Just over a week ago, Rick wrote about Raymond Brown’s Introduction to the New Testament. In that post, he described Brown’s thoroughness, his readability, and his ability to cover controversial topics in a way which is irenic rather than overly dogmatic. All those same qualities are on display in Brown’s Introduction to the Gospel of John.
A recognized expert in the Johannine literature of the New Testament, Brown had written the commentaries on the gospel of John and the Johannine epistles for the Anchor Bible commentary. Nearly thirty years after his commentary on the Gospel was published, Brown began work on a new revision of the commentary. Although he died before he could complete his revised commentary, he did manage to complete the introductory material for the commentary. This material was edited into an introduction to the gospel and published posthumously.
Brown’s Introduction to the Gospel of John therefore represents the fruit of a lifetime of study. According to the publisher, “One of the most important aspects of this new book, particularly to the scholarly community, is how it differs from the original commentary. It presents, for example, a new perspective on the historical development of the Gospels, and shows how Brown decided to open his work to literary readings of the text, rather than relying primarily on the historical, which informed the original volumes. In addition, there is an entire section devoted to Christology, absent in the original, as well as a magisterial new section on the representation of Jews in the Gospel of John.”
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Brown: Introduction to John
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