Understanding the Fourth Gospel

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, he looks 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 of specialized concern, are for the most part dealt with conveniently in five major excursuses. All non-English sources are translated.