"This text explores ways in which language constrains the body, shackles it to gender, and proposes instead an altogether different way of reading, where words are hermaphroditic and in turn transform desire (consequence). Suggesting that one body conceals another, JE NATHANAEL lends an ear to this other body and delights in the anxiety it provokes."--Small Press Distribution.
The author of a much-loved two volume Matthew commentary (1990) that he greatly revised and expanded fourteen years later, Frederick Dale Bruner now offers The Gospel of John: A Commentary -- more rich fruit of his lifetime of study and teaching. Rather than relying primarily on recent scholarship, Bruner honors and draws from the church's major John commentators throughout history, including Augustine, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Bultmann, Barrett, and many more. Alongside this "historical interpretation" is Bruner's own contemporary interpretation, which incorporates a lucid translation of the text, references to recent scholarship, and his pastoral application of the Gospel to present-day experience. Like Bruner's other work, this commentary is rich in biblical insights, broadly historical, and deeply theological. Here is what Eugene Peterson said about Bruner's earlier work on Matthew: "This is the kind of commentary I most want -- a theological wrestling with Scripture. Frederick Dale Bruner grapples with the text not only as a technical exegete (although he does that very well) but as a church theologian, caring passionately about what these words tell us about God and ourselves. His Matthew commentary is in the grand traditions of Augustine, Calvin, and Luther -- expansive and leisurely, loving the text, the people in it, and the Christians who read it." The same could well be said about the present John commentary, which promises to be another invaluable resource for pastors, teachers, and laypeople alike.
Using the method of literary critical analysis to read the Johannine narrative, Marianus Pale Hera underlines the profound relationship between the Johannine Christology and the Gospel's teaching on discipleship. A narrative reading of selected passages from chapters 1-12 of John (the prologue, Jesus' first disciples, the first sign at Cana, the man born blind, and the I Am sayings) indicates John's tendency to present christological teaching that leads to teaching on discipleship. The reading of these passages also identifies the elements that indicate the christological character of Johannine discipleship. The author's exegesis of John 17 confirms that John's teaching on Christology and discipleship are intimately interrelated to each other. All the elements that indicate the christological character of discipleship are on display in John 17. The author concludes that Christology, which is the center and heartbeat of John's thought, is not an end in itself but leads to discipleship. The twofold message of Christology and discipleship is a distinctive Johannine trait.
