Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design

by R. Alan Culpepper

This book is an attempt to make some initial tracing of what the gospel looks like through the lens of "secular" literary criticism. As an interdisciplinary study, the work is an effort to contribute to that dialogue by studying the narrative elements of the Fourth Gospel while interacting occasionally with current Johannine research. It is intended not as a challenge to historical criticism or the results of previous research but as an alternative by means of which new data may be collected and readers may be helped to read the gospel more perceptively by looking at certain features of the gospel. This process is to be distinguished from reading the gospel looking for particular kinds of historical evidence. Our aim is to contribute to understanding the gospel as a narrative text, what it is, and how it works. The emphasis will be upon the construction of hypotheses or critique of methods. The gospel as it stands rather than its sources, historical background, or themes is the subject of this study.

Genres: New Testament, Biblical Studies, Religion, Theology

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Dean of the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of numerous works including Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Fortress)

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

R. Alan Culpepper is not a new name to the corpus of Johannine literature that has been released over the last dozen or more years. It was the recommendation of many writers that prompted me to buy this book. I would like to say that I prefer to give good reviews to books and do my best to look for the positive aspects of a book to give it the highest review as I can. Unfortunately, I did not have the same experience as the previous reviewers.

The first thing I would like to say is that Dr. Culpepper is a very intelligent man. His command on literary analysis is impressive and quite useful. I did not find the book accessible to general audiences but I did find it tolerable and certainly penetrable to anyone who wants to do the work. I attribute one's success with it to one's previous exposure to the process of literary review.

His initial idea was very sound. He attempted to analyze the gospel in the same way that he analyzes secular literature and there were a lot of great nuggets of thought. The problem that he has is that looking at the gospel as a kind of novel has skewed his ability to see the Gospel appropriately. While the gospel is a literary creation it is also a piece of truthful material. Claiming to respect the gospel of John while claiming its stories are basically fiction is a backhand not a compliment. The Writer is certainly artistic but having studied this book through repetitive reading and commentaries I am most convinced that the Author of the Gospel (John the Son of Zebedee) fully expects the reader to believe that he is telling the "honest-to-God" truth. Here are a few of the problems that I had with this book.

1. He affirms that there were as many as three writers who wrote this book. There are the stories of the "beloved disciple" who he seems to imply is unlikely John of Zebedee. He simply refers to him as the "Whispering Wizard." Then there is a later writer who wrote the stories down followed by a redactor (a.k.a. liar) who inserts comments and ties the stories to polemics between Christians and Jews in his own time. He gives little to no support for this concoction. Of course, the beloved disciple is not necessarily real or at least not in the form he appears in the book which means there was a liar in the ancient world who run around telling everyone that he was Jesus' best disciple or another liar that made up stories about a imaginary disciple.
2. There are as usual assumptions made about the Johannine Community which had their own secret language and way of communicating which may been so sectarian as to have been isolated from the rest of the church. This of course, is so clearly not the case, and the gospel itself bears witness to the fact that people reading the story have probably already heard about these people in the stories before. John introduces the reader to stories that have not yet happened in his gospel as if they are already aware of it, meaning he is not talking to a group who are segregated from the others.
3. Culpepper does not really believe that the gospels reflect the real Jesus at all. In the very beginning he says that the gospel is not a window into the ministry of Jesus and later in the book he says "the future role of the gospel in the life of the church will depend on the church's ability to relate both story and history to truth in such a way that neither has an exclusive claim to truth." The problem is how do you recognize something as being valid when the author of the work practically swears to you in John 19 that he saw all of this with his own eyes? How can you then say "when art and history, fiction and truth, are again reconciled we will again be able to read the gospel as the author's original audience read it." The suggestion would be laughable if it was not embarassing. Let me make a few comments about this. The author wants the reader to know that all the things he has said happened because he saw them with his own eyes. Furthermore, he puts words in Jesus' mouth and has Jesus affirm them with an official form of "court-swearing via- 'amen, amen or truly, truly'" while fully expecting his readers to know that this is really a fictional story to read like a modern reader might read "The Shack?" First of all, lying is bad enough. Lying about Jesus and pawning it off as true is worse. Putting a solemn oath in Jesus' mouth that he never uttered is sick and borders on blasphemy. If Culpepper is right then maybe we should throw John out of the Bible!

Despite these significant issues there are lots of admirable qualities about the work including his section on irony and symbols. In fact, his section on symbolism was quite excellent and was on par with many of the ideas proposed by Craig Koester in his book on symbolism in John.Overall, I think that the book has it's good sides but found some of the assumptions unpalatable and unacceptable. Having read a large body of literature on John I find that these Bultmann followers are more harmful to the scriptures than helpful. Unfortunately, I can't give this book two thumbs up as it missed the mark...

[Brian LePort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book that really changed the way I read the Fourth Gospel.

[Jrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel is an appropriate title for in this work, Culpepper draws attention to the small literary details that make up the whole Gospel of John. Any serious student of the Fourth Gospel who intends to do in-depth research will greatly benefit from this monograph. In fact, purchasing a copy of this work is profitable for the lists of literary features alone. Culpepper’s methodology is sound and thorough. Some conclusions, however, may be unsafe for a naïve reader. It is recommended for a reader to be familiar with the arguments of higher criticism with an evangelical evaluation before working his way through Culpepper’s Anatomy. This will serve the reader with the necessary background to identify some assumptions and arguments implicit in some of Culpepper’s analysis, especially regarding the authorship and authenticity of John’s Gospel.

[Peter De Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

In reading multiple commentaries on John, this book was referenced repeatedly so I thought it best to read it. It was well worth the read. When I studied the 4th Gospel, the professor followed Bultmann's analysis of the gospel although I did not know it at the time (24 years ago). Culpepper opened a new door on study of this gospel. I lack the scholarly background to do justice to the analysis of its literary design which Culpepper so brilliantly presents. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the current directions of Johannine study.

[Peter De Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading so many commentators on John citing Culpepper, I finally purchased and read the book. I plan to read it a second time. He opens new paths of analysis through the process of literary design of the text. As someone who was a fan of Bultmann's commentary on John, this book opened up a new way of engaging the text.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic, one of the first application of literary/narrative criticism to the Fourth Gospel. Should be a must read for all Johannine students, because I guess in studying the Gospel of John (post-)narratologically, you'll have to start by interacting, criticizing, and even rejecting any one of the theses put forward in this book, and then move on :D

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finished it for the second time.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Awesome book for looking at the Gospel of John through a literary vision. It gave me plenty of ideas of concepts to study and the bibliography was great as well - it lead me to some really interesting reads.

[Terri Milstead · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a dense read. Very scholarly but not one I will likely go back to much as a local pastor. Other books we used for the same course touched on the points about John's Gospel that I think are relevant to teaching and preaching from the book without taking such a deep dive.

[cindy]

Read chapters 1 introduction and 2 "Narrator and Point of View" for Re-Reading John.