The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple

A great book I would love to plug is Richard Bauckham's The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple. It is a great collection of previously published essays by Bauckham on a wide variety of issues related to the historiography and theology of the Gospel of John. Some of the more unique articles in my opinion would be his revisiting of the issue of John and the Qumran sectarians. In the essay he goes against the arguments of Raymond Brown and James Charlesworth (See John and the Dead Sea Scrolls and The New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls edited by Charlesworth for Brown and Charlesworth's arguments) and links the dualistic imagery of John the wider context of intertestamental literature. I may be biased with regard to Bauckham's position as I argued it unaware of Bauckham's approach in my essay The Metaphors of Good and Evil in the Second Temple Period.

Another interesting article is on the gematria of the Gospel of John. Focusing on the 153 fish Bauckham puts forward a rather unique argument for the unity of John - namely with regard to the commonly held positions with regard to the prologue and epilogue.

I will hopefully expand on this book in the near future - but I must say, Bauckham's work has played an important role in my own positions recently.

See Craig Blomberg's review until I return.

If you are inspired to purchase this book, the Amazon link here is great value!