Customer Reviews

Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel

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This book is a masterful and detailed discussion of the lawsuit motif in John's Gospel. Bringing much of his earlier work on John's Gospel together in a single volume, Lincoln approaches the Gospel from a witness/testimony/trial aspect, which he shows is intrinsic to the Gospel message itself. Lincoln shows how the fourth Gospel's literary and theological structure contribute to this trial theme.

In the first section of the book, Lincoln evaluates the narrative as narrative, and how a lawsuit theme can be found in the narrative itself, according to plot, structure, and characters.

In the second section, he deals with the cosmic lawsuit found in Isaiah 40-55 and how the same themes come up in John's Gospel. He then (in part three) comments on some key stages in the trial narrative.

Fourth, Lincoln writes about more general themes of lawsuit and narrative - genre, reader, persuasion, etc. Next, he evaluates the main themes of the Gospel, the judge, witnesses, testimony, and so forth. In part six, Lincoln evaluates the trial motif from a historical and social perspective (i.e. 1st century background).

In parts seven and eight, he explains Ricoeur's 'Hermeneutics of Testimony,' as well as answering four key objections to his proposal (i.e. anti-semitism, violence, metanarrative, etc). Finally, he ends with four key reflections on this trial motif in the Gospel.

A study of John's Gospel without this book would be incomplete. I highly recommend this to all students of Scripture - of deutero-Isaiah as well as John's gospel specifically.

As I have been researching the Gospel of John I have ran across Andrew Lincoln's name a few times and thought I would pick up a copy of this work to get a sense of his thoughts on the central motif of John. I was not sure what to expect but found myself pleasantly surprised and refreshed by Lincoln's assessment of the fourth Gospel.

The main premise of the book is that Isaiah 40-55 is a picture of God's dealings with the nation of Israel. By bringing out the wording and sense of the original Hebrew Lincoln effectively shows that Isaiah characterizes God's dealings with the nations as a lawsuit. God was pressing a suit against the world so that he might prove to them that he is God and there is no other. This lawsuit was not one of condemnation but one is which God intended to offer salvation. He compares the language of Isaiah with the language of John to show that it is quite likely that John was using this piece of Isaiah as a way to understand the events which happened with Jesus' life and ministry. The Gospel of John shows God pressing a lawsuit and man pressing a counter-suit against God.

He demonstrates that John uses quite a bit of legal language such as "witness," "testimony," "judgment," "paraclete," and even the double "amen" (truly, truly). Over and again he connects these passages with those in Isaiah and with some in other Old Testament books to show that the truth was presented in John in the form of a trial. It is not merely a trial that was faced by Jesus but a continuous cosmic trial which in many ways continues in the present. He tackles key issues in the narrative itself by analyzing the literary style of the book and suggested key points in the plot as intersections for the lawsuit theme. He examines aspects of Jewish-Christian relations at the time of the book's authorship to find issues that may give insights into the importance it would have served for it's original audience. He ends the book talking about contemporary issues that interact with the Gospel and suggests ways in which we can use this book to address those realities.

There were a few things that I found a little hard to swallow and would definitely disagree with. First of all, his idea of historical truth I did not find compelling. Lincoln is unsure whether John as a story is actually true in the "forensic" sense of the word. In fact, he seems unsure if any of the gospels are entirely true and has this basic approach to historical record in general. In one place he suggest that Thucydides for example rewrote a lot of speeches and political orations in his words and then attributes them to others. As a historian myself I studied some Greek history and know that this is in fact highly controversial. We have every reason to believe that Thucydides may have faithfully recorded the speeches of Pericles word for word. My point in bringing this out is that he feels that all history from this period is likely contaminated and yet somehow he talks his way through it so as to label it as "truth" even though it may not be accurate facts. I had a difficulty with this part of the work itself. Second of all, I really do not like his "Johannine Community" theory. This is a very common idea from Bultmann down but it is falling into disrepute and being renounced by scholars who are now realizing this model as proposed by Brown and Bultmann is not necessary.

There were minor issue like those listed above but overall I found the work to be stimulating and thought provoking, and as you can see despite my disagreements with the work I am still giving it a 5 star. The other ideas in this book are so intriguing that these small disagreements are really a minor issue and should not detour one from purchasing this book. It is very accessible to general audiences and if you intend to study the Gospel of John I think that this book is an absolute must for your library. I will definitely be reading some of Lincoln's other works in the future.