Jesus: Story of God. John’s Story of Jesus by Derek Tovey (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2007) 190pp

St Augustine in his lectures on the Fourth Gospel made the claim that “St John in his teaching soared to heights far loftier than those attained by the other three evangelists, and it was his wish to carry our hearts with him on his flight.” John is still known as ‘The Theologian’ in the eastern church, and every Coptic priest is obliged to read and meditate on a chapter of the gospel each day.

In approaching a text of such theological depth and richness, a reliable guidebook is helpful, and Derek Tovey has succeeded in producing a creative and accessible introduction to John’s Gospel for a general audience or a beginning student. His greatest achievement in Jesus: Story of God is in crafting a book which takes John’s story of Jesus seriously, and encourages the reader to enter into the gospel as an experience, not simply an intellectual pursuit.

One of the difficulties in approaching the Fourth Gospel is finding a firm place to start from. Many introductory texts confuse their readers by trying to dig up so much of the ancestry and background of the text that the gospel itself gets lost. Can you consider John’s theology before you reach a conclusion about who wrote the gospel and how? Is it one complete work or a patchwork of editions and additions? How does John’s story of Jesus relate to the shared framework found in Matthew, Mark and Luke?

Tovey takes these questions seriously, and Jesus: Story of God is steeped in the insights gained by the turn to narrative in recent biblical scholarship. So he considers some of the questions about the identity and situation of the author, and the thorny issues surrounding the Beloved Disciple in a chapter on ‘The Storyteller’.

In the chapter on ‘The Storyteller’s Art’, he provides a helpful outline of the structure of the gospel and takes seriously the distinctions between the Book of Signs and the Book of Glory, without any sense of losing sight of the wood for the trees. His chapter on Jesus as image, work and word explores not only the seven “I am” statements which are so crucial to John’s picture of Christ but introduces some of the profoundly visual theology of the Fourth Gospel in the concept of the writer-witness.

In considering the person of Christ in the Fourth Gospel, the great New Testament theologian Rudolf Bultmann claimed :“It turns out in the end that Jesus as the Revealer of God reveals nothing but that he is the Revealer.” In a quiet way, Derek Tovey’s book takes issue with such a sterile conclusion. The incarnate Jesus stands at the centre of the whole complex web of John’s narrative, as the story of God told for us, in whom we believe, and to whom we belong. This excellent guide encourages us to see John’s Gospel again with fresh eyes.

Lynda Patterson is Director of Theology House, Christchurch.