The Priority of John

by John A.T. Robinson, J.F. Coakley

One of the classic works of Johannine scholarship.

Genres: Christian

460 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1987

Reviews

[Zachary Mays · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biblical studies mystery/thriller. Okay maybe a bit of an exaggeration. But if you are interested in this stuff a real page turner actually. Robinson has honestly changed my mind on the subject for the moment (though I admit I wanted to be convinced). He argues for the possibility that the Gospel of John really does go back to an early eyewitness. And he provides convincing reasons why its supposedly complex theological language and seemingly Hellenic ideas do not work against this being the work of the apostle John, written independently of the Synoptics. Robinson is no inerrantist and so this is not a simple attempt to harmonize every passage. But he does show how sometimes the source criticism of certain scholars can become circular and prone to see several authors where there may be merely one author putting together several pieces of his own work. He also does an excellent job of showing us the ways that John’s picture of Jesus gets us closest to a plausible picture of Jesus’s personality, his movements and his motivations and how the Synoptic material can be easily completed and filled into John’s picture but not vice versa. Overall a very interesting and engrossing read. I’ll read it again.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

This scholarly tome by Robinson is a great deep dive into the historical and literary criticism of the gospel of John. The main thesis being: John was one of the first gospels writer and actually forms the negative (as in the structure) that the synoptic gospels are responding to. I was fairly sold on this idea already as someone who thinks the gospel of John had just been written off by most scholars for very poor, and biased, reasons. Robinson is a liberal, but he doesn’t let his theological commitments get in the way. He is quick to take the poor scholarship of his contemporaries to task.
A good example of this is how he points out the inconsistencies where people will take some thing in the Synoptics for granted because most people think they are very early, but they won’t extend that charity to John’s gospel, even though his gospel is more archaeologically accurate in terms of place names and distances. Not that the Synoptics aren’t accurate, just that they aren’t as detailed as John is. On a separate note, it was crazy to learn that most scholars (whatever that means in Biblical studies) just thought Nazareth was made up until archaeological evidence of it was uncovered in the 1960’s. How idiotic. Which is why I’m glad that scholars like a Robinson exist because they are quick to point out these failures.
This is a scholarly work and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t read biblical studies stuff at a higher level (lots of Greek and footnotes in this book) but if that is of interest to you, I think this is a must read for Johanine scholarship.

[Rob Markley · Rating 5 out of 5]

It all makes sense - if John has priority over the Synoptics then everything reconciles. By 'priority' Robinson is saying that although John's narrative cannot fit within the Synoptics, the Synoptics can very well fit into John's record. Revolutionary and brilliant - I don't know why nobody saw this before, as it all makes sense given John's proximity to Jesus.

The whole thing is superlative biblical research and analysis, with the evidence of Robinson's breadth of knowledge of Johannine scholarship dripping from every page. Sections I & II set the scene by reviewing the academic context, then the meat of the book is sections III - VI where Robinson's in depth analysis and great research builds the historical context with absolutely compelling arguments for the priority of John.

Section VII & VIII on the teaching and person of Christ are comparatively less worthwhile, but nevertheless have some really thought provoking insights (for example that 'Eternal life' is John's term synonymous with 'the Kingdom of God/Heaven'), albeit until the end when the liberal bent of Robinson is revealed in his agnosticism regarding the divinity of Christ. Nevertheless in a sense this is overall even more compelling because we have a liberal bishop coming out firmly on the conservative side of scripture! In all this Robinson has truly engaged with biblical academia at the highest level and crushed them!

Although this is surely one, if not the most important work on the New Testament ever written, there are a few issues. Regrettably Robinson never finished it - rather he left a manuscript which has been barely, if at all, edited before publication, thus there are incomplete and obscure sentences rather than a lucid edited final product. This all makes a detailed reading rather tedious. Furthermore there is frequent use of Greek without even transliteration, which makes grasping the sense for those not versed in biblical Greek quite difficult at times.

[JonM · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very insightful book even though its not an easy book to reference.

[Kingsley Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no need to think of the priority to read this book. It simply does enough to enforce that John is not based on the Synoptics; it is not subsequent. I enjoyed it.