Bestselling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly, and authentic Christianity John Shelby Spong contends that the last gospel to be written—the Gospel of John—was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus. In fact, it is a literary interpretation of the events in Jesus’ life through the medium of fictional characters, from Nicodemus and Lazarus to the “Beloved Disciple.” To Spong, the Fourth Gospel was designed first to place Jesus into the context of the Jewish scriptures, then to place him into the worship patterns of the synagogue, and finally to allow him to be viewed through the lens of a popular form of first-century Jewish mysticism.

The result of this intriguing study is not only to recapture the original message of this gospel, but to provide us with a radical new dimension to the claim that in the humanity of Jesus the reality of God has been met and engaged.