Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew T. Lincoln
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 539424
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 544
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.6 x 1.5
ISBN: 1565632826
Dewey Decimal Number: 226.506
EAN: 9781565632820
ASIN: 1565632826
Publication Date: November 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Religious truth has always been in dispute, but there are certain times and places in which the debate has been more intense. One such period was the first century C.E., when the rapid spread of Christianity with its claims about Jesus produced considerable ferment. The Gospel of John, written late in that century, presents that dispute with greater clarity than any other document of the time. John presents a Jesus who claims not only to tell the truth but also to be the truth. And yet, as the Roman magistrate asks Jesus in John's gospel, what is truth?Two millennia later in the Western world, pluralism and postmodernism radically challenge traditional notions of truth. Is there any truth beyond the formal logic of merely analytical propositions? And if there is, do humans have any way of knowing it? Many who have a postmodern perspective deny that either rationality or imagination can give us access to the truth. Instead they adopt a thoroughgoing incredulity toward metanarratives. Truth is again on trial. In Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in John's Gospel, Andrew T. Lincoln links reflection on contemporary issues with careful study of the Fourth Gospel. Exegetical chapters discern the shape of John's narrative and the function of the lawsuit motif within it, describe antecedent uses of the motif in Jewish Scripture, and set John's use of the motif in theological, historical, and social perspective. Closing chapters on contemporary application explore the pervasive power of the trial metaphor in Western literature in relation to recent hermeneutical thought. Over against modern and post modern views, Lincoln argues that Christians can simultaneously exercise critical judgement and accept John's testimony that Christ is the truth.
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| Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Study of John's Gospel September 9, 2008
Shane (Washington State)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a masterful and detailed discussion of the lawsuit motif in John's Gospel. Bringing much of his earlier work on John's Gospel together in a single volume, Lincoln approaches the Gospel from a witness/testimony/trial aspect, which he shows is intrinsic to the Gospel message itself. Lincoln shows how the fourth Gospel's literary and theological structure contribute to this trial theme.
In the first section of the book, Lincoln evaluates the narrative as narrative, and how a lawsuit theme can be found in the narrative itself, according to plot, structure, and characters.
In the second section, he deals with the cosmic lawsuit found in Isaiah 40-55 and how the same themes come up in John's Gospel. He then (in part three) comments on some key stages in the trial narrative.
Fourth, Lincoln writes about more general themes of lawsuit and narrative - genre, reader, persuasion, etc. Next, he evaluates the main themes of the Gospel, the judge, witnesses, testimony, and so forth. In part six, Lincoln evaluates the trial motif from a historical and social perspective (i.e. 1st century background).
In parts seven and eight, he explains Ricoeur's 'Hermeneutics of Testimony,' as well as answering four key objections to his proposal (i.e. anti-semitism, violence, metanarrative, etc). Finally, he ends with four key reflections on this trial motif in the Gospel.
A study of John's Gospel without this book would be incomplete. I highly recommend this to all students of Scripture - of deutero-Isaiah as well as John's gospel specifically.
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