Family of the King

Nearly all metaphors in the Gospel according to John relate to ancient family imagery. Thus, the disciples are "born of the Father"; the Father "provides them with bread and drink" (water); He "educates" them and "protects" them and a "dwelling" is prepared for them, and so on. This family imagery, which is interwoven throughout the Gospel in a complex network, provides a key to the understanding of the message of the Fourth Gospel. In this volume, after exploring numerous state-of-the-art theories on metaphor, a customised metaphor theory is developed from the Fourth Gospel itself, which can be applied to the analysis of the Gospel as a whole. The theory is based on two of the best-known metaphors in the Fourth Gospel: "I am the Good Shepherd," and "I am the True Vine," Subsequently, all other metaphors are analysed according to this theory.