Presented By: Department of Middle East Studies
The Invented Library of an Invented Disciple: Reimagining the “Johannine” Literature
Hugo Méndez
The Christian Bible contains four texts attributed to a disciple of Jesus named “John”: the Gospel of John and the letters of 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. But what do we know about the origins of these texts? Who really wrote them?
This presentation argues that these works are a chain of pseudepigrapha—falsely authored works—written by multiple pens over several decades.
The author of the Gospel invented a disciple of Jesus to serve as the narrator of his text; the authors of the letters, in turn, co-opted this character, fleshing out so many afterlives for him. This presentation traces this arc, showing how a single act of disguised authorship inspired a new literary tradition and shaped twenty centuries of Christian culture.
Hugo Méndez is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches New Testament and early Christianity. He is the author of The Cult of Stephen in Jerusalem: Inventing a Patron Martyr (Oxford University Press, 2022) and co-author of The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8th ed. (Oxford, 2024).
This presentation argues that these works are a chain of pseudepigrapha—falsely authored works—written by multiple pens over several decades.
The author of the Gospel invented a disciple of Jesus to serve as the narrator of his text; the authors of the letters, in turn, co-opted this character, fleshing out so many afterlives for him. This presentation traces this arc, showing how a single act of disguised authorship inspired a new literary tradition and shaped twenty centuries of Christian culture.
Hugo Méndez is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches New Testament and early Christianity. He is the author of The Cult of Stephen in Jerusalem: Inventing a Patron Martyr (Oxford University Press, 2022) and co-author of The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8th ed. (Oxford, 2024).
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