Description:The first comprehensive study of St. John's Gospel in forty years, this book provides new and coherent answers to what Rudolf Baltmann regarded as the two great riddles of the Gospel: its position in the history of Christian thought, and its central or governing idea. Ashton provides translations of all non-English quotations, and confines detailed exegetical arguments and intricate questions of specialized concern to the footnotes, therein making Understanding the Fourth Gospel an accessible study of the Gospel for the general reader.