John Through the Centuries

This pioneering commentary embraces the full scope and themes raised in John''s Gospel, offering an engaging and perceptive reading. Mark Edwards explores a diverse range of excerpts and creative responses, with particular emphasis on the treatment of the Gospel in English poetry.

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• Explores the diverse themes and issues raised in John’s Gospel, and considers its influence on figures from Saint Augustine, to Dorothy Sayers and Bob Dylan.
  
• Treats well-known interpreters such as Thomas Aquinas along with lesser-known figures such as the Gnostic Heracleon, and the sixth-century hymn-writer, Romanos.
  
• Brings ancient and modern commentators into dialogue with each other, and takes a critical stance towards some parallels drawn by modern scholars between the Gospel and the surrounding pagan culture.
  
• Features excerpts from a wide variety of poets who give a creative interpretation of John’s Gospel, and considers many artistic representations.
  
• Suggests that imaginative response can illuminate a reading of the Bible where purely critical and historical analysis has proved unsatisfactory.
  
• An accessible introduction and extensive section notes address interpretations of the Gospel from antiquity to the present.
  
• Published as part of the ground-breaking Blackwell Bible Commentaries series.

More information about this series is available from the Blackwell Bible Commentaries website at http://www.bbibcomm.net/