Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John [Paperback]

Bruce J. Malina (Author), Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers (January 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800629922
• ISBN-13: 978-0800629922
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indespensible tool for studying the Gospel of John, May 22, 2000

By 

Loren Rosson III (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Paperback)

Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh show that the Christian community of John's Gospel was an "anti-society", that is, a consciously alternative society consisting of exiles, rebels, or ostracized deviants. (They note parallel examples of anti-societies, such as reform-school students in Poland, members of the underworld in India, and vagabonds in Elizabethan England.) As such, it had developed its own "anti-language", that is, a resistance language used to maintain its highly sectarian religious reality. This accounts for many of the strange expressions found in the gospel. For instance, the Christians of this community referred to all outsiders as people of "this world". They believed that all members of wider society -- especially "the Jews" -- lay outside the scope of redemption and were completely beyond the pale. Like all anti-societies, they overlexicalized their language, which basically means that they used redundant euphemisms. Thus, "believing into Jesus", "abiding in him", "loving him", "keeping his word", "receiving him", "having him", and "seeing him" all meant the same thing. Likewise, "bread", "light", "door", life", "way", and "vine" were all redundant metaphors for Jesus himself. This anti-language served to maintain inner solidarity in the face of pressures (or perhaps even persecutions) from wider society. Unlike the religious language found in the Synoptic Gospels or Paul's letters, John's language would have been meaningless in the context of wider Judeo-Christian society ("this world").

Understanding this social background is crucial for interpreting the gospel as a whole and controversial passages in particular.........................

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but..., September 21, 2000

By 

Stanislao Esposito "Father Stanislao" (Delaware, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Paperback)

As I said on the review of the Synoptics: I enjoyed the book that, with its companion "on the synoptic gospels", form a source of "inside" information that otherwise I woudln't have access to. The book is structure according to a regular commentary with additional "notes" or "reading scenarious." Unfortunately, there are no footnotes; therefore, when they tell you abuot a particular custom of that time, there is no direct reference to a primary source. Therefore, you have to take their words for it. There is a bibliography, which can help a bit, but still you're left with no way to further a specific point.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Necessary, with mitigation, December 15, 2007

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Nathan J. Sweet (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Paperback)

Dr. Malina's commentary on the Johanine gospel is indispensable. Face it, nobody is engaging the New Testament in this way, his commentaries are powerful and are ushering in a new era of Biblical scholarship. As to not engaging text criticism, Malina explicitly states in the introduction that the commentary will not do it and that the commentary is supplemental to other good commentaries that do engage the technicalities of the text. As for original meaning of the text, look no farther, you have found your commentary. I have one complaint about this book: the characterization of the Johanine writer as a community astral seer is dubious. I don't think Malina makes any attempt to explain or elaborate why this is the case, however it taints the commentary very little as it is only important to the prologue of John.