I’ve always had a hard time with reading the Gospel of John. I love the Gospels because Jesus is in them, but between the four Gospel, John is difficult for me. Pretty much everything Jesus says or does is enigmatic, and they way people respond to him can be just as confusing! I co-taught Mark a few semesters back, and since (and even before) John has been on the back burner with the Synoptics up in front.
When I heard about Skinner’s book Reading John, about a few of the reviews that praised it, and about how short it was I was interested to see if Skinner could teach me to read John.
Skinner teaches at and blogs at Cruxsolablog.
Summary
Chapter One is an outline of the rest of the book. Skinner is not blind to the fact that he sees “the Gospel of John not as it is, but as” he is (2). Skinner has his own lenses in which he reads John’s Gospel, and we all have ours. Despite laboring to be as objective as possible, he knows he still has his own life lenses. It is here where Skinner lays out his main goal: “Above all, I want to help others become better, more perceptive readers of the Gospel of John, with an ability to trace the rhetoric of the narrative from beginning to end” (2). If you take this to mean that you’ll see the flow of the entire Gospel, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Rather Skinner intends to give us the principles of John’s rhetoric so that we can figure out how to read the rest of John’s Gospel.
Chapter Two examines John’s prologue (1.1-18) and how it hints at themes that will be seen throughout the Gospel. After reading the first 18 verses, the readers already know more than the characters do.
Chapter Three shows us how to read John on two levels. Skinner is very good at bridging the cultural divide, and uses an example of Toy Story 3. On one level, TS3 is a fun movie for kids where Andy finally grows up and his toys need to feel like they are wanted. On another level, parents know that Andy represents their own children, and one day their children will grow up, leave home for college, and start off on their own journey. Here, “the Gospel of John tells the story of Jesus while also revealing the story of a community in crisis” (34).
Chapter Four is about the Jewishness and the presumed anti-Jewishness of John’s gospel. Many have used the Gospel of John to attack the Jews, saying they are the ones guilty of the death of Christ. Here Skinner illuminates the Jewish background of John by pointing out the Jewish characters, the Jewish settings, the Jewish Christological phrases (like “lamb of God”), and the Jewish feasts found throughout the Gospel. He shows how “the Jews” are viewed in John, both positively and negatively, and then raises a solution on how to work with the tension.
The focus of Chapter Five is to “examine closely the distinctiveness of Jesus’ speech” (70) giving attention to his I AM statements (including the seven well-known statements and more), the use of irony, double amen sayings, and literary asides (or parenthetical statements).
Chapter Six tells us that, besides Jesus, it is the characters’ actions, not the characters themselves, that are important. In fact, “almost every character exists to serve the narrator’s agenda, which is to clarify the gospel’s exalted Christology” (98). Peter is provided as a test case on how characters misinterpret Jesus.
Having all of this in mind, in Chapter Seven Skinner brings us through John 3. Nicodemus is introduced. He is male, a ruler, a named character, and comes to Jesus at night. Jesus speaks with double entendre, and Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, misunderstands all that the Jewish Jesus says, which, of course, is ironic. The narrator clarifies Jesus’ mission in vv16-21, using terms found in the Prologue (1.1-18).
Chapter Eight is a short postscript telling us how to read John theologically. Skinner says, “[The] Gospel of John ultimately speaks about God and to humanity in ways that remain universally important” (144).
The Spoiled Milk
There were a few issues I had with the book, but I’ll focus on one main view that I disagreed with. And though I disagreed with it, my main issue was a lack of argument/evidence for this view.
Skinner believes that not everything in the Gospel is historical, but is there to make a point. While I disagree, I also don’t think Skinner gives much evidence to back up this view. He says, “Often when I teach the Gospel of John, I find it necessary to point out that even though the gospel presents a sharp conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, such a conflict is historically unlikely. The Jesus movement was likely not big enough during Jesus’ lifetime for such a significant divide to have developed“ (64).
Why does John give his readers unhistorical stories about Jesus? It may very well be that the Gospel is a “theologically stylized narrative with historical roots, which most closely resembles Greco-Roman biography (bios)” (45). According to Skinner, the Johannine community (those receiving John’s gospel and letters) are Jewish and are being expelled from the synagogues by Jewish friends, relatives, and leaders for their belief in Christ. John writes his Gospel so that the Jewish Christians will see themselves in it. They are the “blind man” in John 9, and those who reject them are “the Jewish leaders” who can’t see who Jesus really is. In “narrative terms, ‘the Jews’ represent not any or all people of Jewish origin, but rather those who reject the revelation of God in and through Jesus” (65). Basically, there are only two sides: “those who accept Jesus and those who reject him” (65). I agree this is sentence is true, but I don’t agree that the conflicts in John are unhistorical.
There simply isn’t enough evidence or discussion to convince me of Skinner’s view. I’m no Johannine scholar, so I must remain as one of the “many casual readers of the Bible [who] assume that everything they read in the New Testament reflects ‘what actually happened’” (37).
Recommended?
Despite the above, yes, this book is well recommended. Though I don’t agree with all of Skinner’s points, this is truly an introductory book for John, and one that is written by a scholar. So often the introductory books are written as if you’ve spent years in research on the Bible, but Skinner brings the cookies down from the top shelf and shares his knowledge with everyone interested in the Gospel of John. This would be a good source for required reading in a John class.
But, the main question, did Skinner teach me how to read John? It’s still tough by far, but I would say he has succeeded in teaching me how to read John and in giving me a new interest in this neglected gospel. And that interest is the most important of all.
Lagniappe
- Paperback: 164 pages
- Publisher: Cascade Books (April 3, 2015)
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[Special thanks to Wipf & Stock for allowing me to review this book. I was not required to give a positive review in exchange for this book].
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