A REVIEW ARTICLE COMMENTING ON COMMENTARIES ON THE BOOK OF JOHN

The Fourth Gospel will soon be the object of Bible study in many churches. The purpose of this article is to give some hints about the study of the Gospel In addition to the direct study of the Gospel's text and the use of commentaries, there are other considerations in preparing to teach the Fourth Gospel. The theology of this Gospel emphasizes the importance of signs and the predominance of glory. Robert Cook's Theology of John and W. F. Howard's Christianity According to St. John will assist the student in the theological content of the book. A number of themes could be profitably studied in this Gospel, such as its Jewish background, omissions in the book, the role of John the Baptist, the Second Exodus theme--and Jesus as the new Moses, controversy with the Jews, the Graeco-Roman background of John (e.g., logos, cosmos), the Upper Room Discourse, worship patterns, apologetic patterns, Jesus' Sonship and related personal titles, witness in the Fourth Gospel, and truth in this Gospel. There are a number of volumes and articles which will assist in the literary study of the Fourth Gospel. Literary communication takes notice of the three aspects of the message: the author's literary intention, the written signals and the mindset of the original receivers of this message. It should not be overlooked that the text of Scripture may have a range of secondary purposes. Three books which will introduce the student to the literary study of John are R. A. Culpepper's Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, P. D. Duke's Irony in the Fourth Gospel, and L. Ryken's How to Read the Bible as Literature. A more advanced study in this vein is B. Olsson's Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel. A helpful general introduction to literary studywill be found in Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation by T. Longman III. For the student who has no facility with the Greek of the NT, a number of helps ate available. There are word study helps like A. T. Robertson s Word Pictures in the New Testament, H. Alford's New Testament, M. Vincent's Word Studies, and the emphasis on word meanings in Barclay's well