J. W. Bowman maintains that the recipients of the epistle were members of the Hellenistic-Jewish Christian community of Palestine who had come under the influence of the Qumran sect. There were serious defects in their understanding of the gospel, and these the author set himself to correct. The particular group of Hellenists addressed is located by Bowman at Sychar, where John the Baptist and Jesus, and later Philip, had preached. But since Philip’s evangelistic campaign in those parts, “the centre