Graham’s modesty will not thank me for saying that he is one of the finest writers the Christadelphian community can boast. But to be truthful, one would need to go beyond the humble accolade of being a big fish in a small pond as a compliment and state that Graham’s works would not be embarrassed amongst those of other scholars. His former books, The Language of the Cross and Re-Reading Romans, gave academic level treatments of the atonement and the New Perspective on Paul; his latest book brings the same rigour and clarity to the Gospel of John. All his books bring his own insight, from within the Christadelphian frame, to a scholarly dialogue. Yet such statements must carry a note of regret because it is unlikely that Graham’s books will receive a wide reception even within our community, let alone beyond, despite being worthy of us. Partly this is because a wide reception within our community (and wide isn’t that wide) is generally predicated on being published by one of the established publishers, rather than self-publication (as with Graham’s books). Partly this is because (and I mean this as no insult to members of our community) Graham’s writing is erudite but certainly not simple; the price of academic level dialogue is losing the popular level audience. Nevertheless, I would encourage readers to make the effort.
Graham’s present book, The Word Became Flesh, is concerned with the Gospel of John, but not as a commentary or chapter-by-chapter exposition. Rather it develops a number of themes from the gospel, taking the Prologue as their prism. The title, taken from John 1:14, captures the theme Graham wishes to explore. Yet he is not singularly concerned with Christology, nor with a rebuttal of the crude Trinitarian interpretation that takes “Word” as a name of a pre-existent of person, though his book does discuss both. Graham argues that “word” refers to a genuine speech act (or, more properly, speech acts) and “flesh” refers to an empirical historical reality, primarily (but not exclusively) in the person of Jesus. The book develops this theme in the Gospel, exploring how John sees God’s intentions expressed.
The first chapter is concerned with history. Graham gives short shrift to form critical approaches that disconnect the Gospel from the historical Jesus, concluding that the writer is a single individual who involved with the real events. Yet he also acknowledges that the gospel goes beyond the mere reporting of events as it has a message to convey. The second chapter is concerned with the Old Testament, specifically the sense in which John sees Jesus as fulfilling the Old Testament expectations.
Chapters three and four explore Christology, what John does (and doesn’t say) about the person of Jesus as the self-revelation of God. Inevitably this involves discussion of the traditional view of Jesus as a pre-existent person but this is not a knock-down match of pat answers as what interests Graham is getting to the bottom of what John actually has to say. And what John wants to say is that Christ is the medium by which God speaks to the world.
The fifth chapter is on the theme of the judgment entailed by the coming of the light into the world. This section includes comment of accusations of anti-Semitism in the gospel, given John’s frequent pejorative statements against those he styles “the Jews”. The sixth chapter traces the narrative of the gospel, though sequential summaries of its chapter. The seventh chapter explores some formal aspects of the gospel. Two appendices discuss the authorship of the gospel and its relation to the first Johannine epistle.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)