Commentary on John: From The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary

By Gary M. Burge

Comprehensive, accessible, and fully illustrated--this commentary on John is a must-have resource.

You want a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, but the notes in your study Bible don't give you enough depth or insight. This commentary was created with you in mind.

Each volume of The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary is a nontechnical, section-by-section commentary on one book or section of the Bible that provides reliable and readable interpretations of the Scriptures from leading evangelical scholars. This information-packed commentary will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Bible in your own personal study or in preparation for teaching. It tackles problematic questions, calls attention to the spiritual and personal aspects of the biblical message, and brings out important points of biblical theology, making it invaluable to anyone seeking to get the most out of their Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781493424665

Gary M. Burge

Gary M. Burge (Ph.D., University of Aderbeen) is professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. Among his many published books are The Evangelical One Volume Commentary on the Bible (general editor with A. Hill), John: The Gospel of Life and the award-winning Whose Land? Whose Promise?.

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© 2012 by Baker Publishing Group

Published by Baker Books

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Ebook short created 2019

Previously published in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary edited by Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill in 2012

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ISBN 978-1-4934-2466-5

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Abbreviations

Introduction

Commentary

1. The Prologue (1:1–18)

2. The Book of Signs (1:19–12:50)

A. The Testimony of John the Baptist (1:19–51)

B. Jesus and the Institutions of Judaism (2:1–4:54)

C. Jesus and the Festivals of Judaism (5:1–10:42)

D. Foreshadowing Death and Resurrection (11:1–12:50)

3. The Book of Glory (13:1–20:31)

A. The Passover Meal (13:1–30)

B. The Farewell Discourse (13:31–17:26)

C. The Passion (18:1–19:42)

D. The Resurrection (20:1–29)

E. Conclusion (20:30–31)

4. Epilogue (21:1–25)

A. The Miracle of 153 Fish (21:1–14)

B. Jesus and Peter (21:15–23)

C. Appendix (21:24–25)

Time Lines

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Abbreviations

John

Gary M. Burge

Introduction

Few books of the Bible have influenced the life and thought of the Christian church as has the Fourth Gospel. Its readers have always noted its profundity and literary energy. Here Christians have discovered a portrait of Christ that has been deeply satisfying. We are intrigued to witness how John joins intimacy of expression with penetrating insight. Scholars have poured so much energy into unraveling the Gospel’s many enigmas that the flood of academic articles and books shows no sign of abating. Yet the Gospel seems to evade our grasp and as a result has become an inexhaustible subject of interest.

Until the eighteenth century, the Fourth Gospel was held to be the most accurate and valuable Gospel. But the rise of biblical criticism eclipsed John’s prominence. Critics noted its differences from the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke). Lengthy discourses replaced parables and pithy sayings. John’s language and theology seemed to indicate that here the story of Jesus had been refashioned for the Greek world. The result: the Fourth Gospel could no longer be viewed as contributing reliably to the history of Jesus’s life. Critics looked on its early apostolic origin with grave doubt.

Today scholars hold a variety of opinions concerning this Gospel. They are constantly weighing textual, grammatical, historical, and theological issues. And there are few agreed results. This alone should caution us when yet another interpretative theory is ushered into view. But at least one trend can be charted in this mass of literature. Since the 1950s a fresh appreciation for John has become almost universal. While John does diverge from the Synoptic Gospels, its independent narratives are still to be valued. For instance, only John records Jesus’s dialogue with Nicodemus, but this single witness in no way implies that the incident never happened. More importantly, John’s cultural orientation is now viewed as heavily dependent on the Palestinian Judaism of Jesus’s day. In other words, John’s thought world does not have to be Greek. For example, important Jewish scrolls discovered near Israel’s Dead Sea (Qumran) have proved that Judaism in Jesus’s day was using language similar to that of the Fourth Gospel. Even archaeological finds have substantiated some of the specific narratives of the Gospel that formerly had weathered heavy criticism (e.g., the pool with five porticoes in 5:2).

This new look has reopened a number of old questions. If John’s frame of reference is Jewish, then the Gospel’s date may be early. And if it is early, it may have originated with the circle of apostles—even John the son of Zebedee. Now the possibility of apostolic authority behind the Gospel is a legitimate defensible alternative. Johannine study has indeed come full circle.

Above all, this new outlook on John demands that the interpreter seriously employ the Old Testament and all available Jewish materials. No longer will it suffice to interpret, for example, the miracle at Cana (2:1–11) in terms of the Hellenistic god Dionysus of Thrace, who also supposedly changed water into wine. On the contrary, John’s primary reference is to Jesus’s messianic announcement (using Old Testament and Synoptic imagery). This will be the approach used in this commentary. The message of the Fourth Gospel is clothed with allusions and metaphors that spring from first-century Judaism. Granted, this Judaism was complex and well acquainted with Greek influences, but still, the Gospel’s text is elucidated best when seen as firmly rooted in the Old Testament and Palestinian Judaism.

An icon of John from a larger piece entitled Christ and Twelve Apostles (Antalya, Turkey, nineteenth century AD) [Copyright © Baker Photo Archive. Courtesy of the Antalya Museum, Turkey. ]

Authorship

The Fourth Gospel provides no explicit internal evidence concerning its author. John is nowhere identified as such. But this silence is not unusual and is a feature found in the Synoptics as well. The Fourth Gospel may, however, provide us with clues concealed in the enigmatic figure of the beloved disciple (NIV the disciple whom Jesus loved). This title occurs five times in John (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). John 21:24 describes the beloved disciple as the one who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. Therefore the origin of the Gospel must in some way be connected to this person. The Gospel of John may be a record of his eyewitness account of Jesus’s life.

But who is this disciple? First, some have suggested that he is an idealized literary figure: the ideal Christian disciple. To a degree this is true (he is faithful and intimate in his knowledge of Jesus). But this hardly excludes the possibility of a genuine historical person. Second, Lazarus has sometimes been nominated. Lazarus is the only male figure said to be loved by Jesus (11:3, 5, 36). Further, the beloved disciple texts occur only after Lazarus is introduced in chapter 11. But this solution is unlikely. Why would Lazarus’s name be mentioned in chapters 11 and 12 but then left shrouded in subsequent accounts? Third, we know that a man named John Mark was a part of the early church (Acts 12:12) and that he was associated with Peter. If Mark was related to the Levite Barnabas (Col. 4:10), this may also explain how the beloved disciple knows the high priest in John 18:15. A strong patristic tradition, however, maintains that Mark wrote the second Gospel—and besides, the beloved disciple was certainly one of the Twelve (13:23), and John Mark was not.

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