The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John

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Paul Anderson (who is active in the SBL’s ‘John, Jesus and History’ group) has a volume coming out in March through Fortress Press titled The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John.  As the Publisher’s blurb has it-

Paul Anderson, a leading scholar of the Fourth Gospel, provides an introductory textbook, crafted for a semester course, which leads students through literary, historical, and theological aspects of the Fourth Gospel’s most vexing puzzles. Traditional, historical-critical, and literary-critical approaches are deftly introduced and their limitations evaluated; questions of the Gospel’s authorship, composition, relationship to the Synoptics, and origins in particular historical experiences are succinctly addressed; and distinctive Johannine perspectives on Jesus, the church, and the world are discussed.

Paul has been kind enough to send along a ‘preview’ copy and I’ve completed my ‘preview’.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

Introduction: Navigating a Stream in Which a Child Can Wade
Part One: Outlining the Johannine Riddles
Part Two: Addressing the Johannine Riddles
Part Three: Interpreting the Johannine Riddles
Conclusion: Navigating the Living Waters of the Gospel of John

Each major section is similarly subdivided.   Just click the link to each part for the review.

4 thoughts on “The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John”

  2. Thanks, Jim, for your thoughtful and engaged “preview”! I’ve been teaching on the Johannine riddles for over 20 years now, and this book reflects ways I’ve tried to get students into the textual issues themselves, moving from thence to “what scholars think” and “what I think” and most importantly, “how to interpret the text meaningfully and adequately.”

    So, I’ve tried to pique the reader’s curiosity with laying out the problems (and generously so!), enabling them to see the bases for why good scholars have gone in such different directions. I think it is fair to say that there is more scholarly diversity of opinion on the Johannine riddles than any other topic in biblical studies, and when you peruse a dozen sets of problems in each category–theological, historical, literary fields, you can see WHY good scholars might disagree.

    I’ll have changed a few things for the final published version, but thanks for the engagement; I’m hoping it will be available within a month from Borders and Barnes & Noble.

    More soon!

    Paul Anderson

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