The Letters of John

More than twenty years after the publication of the first edition of this commentary in German, it seemed worthwhile to provide a revised and enlarged commentary in English. The bibliography reveals how much recent literature on the Johannine Letters has been published since 2000 in commentaries, monographs, and articles. The author deals with these developments in the introduction to and exegesis of the Letters. The basic understanding of the Johannine Letters, especially of the first two, has remained unchanged. This allowed the author to use much of the text from the first edition, with only a few modifications and additions. He still holds that the author of the first two Johannine Letters is responding to Christian charismatics who claimed that being "anointed" by the Spirit made belief in an "Anointed One" (Christ) superfluous and who felt that particular moral commandments did not apply to them. This line of interpretation is shared by a few contemporary authors.