Reviews of

Archive for the ‘Gospel of John’ Category

The Shema in John’s Gospel

In Christology, Gospel of John, John, Lori A. Baron, Mohr Siebeck, R. B. Jamieson, Shema on February 24, 2023 at 3:00 pm
Cover of book

2023.02.04 | Lori A. Baron. The Shema in John’s Gospel. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe, 574. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022.

Review by R. B. Jamieson, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC.

What causes John’s Gospel to stand out when set against the backdrops of the Synoptic Gospels, the whole New Testament, and early Judaism? In The Shema in John’s Gospel, a revision of the author’s PhD thesis submitted to Duke University in 2015, Lori A. Baron argues that one key factor is John’s unique development of the theology and ethics of the Shema.

After a brief introduction, the book surveys the role of the Shema in Deuteronomy (Ch. 2), the rest of the Hebrew Bible (Ch. 3), Second Temple literature (Ch. 4), the New Testament minus John (Ch. 5), and, finally, the Gospel of John, first considering chapters 5, 8, and 10 (Ch. 6), then the Farewell Discourse (Ch. 7). A brief conclusion considers the Shema’s role in John’s account of the crucifixion, John’s oft-alleged “anti-Judaism,” and the Johannine prologue. 

Read the rest of this entry »


What John Knew and What John Wrote

In Elizabeth Corsar, Fortress Press, Gospel of John, John, Lexington Books, Synoptic Gospels, Synoptic theories, Wendy E. S. North on January 6, 2023 at 3:00 pm

2023.01.01 | Wendy E. S. North, What John Knew and What John Wrote: A Study in John and the Synoptics (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020).

Review by Elizabeth Corsar; St Padarn’s Institute, Cardiff.

In her monograph, what John knew and what John wrote, North successfully puts forward a positive case for John’s use of the Synoptic Gospels, and her innovative study makes a significant contribution to this perennial New Testament question. Moreover, as the pendulum continues to swing ever more so toward the notion that John was dependent on the work of his Synoptic contemporaries for the composition of his own gospel, North’s timely monograph serves as an important study within this trend. 

Read the rest of this entry »

,

Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism

In Benjamin E. Reynolds, Brill, Gabriele Boccaccini, Gospel of John, Jewish Backgrounds, John, Messianism, R. B. Jamieson on August 27, 2021 at 3:00 pm

2021.8.14 | Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini (eds). Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 106; Leiden: Brill, 2018. ISBN: 978-9004349759.

Review by R. B. Jamieson, Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

Among the four canonical Gospels, the Christology of John is often taken to be the least Jewish because it is the most divine. The essays collected in this volume aim to show not only that John’s “messianology,” so to speak, is recognizably Jewish, but that even its divine claims for Jesus have at least some clear antecedents in Jewish messianic expectation. In this twofold aim the volume amply and admirably succeeds. 

Read the rest of this entry »


John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel

In Gospel of John, John, John Behr, Jonathan Rowlands, Oxford University Press on May 29, 2020 at 3:00 pm

81cvefdnc8l

2020.05.09 | John Behr. John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. ISBN: 978-0-19-883753-4.

Review by Jonathan Rowlands, St. Mellitus College.

In this monograph, John Behr examines the conception of incarnation in John’s Gospel, and its connection to the Easter event. Behr’s central thesis is that “the Gospel, together with its Prologue, in fact pivots upon the Passion—it is a ‘paschal gospel’” (p. 5), such that the incarnation is not conceived of as “an episode in the biography of the Word” (p. 4, a phrase borrowed from Rowan Williams) but “the ongoing embodiment of God in those who follow Christ” (p. 5). He approaches this topic by engaging three different groups of readers: (1) the Church Fathers, (2) modern biblical scholars, and (3) little-known French phenomenologist Michel Henry. Read the rest of this entry »

,

Johannine Ethics

In Christopher Skinner, Ethics, Fortress Press, Gospel of John, Johannine Epistles, John, Matt N. Williams, NT Ethics, Sherri Brown on July 13, 2018 at 1:34 am

97814514964683

2018.07.10 | Christopher Skinner and Sherri Brown (eds). Johannine Ethics: The Moral World of the Gospel and Epistles of John. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. 319 pp.

Reviewed by Matt N. Williams, Durham University.

This volume sees Fortress Press enter the debate surrounding Johannine ethics, a debate that has been increasingly active since the 2012 German publication of Rethinking the Ethics of John. As the editors, Christopher Skinner and Sherri Brown, make clear in their introduction and conclusion, the whole question of John’s ethics is turning out to be far more fertile ground for research than traditionally assumed. This corresponds to Alan Culpepper’s analysis of the situation two decades ago, which perceived this as a general shift of focus in John scholarship. The early preoccupation with theological matters was overtaken by historical matters and now ethical ones in response to society-wide moral concerns regarding pluralism and ‘the Jews’ especially. Read the rest of this entry »


Exegeting the Jews

In Brill, Gospel of John, Michael G. AZAR, Patristic exegesis, review, Simeon Burke on July 24, 2017 at 11:40 am

2017.07.16 | Michael G. Azar, Exegeting the Jews: The Early Reception of the Johannine “Jews”. The Bible in Ancient Christianity 10. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ISBN: 9789004308893

Reviewed by Simeon Burke, University of Edinburgh.

Following the Second World War, and particularly since the 1960s, scholars have simplistically described two millennia of Christian use of the “Johannine Jews” as “anti-Jewish”. This is the central claim of Michael Azar’s published Fordham doctoral thesis, Exegeting the Jews. Against this scholarly consensus, Azar enlists a trio of patristic authors – Origen, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria – each of whom applied John’s narrative of Jesus and the Johannine Jews in ways that do not easily conform to the categories and conclusions of the last fifty years of scholarship. The apparent hostility exhibited by the Fourth Gospel toward “the Jews” “did not function for Origen, Chrysostom and Cyril primarily as grounds for anti-Judaic sentiment, but rather as a scriptural resource for the spiritual formation and delineation of their Christian communities” (51). In other words, it was not “anti-Judaism” that fuelled their exegesis of the “Johannine Jews” but internal Christian concerns related to reading practices, ethics and orthodoxy.  Read the rest of this entry »


A Grand Gathering of Johannine Characters

In Character studes, D. François TOLMIE, Gospel of John, Josaphat Tam, Mohr Siebeck, Narratology, New Testament, Ruben ZIMMERMANN, Steven A. HUNT on March 1, 2014 at 12:23 pm

csfg

2014.3.4 | Steven A. Hunt, D. François Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann eds., Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel. WUNT 314. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Pp. xvii + 724. ISBN: 9783161527845. 

Review article by Josaphat Tam, University of Edinburgh.

Many thanks to Mohr Siebeck for providing a review copy.

This is a “grand gathering” of Johannine characters (and scholars).  The present work is by far the most complete edited volume on Johannine characters studies.  The aim is clearly stated, “to offer a comprehensive narrative-critical study of nearly every character Jesus… encounters in the narrative world of the Fourth Gospel” (xi).

Roughly seventy characters are included in the present volume.  Almost every character you can think of in John can be found there. Being so exhaustive, there is surprisingly no treatment of “Jesus,” the very key character in John.  Read the rest of this entry »

,

The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John

In Craig R. KOESTER, Gospel of John, Josaphat Tam, Mohr Siebeck, New Testament, Reimund BIERINGER, Resurrection on July 19, 2013 at 5:20 pm

RJGJ

2013.07.16 | Craig R. Koester and Reimund Bieringer, eds. The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John. WUNT 222. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Pp. viii + 358. ISBN: 9783161495885.

Review by Josaphat Tam, University of Edinburgh.

Many thanks to Mohr Siebeck for providing us a review copy.

facebook.com/RBECS.org

This book is a collection of essays on an important topic desperately needed in Johannine studies, even up to now.  Many of the essays are from papers presented in various “Johannine Writings Seminars” of the Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS) over the period 2005—2007.  The thirteen essays cover various aspects of resurrection in the Gospel of John, from the motif itself, the resurrection appearances, to its connection with the cross, the farewell discourse, the Johannine signs, the ascension motif, the concept of remission of sin, and eschatology. Read the rest of this entry »


Miracle Discourse in the New Testament

In Brandon Walker, Duane F. WATSON, Gospel of John, Gospels, John, Miracle discourses, New Testament, Paul, Society of Biblical Literature, Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation, Synoptic Gospels on April 2, 2013 at 11:30 pm

MDNT

2013.04.03 | Duane F. Watson, ed. Miracle Discourse in the New Testament. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. ISBN 1589831187.

Reviewed by Brandon Walker, University of Nottingham.

Many thanks go to SBL for kindly providing us with a review copy.

facebook.com/RBECS.org

Miracle Discourse in the New Testament is a collection of essays that were originally presented at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in 2001.  Miracle discourse itself has been analyzed and critiqued since the Enlightenment and has come to the fore with the publication of the works of Wendy Cotter, Graham Twelftree and most recently Craig Keener. The papers presented in this particular volume dialogue with Cotter’s Miracles of Greco-Roman Antiquity and her latest work, The Christ of the Miracle Stories: Portrait through Encounter.  The book follows a canonical order and shows the advantages of examining miracle discourse from a socio-rhetorical method (15).

Read the rest of this entry »