Because grammar and syntax are the foundations for interpretation, this handbook is a valuable resource for serious students of the Gospel of John. In the introduction Novakovic briefly summarizes distinctive characteristics of the Gospel’s vocabulary and style, repetition and variation, tenses and verbal aspect, and word order. The translation provides a fresh, literal rendering of the Greek text, which is itself often a guide to interpretation. While this is not a commentary, the annotations on well-known cruxes of interpretation are remarkably insightful. These are volumes you will want to keep on your desk!
~R. Alan Culpepper, Dean and Professor of New Testament Emeritus, McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University
The aim of this series is to supplement standard New Testament commentaries with an ‘accessible and succinct’ guide to the dynamics of the Greek text, and in these volumes Lidija Novakovic does this for the Fourth Gospel with precision, care, and clarity. Her methodological assumptions are crafted with considered sensitivity to scholarly discussion on Johannine style. Her glossary furnishes a ready means for entering the kind of discourse required by syntactical and text-critical issues. Her analysis, itself, while comprehensive, is consciously pitched to the problems most challenging for interpretation.
~Michael A. Daise, Walter G. Mason Professor, College of William & Mary
Novakovic provides a welcome and long-anticipated contribution to the BHGNT series. Tackling the deceptive simplicity of John’s language, Novakovic deftly untangles John’s subtlety and takes up grammatical questions too often overlooked in commentaries or dismissed by those too focused on John’s ‘elementary Greek.’ Her insights not only guide readers just beginning to learn more about Greek syntax but also engage seasoned scholars by offering detailed interpretations with ranging interpretive and theological possibilities.
~Alicia Myers, Associate Professor of New Testament & Greek, Divinity School, Campbell University
Novakovic provides a helpful and linguistically sound tool for aiding students in understanding the Greek text of John 1–10. It will be of particular value to post-beginner students, while features such as the glossary and the consistency in labeling basic syntactical functions means that the volume’s usefulness extends to those who might use Greek in church contexts whose grammatical understanding may be less fresh than it once was."
~Christopher Seglenieks, Review of Biblical Literature
These two volumes are recommended for anyone working with the text of the Fourth Gospel and the BHGNT series should be part of any academic library serving a biblical studies faculty.
~Stan Harstine, Religious Studies Review
