Abstract
In recent decades, most scholars have understood Gospel of John and three letters of John as a mirror to so called "Johannine community"/"Johannine christianity". This claim is based on numerous oversimplifications and distortions of relevant material.
First of all scholars did not understood fourth gospel in context of greco-roman biography but understood it as a two level drama (a genre whose existence is nowhere attested) which is not about historical Jesus but about "Johannine community". Since fourth gospel is narrating a story about what Jesus said and what Jesus did (and scholars read it on a level of "Johannine community"), they mostly reconstructed a history of "Johannine community" - e.g. what Johannine christians did and with whom they were in conflict.
However scholars rarely defined the term "Johannine community" although they explicitly understood it as some specific branch of early christianity. In this paper, I offer correction to some crucial oversimplifications (e.g.
I argue against applying "two level drama approach on gospels) and deal with several arguments scholars use as a proof of existence of "Johannine community". I argue in common authorship of John's gospel and letters of John, I argue that plurals in gospel should be read as generally referring about christians ("we who believe Jesus is Messiah and son of God...") and I deny John 21 being a later appendix.
I point that theology and ritual practices of fourth gospel and of three letters of John, do not differ from theology and ritual practices of dominant form of christianity in first and second century and therefore terms "Johannine community"/"Johannine christianity" are lacking any analytical potential.