John S. Kloppenborg - General Summary of Contributions To Near East and Biblical Scholarship

General Summary of Contributions To Near East and Biblical Scholarship

John Kloppenborg is an original research scholar whose work on the origins of Christianity, the ancient manuscripts of ancient Christians and the history of Second Temple Judaism is often cited by other scholars and authors. He has researched and written most substantially about the Q document, also known as the Synoptic Sayings Gospel. This document is thought to be one of the oldest circulating sources of the sayings of Jesus. It is thought to be prior to, and to have been known to the authors of the The Gospel of Matthew, The Gospel of Luke as well as to the author of the (non-synoptic) The Gospel of Thomas. This work touches on the Synoptic problem.

Kloppenborg has also done original research and written on the social world of the early Jesus movement in Jewish Palestine, the societies of the eastern Roman Empire and the social significance of the parables of Jesus. Other areas of interest have been the letters of the New Testament, especially the Letter of James, and the culture of the Graeco-Roman world as relates to such matters as: religion, spirituality, cultic associations, ethnic sub-groups and their ancient organization, professional societies and the general conditions of the societies in the Near East during the time of Second Temple Judaism, the time of Jesus and the formation of the Bible as we know it.