Customer Reviews

Encountering John: The Gospel in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective (Encountering Biblical Studies)

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Dr. Kostenberger has done a good job in his commentary on John. It is written at a level that would stretch Bible college students and would be comfortable for most seminary students. He is a very clear writer and he summarizes frequently and effectively to help the reader gain the most from this book. Most of the charts and diagrams are very helpful as well as the study questions. The appendices are exciting reading into some insights he takes into the Gospel.

Dr. Kostenberger takes the generally accepted conservative stance on nearly all controversial issues. He supports Johannine authorship, a seven-sign structure in the Book of Signs, and the general coherency of the text. He views are supported heavily from the biblical data.

This commentary would do well to any student of the New Testament wanting a good intermediate commentary that does not go into the Greek or much syntactical analysis.

Encountering John is an outstanding college level volume on the fourth Gospel. The book is Evangelical, conservative and scholarly. I found it comprehensive in scope, while concise in content. Kostenberger occasionally presents his personal bias but always supports his views with reasonable arguments. Each chapter includes an outline, objectives, key words, interesting vignettes, and study questions. I would highly recommend the book to the serious student looking for a concise and readable overview of John's Gospel.

Encountering John by Andreas Kostenberger is part of the Encountering Biblical Studies series. These books use a commentary format (dividing Scripture passages into chapter and verse divisions) with a mixture of cultural and historical background, theological perspectives, pictures, literary analysis and application. The scholarship is excellent but not pretentious. Useful introductory material helps instruct the reader on how to use the book for personal study. Sidebars, tables, maps and supplemental essays are also indexed for quick reference. As a teacher, I bought this book for additional information to be used alongside the curriculum in my Gospel of John class. However, I found it to be a greater resource than I imagined and often used the applicational sections rather than that of the curriculum because they were so insightful. The Gospel is divided into 5 sections, each emphasizing a particular aspect of Jesus' ministry as John sees it (for ex. Part 3: Encountering the Earthly Jesus; The Mission to the Jews Including the Seven Signs and Part 5: Encountering the One Who Calls Us to Follow). I particularly like the cultural and historical background aspects of Biblical Study which I find to be a strength of this entire series (examples include: The Significance of Jewish Festivals in John, and the Chronology fo the Passion Narrative in John and the Synoptics). I think Encountering John is one of the best the Encountering Biblical Studies series has to offer (Some of the other volumes I own are Readings From the First-Century World and Encountering the Book of Hebrews).

Most commentaries are useful for helping to decipher problem passages, but they are almost impossible for the average layperson to read from cover to cover. Kostenberger's work can be read from cover to cover (263 pages) with helpful tables, maps, charts, and sidebars which help the reader gain a better understanding of the Gospel of John. Kostenberger does not shy away from problem passages nor controversial topics (such as the differences between the Synoptic Gospels and John). He addresses these topics with research and sound argumentation.

After studying the Gospel of John for a number of months, I looked at a number of commentaries and found this one to be the most helpful. Kostenberger helped confirm some of what I learned through my studies and introduced themes and understandings that I completely missed. Even if you are not from a conservative or evangelical perspective, this book should help you understand the Gospel of John.

Too bad there is not a "Encountering" book for every book in the Bible. This is a great series.

The Gospel in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective. That's the subtitle, that's what attracted me to the book, and that's why it gets a five-star review. Because it delivers exactly what it promises, without turning into monstrous tome.

This is a classroom text, complete with tables, charts, pictures, study words, fascinating sidebars, keywords, and some very helpful appendix topics. I'm thinking that perhaps the best way to convey the flavor of this book is to list some of the sidebar headings:

The Double Amen in John's Gospel
Irony in John's Gospel
The Significance of Jewish Festivals in John's Gospel
Did Jesus Come to Bring Judgment or Not?
The Chronology of the Passion Narrative in John and the Synoptics
The Eternal Subordination of the Son
The So-called Johannine Pentecost

The writing is interesting and inspiring, and the topic of John's Gospel is well covered from several angles. I have a couple shelves of books about Johannine writings, and if I were to pick one as a stand-alone introduction, this would be it. The most highly recommended overall learning tool about John's Gospel in my library.

When I first began to study John's Gospel I was unsure where to start. This book is an excellent source for being introduced the exciting field of Johannine studies. This is not to suggest that this book is not beneficial for audiences already exposed to John's Gospel. In fact, even if you have studied the Gospel this is still a very valuable source of information.

First of all, the book is concise. It is not weighed down or too bulky for a new student of John's gospel. It is the right size and it gives all the essential information you need to get started and yet there is a lot of good stuff in it for those who have studied the gospel before. He does very nice summations of the text and while every verse is not discussed in detail it is easy to understand the big picture of the Gospel.

Second of all, the book is conservative. Having already been exposed to a number of scholars in this field it seems that fanciful speculations about the authorship, theology, and history of this book are quite abundant. This book is free from those kind of big leaps. Dr. Kostenberger is rational and logical in his approach to dissecting the text itself. He is faithful to history and to the church fathers.

Lastly, the book is constructive. He builds a nice case for the gospel and his analysis at the end is excellent. He shows how John's gospel is only a "maverick gospel" to some level. He compares John with the synoptics and other books of scripture to show that John is very much orthodox in his understanding of theology and there is no incongruity with his gospel and other writers of the New Testament. It is nice to see John side by side with Peter and Paul. This is refreshing after reading so many writers who want to deconstruct John.

All in all, I think this book is fantastic and if I were to direct a first time student of John's gospel I would direct them first to the gospel itself and next to this book. This is not the "be all end all" of John but it is great to get your feet wet. He gives excellent reflections on things like the subordination/equality paradox in John. He handles the tension between "eschatology now and later" with candor and sensitivity to other schools of thought. This is first source for the new student but also a good source for seasoned scholars as well. This is just a book worth having in your library.

This is a quality commentary with simple but thoughtful writing in 277 pages. This work is characterized by clarity of writing with highlighted points and tables for topical study. Other features include:

1. 10 excursus that include: (1) "life" and "light" in John's Gospel; (2) "the Jews" in John's Gospel; (3) "the absolute 'I Am'" in John's Gospel ...
2. more than 30 tables with wide range of topics e.g. Spirit in John's Gospel, Important terms in the prologue ...
3. photos, sidebars, key words, objectives, outlines, and study questions.
4. The annotated bibliography, tools for study of significant terms, and glossary are especially helpful for serious students to go one step further in study.

By far, it is an absolutely helpful commentary. It is especially helpful for Bible study leaders or Sunday school teachers. For a Bible teacher, this commentary together with a Bible dictionary, a concordance, and a word-study dictionary would be great to prepare a good lesson.

excellent resource for teaching and personal growth - superb style of writing. Every serious student of JOHN needs this book.

Book was received within the specified time and its condition was as advertised.

Thanks

The first book received was inadequate. It had blank or missing pages, the replacement book was just fine and in good shape. Apparently a problem with the publishers!