An Introduction to the Johannine Gospel and Letters. By Jan van der Watt

Abstract

Pp. 168 , T&T Clark , London , 2008 , £14.99 . Here is a book that you can safely give to first year degree students starting out on the study of Johannine literature, or even their slightly senior siblings, looking to revise what they already know. The author presents the gospel and letters as an ‘adventurous challenge’, but adopts an admirably careful approach to the adventure. He takes the conventionally late (end of 1st century) dating of the four documents that he is considering, but warns against making hasty decisions on the matter. Very sensibly, he insists on starting with the text, and, in particular, with the texts of the prologues of the Gospel of John (GJ) and of 1 John, and offers some remarkably perceptive and fresh comments. He begins with a very complete account of the four documents and of their relationship to each other, accepting the Fourth Gospel as it stands, so including chapter 21, and not bothering too much about fashionable theories of redaction. The second chapter is the longest in the book, a theological analysis of the texts, in which he speaks, probably wisely, of the ‘contrasts’ in the Johannine literature, rather than their ‘dualism’. This chapter includes all that one would wish to see included in such a treatment, sometimes in an inevitably narrow compass; but he often has an angle on the material that one would not have predicted (no bad thing, in my view), and some helpful diagrams illustrating the relationship of the two ‘worlds’ in which GJ operates. Chapter 3 offers a useful account of the relation of these four documents to others in the NT, with a helpful excursus on their progress into the canon. The author deals with their links (or possible links) with the Synoptics primarily, looking at similarities and difference, and offering a sensible methodological note. He also mentions the (strikingly broad) range of possible solutions to the question, and, briefly, brings the OT into the matter. Then comes a good chapter on the gospel's literary characteristics, especially the frequent breaks in the logical flow of the narrative that have provided bread and butter for exegetes over many decades now; he also illustrates the variety of approaches that scholars have adopted towards the problem, including modern alternatives to the historical-critical method. There is a good chapter on the origins of the Fourth Gospel, touching on theories of authorship and J. L. Martyn's ‘two-level drama’, as well as Raymond Brown's theory/ies of the origin of the community; and all these are fairly represented. Chapter 6 is directed at the important question of where the gospel got its ideas. Van der Watt makes some illuminating points here, but it seems to me important not to exclude the possibility that the source for the burst of theological activity in the NT is the central event of the Resurrection. The author is sensible on possible Hellenistic and Jewish influences on the gospel, and he makes the important point that ‘the Jews’ in GJ represent one particular group in the gospel, and certainly not all those people whom one might identify as ‘Jews’, on religious or ethnic grounds. GJ is, after all, a thoroughly Jewish work; and the author is good on the implications of the discoveries at Qumran for the Jewish background of our text. Finally, a very sensible conclusion reminds us of the variety of approaches that are possible to GJ, including that of the ‘ordinary reader’, and, happily, asserts that it will continue to be read.