Adam W. Day, Jesus, the Isaianic Servant: Quotations and Allusions in the Gospel of John, Gorgias Press, 2018.
Scholars have long noted the importance of Isaiah in the Gospel of John, though few have focused exclusively on John’s use of Isaiah. The Servant of the Lord from Isaiah has also received much attention over the years, but commentators often only make passing reference to the Servant of the Lord in John. Day provides a systematic analysis of the Isaianic Servant in the Gospel of John.
This volume explores John’s portrait of Jesus in the Gospel of John and argues that John presents Jesus as the Servant of the Lord through his quotations and allusions to Isaiah. Through an analysis of the linguistic and thematic parallels between Isaiah and John, the reader sees the importance of the Servant in John. John shows Jesus to be the Servant who brings salvation to the nations, speaks the words of God, and inaugurates the new exodus, among other parallels. Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that the Servant would be rejected and lifted up in the accomplishment of his task of bearing sin. John not only shows how Jesus fulfills the role of the Servant, but also picks up on subtle clues throughout Isaiah that the Servant shares in the identity of Yahweh in some way, and utilizes these clues to support Jesus’ explicit claims to be God. While the Servant is not the predominant Christological emphasis, this volume demonstrates that the Servant is an important aspect of Johannine Christology, adding richness and depth to our conception of Jesus’ role and identity.
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