The Gospel Of John As Literature

This volume contains thirteen essays written between 1900 and today. Each of them takes as its starting point the Gospel of John as a literary unity. The volume as a whole traces literary studies of John back to the early 1900's and charts their development from then. Some of these essays are little known even to Johannine scholars. Others are recognized as classics in the field. Two of them are translations. This book is therefore a timely and indispensable resource for those interested in the history of the fourth gospel interpretation, and in examples of literary methods applied to John.

Essential classroom resource for New Testament courses In this book, a group of international scholars go in detail to explain how the author of the Gospel of John uses a variety of narrative strategies to best tell his story. More than a commentary, this book offers a glimpse at the way an ancient author created and used narrative features such as genre, character, style, persuasion, and even time and space to shape a dramatic story of the life of Jesus. Features: An introduction to the Fourth Gospel through its narrative features and dynamics Fifteen features of story design that comprise the Gospel of John Short, targeted essays about how John works that can be used as starting points for the study of other Gospels/texts

The command to love is central to the Gospel of John. Internationally respected scholar Francis Moloney offers a thorough exploration of this theme, focusing not only on Jesus's words but also on his actions. Instead of merely telling people that they must love one another, Jesus acts to make God's love known and calls all who follow him to do the same. This capstone work on John's Gospel uses a narrative approach to delve deeply into a theme at the heart of the Fourth Gospel and the life of the Christian church. Uniting rigorous exegesis with theological and pastoral insight, it makes a substantive contribution to contemporary Johannine scholarship.

Part of the genius of the Gospel of John comes from how the author infuses the gospel message into every part of the Gospel. In The Gospel of John: A Thematic Approach, Jackson Painter investigates John's literary-theological strategy by identifying seven key themes and showing the reader how to detect them in any portion of the Gospel as well as how to see the themes interacting with one another to create John's distinct theological message about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The author gives numerous examples of the elements and motifs that comprise the themes and presents three studies that illustrate how the themes interact. Students of the Gospel of John will come away with a newfound ability to understand and interpret the Gospel of John.

This commentary expands Johannine studies in two directions. First, drawing on the methods of literary criticism, it gives new force to a view which is both ancient and modern--that John's gospel, far from being a poorly-edited mixture of sometimes-conflicting traditions, is in fact a coherent unity, an account of Jesus which, however diverse its sources, is a finely-chiselled work of art. Second, it indicates that the unity of John's gospel is founded ultimately not on history or theology but on spirituality. This too corresponds to a view which is both very old--John was always known as the spiritual gospel--and very recent. The present study spells out that idea in new detail. It indicates that the account of Jesus is so written that the tensions and complexities of the text reflect the tensions and complexities of human life, providing the reader not only with an account of Jesus but also with an anthropology--a map of the development of the human spirit.

Recognized as an innovative interpreter of the Gospel of John, for decades Francis J. Moloney has approached the sacred literature in a way that attends both to the details of the text and to the several contexts that gave life to the original story. This “text and context” approach continues to enrich the reading and interpretation of the Gospel in today’s world. Gospel of John: Text and Context gathers Francis Moloney’s key studies on John’s Gospel written over the course of his career. The three sections of the work comprise studies of Johannine history, theology, and research; exegetical studies ranging across all parts of the Johannine narrative; and an exploration of how the Fourth Gospel came to be understood as sacred Scripture.

Come and Read explores four interpretive approaches (narrative, sociocultural, intertextual, and rhetorical) and applies them to three key passages in the Gospel of John. The combined work of top Johannine scholars, this collection illustrates the methods employed, the value of multiple approaches, and how method impacts the conclusions reached.