The Fourth Gospel has long been viewed as an enigma, a ‘maverick’ (as R. Kysar called it in 1976), in terms of its relationship to the Synoptics, the question of its sources and especially because of its high christology over against the Synoptics. In his new book (a revised and expanded version of his Shaffer Lectures at Yale in 2018), Jörg Frey, arguably the leading Johannine scholar today, provides a fresh and significant response to these unresolved issues. The book argues that John is neither concerned with an ‘accurate’ historical depiction of Jesus nor uninterested in the Jesus of history. Rather, the uniqueness of John is found in its ‘fusing’ (cf. Gadamer) of the post-Easter concerns of the Johannine communities and a ‘truthful’, Spirit inspired, reimaging and renarration of the foundational Jesus story. The fundamental conclusion is that John is primarily a theological narrative, a ‘spiritual Gospel’ in which the Jesus story has been reshaped by the evangelist, under the leading of the Spirit, for the needs of his readers.

The first chapter, ‘Christology as Theology’, investigates how John's narrative depiction of Jesus bridges the gap between the story of the Jesus of history and the Johannine communities. John's unique portrayal of Jesus as divine (e.g. 1:1; 1:14, 18; 8:58; 10:30; 20:28) and his crucifixion as his glorification/enthronement, to name a few unique aspects, are not to be explained by the Johannine community's estrangement from the synagogue(s) or the community's ‘sectarian’ distancing from other Christian communities. Rather, John's sustained focus on christology developed out of a more ‘open discussion with other early Christian views’, that is, the ‘mainstream of the gospel tradition and especially the Gospel of Mark’ (p. 55).

The question of chapter 2, ‘The Quest for the Jesus of History’, is whether John can be characterised as ‘history’ or ‘theology. Or is the Gospel somehow history and theology, in line with J. L. Martyn's History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (1968)? Frey's answer is that the Fourth Gospel is primarily theology, although the Jesus of history is still important for John's primary theological concerns. Furthermore, Martyn's ‘two level’ drama is on track as far as it goes. But Frey argues that the levels or periods should be widened to include a third: 1) the level of Jesus’ historical ministry; 2) the level of the early communities of Jesus followers in Jewish Palestine and then the diaspora; and 3) the time and perspective of the evangelist and his communities. It is the third level that is most distinctive, or formative, for the unique shape of John's Gospel. It is not possible, Frey contends, to untangle the complicated web of levels that make up the Gospel's narrative. This will mean that those who seek to find in John the kind of ‘Biblical “truth”’ (p. 141) conceived of in terms of historical accuracy will not be able to appreciate what the evangelist really attempted to do: reshape, under the inspiration of the post-Easter Spirit, the memory of who Jesus really was and is for the post-Easter community.

In John's portrayal of the earthly Jesus as truly human but also as the incarnate divine Son of God, the evangelist made use of historical traditions very freely, chief among these ‘traditions’ being Mark's Gospel. This portrayal consisted in a ‘replotting of the Jesus story’ as well as ‘fictionally reimagining new narrative episodes such as the footwashing or the private dialogues of Jesus with Nicodemus, the Samaritan Women, or Pilate’ (p. 143). This procedure raises the questions of chapter 3, ‘The Spiritual Gospel’: ‘How could John be so free with his sources?’ (p. 143). How do we explain John's apparent carelessness regarding historical accuracy? Frey shows that, although narrating events ‘as they were’ or ‘as they happened’ was not John's intention, the Gospel by no means played fast and loose with the history. John's renarration is in fact a ‘truthful’, ‘legitimate’ and even ‘deeper’ interpretation of the historical, earthly Jesus (pp. 146, 179), an interpretation that is, crucially, ‘authorized by Jesus himself’ (pp. 145–6). In an insightful analysis of the terms for ‘remember’/‘remembrance’ (mimnēskomai, mnēmoneuō, hypomimnēskō) in the Gospel (2:17; 2:22; 12:16; 16:4), Frey argues that the Johannine remembering texts are not merely about Jesus’ followers recalling the past of Jesus in some modernist sense of ‘accuracy’ or ‘as it happened’ (p. 146), but rather they point to a Spirit-inspired, ‘retrospective point of view’ (p. 152) that is ‘shaped under the guidance of the Spirit’ (p. 151; cf. John 16:14–15). This retrospective, truthful understanding of the Jesus story is precisely the Spirit's teaching Johannine Christians ‘all things’ and bringing to their ‘remembrance all that Jesus said’ to them (John 14:26).

One of the things that I am left wanting more of (and there are many in this significant book) is Frey's understanding of the relationship between Johannine christological development and other, non-Johannine christological developments that surface in the New Testament. Frey insists that the development of Johannine christology happened ‘in open discussion with other Christian views, especially the Gospel of Mark’ (p. 55). In light of this, what is the relationship between the development of Johannine christology and the ‘development’ of christology evident particularly in Paul's letters. Frey acknowledges that ‘already in Paul Jesus could be … mentioned on the same level with the one God’ (p. 56). Nevertheless, he leaves open the question of the relationship between the dynamic that led to the very high and early christology in 1 Corinthians 8:6 and what Frey sees as a ‘longer process’ (pp. 119–20, 206) for the development of Johannine christology, a process that, according to Frey, took its most mature shape in the time of the evangelist. What could account for Paul's christology in 1 Corinthians 8:6 having already developed to its highest point (I would argue on par with John) at the writing of 1 Corinthians in the mid-50s? Hopefully we can look forward to more in the near future from Frey's prolific pen.

Those who wish to challenge Frey's fundamental view of John in this book will have to offer a better account and exegesis of the key Johannine texts, since Frey's views are, in the end, demonstrated on the basis of fresh exegesis and in dialogue with the most significant scholarly voices. Those interested in John's Gospel, and particularly John's theology, will do well to grapple long and hard with this book.