In The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel D. Moody Smith engages the masterful commentary on John by Rudolf Bultmann, evaluating critically his views of John's sources, order, redaction, and meaning. A book every bit as helpful for understanding Bultmann's work as the work itself, this book is now made accessible in paperback form fifty years after its original publication. Introduced admirably with a new foreword by the author's former doctoral student, R. Alan Culpepper, the printing of this monograph makes for essential reading in Johannine studies and New Testament studies overall.

Compelling perspectives on the Gospel of John from a premiere scholar of the subject This multidimensional volume from the leading American scholar of Johannine studies brings together D. Moody Smith's germinal works from the past two decades along with some original articles published here for the first time. The resulting collection augments current understanding of the Gospel of John with fresh insights and research and points the way toward opportunities for new inquiry. The collection is structured around four focal issues that define contemporary studies of John. In the first section, Smith places the book within its Jewish milieu, attempting to account for the tension between the work's seeming anti-Jewishness and its familiarity with Jewish life and thought. Next Smith engages the relationship between John and the historical figure of Jesus, especially the extent to which John's representation of Jesus reflects knowledge of independent traditions as well as the self-consciousness of his own community. The third section examines John's account against the Synoptic Gospels, assessing the evidence of John's access to an independent record of the passion and the possibility that John adopted the gospel genre from Mark. Finally, Smith explores how the Gospels, and especially that of John, evolved into scripture and how they have come to be interpreted in conjunction with one another.

This is the groundbreaking sequel to Fortna's The Gospel of Signs which reconstructed a source underlying the Fourth Gospel narrative. Here he not only brings that reconstruction up to date but also provides commentary, section by section, on both the text of the reconstructed Johannine source and its redaction in canonical John (Part One).In Part Two, Fortna systematically draws together the theological movement from source to present Gospel covering such topics as Christology, the value of signs for faith, salvation, Jesus' death, eschatology and community, and "the Jews" in relation to geography in the Fourth Gospel. This work, then, provides a comprehensive and unique redaction-critical treatment of the whole Johannine narrative.

This is the first comprehensive study of St John's Gospel for nearly forty years. The author provides new and coherent answers to its two most important questions: the position of the Gospel in the history of Christian thought, and its central or governing idea. In the course of the book, helooks at the Gospel from a variety of viewpoints: historical, literary, and theological. The discussion is balanced and comprehensive and brings into play questions of origins, content, and readership. Detailed exegetical arguments that advance scholarly debate, and intricate questions ofspecialized concern, are for the most part dealt with conveniently in five major excursuses. All non-English sources are translated.

A revision of the author's inaugural dissertation, Faculty of Evangelical Theology, University of T'ubingen, 1973.

Spiritual but broken, theological but flawed—these are the words critics use to describe the Gospel of John. Compared to the Synoptics, John’s version of the life of Jesus seems scrambled, especially in the area of time and chronology. But what if John’s textual and temporal flaws have more to do with our implicit assumptions about time than a text that is truly flawed? This book responds to that question by reinventing narrative temporality in light of modern physics and applying this alternative temporal lens to the Fourth Gospel. From the singularity in the epic prologue to the narrative warping of event-like objects, this work explodes the elemental temporalities simmering below the surface of a spiritual yet superior Gospel text.