Title, Authorship, and Date

The brief letter known as 2 John is included in the “Johannine” letters because its vocabulary and themes overlap substantially with those of 1 and 3 John, which in turn share themes with the Gospel of John. (For a fuller discussion of shared themes and vocabulary, and of the Johannine literature, see the Introduction to 1 John.) Like 3 John, 2 John is written by someone calling himself “the elder” (Gk presbyteros). The early second-century Christian writer Papias (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.17) refers to an elder named John, and since at least that time the letter has been attributed to “John the elder,” that is, a different John from the disciple traditionally credited with writing the Gospel. The term “presbyter” can designate either an aged (and thus presumably venerable) person, or a leader, regardless of age. It commonly translates the Heb zaqen, which has a similar range of meanings (see Lev 19.32; Job 32.6–9; and also the debate on who qualifies as a zaqen in b. Qidd. 32b, discussing whether the honor due to an aged person [“hoary head”] depends on age alone, or also on a quality sometimes acquired with age, such as wisdom).

This “elder,” apparently a leader of local importance, is in a position to advise another congregation—“the elect lady and her children.” Although a few female heads of synagogues are mentioned in early inscriptions, here the reference is probably a personification of the community itself as mother of its members. Like the author of Proverbs (e.g., 1.8,10) and other ancient Near Eastern literature, the elder also refers to his readers as his own children, for whom he is responsible.

The letter of 2 John was probably produced in the same circles responsible for the other Johannine literature, in Asia Minor, sometime around the year 100. The letters rely on the Gospel of John for many concepts, as noted in the Introduction to 1 John, but the controversy with, and critical attitude toward, Jews that characterizes the Gospel are not present in the letters; many scholars therefore conclude that the letters are later than the Gospel (which dates from the 90s), and are concerned with countering false beliefs about the nature of Christ rather than with conflicts with Jewish opponents.

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The situation is similar to that addressed in 1 John, in that the congregation is warned against missionaries proclaiming a false gospel. But whereas in 1 John the deceitful missionaries are former insiders who have defected from the author’s congregation, in 2 John the author warns against itinerant “deceivers” who are not necessarily from the writer’s own community.

Throughout the letter, the elder exhorts the recipients to know and embody the truth: he loves the believers in truth, they know the truth, the truth abides in them, and they walk in the truth. Truth is at issue because the conflict with the “deceivers” is due to their competing truth-claims about Jesus. The opponents “do not confess Jesus Christ [coming] in the flesh” (v 7; the NRSV translates the present participle as “has come”), and they therefore do not “have God” (v 9). The opponents’ somewhat obscure claim has been variously understood as (1) denying that Jesus was truly human (a belief known as “docetism,” from Gk dokeo, “to seem, appear”); (2) denying that he was the divine Son of God; and (3) denying that Jesus would return to earth in the flesh, that is, as part of an apocalyptic, eschatological scenario in which he would appear in bodily form.

If 2 John were written in the same community that produced 1 John and the Fourth Gospel, the opponents may have objected to the identification of Jesus as not only Christ (Messiah), but also Son of God (see Jn 20.31). Thus, the writer argues that by denying Jesus’ divine Sonship the opponents do not “have God” (the Father) at all, while those who agree with the elder have “both the Father and the Son.” The letter would therefore represent an attempt to preempt any efforts to sway the community from belief in Jesus as both Messiah and Son of God.