, 2014: 17).
The critics of this canonical approach have also said that the name of Messiah was
created even before Messiah was created. The other things that can be included in this list are the
Garden of Eden, the Torah, repentance, the throne of Glory and the temple. This was quite a
typical Jewish Midrash that the name of Messiah had been placed to signify the eternal life of
God in the beginning period of the earth. The Jewish critiques have opined that the John 1:1-2 is
simply a figurative midrash in the The Church fathers of Greece believed in the Hellenistic
representation or worldview (Green, 2011: 59) They were completely unaware of the fact that
John had presented his worldview in the figurative manner. Therefore, it could be concluded
from his description that Word was made of flesh indeed. Here it is of great importance to to
discuss about the Midrash that can be seen as a mixing o the figurative and allegorical language
somewhat different from the Greek grammar (Huizenga, 2015: 37). The emergence of Jesus
Christ in the human world was noted to be someone who would eradicate all the sins from this
world. This is why Jesus Christ was considered as a part of the figurative language to be precise.

7GOD AND SCRIPTURE
As the critics of Bible have revealed the fact that God wanted to live in this universe among the
flesh, He sent His son Jesus Christ to be a part of the human world (Spellman, 2014: 88). There,
the Word or Jesus Christ lived emerged as the being with life and light. This was something that
could be implied in the figurative language indeed.
Jesus Christ was considered as the Word of light and life. After that, Jesus Christ went on
to transform Himself to reality in flesh and blood. This was the transformation highly needed to
fulfill the desires of God (Huizenga, 2015: 37). If Greek could be placed before the Hebrew, it
could be discovered that Jesus was the Messiah who became flesh. Through this incident, Jesus
could have emerged as Elohim in front of the enire world. In other Gospels like Psalm, Messiah
had been looked upon as Elohim. Also, Moses had been considered as Elohim in the Exodus
book. Thus, Jesus Christ was also the Elohim in some cases as well. Jesus Christ being the
Elohim could be seen in the Scriptures of John. It is because Jesus Cjrist had the supreme power
with Him to create all the new things in the world (Green, 2011: 69) The Word or Jesus Christ
could be associated as Theos as per the Greek terms. Therefore, it was pretty clear that this could
surely be interpreted in the way that Theon had also existed since the beginning of the world.
After scanning through the lines of the verses 1:1-14 of John, there are some differences between
the fact whether Jesus Christ was roaming with the Elohim or He Himslf was the Elohim.
The main perspective of this paper according to verses of John 1:1-14 was to prove that
God had existed in the previous time. So, the implementation of Greek thinkers would not cater
to the existence of Jesus Christ or Elohim. There are some Hebrew perspectives that have been
included in the practice of the Christians (Green, 2011: 69). The Hebrew people generally
worship the God as one. This concept of one God or Father has been implemented in the
Christian worships as well (Moore, 2016: 20). The difference between the Hellenistic culture and

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Monotheistic culture can be seen as well as its conflicts. The practice of Elohim being
worshipped is done in the Jewish culture. However, it cannot be completely thrown off. In this
manner, the Jewish perspective of the New Testament can be implemented (Green, 2011: 69).
Therefore, the Canonical approach focuses on the current religious traditions of the Christian
practices as well as that of the final outcomes of the Biblical stories. The use of the symbolic
language is very much common in the New Testament in various ways (Rowland, 2018: 24). So,
the aspect of existence of Jesus Christ before the creation of the Universe could not be proved
from the typical Jewish teachings. However, it should also be kept in mind that Jesus Christ
could use some Jewish teachings while teaching His fellow disciples. The figurative language of
John should not be used in the different verses of John between John 1:1-14 (Moloney, 2013:26).
Interpretation of the Scripture through Narrative criticism approach
Narrative criticism is one of the most important methods by which the criticism about the
Biblical texts can be made. In some cases, it has been found that the narrative criticism approach
has stressed on the issue that narrators of the Bible are mainly modest by nature (Moore, 2016:
20). The story already has all the omniscient viewpoints. On the other hand, the narrators of the
Bible tend to speak out the story in a divine way. This approach of the narrators would surely
supply the element of divinity into the minds of the listeners or Christian followers. Therefore, it
is rendered as a very interesting factor for the common people to understand. The Scripture of
John 1:1-14 is the main talking point in this paper (Moloney, 2013:26). However, throughout the
course of the storytelling, the narrator always stays in the background. The narrator tends to
introduce all the positive and negative things in the story. There have been certain differences
between the normal literary criticism and the literary criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Downie,
2014: 28). Through the proper narrative criticism, all the listeners are guided in the proper ways.

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The narratives are mainly influenced by two things. The first is the events that have happened in
the past and the second one is the series of events that might happen in the future.
In the verse, it has been symbolized that the omnipotence might not exist in this system
since there is a lack of control to control the universe with absolute power by the pagan God
named Pantheon (Moloney, 2013:28). This verse of John 1;1-14 will be discussed from the pijnt
of view of pure literary criticism overlooking the historical aspects of the same. Thus the
Johannine story or prologue has to be looked at from different perspective of the narrators. The
metaphor of light has been used in this verse to depict that God is always right and he shows the
path of truth to all of his followers. In the line 1:10, it has been revealed that the world did not
recognize Him though the world was made through Him (Downie, 2014: 28).
It unveils the fact that the Word or Jesus Christ shaped the world and designed all the
things in this world. However, the people of the world were unable to recognize His powers. He
was omnipotent and omniscient and these lines of the Johannine story speak the truth for the rest
of them. He came to this world for the sake of His own people (Village, 2016: 19). However,
they did not receive Him properly. The lines of this Scripture also clearly depict the fact that
Jesus was born out of God. Later He took birth in human flesh and worked for the well being of
the people (Martin & Wright, 2015: 39).
The people of whom John is talking about in this story are mainly the Gentiles and Jews.
According to the Jews, God was simply a personification of God’s will (Moloney, 2013:28). On
the contrary, it can be said that God was the only most perfect reflection of the God Himself. He
was the perfect revelation of God in flesh and blood so His power was surely to be omnipotent.
As per the narrative criticism goes, Jesus Christ was completely divine after being a man of flesh

10GOD AND SCRIPTURE
and blood. This is why John has applied the term ‘Word’ so it could create the respect of the
human beings in all sorts. Therefore, it is also very clear that Jesus Christ was the true logos of
God. He was both fully man an fully god at the same time (Village, 2016: 19). The aspect of the
Hebrew Bible has been shown in this context a lot of times. God is omnipotent and His
knowledge can be revealed through the fact that God will always hold the light of the right path.
There is a long history between the prophecy and relationship. This difference between
the self-defense narrators and prophets will be unveiled in this system of narrative criticism. In
the Johannine story, John has revealed the fact of God was before him (Moloney, 2013:28). In
fact, it is always true since God has never revealed the fake promises to His followers. God has
sent His son Jesus Christ to eradicate all the sins from the surface of the earth. The moral realm
has been presented in the Johannine story when God’s quality has been revealed. However, it has
been observed from the grammatical point of view that there are 6 if clauses in the 6th verse of
the Scripture of John. The author has written from the perspective of Christianity and his
representation has to be experimented from literary point of view (Klein, Blomberg & Hubbard
Jr., 2017: 30).
However, it should be mentioned in this context that the books of the Bible had been used
as the primary resources for constructing the history from the proper perspectives. There are
some forms of the narrative criticism that could be used in these verses. These are source
criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism. This is why the verses of John 1:1-15 should be
used in the particular manner by analyzing it with these different forms of narrative criticism.
The scholars of the Gospel had been able to understand and learn from the different stories of the
Gospel in different ways. These stories had enabled their strength to understand the underlying
meaning of the stories of the Bible (Moloney, 2013:30). The metaphor of the Word is a very

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crucial form of the Bible to understand the important implications of the life. The power of Word
is really something very much important for the understanding of the Christian followers. The
scholars of Christianity were able to learn the importance of life from the Biblical texts like Old
and New Testament. This form of the narrative criticism helped the early Christians to gain an
insight into the factors of understanding the messages of the Word. John 1:1-14 says that the
powers of God were given to His believers (Yong, 2017: 37). However, it was quite
extraordinary fact that the Son of God was born as flesh nd he worked for the well being of the
common people. In the first place, it must be mentioned that Jesus Christ was not bron of the will
of man or flesh. Rather he was born of the will of God. In the analysis of this method, some
comparisons from other verses of the Bible should be mentioned as well. The blood of Jesus that
came because of the crucifixion, rinsed all the sins of human beings (Klein, Blomberg &
Hubbard Jr., 2017: 30).
In John 1:7, when people with the light of God, they achieve the fellowship of God in
their own rights. When the opponents of God often boast of their greatness and decide to follow
the path of darkness, only failure comes up. Therefore, it is very important to note in this
scenario that the fellowship with God will lead them to the betterment of their lives. Jesus is the
son of God and He will surely clean every one of the sins they have committed. The author of
these stories has assured the human beings that all their sins will be cleared after they become
Christians (Yong, 2017: 37). This method of clearing of sins will lead to the primary justification
that has been happening in the purification of Christianity. Through this method, all human
beings in the society would go on to believe in the omnipotence of God. This forgiveness of
souls in Christianity would make the human beings pure as well (Powell, 2018: 89). When the
construction of apodosis is concerned, the question of walking with the light of the God will