spel intoparts, chapters, and paragraphs. The importance of this becomes obvious when thereader realizes that ancient manuscripts like John's Gospel were regularly writtenalmost entirely without indications of, or divisions into parts, chapters, and sections.Recognition of John's inclusions becomes all the more important when onerealizes that the present division of the Gospel into twenty-one chapters, as foundin all modern Bible translations, goes back to the twelfth century and was done withcomplete disregard for John's use of inclusions to divide his Gospel into individualparts, sequences, and sections. As we shall see in this study, when we deal with thestructure of the Gospel, John uses inclusions regularly, skillfully, and abundantly inthe composition of his Gospel.Structure of John's GospelThe search for the structure of John's Gospel has been long and dishearteninglyunsuccessful. Forty years ago, Bultmann proposed that the Gospel as it stands is notthe Gospel as it came from the hand of the author, but the poor attempt of editors toput back in order an originally well-arranged manuscript that was either damaged ordisarranged as early as the autograph stage.In 1963, D. M. Smith, Jr., made a study of Bultmann's thesis regarding the orderof John and came to the conclusion that in almost every instance Bultmann'sreconstruction raised as many problems as it provided solutions. Smith himself cameto the conclusion that it was "quite possible, indeed probable, that the Fourth Gospelhas been left to us in an unfinished stage."Brown begins his section on the unity and composition of the Gospel with thequestion: "Is the fourth gospel as it now stands the work of one man?" His answer,like that of all modern commentators with the exception of Lagrange and Hoskyns,is an emphatic denial. Despite the fact that there is absolutely no textual witness toany other order than the one we find now in the Gospel, almost all commentators takefor granted...
