Style

This chapter introduces an ancient perspective on literary style and applies it to parts of the Fourth Gospel. Rather than using stylistic features to indicate authorship, sources, or redaction, this chapter focuses upon how style affects how the content (and story) of the Fourth Gospel is understood. In antiquity, stylistic features conveyed information about the mood, focus, and interpretation of the Gospel to a number of ancient text users: readers who studied the Gospel privately, lectors who prepared for public reading from it, and listeners who heard it read aloud. This chapter introduces ancient literary style and analyses four stylistic aspects of the Fourth Gospel: use of words, sound quality, periods, and levels of style.