Working With the New Testament Library Commentary on John
The New Testament Library commentary series is one of those resources that sits on the shelf and looks impressive, but actually using it for sermon prep or serious study requires a slightly different approach than you might expect. I spent a solid week trying to get the Johannine commentary to work for my Bible study group before I figured out how to extract what I needed from it. John A Commentary New Testament Library is the volume by C. K. Barrett that covers the fourth gospel. It was originally published in 1978 and has been reprinted numerous times since then. The book runs about 600 pages and walks through the entire Gospel of John chapter by chapter with verse-by-verse commentary. It is not a devotional book. It is not structured for quick reference. It is an academic commentary written at a level that assumes you already know Greek and Greek Testament background.
What the John A Commentary New Testament Library Actually Does
Barrett's approach in this commentary is primarily historical and literary. He focuses on the structure of the gospel, the relationships between pericopes, and the textual issues that come up throughout the book. He draws heavily on the work of earlier scholars like Bultmann and Bornkamm, though he does not accept all of their conclusions. The strength of the volume is in its treatment of the Prologue and the "I am" sayings. Where it gets complicated is in the details. Barrett will spend three full pages on a single grammatical question about a participle in John 1:1, and you need to be prepared for that kind of depth. If you are looking for short, punchy applications for each verse, this is not going to give them to you. The commentary is organized so that you can read straight through it, but it also works fine as a reference work if you know where to look.
How to Use It Without Losing Your Mind
When I first started working with this commentary, I tried reading it cover to cover before preaching through John. That was a mistake. The volume is dense enough that reading it straight through took me about four hours of focused time, and I still felt like I had not retained much because I had not given myself space to process each section. The method that actually worked for me was to pick one chapter of John at a time and use the commentary as a companion rather than a primary text. I would read the chapter in a modern translation first, then go to the corresponding section in Barrett. The commentary usually takes about forty to sixty pages per chapter of John, which means I could tackle it in one sitting without burning out. One thing that tripped me up early on: Barrett references the Greek text throughout. He does not provide an English translation of every verse he discusses. If your Greek is rusty, you will find yourself stopping frequently to look up word forms. I got around this by keeping a copy of the UBS Greek New Testament open on my desk and referring to it when Barrett mentioned a specific textual variant. That added about ten minutes per session, but it saved me from missing important distinctions he was making.
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Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
There are a few things that catch people off guard when they start using this commentary. The first is the dating question. Barrett tends to favor a later date for John, somewhere in the 90s AD range, and his commentary reflects that assumption. If you are working from a more conservative framework that places John earlier, you will notice him pushing back on certain interpretations without always explaining why the earlier dating matters as much as it does. I found it helpful to keep a secondary commentary like the NICNT volume on John by R. E. Brown nearby so I could see where the scholarly disagreements actually sat. The second issue is with Barrett's treatment of the Septuagint. He references the Greek Old Testament frequently, which is valuable, but he does not always give the citation in a way that makes it easy to trace back to the Hebrew source. When he says John is alluding to a particular passage, I have found it useful to verify the connection myself using a tool like Logos or even a simple Bible software search. This takes extra time but prevents you from accepting an interpretation that might not hold up under closer scrutiny. A third pitfall that I ran into specifically involved his discussion of the Pericope Adulterae in John 7:53–8:11. Barrett acknowledges the textual uncertainty but still spends considerable space discussing the passage as if it were part of the original text. If you are using this for a sermon on that story, you should be aware that he is making a judgment call that some other commentators would reject. I ended up cross-referencing with the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible to get a clearer picture of the textual debate before I felt confident teaching from it.
When This Commentary Falls Short
It is worth being honest about the limitations. The John A Commentary New Testament Library was written over forty years ago, and significant scholarship has emerged since then. Barrett's treatment of the Samaritan woman in John 4, for instance, does not engage with the literary and rhetorical approaches that have become standard in Johannine studies. If you are doing advanced academic work, you will need to supplement this volume with more recent commentaries like the ones by Colpe, Schnackenburg, or the more recent work by Craig Keener. Another area where this commentary shows its age is in its treatment of the relationship between John and the Synoptics. Barrett writes from a position that assumes a certain degree of independence between John and the other gospels, and while that is a defensible position, it is not the only one. If your context expects you to engage with the synoptic connections more directly, you will want to read something more recent on that question. For pastoral use, the commentary is still quite valuable, but it is not a shortcut. You should expect to invest at least an hour of preparation time per chapter of John if you are working through Barrett. The payoff is that you come away with a much deeper understanding of the text than you would from most other resources. The cost is that it demands attention and effort.
Getting a Copy
The commentary is available in hardcover from HarperOne and other major booksellers. It is also available as an ebook through most academic platforms. I have seen used copies listed on AbeBooks and ThriftBooks for around fifteen to twenty dollars, which is a reasonable price for a volume of this size and scope. If you are a student or a pastor on a budget, the used market is worth checking before buying new. There is no official free download of this commentary. Any site claiming to offer a free PDF is likely distributing it illegally, and the quality of those files is often poor anyway. I would recommend against chasing down unauthorized copies because the scanning errors tend to introduce typos into the Greek passages, which defeats the purpose of using an academic commentary in the first place.
What to Read Alongside It
If you are serious about working through Barrett's commentary on John, having a good companion resource will make a real difference. I found that pairing it with the Two Volume set by Raymond Brown, especially the first volume covering chapters one through, gave me a more complete picture. Brown's work is more detailed on the literary structure, and he engages more thoroughly with the Dead Sea Scrolls material, which Barrett barely mentions. For a shorter and more accessible option, the New Cambridge Bible Commentary by Martyn is worth considering. It is not as deep as Barrett, but it covers the same ground in a more readable format and includes more engagement with the theological implications of the text. I usually start with Martyn to get my bearings, then move into Barrett for the deeper analytical work. The commentary remains a solid choice for anyone who wants to dig into the Gospel of John at a serious academic level. It is not the easiest book to read, and it will not hand you ready-made sermon illustrations, but if you are willing to put in the work, it will reward you with insights that are genuinely worthwhile.
