Gospel According to John XIII-XXI

Brown's two volume commentary of John is 45 years-old but remains the best in the English language. Of course, there is the problem that in 1965, when Brown came out with his conservative commentary in which he asserted that the Gospel of John was written by John the son of Zebedee, J. Louis Martyn also published his revolutionary book History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Revised and Expanded) (NTL) (New Testament Library), which forced Brown to expand his commentary in a subsequent book The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Timeswhich provides an important supplement to the commentary.

Kudos for Brown. This is an outstanding addition to your theological library. Brown addresses the scholarly issues and at the same time, has superb insight to the text that preaches. No, it is not the easiest to read and use, but the best seldom are.

We used R.A. Brown's Introduction to the New Testament in our seminary intro class and I've never found him the easiest to read, but I really like his commentary on John's gospel... and on the epistles. For "ugo" who says he's looking for more of an exegetical approach, I would suggest C.K. Barrett's commentary.

Why don't you offer both volumes? I notice that your competition offers the other volume. Another more recent study of John's Gospel is "The Good Wine" by Bernard Barnhart. I highly recommend it also.

If these two volumes were in print, they would be the texts for the Scripture course I'm taking. Overwhelmingly, Raymond Brown is the expert on John. He pulls from decades of research and numerous sources. It appears to be a life's work. He gives a phrase by phrase commentary, verse by verse. A narrative summary ties all the ideas together. He includes notes on translation including many possible views of sense of meaning. After delving into any section the reader should go away satisfied with the answer they need. This is very detailed. Be prepared to spend lots of hours satisfying your thirst.