A Dramatic Reading of St. John’s Gospel

St. Mary’s church, Haddenham – 8th April 2017

John 1.1 to 6.40

John 6.41 to 11.54

John 11.55 to 17.26

John 18.1 to end

 

Reading John’s Gospel — An introduction

John’s gospel, the fourth gospel, is seen by many as the finest part of our Christian literature. John the disciple is accepted by most as the likely author who may have written this record near the end of the first century when an elderly man.

The reading is from the New international Version of the Bible, but with some changes. The original book was written for one person to read to the many who could not read in the early centuries AD. The text required that each voice was clear about who was speaking and to whom. There are 44 different voices in the gospel and there are a lot of ’he said to her’ and ’she said to him’ phrases which become redundant with multiple readers. Many of these have been edited out and result in a better flow especially where there is dialogue. Obviously we do not have 44 readers, so each person will take various voices. But ltrust that the division of labour will not result in any confusionl

Another aspect of the gospel that is clearly present in the text is the
narration. John divides his narration into two types — Historical and
explanatory. We will separate these out by having two narrators. Gillian will be reading the historical and I will be reading the explanatory narration.

We all trust that you will have blessed time listening to God’s word
through the eyes of John, especially as at least one half of the text is set in the week before the first Easter. Hugh Stradling April 2017

Cast:-

Andy Price as Jesus
Gillian Harvey as Narrator (historical)
Hugh Stradling as Narrator (explanatory/Commentary)

Michael Talbot
Paul Wright
Andy Hardy
Gordon Lawson                    All the other parts
Tony Belgrove
Jacky White
Cathie Deeley
Dee Pizzo