ABSTRACT
The locale of the Gospel of John is frequently placed somewhere in the Mediterranean Diaspora even though scholars hesitate to pinpoint exactly where John was written. Many scholars ponder the possibility that the roots of the Johannine tradition are in Palestine, but they still support the Diaspora as the context where the fi nal composition of the Gospel took place. Most often the fi nal Gospel is put in the context of some major Graeco-Roman city. For example, Raymond E. Brown mentions in his summary of scholarly positions as possible locales for John’s fi nal composition Alexandria (supported by W. H. Brownlee, J. N. Sanders, J. L. Martyn), Antioch or elsewhere in Syria (W. Bauer, C. F. Burney, H. Koester), Northern Transjordan (O. Cullman, H.-J. Klauck, G. Reim, K. Wengst) and Ephesus (the majority of scholars, including Brown himself [2003: 202-206]).
