The Courageous Gospel is intended for use alongside a commentary (Ashton, Brown, Bultmann, Barrett, other) in a class introducing the Fourth Gospel. The book has four parts: –A succinct summary of key matters of introduction; –A collection of sermons on the Gospel's core chapters, with reflective reminiscence and remembrance of what Raymond Brown said in lecture about the Gospel thirty years ago; –A series of background lectures that attempt, on the one hand, to honor the key insights of the current opinion communis (that Jewish apocalyptic explains John) and, on the other hand, to open the door to further insights from an older perspective needed for a full appreciation of John (that the Hellenistic Gnostic background explains John);
–A set of pedagogical appendices, employable in the classroom, to aid discussion. Together these components attempt to provide the necessary second book for an introduction to the Fourth Gospel, engaging the commentaries with the hermeneutical, homiletical, exegetical, and pastoral implications of a first-level study of John.
