A New Light on John’s Gospel
The Gospel according to John has always been recognized as different from the “synoptic” accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
But what explains the difference?
In this new translation and verse-byverse commentary, Michael Pakaluk suggests an answer and unlocks a twothousand-year-old mystery. Mary’s Voice in the Gospel according to John reveals the subtle but powerful influence of the Mother of Jesus on the fourth Gospel.
In his dying words, Jesus committed his Mother to the care of John, the beloved disciple, who “from that hour . . . took her into his own home.” Pakaluk draws out the implications of that detail, which have been overlooked for centuries.
In Mary’s remaining years on earth, what would she and John have talked about? Surely no subject was as close to their hearts as the words and deeds of Jesus. Mary’s unique perspective and intimate knowledge of her Son must have shaped the account of Jesus’ life that John would eventually compose.
With the same scholarship, imagination, and fidelity that he applied to Mark’s Gospel in The Memoirs of St. Peter, Pakaluk brings out the voice of Mary in John’s, from the famous prologue about the Incarnation of the Word to the Evangelist’s closing avowal of the reliability of his account.
This remarkably fresh translation and commentary will deepen your understanding of the most sublime book of the New Testament.
“It is a rare scholar who can make the most familiar ancient text feel like it was just discovered. . . . I felt like I was reading Saint John for the first time.”
—ARTHUR C. BROOKS, professor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School
“Michael Pakaluk has put vast learning and formidable skills as a biblical translator and exegete in service of an urgent Christian task. . . .”
—SOHRAB AHMARI, author of the forthcoming The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos
“A blend of poetic sensibility, spirituality and scholarship that is a genuine surprise and inspiration.”
—FATHER DWIGHT LONGENECKER, parish priest and author of The Mystery of the Magi and Immortal Combat
“An interpretive triumph!”
—C. C. PECKNOLD, associate professor of systematic theology, the Catholic University of America
