focusing on John in particular;9 and, most recently, John Ashton’s magisterial Understanding the Fourth Gospel has a major discussion of “dualism” also.10 These studies and others raise a number of issues that are worth our attention with a view to a more adequately contextualized and theologically suggestive interpretation of John. We may begin with the question of definition. Historian of religion and Gnosticism specialist, Ugo Bianchi, is helpful here: “As a category within