""It has been the fate of many books on John to be left unfinished, for
its interpretation naturally forms the crowning of a lifetime. I have
myself been intending to write a book on the Fourth Gospel since the
'fifties, before I broke off (reluctantly) to be Bishop of Woolwich,
though I am grateful now that I did not produce it prematurely at that
time. It means however that I shall be compelled to refer to and often
recapitulate material directly or indirectly related to the Johannine
literature, which I have written over the years (some of it indeed while
I was bishop). ""Many scholars in fact, if not most now, think that the
author of the Gospel himself never lived to finish it and have seen the
work as the product of numerous hands and redactors. As will become
clear, I prefer to believe that the ancient testimony of the church is
correct that John wrote it 'while still in the body' and that its
roughnesses, self-corrections and failures of connection, real or
imagined, are the result of its not having been smoothly or finally
edited. If so I am in good company. At any rate who could wish for a
better last testimony from his friends than that 'his witness is true'
(John 21.24)? In other words, he got it right--historically and
theologically."" --from the Introduction At the time of his death in
December 1983, John Robinson had completed the text of the book on which
his 1984 Bampton lectures were to be based, so that it is possible to
see the full details of his extremely controversial argument that the
Gospel of John was the first Gospel to be written. Dr. Robinson himself
once described the dawning of his conviction that this was the case as a
'Damascus Road experience', and his presentation of the evidence is made
with all the customary vigor with which he would argue for something in
which he deeply believed. The objections which need to be overcome to
stand on its head what has long been one of the fundamental assumptions
of New Testament scholarship are substantial, but here once again Dr.
Robinson shows that so much of what is taken as established fact in that
area is no more than preference and presumption. Certainly he will
provoke rethinking on a whole series of topics, from the chronology of
Jesus' ministry to the nature of his teaching. As The Listener said of
the equally controversial Redating the New Testament: ""The greatest
pleasure Dr. Robinson gives is purely intellectual. His book is a
prodigious virtuoso exercise in inductive reasoning and an object lesson
in the nature of historical argument and historical knowledge."" This
sequel equals, if not excels, its predecessor in those respects and is a
fitting tribute to a brilliant New Testament scholar. The manuscript was
prepared for publication by Dr. Chip Coakley, Dr Robinson's pupil, now
Lecturer in Religious Studies in the University of Lancaster. John A. T.
Robinson was a New Testament scholar who served as Bishop of Woolswich,
England as well as Dean of Trinity College, University of Cambridge.
Among his many writings are Redating the New Testament, Honest to God,
and Wrestling with Romans.
