Description:

The structure of St. John's Gospel fits in with his aim in writing it, moved as he was by the Holy Spirit; he tell us himself that he wrote the Gospel "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:31). In general, St. John follows the same order as followed by the apostles in their oral preaching, and in so doing he coincides with the Synoptic Gospels; Jesus begins his public ministry after being baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist; he preaches and works miracles in Galilee and Jerusalem; and his live on earth ends with his passion and glorious resurrection.

Within this general framework, St. John follows a plan of his own, different from that of the Synoptics. For this he uses certain basic ideas which he develops in the course of his Gospel - the succession of Jewish feasts which mark the different stages in his account; the treatment of certain concepts, like the New Testament taking the place of the Old; the themes of life, of the Bread of Life, of the light, truth, love, etc.; and the gradual and dramatic manifestation of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, contrasting with the growing blindness of those Jews who reject him, until the high point comes, the "hour" of Jesus and of the power of darkness. All these threads are woven together to form this Gospel, giving it a particular structure and thematic cohesion.

Part of a 12 volume set of the New Testament with extensive explanations of the meaning of the scriptural text and its implications for everyday life. The commentaries draw on a rich variety of sources - Church documents, the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the work of prominent spiritual writers, particularly Saint Josemaria Escriva, who initiated the Navarre Bible project. The commentary appears on the same page as the Bible text, which is the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. Each volume is self-contained with extensive introductions and notes to Old Testament prophecies. The Navarre Bible commentary is considered by many to be the best Catholic commentary on the Bible available today.

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