Each of the previous three volumes in the series “New Testament Gospels in their Judaic Contexts” began with preliminary introductions crafted to the particular Gospel at issue and the stage of the work of comparison represented. The first volume, A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark (NTGJC 1; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), dealt with the task of comparison as such (pp. vii–xii) and also explained the literature with which the Gospel was to be compared in some detail, with bibliography (pp. 1–60). The second volume, A Comparative Handbook to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (NTGJC 2; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), supplemented the introductory discussions in regard to both the task of comparison and the Judaic literature involved (pp. vii–viii, 1–46). The third volume, Synoptikon: Streams of Tradition in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (NTGJC 3; Leiden and Boston, 2023) treated the relationship among the Synoptic Gospels on the basis of our earlier work. The Synoptikon assumes the bibliographical treatment of the first two volumes (cf. p. vii), because its own prologue was devoted to a discussion of the formation of the Synoptic Gospels (pp. 1–27). Our intent has been to offer readers of the series access to the foundations of our analysis without undue repetition from volume to volume.
When Professor Jacob Neusner and I approached our editors at Brill, initially Elisabeth Erdman-Visser and then Loes Schouten, with the proposal for the series, our intent was to concentrate on the Synoptic Gospels. As that work progressed, the suitability of the work that became the Synoptikon came into focus, and we also increasingly thought in terms of a volume devoted to John’s Gospel. My fellow editors have embraced that task with their characteristic acumen, and we are happy to offer the result. The engagement has been deeply encouraging as well as productive, and I am especially grateful that Professor Alan J. Avery-Peck has joined me as series editor, having already partnered with Professor Neusner in regard to Rabbinic Literature.
As we turn to John’s Gospel, two kinds of adjustment should be signaled from the outset. These adjustments do not take the place of our earlier discussions of the task of comparison, our introductions to the literatures with which we compare John, or our analysis of Gospel formation. Rather, here we point out the sources that particularly occupied us as we dealt with comparisons with John. In addition, the stylistic presentation of John, typified both by carefully constructed discourses and evocative narrative depictions, differs markedly from that of the Synoptic Gospels in being relatively seamless, and John’s order of presentation is also quite distinctive. For these reasons, the identification of streams of tradition that comparison uncovers, as in the Synoptikon, is less categorical. Instead, John’s discursive and narrative techniques are targeted in order to assess how such streams, comparable to several Judaic literatures, may be seen to have been incorporated within characteristically Johannine cycles of presentation. The next section sets out resources of particular note for understanding John, provided by way of supplementing the discussion in volumes 1 and 2, while the Epilogue provides a resumé of the cycles and streams of presentation. These are individually discussed in the body of the volume, as in the prior volumes, in the materials devoted to “Analysis.”
Bruce Chilton
Annandale
Pentecost 2025