John

Gerard Sloyan’s commentary is often perceptive about John’s literary artistry, the Gospel’s later ecclesial setting, and the grave pastoral danger of anti-Jewish readings or of treating disability as punishment for sin. Those strengths, however, are repeatedly weakened by overconfident historical and theological reductions. Sloyan too readily infers that because an event has symbolic force or speaks to later church conflict, it was probably not factual—for example, his suggestion that the man in John 9 was not truly blind from birth. Yet the narrative’s symbolism depends on concrete details: the neighbours’ recognition, the parents’ confirmation, the healing at Siloam, and the controversy that follows. He also treats speculative reconstructions, such as rearranging John 5 and 6, more confidently than the evidence allows, rather than first accounting for the theological logic of John’s received sequence. More seriously, although Sloyan rightly distinguishes Jesus from the Father and rejects crude modalism, his recurring language can reduce Jesus to a Galilean human being in whom divine Truth, Light, or Word dwells, rather than the pre-existent Word who was with God and was God, through whom all things were made and who became flesh. This reduction sits uneasily with John 8:58, the unity of Father and Son in John 10, the Good Shepherd’s voluntary saving death for the sheep, and Thomas’s direct confession to the wounded risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” Sloyan’s cross can become primarily an inspiring example of self-giving, and resurrection faith can appear detachable from the bodily risen Lord, whereas John presents the crucified-and-risen Jesus as the source of life, forgiveness, and new creation. The commentary is not irreverent in tone, and its pastoral cautions deserve hearing, but its critical method too often turns genuine literary and historical insights into theological attenuation of John’s witness to the incarnate Word, the saving Shepherd, and the risen Lord.

Unfortunately, this is one of the weakest volumes in the interesting Interpretation series. It offers little homiletic aid and often is a mere restatement of the text. Sloyan is more of an expert in Catholic education and the liturgy than he is in the Johannine literature.