Stanley E. Porter and Ron C. Fay, ed. The Gospel of John in Modern Interpretation. Kregel, 2018.

The Gospel of John in Modern Interpretation is a direct and clear theological volume presenting an overview of theological perspectives on the Gospel of John (with some mention of his epistles and Revelation). These are not primarily interpretations or commentaries of the Gospel of John, but detached speculative analyses of the Fourth Gospel (FG) more concerned about the authorship or origins of the book.

The introduction by the editors helps readers understand the issues. Around two hundred years ago there was the historical critical movement, an attempt to question the authenticity of many books of the Bible or their inclusion in the Bible. This was followed by a history of religion movement, placing the parts of the Bible into whatever time they were written—but frequently getting into disputes about what time period the books were written.

This was followed by the source critical theories of various types. Currently there is a movement to look at the books as primarily literary works. There are eight articles altogether, two written by Porter, one by Fay, and the rest by other scholars.

First comes B. F. Westcott, best known as the compiler of the standard Greek New Testament text (the Westcott-Hort New Testament). Westcott, we are told, focused on the text of John and the historical context in which was written and canonized. From my own brief experience with Westcott, he was a thorough researcher.

Next we read about Adolf Schlatter, a prolific German historical-critical scholar. While concerned about the historical context, he saw the FG written to emphasize the divinity of Christ—an orthodox position. He also noted the Jewish and Palestinian context of the FG and downplaying Hellenistic influences others saw.

C. H. Dodd was also a prolific writer. He was concerned about the FG in relation to a hypothetical oral tradition. This reviewer has noted elsewhere a disconnect between theologians and other scholars of oral tradition. Many nineteenth and twentieth century theologians speculated about oral tradition but never applied Bible texts to works we know were orally transmitted. If we apply the work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, there is very little, if anything, in the New Testament that indicate any formulae typical of oral tradition. Unfortunately, this article does not bring up any of that secular research.

One of the most influential theologians of the past century has been Rudolf Bultmann. He saw the FG as being derived from Gnosticism, indeed, he hypothesized that Gnosticism predated Jesus among the Jews. The article suggests that there is a lack of evidence for this, but the theory does have appeal for someone who has studied Scripture and become skeptical. “Did God actually say that?” See Genesis 3:1.

Probably the most widely known theologian among the general English-speaking populace is John A. T. Robinson. Though best known for his Unitarian leanings in his book Honest to God, he also wrote about the FG. Ironically, he challenged theologians like Bultmann who took the view that the FG was inserted in the canon, if not actually written, long after the first century. Using early Christian historical writings and noting that even Revelation mentions the Temple as if it were still standing, Robinson believed that John’s corpus must have been written before A.D. 70.

Robinsons’ The Priority of John stresses John’s writings are the most important in the New Testament. And John emphasizes Jesus’ divinity most explicitly. Maybe Robinson’s Unitarian leanings were conditional, or, as the author of the article, the editor Dr. Porter, suggests, Robinson hopped on various popular bandwagons.

One of the “bandwagons” Porter on Robinson dismisses out of hand is Boman’s thesis on differences between Greek and Hebrew thinking. I thought Boman presented a convincing case, but the author of this article call the thesis a “fundamental (mis-) conception” (145). Considering that I am familiar with a couple of Bible teachers who take Boman very seriously, I guess I should look into a critique of Boman to see how his thesis stands up as it was beyond the scope of the article in this book.

The article on Raymond Brown tells us Brown hypothesized that the Gospel of John differs from the so-called Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) because it was written by a later “Johanine Community.” This is largely hypothetical, but one can make a case by emphasizing the differences between John and the other Gospels.

Leon Morris comes up next. This requires a brief apologetic on the part of the writer of this chapter because Morris was a literalist. He accepted the writings of John in the New Testament in their original as true and inspired. This means that Morris provides some balance to the more speculative material promoted by some of the other writers described in this book.

The final article is devoted to R. Alan Culpepper. He takes a literary approach to the FG. He treats it as a biography of Jesus and goes from there. He emphasizes that each of John’s writings had a specific message. The purpose of John’s Gospel is easily summarized in John 20:31:

…but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The author of this article is one of the editors, Ron. C. Fay. Dr. Fay emphasizes this point:

Culpepper works will not allow anyone to forget that the Gospel of John is literature aimed at forcing a response of faith from the reader.(235)

That is a good way to sum things up. As I am writing my draft of this review on Good Friday during Coronavirus shelter in place, I would ask the reader simply this: “What do you do with Jesus?”