I have not got an answer (theoretical or not) to the above question.
But the main text book (Introducing the New Testament- Its Literature and Theology - Achtemeier, Green and Thompson) for my study unit (Early Christian Literature and Thought) in the assigned reading for today's Lecture on The Gospel of John, has a section on the ransom. It says (p. 237): One of the few passages that explicitly speaks of Jesus dying for others is Mark 10:45:
"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The next paragraph goes on to discuss the last supper and its symbolic meaning in the synoptic gospels. But John's gospel using little material from Mark or the other synoptics, uses quite different language (John 10:11-18);
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
So did John, writing this some 6 or 7 decades after events that influenced his life, re-imagine the words he places in Jesus' mouth and most striking of all says almost nothing about the last supper, re-worked by Paul (though he claims it to be "church tradition") into the central ceremony of church life.
Raymond Brown, a famous Catholic scholar thinks that the reason for the different style of the Gospel of John and the associated letters is that the documents are evidence of a separate community (does he really mean a different church) to the Pauline Church and the Jerusalem church, with the Johannine community placing emphasis on different aspects of the Jesus story.
Whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry writes:
Chapter 21 states that the book derives from the testimony of the "disciple whom Jesus loved" and early church tradition identified him as John the Apostle, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. The gospel is closely related in style and content to the three surviving Epistles of John such that commentators treat the four books, [1] along with the Book of Revelation, as a single body ofJohannine literature. According to most modern scholars, however, the apostle John was not the author of any of these books. [2]
Raymond E. Brown has proposed the development of a tradition from which the gospel arose. [3] The discourses seem to be concerned with issues of the church-and-synagogue debate at the time when the Gospel was written. [4] It is notable that, in the gospel, the community appears to define itself primarily in contrast to Judaism, rather than as part of a wider Christian community. [5] Though Christianity started started as a movement within Judaism, Christians and Jews gradually became bitterly opposed.
Did this community celebrate the Lord's Evening Meal? Just how did they think of themselves in relation to Jesus? Did they speak of Jesus as a ransom for them? How did they connect to the Pauline communities? What was their hope for the future?
I'll see what they Lecture says.