Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of John

Sacra Pagina #4

by Francis J. Moloney SDB

No other book of the New Testament has attracted as much attention from commentators as the Fourth Gospel. It has stirred minds, hearts, and imaginations from Christianity's earliest days. In The Gospel of John , Francis Moloney unfolds the identifiable point of view" of this unique Gospel narrative and offers readers, heirs to its rich and widely varied interpretative traditions, relevance for their lives today. The Gospel of John's significance for Christianity has been obvious from the time of Irenaeus. It was also fundamental in the emergence of Christian theology, especially in the trinitarian and christological debates that produced the great ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea to Chalcedon. What sets this commentary on the Fourth Gospel apart from others is Moloney's particular attention to the narrative design of the Gospel story. He traces the impact the Johannine form of the Jesus story has made on readers and explicates the way in which the author has told the story of Jesus. Through this he demonstrates how the Gospel story articulates a coherent theology, christology, and ecclesiology. "

Genres: Theology, Reference, Scripture, Biblical

632 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book 5 stars. It is an excellent commentary on the Gospel of John. It relies on a middle-of-the-road scholarly approach, but without being overly technical in its language. I can recommend it to students in secular religious studies, as well as seminarians in Catholic and liberal protestant traditions. It draws heavily on Brown's commentary of John in the Anchor Bible series (Moloney completed the 2003 revision of that work). The book can also be profitably read by the middle-brow non-technical audience, since it is so well introduced. The introduction is excellent.

I cannot give the book five stars however, because of problems with the notes in the text. The choice of an APA-style for footnotes is a pain and there are numerous references in the text that are not listed in the references section at the back of each chapter. The commentary needed a graduate student to edit it to make sure all notes are accounted for. Frankly and SBL footnote style should have been used for the SP series rather than the author-date method of running references.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely superb. I have never read through the Gospel of John with a guide. This is from the series Sacra Pagina which is not as "learned" as the Anchor Bible series but holds its' own in learning. It is confessedly in the Catholic tradition but does exegesis, not later development of doctrine.

And it helped me with the notion of Christian faith, of belief, not just that all will ultimately be well, but that death has been overcome by the Lord of life.

[Jill M Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good exegesis of the Gospel of John.

[Tim Luft · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buy these commentaries

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to use to study the Gospel. I will be using more of these books in the future on the other Gospels. Highly Recommend it for anyone who wants to seriously study the Word.