Come and Read

Come and Read is a unique volume that both introduces numerous interpretive approaches to the Bible and includes examples in action with contributions from top scholars in the field. The book takes up three different passages throughout John’s Gospel—John 1:1–18, John 10, and John 20—and sets four different approaches to each passage side-by-side. The three selected texts move readers through the Gospel story and represent the three major sub-genres featured in the Gospel. John’s Prologue (1:1–18) is written in poetic style; John 10 represents a major discourse; and John 20 takes the form of dramatic narrative prose. Each section of the book includes readings on the focus passage from the same four interpretive perspectives: intertextual, sociocultural, rhetorical, and narrative. These approaches are broadly conceived to showcase varieties present even within approaches and how these ways of reading are connected to and benefit from one another. Overall, this book provides insight into current interpretive practices on the Gospel of John, and the rest of the Bible. It demonstrates how to use these methods effectively, illustrating not only the value of using a variety of approaches for interpretation, but also how methods impact the interpretations rendered.

Four approaches, three chapters in the Gospel of John. Students become acquainted with John, see how the Prologue, John 10, and John 20 can be interpreted applying narrative, intertextual, sociocultural, and rhetorical criticism, and discover the range of perspectives embraced by each of these approaches. Come and Read is an apt title for this inviting, fresh, conversation-fostering collection of essays. -- R. Alan Culpepper, Mercer University
New Testament scholarship has long been a methodologically obsessed discipline, though it has often been true that practitioners of various approaches have not engaged in constructive dialogue with one another. This creative and substantive volume aims to redress that division by putting multiple reading strategies side-by-side in order to demonstrate their potential to illumine the text of the Fourth Gospel. Each member of this stellar cast of contributors is attuned to different nuances of the text in a way that beckons you to “come and read.” I love this book! -- Christopher W. Skinner, Loyola University Chicago
What meaning we get from the Bible depends on what questions we ask. In this well-conceived and well-executed book, readers will learn this vital but underappreciated truth through clear and consistent presentation of different ways to read the Gospel of John. The book shows that the most generative interpretations are not exclusive but rather allow multiple questions to be asked: a multi-faceted approach yields the more interpretative fruit. This book will be of enormous use in classrooms and for anyone trying to understand the richness of the Bible. -- Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Princeton Theological Seminary

Alicia D. Myers is associate professor of New Testament and Greek at Campbell University Divinity School.

Lindsey S. Jodrey is associate director of digital learning at Princeton Theological Seminary.

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