Biblica_1:Layout 1 21-11-2011 12:59 Pagina 370 370 PHILIPP F. BARTHOLOMÄ in the Fourth Gospel, where comparison with the other Gospels fails us, without giving undue weight to subjective impressions” 6. In the above noted essay, Dodd set forth a modified approach for comparing Johannine and synoptic teaching material. Two features of this approach are especially noteworthy. First, Dodd consciously moved away from comparing mainly individual sayings or limited verse clusters in favor of using a larger part of a Johannine discourse (John 5,19-30) for a test case. Second, aware that to focus only on semantic reminiscences would unnecessarily limit the scope of his study, Dodd chose a more comprehensive approach in order to ex- amine whether there was conceptual overlap (i.e., similarity in con- tent) between what Jesus says in John and the portrait found in the Synoptics. In doing so, he observed that the concept of Jesus as both the life-giver and the judge (prominent features in John 5), is — though with different degrees of abstraction — also present in Matt 13,41-43, Matt 12,39-42 par., Mark 10,17-27, and several other pas- sages. The theme of Christ’s authority to judge (John 5,22.27) is also represented in Mark 2,10 par. and, more implicitly, in Mark 11,27- 33, or Matt 8,5-13 par. Ultimately, Dodd concluded that “we have before us [in John 5,19-30], in theological guise, a picture of the personality and work of Jesus which corresponds, in point after point, with the picture of- fered by the Synoptics in a very different idiom” 7. Dodd acknowl- edged that these conclusions remain provisional “until they are tested through the application of a similar process of analysis to other pas- sages” 8. To our knowledge, no study has been done on so broad a scale. Thus, the purpose of this article is to respond to Dodd’s appeal by briefly introducing a more nuanced methodology for assessing the general relationship between John and the Synoptics. This method will then be applied in exemplary fashion to the remainder of Jesus’ discourse in John 5 in order to evaluate the degree of dif- ferences and similarities between the teaching of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics. The essential question we thereby seek to answer is whether a negative judgment concerning the authenticity of Jesus’ words in John 5,31-47 can be legitimately based upon the differences between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. It needs to be noted 6 C.H. DODD, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge 1953) 431. 7 DODD, “The Portrait of Jesus”, 194. 8 Ibid., 195.