Paul N. Anderson

Paul N. Anderson (born May 17, 1956) is an American New Testament scholar conducting research on the historical, cultural, and theological background of the Gospel of John, the historical Jesus, Quakers and Spirituality studies. He is Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University since 1989 and was a founding member of the John, Jesus, and History Project at the Society of Biblical Literature (2002-2016). He also serves as Extraordinary Professor of Religion at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa and has served as a visiting professor or researcher at Haverford College, Yale Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, the Radboud University of Nijmegen, and Chapman University.

Anderson has published over 200 essays and is NT Editor at the Biblical Interpretation Series (Brill), co-editor of the Johannine Monograph Series (Wipf and Stock), and editor of the Quakers and the Discipline Series (FAHE). He edited Evangelical Friend (1990-1994) and Quaker Religious Thought (2000-2011). He has also written many articles for The Huffington Post and served on a team translating the Johannine writings for the New American Bible.

Education Anderson received a B.A. in Psychology and Christian Ministries at Malone University and pursued graduate studies at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Portland State University. He received an MDiv from the Earlham School of Religion and a PhD from Glasgow University.

Dehistoricization of John Given the fact that John's narrative reflects a self-standing Jesus tradition, despite being theologically developed, it deserves consideration as an overlooked resource for Jesus research. Anderson's monograph on The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (2006) lays out the case for its historical contribution alongside other gospels, and in 2002, Anderson helped found the John, Jesus, and History Project at the Society of Biblical Literature. Since then, the project has received international scholarly engagement, having published essays by over two hundred New Testament scholars. The project has published eight monographs, five of which Anderson has been a co-editor. Anderson's research has included the proposition that John has been dehistoricized in scholarship for its distinctive theological and narrative traits, which must be balanced with John's archaeologically detailed narrative and continuity with the Synoptic Gospels. This calls for a Fourth Quest for Jesus, in Anderson's view, as the first three have programmatically excluded John from the mix, and problematically so.

Popular work Anderson has reviewed the six-part mini-series Finding Jesus and has written for the SBL's Bible Odyssey and Bible and Interpretation. Anderson also served on a team working on a new translation for the New American Bible. but also criticizes his suggestion that the Epistles of John reflect the separation of more than one secessionist group from John's community. On Anderson's work reassessing and challenging the traditional view that the Gospel of John features anti-Semitic tendencies, R. Alan Culpepper writes that "In a tour de force Paul Anderson challenges widely held understandings of the gospel and proposes a reassessment of its relationship to its Jewish setting."

Selected publications Books Anatomies of the Gospels and Beyond; A Festschrift for R. Alan Culpepper (Mikeal Parsons, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Paul N. Anderson, eds.) Brill 2018 The Literary Devices in John's Gospel (Paul N. Anderson and R. Alan Culpepper, eds.) Wipf and Stock 2018 John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context (Paul Anderson, Alan Culpepper eds.) Society of Biblical Literature 2017 John, Jesus, and History, Volume 3: Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens (Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., Tom Thatcher, eds.) Society of Biblical Literature 2016 From Crisis to Christ: A Contextual Introduction to the New Testament Abingdon Press 2014 Communities in Dispute: Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles (R. Alan Culpepper, Paul N. Anderson, eds.) Society of Biblical Literature 2014 The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John Fortress Press 2011 The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6 Wipf and Stock 2010 (3rd ed.) John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel (Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., Tom Thatcher, eds.) John and Society of Biblical Literature 2009 John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views (Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., Tom Thatcher, eds.) Society of Biblical Literature 2007 The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (T&T Clark 2006)

Articles and chapters “Encounter, Dissonance, and Dialectical Reflection in the Development of Paul’s Theology—A Cognitive-Critical Analysis,” in Anatomies of the Gospels and Beyond: Essays in Honor of R. Alan Culpepper, Mikeal Parsons, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, and Paul N. Anderson, eds., Biblical Interpretation Series 164 (Leuven: E.J. Brill, 2018), pp. 416–33. “The Johannine Riddles and their Place in the Development of Trinitarian Theology,” The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, ed. Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, Studies in Early Christianity 5 (Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 2018), pp. 84–108. “Anti-Semitism and Religious Violence as Flawed Interpretations of the Gospel of John.” John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, eds., Resources for Biblical Study 87 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), pp. 265–311. “The Johannine Logos-Hymn: A Cross-Cultural Celebration of God’s Creative-Redemptive Work.” In Creation Stories in Dialogue: The Bible, Science, and Folk Traditions (Radboud Prestige Lecture Series by Alan Culpepper), R. Alan Culpepper and Jan van der Watt, eds., BINS 139 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2016), pp. 219–242. “Bakhtin’s Dialogism and the Corrective Rhetoric of the Johannine Misunderstanding Dialogue: Exposing Seven Crises in the Johannine Situation.” In Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies; Semeia Studies 63. Edited by Roland Boer (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2007), pp. 133–59. “On Guessing Points and Naming Stars—The Epistemological Origins of John’s Christological Tensions.” In The Gospel of St. John and Christian Theology (Richard Bauckham and Carl Mosser, eds.) pp. 311–45. Eerdmans 2007. “Aspects of Historicity in John: Implications for Archaeological and Jesus Studies.” In Jesus and Archaeology, James Charlesworth, ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 587–618. “Jesus Matters: A Response to Professors Borg, Powell, and Kinkel.” Quaker Religious Thought Vol. 30:4, #98 (2002): 43-54. “Mark and John—the Bi-Optic Gospels.” In Jesus in Johannine Tradition (ed. by Robert Fortna and Tom Thatcher), pp. 175–88. John Knox Press 2001. “On Jesus: Quests for Historicity, and the History of Recent Quests.” Quaker Religious Thought Vol. 29:4, #94 (2000): 5-39.(1999): 33-57. “The Sitz im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse and its Evolving Context,” Critical Readings of John 6, Alan Culpepper, ed. Biblical Interpretation Supplemental Series 22 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), pp. 1–59. “The Cognitive Origins of John’s Christological Unity and Disunity.” Horizons in Biblical Theology; An International Dialogue 17 (1995): 1-24.