This literary and exegetical study of psalm quotations, allusions and echoes in the Fourth Gospel demonstrates the Evangelist's understanding of David, the presumed "author" of the psalms, as a paradigm for his portrayal of Jesus.

This volume deals with the reception of the psalms in the New Testament, taking as an example the Fourth Gospel, a work profoundly shaped by early Christian liturgy. It explores the contemporary Jewish attribution of the Psalms to David, an idealized figure envisaged as Temple founder and man of prayer. It then shows how this image of David has affected the way the Fourth Evangelist draws on the psalms through quotation, allusion and echo. It frequently demonstrates that the Fourth Gospel attests to Jewish psalm interpretations found in rabbinic sources. Challenging the prevailing view that the Fourth Evangelist intentionally dissociates Jesus from David, this book argues that David as psalmist plays a highly significant role in the Johannine portrayal of Jesus.

Jesus: The Celestial Man is a book about the Fourth Gospel of the New Testament, the Gospel of John. The subtitle describes its two-fold purpose. "Time" refers to the historical context and the meaning of words for those who wrote them and originally heard them. "Space" is the unique cosmology the author of the Fourth Gospel captured from the teaching and ministry of Jesus, a new perspective on creation with its higher dimensions that provide a scientific basis for understanding God, the world, and our place in it.Since Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, the author goes behind the Greek words preserved in the ancient Gospel to discover the original sayings of Jesus and their impact for Christians today. Although the book contains many footnotes and an extensive index, the author's style is easy to read. Stories come alive with a unique writing style that allows the reader to experience what it was like to be with Jesus in first-century Israel. You'll see Jesus as you've never seen him before: laughing, arguing with religious authorities, dying on the Roman stake, and exploding from the tomb on Easter morning.The author's viewpoint is orthodox, but non-traditional. He asks questions of the text few others have and finds answers that shed new meaning on familiar verses. The book includes the author's translation of the Gospel of John, clarifying words too often left unexplored. For example, what "world" did God so love He sent his only Son? And what did agape love mean in the context of people who spoke Aramaic, and not primarily Greek? Jesus: The Cosmic Man is a verse-by-verse tour de force of the only eyewitness Gospel to the life and ministry of Jesus.

Bestselling and controversial bishop and teacher John Shelby Spong reveals the subversive, mystical wisdom of the writer of the Gospel of John and how his teachings point us forward in the twenty-first century In The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic, Spong turns his attention to the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel in the Bible. Contrary to what is most often believed, he writes that this gospel was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus. In fact, it is a literary, interpretive retelling of the events in Jesus’ life through the medium of Jewish worship traditions and fictional characters, from Nicodemus and Lazarus to the “Beloved Disciple.” The Fourth Gospel not only recaptures the original message of this gospel, but also provides us with a radical new dimension to the claim that in the humanity of Jesus the reality of God has been met and engaged. This book offers a fresh way to read the Gospel of John and a unique primer about how to be a Christian in the post-Christian twenty-first century.

Werner Kelber's The Oral and the Written Gospel substantially challenged predominant paradigms for understanding early Jesus traditions and the formation of written Gospels. Since that publication, a more precise and complex picture of first-century media culture has emerged. Yet while issues of orality, aurality, performance, and mnemonics are now well voiced in Synoptic Studies, Johannine scholars remain largely unaware of such issues and their implications. The highly respected contributors to this book seek to fill this lacuna by exploring various applications of orality, literacy, memory, and performance theories to the Johannine Literature in hopes of opening new avenues for future discussion. Part 1 surveys the scope of the field by introducing the major themes of ancient media studies and noting their applicability to the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles. Part 2 analyzes major themes in the Johannine Literature from a media perspective, while Part 3 features case studies of specific texts. Two responses by Gail O'Day and Barry Schwartz complete the volume.

Ahearne-Kroll examines the literary interaction between Mark's passion narrative and four Psalms of Individual Lament.

What is the significance of the trial and death of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark? In its annual meetings the Mark Group of the Society of Biblical Literature studied the trial of Jesus in 2003 and the death of Jesus in 2004. Both speakers and audience expressed the desire to bring some of the papers together in book form. The current volume fulfills this wish. The contributions presented here represent an up to date expression of one of the most important themes in Markan exegesis. The editors use the metaphor of a prism to illustrate the two sections of the book. Like a concave prism spreading light, the first section presents a range of understandings of the meaning of the death of Jesus. Like a convex prism focusing light, the second section uses multiple methodologies to focus attention on the trial of Jesus, particularly the charge of blasphemy. The papers together raise questions, challenge common views, and interrelate themes that push Markan scholarship forward.