Evidence · Case 05 · Relativism
D. A. Carson, “The Gospel According to John”
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Across John’s Gospel, Jesus makes a series of “I am” statements. The bread of life, the light of the world, the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth and the life, and the true vine. New Testament scholars read these as claims to be the reality named, not as job descriptions. Carson’s standard commentary reads 14:6 the same way, with Jesus locating access to God in his own person.
Sources
D. A. Carson, “The Gospel According to John,” Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 1991)
Objections & responses
- Carson is a conservative evangelical commentator. Isn’t citing him for how scholars read the “I am” sayings citing one wing of the field as if it were all of it?
Carson is conservative, but on this specific point, that the I am sayings in John function as identity statements rather than job descriptions, he states the consensus of Johannine scholarship across the spectrum. Raymond Brown, a Catholic, and Rudolf Bultmann, a radical critic, read them the same way. The disagreement among scholars is about whether Jesus said them, not about what John meant by them.