Using various narrative approaches and methodologies, an international team of forty-four Johannine scholars here offers probing essays related to individual characters and group characters in the Gospel of John. These essays present fresh perspectives on characters who play a major role in the Gospel (Peter, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, Thomas, and many others), but they also examine characters who have never before been the focus of narrative analysis (the men of the Samaritan woman, the boy with the loaves and fishes, Barabbas, and more). Taken together, the essays shed new light on how complex and nuanced many of these characters are, even as they stand in the shadow of Jesus. Readers of this volume will be challenged to consider the Gospel of John anew.

These in-depth studies on the Gospel of John, written by the man who describes himself as a 'conservative evangelical,' demonstrate that the application of the critical method to an understanding of scripture need not rule out an acceptance of inspiration. Dr. Morris is here concerned with the authorship of the fourth Gospel, its relation to the Synoptists, the origin and date of writing, and with other similar issues. To his discussion of these issues he brings both his impressive scholarship and firm commitment to the revelatory nature of the Bible. The result is an informed and articulate statement of the conservative position on the many crucial questions raised by John's Gospel. In his Preface to this volume, Dr. Morris notes that Critical Protestant scholars and Roman Catholics are reading one another's works and discussing one another's writings with charity and mutual profit. Perhaps it is not too much to hope that both will include the conservative evangelicals within the scope of their reading and charity. In the hope that it will make some small contribution to the continuing dialogue this book goes forth.

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.

The Fourth Gospel is deeply shaped by its remarkably high Christology. It depicts the earthly Jesus, the incarnate one, as fully divine. This unrelenting Christology has led interpreters, both ancient and modern, to question the historical value of John's Gospel. For many, the Gospel is just theology. It is to the vexed relationship between history and theology that Jörg Frey turns in Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel. John's theological obsession with Christology might suggest that history counts for little in the Gospel. But, as Frey argues, the Gospel's clear and central claim is that John narrates the story of Jesus of Nazareth, his ministry, and his death, as "factual," and that this narrated "history" is foundational for the Christian message. Frey traces the Gospel's use of the available historical tradition by chiefly drawing from Mark and the Johannine community. Even if the Gospel of John used this received witness in a remarkably free manner, replotting and renarrating traditional episodes and even creatively staging new episodes, Frey contends that the historical life and person of Jesus remain central to John's enterprise. In the end, Frey warns that Johannine interpretation will miss the intention of the Gospel and the interpretive perspective of the evangelist if it remains preoccupied merely with questions of historical accuracy. The interpretive goal is to "let John be John," and, as Frey shows, readers will always yield to the priority of theology over history in the Fourth Gospel. In John's telling of the Christ story, the significance of history lies precisely in its disclosure of theological meaning, just as the significance of the historical Jesus is only understood in the theological language of Christology.

This book challenges the modernistic view that because John is theological and different from the Synoptics it cannot be historical.

The Fourth Gospel both blesses and betrays. It blesses readers who engage with its message, but it may betray those who read it nonchalantly. The notion that the Fourth Gospel is easy to understand is an enduring myth. This volume takes readers on a heuristic journey to discover the Fourth Gospel's unique theological aspects, problematic historical matters, inimitable literary features, and various interpretive approaches using an accessible format and easy-to-read language. The purpose of this publication is to enable readers to appreciate the Fourth Gospel's wide horizon, so necessary to understand its narratives in their historical and narrative contexts. Like the prologue of the Fourth Gospel that introduces and gives perspective on how readers should approach the rest of the Gospel, similarly, this volume introduces and gives perspective to studies in the Fourth Gospel. The text is divided into three parts, which examine its independent theology and argumentation, various outstanding issues, and its interpretation respectively. This volume is suitable for a wide readership, from Bible study groups to pastors and from undergraduate to graduate students.