Alan Asay has written a commentary on the gospel of John that is scholarly and meticulously researched. That much I expected of him – what has surprised me is how readable his book is. I never imagined that I would be able to say I was inspired by a volume of biblical commentary, but I have been by this. I have found it to be a page-turner: beautifully, easily written and brimming with personality.

Alan Asay is a Quaker, and it shows: his illumination of the spiritual connections linking John’s gospel with the writings of the Quaker Isaac Penington and the psychoanalyst Carl Jung have helped me to understand a gospel that I have often found difficult. I recommend his book wholeheartedly.

 

– Geoffrey Durham

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This is John’s introduction to the main character in his narrative, namely Jesus Christ.  To say that the reference here is simply to a man named Jesus who lived at a certain time and in a particular place is insufficient. This figure is a symbol, and symbols express something largely unconscious and in need of further elaboration in consciousness.

….in this new commentary placed before us by Alan Asay, we have a contemporary reflection on the meaning of this symbol in which the author combines religious, scholarly and psychological methods to bring the meaning of John’s narrative about the mystery of the Word made flesh into modern consciousness. Hermeneutical work on John’s Gospel is without doubt a labour that will continue indefinitely through the Ages. Symbols such as the one John presents in his narrative about “the only begotten Son of God,” Jesus Christ, are absolutely inexhaustible.

 

– Murray Stein

 

In my final year of university, I changed my field of study from New Testament Greek to the law.  “The law,” observed my Greek professor astutely, “is a jealous mistress.”  She was indeed.  Always she had more for me to know and better skill to require.  I left her by retiring a few years ago, and since then I have kept a promise to myself of over fifty years ago.  I have returned to the gospel of John. It is as wonderful as I remembered.  I have brought to it now some of what life has taught me in the meantime: Jungian psychology and a love for my gentle Friend Isaac Penington.  I involve them both in retelling John’s story of the life of Jesus.

 

– Alan Asay