A Journey Round John: Wendy North’s Forthcoming Book

I had drawn to my attention that a new book on a field of great interest to me – Johannine Christology – is due out soon: Wendy North’s A Journey Round John: Tradition, Interpretation and Context in the Fourth Gospel (The Library of New Testament Studies), published by Bloomsbury. You can advance order the book with a 35% discount using this A Journey Round John pre-order form. Here is the blurb:

In A Journey Round John Wendy E. S. North considers a range of themes relevant to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. First, the relationship between the Gospel and 1 John. North explores the value of the Epistle as a means of identifying traditional material the evangelist knew; on which basis she appeals to 1 John to account for the form of Jesus’ prayer in chapter 11. Second, John’s Christology in which North looks to John’s cultural roots in monotheistic Judaism to understand his capacity to align Jesus with God. Third, the crucial issue of ‘the Jews’ in John, where North clarifies the data by observing a narrative logic in John’s use of the expression. Fourth, North identifies John’s ‘anticipated’ eschatology as a consolation strategy aimed at a readership struggling under life-threatening circumstances in the absence of Jesus. Finally, North looks at John and the Synoptics, and demonstrates how evidence drawn from the Gospel itself can serve to indicate whether or not John composed directly on the basis of the Synoptic record. This collection draws together a number of ground-breaking studies from over thirty years of work on the Fourth Gospel, presenting a coherent development of thought on this crucial Christian text. Wendy E. S. North is a widely published Johannine scholar. She gained a PhD from Bangor University, UK, in 1997 and has taught at the Universities of Hull and Durham, UK. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, UK.