Was St John’s Gospel originally intended to be the script for a stage play?

That’s the radical theory put forward by Philip Oakeshott in his book Jesus on Stage – John’s Gospel and Greek Tragedy.

The Awbridge author argues that John’s Gospel shows the influences of Greek tragedy and contains speeches which read like dramatic dialogue.

Philip points to the way that Jesus talks about himself in John’s Gospel – the word eimi, Greek for ‘I am’, occurs 54 times - almost five times the average for the other three gospels.

“‘No one ever spoke like this’ say the temple officers and in real life no one does,” writes Philip, who describes the Jesus of the fourth gospel as “self-proclaiming” and “flamboyant “ like the protagonist of a play.

The nativity is ditched in John’s life of Christ and most of the action takes place in Jerusalem in the last week of Jesus’s life giving the play a unity of time and place which was the backbone of Greek drama.

Having put forward the idea that John intended his work for the stage, Philip then floats a second theory, that it was then re-worked as an historical novel including incidents which employ fiction writers’ devices to create mystery and suspense.

“In John’s Gospel there’s a lot about the Jews wishing to kill Jesus and he always just manages to escape although it’s not explained how. John has hyped this aspect up to create suspense,” said Philip Philip studied theology and modern languages before going into teaching. He taught for 35 years and is a former head of Thornden School at Chandler’s Ford.

Philip joined the Quakers in 1996 and he’s been attending the Society of Friends meetings in Southampton for 18 years.

He was a Quaker chaplain with the Prison Service on the Isle of Wight.

This is Philip’s second book on the Gospels. His first, The Man who Knew Peter, tackling St Mark’s was published in 2011.

His new book is available on line through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.