Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
About
Christology
Israel/Palestine
Publications
KermitZarley.com
Archives
Categories
- Angels
- Blog Description
- Book Reviews
- Christian Living
  - Unconditional Love?
- Christianity
- Christology
  - Deity of Christ?
  - Holy Spirit
  - Incarnation?
  - My Change
  - Trinity?
- Church History
- Current Events
- War on Terrorism
- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- Eschatology
- Ezekiel 38-39
- Last Empire
- Primitive Weapons
- Film Reviews
- God
- Golf
  - Billy Graham
  - Karsten Solheim
  - Lee Trevino
  - Major Championship Winners
  - Masters
  - Purpose
  - Ryder Cup
- Gospel Harmonization
- Interview
- Islam
- Jesus
- Literary Announcements
- Monotheism
- My Books
  - The Restitution of Jesus Christ
- Old Testament
- Politics
- Society of Biblical Literature
- The Bible
- Trinitarianism
- Uncategorized
FREE NEWSLETTER

Home
Progressive Christian
Religion News
Dunn on Jesus’ “I Am” Sayings in John

Dunn on Jesus’ “I Am” Sayings in John

Last updated on: April 28, 2025 at 11:46 am by Kermit Zarley

0 Comments

Dunn on Jesus’ “I Am” Sayings in John 2025-04-28T11:46:25-07:00 Kermit Zarley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Britisher James D. G. Dunn–known as Jimmy Dunn to his many friends, which included me–was a leading New Testament scholar. He was professor at Durham University, England, from 1982 until recently. Jimmy was humble, kind, personable, and a delight to be with, all striking characteristics in such a towering intellect. We suffered a great loss when Jimmy died this past June. He was such an accomplished biblical scholar who wrote many books and trained many people as their PhD dissertation supervisor.

I learned a lot from hearing Jimmy and reading his books. He turned me onto the Synoptic Problem being largely attributed to early church oral traditions about Jesus. It was a major advance in my theology mostly due to my first book, The Gospels Interwoven. And I also think he and others have been right about their “new perspective on Paul,” which language Jimmy coined. I have fourteen of his books in my library, including his voluminous trilogy Christianity in the Making (3500 pp.).

But I had to respectfully disagree with the thesis of Dunn’s first book, Baptism in the Spirit (1970). In fact, I wrote a book that largely critiques it entitled Solving the Samaritan Riddle: Peter’s Kingdom Keys Explains Early Spirit Baptism (2015).

Also, last year I wrote and posted on my blog, “Dunn Says Jesus Didn’t Say the ‘I am’ Sayings in John.” Jimmy made this claim in his last book, Jesus According to the New Testament (2019), though he likely had written the same in earlier books. In my article, I put forth several reasons why I think Jesus did utter the eleven Johannine “I am” (Gr. ego eimi) sayings (John 6.35; 8.12, 24, 58; 10.7, 9, 11; 11.25; 14.6; 15.1). All of them have a predicate, such as “I am the bread of life,” except three in John 8.24, 28, 58.

Of course, Jimmy Dunn was not alone in believing this. Many modern New Testament scholars have believed that since the Gospel of John is so different from the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), it must contain some fiction about Jesus, especially in his sayings. The Jesus Seminar was well known for this back in the 1990s. It was an organization of about 200 New Testament scholars, some of them quite distinguished, who gave little credibility, or none, to the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John.

However, in recent years Johannine scholars have been changing to believing that the Gospel of John is quite historically authentic and that Jesus’ sayings therein likely are too. I claimed in my book The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008) that that would happen in the future. And in that book, I devoted eleven pages to treating Jesus’ “I am” sayings without the predicate in the Gospel of John, that is, in John 8.24, 28, 58.

Critical, New Testament scholars generally accept a certain criterion of authenticity in determining whether or not Jesus said the things attributed to him in the NT gospels. The main one is the criterion of multiple attestation. That is, if two or more gospels record the same saying of Jesus, scholars believe it is more likely that Jesus actually said that than if only one gospel records that saying, which is often the case in the Gospel of John.

I now notice what I think is another reason for believing Jesus said those “I am” sayings in John. And I suspect it is something a gospel harmonist, as I am due to my book, The Gospels Interwoven, may be more likely to notice. In each of those “I am” sayings in the Gospel of John, the pericopes containing them are peculiar to that gospel. That is, those stories are not included in the synoptic gospels. That indicates what just about all New Testament scholars say about the four gospels in the New Testament, that the author(s) of the Gospel of John knew oral tradition or merely stories about Jesus that the other gospel writers may not have known and/or may not have been had in their common oral traditions about Jesus.

Let us take a brief look at this in the Gospel of John. First, Jesus’ saying, “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6.35), is in his lengthy discourse on the true bread from heaven, in John 6.32-58, and this discourse is not in the other NT gospels. Second, Jesus’ saying, “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8.12), and his three “I am” sayings without the predicate, in John 8.24, 28, and 58, are in a section in John 8.12-59 which is not in the other three NT gospels. Third, Jesus’ sayings, “I am the door of the sheep” (Jn 10.7),” “I am the door” (v. 9), and “I am the good shepherd” (v. 11), are in the pericope in John 10. 1-18 which also is peculiar to the Gospel of John. Fourth, Jesus’ saying, “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11.25), is in the story about Jesus raising his deceased friend Lazarus from the dead, in John 11.17-44, which, again, is included only in the Gospel of John and therefore not in the other three gospels. Fifth, Jesus’ saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14.6), and his saying, “I am the vine” (Jn 15.1), are both contained in Jesus’ very lengthy passion discourse during the Last Supper, in John 14–17, which also is peculiar to the Gospel of John.

Therefore, it seems pretty obvious to me that it is possible that the authors of the synoptic gospels did not know about this particular material in the Gospel of John which contains all of Jesus’ “I am” sayings that are not in the synoptic gospels. That is, it was not in their oral tradition. To explain how this oral tradition developed would take us into a totally different subject astray from our focus, here.

Yet, in saying this, perhaps I need to explain something. The most ancient manuscripts of the NT gospels did not have titles. In fact, many books of antiquity did not have titles. Often, they were identified by the first word in the book. This is the case with the first and last book of the Bible.

The Old Testament books were written in Hebrew, and the New Testament books were written in Greek. The book of Genesis begins, “In the beginning,” which is the English translation of the word bereshit in the Hebrew text. The word genesis is the Greek translation of bereshit. Thus, the Hebrew people referred to the first book of their Bible as bereshit.

The last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation, is the English translation of that book’s first word in its Greek text, which is apokalypsis.

However, the titles that we have for all four NT gospels do not do this. Scholars explain that these gospel titles were added later to indicate their source. It is interesting that only the Gospel of Luke tells us explicitly about its author (Luke 1.1-4), whereas the other three gospels do not, although see John 21.24. Scholars generally agree that the Apostle Matthew had a connection to the Gospel of Matthew in which he may have been a primary source for the material in that book, and the same is the case with the Gospel of Mark. However, scholars think both of these gospels were not authored in our modern sense of that term, but were compilations based mostly on oral tradition that was known to church communities. But it is unlikely that all church communities had exactly the same oral tradition, and even less likely that it was worded exactly same. This is what the so-called Synoptic Problem is about.

Concerning the Gospel of John, it appears that “the beloved disciple” mentioned repeatedly therein in various expressions (Jn 13.23; 19.26; 20.1-10; 21.20, 24), was a major source of its material. I think he likely was the Apostle John. Regardless, he seems to have had knowledge of some circumstances in the life of Jesus that were not included in the oral tradition that was common to many of the church communities. For this reason, I think it quite possible that the “I am” sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John are historically reliable, so that Jesus did indeed say them.

Gospel Harmonization

Jesus

"I Am" Saying of Jesus

Gospel Harmonization

Oral Tradition about Jesus

Synoptic Problem

Previous Post

November 29, 2020

Trump and Jesus on Being a Loser: Part One of Three

Next Post

December 10, 2020 The Difference Between Ivanka and Hunter

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Glen, you seem to be advocating a preterist viewpoint, with which I disagree." I'm a ..."

Kermit Zarley

Family Estrangement Versus Honoring Father and ..."

"THESIS is a SCRIPTURE QUOTE.“Remember the predictions foretold by the holy prophets and by the ..."

glen smith

Family Estrangement Versus Honoring Father and ..."

"How are they going to answer it. They don't have unlimited financial resources. They're trying ..."

Kermit Zarley

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Getting Much Worse

"...but isn't that an important question to answer?"

Harold Porter

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Getting Much Worse

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Angels Billy Graham Blog Description Book Reviews Christian Living Christianity Christology Church History Current Events Deity of Christ? Disarmament Eschatology Evangelicalism Ezekiel 38-39 Film Reviews God Golf Gospel Harmonization Health History Holy Spirit Incarnation? Interview Islam Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Jesus Last Empire Literary Announcements Major Championship Winners Masters Monotheism My Books New Testament Old Testament Politics Primitive Weapons Ryder Cup Science Society of Biblical Literature The Bible The Restitution of Jesus Christ Trinitarianism Trinity? Uncategorized Unconditional Love? War on Terrorism

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the shortest verse in the Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

"Rejoice always." "Jesus wept." "God is love." "I am."

Books by This Author Books by Kermit Zarley Blog

See All Titles »