The Gospel According to John: An Introduction and Commentary (Pillar New Testament Commentary) (Hardcover)

by Donald A. Carson (Author) "The Prologue is a foyer to the rest of the Fourth Gospel (as John's Gospel is often called), simultaneously drawing the reader in and introducing..." (more)
Key Phrases: strong asseverative, vine imagery, cff notes, Fourth Gospel, Old Testament, New Testament (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In this solid evangelical commentary on John's Gospel, a respected Scripure expositor makes clear the flow of the text, engages a small but representative part of the massive secondary literature on John, shows how the fourth gospel contributes to biblical and systematic theology, and offers a consistent exposition of John as an evangelistic Gospel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 715 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (January 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802836836
• ISBN-13: 978-0802836830
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,214 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Standard Evangelical Commentary on John, May 26, 2006

By	J. F Foster - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Anyone hoping to write an exhaustive commentary on the Fourth Gospel will die long before they finish. The FG is widely recognized as being the kind of work in which the interpretational possibilities are almost endless. One can focus on Christology, election, sacramentalism, atonement and resurrection, the church, or none of the above. As a result, when one reads any commentary on John, the reader is advised to pay attention to what the author tends to pay attention to, because this will say something about the author's own theological emphases. This is good to know because not only will the reader get a better idea of where the author is coming from, he will also be on alert for ways in which the commentary may be imbalanced as a result of emphasizing certain things and neglecting others. Such is the reality of Johannine scholarship and the richness of the FG.

In the case of Carson, the reader will find the strongest evangelical defense of apostolic authorship among the commentary encyclopedia devoted to the FG. As a result, the reader will also find a commentary that takes the historical veracity of the narrative seriously and attempts to interact with the material from the perspective of considering the material to be normative and historically reliable. This alone separates this commentary from most other major commentaries on the FG in the last 40 years.

Carson properly interacts with the heavy hitters in Johannine scholarship such as Bultmann, Brown, Barrett, Smith, and Culpepper. Carson's interaction with Brown and Culpepper is especially good and provides a solid rebuttal to their differing approaches to literary interpretation.

The commentary is thorough in its coverage of the FG, but like all commentaries, is inevitably incomplete. Carson has his hot buttons just like everyone else, and the result is a good emphasis on issues such as authorship, testimony, election, and christology. The downside is that other emphases, like the much neglected motif of hospitality in the FG and its ramifications on christology, election, the church, etc is ignored. Is this enough to give the book a 4 star rating instead of 5? If so, then no commentary on John would be worthy of a 5 star rating for the reasons already mentioned. For what Carson attempts to do, he does it very well. For this reason, the book deserves 5 stars and should be the standard work on John that evangelicals in particular should consult.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great John Commentary, August 19, 2004

By	Carl A. Dixon (Bradenton, Fl United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Gospel According to John (Hardcover)

I have just finished reading through this commentary for the third time. I have read many commentaries on John's Gospel and consider this one of the best evangelical commentaries on John available today. Carson interacts with many views on controversial items but is never boring. The commentary is a good mix of excellent and profound scholarship but never loses its readability. If one is not familiar with the Greek Language of the Bible this commentary is a good one. If you do have a working knowlege of Greek, Carson is an excellent Greek exegete and you will find satisfaction here. I recommend this great commentary wholeheartedly.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good intermediate level commentary on John, September 17, 1999

By A Customer

As I write this review, I am preaching through the gospel of John in the church I serve as pastor. Taken on its own merits, this is a good commentary by a fine Evangelical NT scholar which leans more toward theological exposition than either in-depth analysis of the Greek text or outright sermonic form. For myself, I find it useful, but I cannot say that it stands out among the many other commentaries I am also using. Barrett and Brown are better on the Greek text and strike me as more insightful; Morris (in the revised edition) is still my first choice for the pastor because his writing style is clearer, his tone is more devotional, and he has much more quotable material for sermons (not to mention the goldmine of info in the footnotes); Ridderbos is a more astute theological exposition than Carson's work, while Bruce and Newbigin are better popular level commentaries (not to mention the more sermonic works like Boice, Hughes and Milne). Given my assessment of Carson's work among its peers, I admit that I wonder why this volume was published (of course, that could go for the whole Pillar series of which it is a part. They are all decent volumes, but none are the best available and do not always surpass even earlier works). There is little in it that cannot be found in other volumes (although to be fair, Morris's revised work and Ridderbos are both later than Carson's commentary). This commentary was originally intended for the Tyndale series, which means that it would have been much shorter and more popularly oriented. That effort, I would very much have liked to see, since there is no recent work at that level, since Carson could have given us a crisp, concise guide to John packed with sage advice. In sum, my recommendation is that you should use Carson in your preaching and teaching, but it is not indispensible if you already have (or have access to) some of the other works cited in this review (most notably Morris and Ridderbos). One last thought, all this could change if Carson were to revise the work any time soon (it is ten years old now), or even offer a shorter version of it in the Tyndale series (as Alec Motyer did on Isaiah).