This insightful study engages the debates and interpretations of the brief and somewhat elusive writings known in the Christian canon as 1, 2, and 3 John. Chapter 1 identifies six unknowns about the origins of the three writings: authors, relationship to John-s Gospel, order, date and location of the writings, and their audiences. Chapters 2 and 3 delineate the debate concerning the relationship of these writings to a purported -Johannine tradition- and -Johannine community- in which a schism is claimed to have occurred. An alternative view recognizes that while there are some connections with John-s Gospel, it is more compelling to see the writings as independent rather than derivative, as internally not externally directed, as pastoral not polemical, and as schism-free. Chapters 4-7 discuss important aspects of 1 John. Chapter 4 argues that its structure or organization is based on rhetorical and conceptual links among the writing-s small units. Chapter 5 reads 1 John as a pas
