D. Moody Smith lucidly explains the theological ideas of the Gospel of John, one of the most important documents of the New Testament. He concentrates on its presentation of Jesus as the Christ, and deals also with such topics as God, the scriptures, the Church, and the spirit. These topics are related insofar as possible to the specific setting in which the Gospel was written, since one cannot understand such theological concepts in the abstract. The book is an ideal introduction to the question of the origin of the Gospel of John as well as its theology.

In The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel D. Moody Smith engages the masterful commentary on John by Rudolf Bultmann, evaluating critically his views of John's sources, order, redaction, and meaning. A book every bit as helpful for understanding Bultmann's work as the work itself, this book is now made accessible in paperback form fifty years after its original publication. Introduced admirably with a new foreword by the author's former doctoral student, R. Alan Culpepper, the printing of this monograph makes for essential reading in Johannine studies and New Testament studies...