The "Johannine Community" in (more) current research: A critical appraisal of recent methods and models

Recently, and within a very short period of time, several studies have appeared that have sought to influence the current direction of research on the so-called "Johannine Community" debate, especially as it concerns the methods and models used in reconstructing elements of John's audience. This article functions as an addendum to an earlier piece that surveyed approaches to the "Johannine Community" starting with J. L. Martyn's influential work in 1968 and intended to bring the reader up-to-date on recent research (Cirafesi 2014). However, due to the rapid rate of publication, that piece was unable to treat three important works that are related in different ways to the debate. The present article, therefore, represents a critical review of these works, and suggests that Johannine scholarship is rightly heading in a direction that favours a broad, non-sectarian understanding of the Fourth Gospel's audience. The article intends to advance the debate through critical interaction with the methodologies used in these studies, offering in certain places alternative readings of ancient sources and proposing new analytical categories. The overarching aim is thus to assert the basic correctness of the non-local/non-geographical approach to gospel audiences, especially John's.