Insular Christian sub-communities| Judaizers | Docetists | Gnostics? (jan 1, 90 – dec 31, 119)

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John of Patmos writes his apocalypse (Revelation) to “the seven churches”, a distinct group of Jewish Christian Jesus clubs located in Asia Minor (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea). These clubs seem to be contesting against another faction, “those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (may refer to the Pauline clubs), and may be hostile to leadership from the Roman Jesus club(s) as a consequence of the Roman-Jewish War or some other negative encounter with the state power of Rome.

The Johannine community (so named for its literary sub-tradition: the Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John) begins as a group of Jewish Christians who endure a bitter divorce with their home synagogue(s), perhaps after an intense and losing battle to get their fellow Jews to believe in Jesus as the messiah. They are potentially located in Asia (possible relation to Revelation’s seven churches?). The community appears to have been insular and semi-gnostic, guided by revelation and knowledge from above; as a result they may rejected the developing institutional leadership class and the legacy of the James-led Jerusalem faction. There is a slight suggestion that they may have been in contention with another Jesus club community that gave priority to the apostle Thomas. The Johannine community eventually fractures from within as a docetic group breaks off from it.

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