Eyewitnesss accounts.

[playhavock]

Again and again I see that people will fall back on the written words in the gospels and say that Paul saw such and such, or thought/belbelievedat he did - and that other nameless people totaly a wopwhopping0 saw things - but are never interviewed or named oddly enough, and that others also saw things - but again those others are offoffent named, and for unknown reareasonsver wrote a thing about it.

Now of course, the question I have is why none of the hishistorians the day ever wrote a thing about any of these occoccurencest seems to me that Jesus poppopping to say hi to a few hishistoriansuld have made a much stronger case, but I guess it was just not part of the "plan" or something.

Then, we have the fact that some documents are dated earearlerat have strange storys that are non-cannon, it is onyonlye latter storys that are conconsiderednnon, when earearyerpreportingd/or writing would be more accurate. Strange things going on!

Still - let me focus on the so called eyewitnesses and make this clam:
None of them existed.

Without the gosgospelsu have nothing at all about anyone - no single writing of any of these people, of course illilliteracy rampant during this time (you think Jesus could have granted littericy to a few more people as he was healing them to make a stronger case) but still - you would think we would have SOMETHING.

Alas, we have nothing at all. Without prepresumingat the gosgospelse true, something I see NO rearation do - what accounts do we have of any of this?

As far as I know there might have been Paul - sure, I will grant this. Here is my thetheoryen - Paul wanted to make his own relreligionnd found or knew of writings of others who had written a new rereligionased on Jewish mymythologynd pagan myths. Paul dedecidedhat he would make a rereligioncult) based on these writings, sat down and wrote his own story, and then found a few people to boboldlyie to that these events had happened. He got people to belive him. People insulted them by calling them "ChChristensfor Paul had been very cunning rather then have himself as the savor, he had used the writings and ideas alalreadyritten as a platform. No one ever checked the 500 - in fact, they could not. They were simply TOLD that there was 500 people, and that number might have been impressive back then, and no one bothered to ask ccriticalquestions.

Think of it, you are a Jewish person , who must give 10% of EVERYTHING to the RRabbi- man that is just too much! Converting to this "Christ" rreligonfrees you of this bburden The ggentlesmmeanwhilewere pprobablyvery tired of the Jewish people telling them that THEY were right - and no one eelsewas, if you were not Jewish you were not saved, tough on you! Being a Christ follower would make you part of something that said THE JEWS WERE WRONG! Awesome! Who could resist?!

So, my thrust of this debate is that - there were no eyewitness. None. They are never named, never listed, never interviewed, never wrote a thing. No one is ever mentioned to have checked on the tales. No ccriticalquestions are ever rased.

I do belive that early writings that Paul did write letters to early cchirch as control of rreligion slowly sliped from his hands - Paul must have felt very powerless at that time, feeling his control pulled from him - the cchurchesof course ccondoneto split ffurtherand ffurtherfrom whatever the eearlyteachings were today - they could not agree then, they can not agree now - and the rrationis very easy to understand, no leader - Paul was probley a very effective cult leader, at first - but as people progressed to tell the storys - the powerbase was pulled from him, and he probley never saw it ccoming

He probley did meet his end in a hhorribleway, mmanycult leaders do.

But, still - granting that Paul wrote these storys does not show the storys to be true, Paul made them up. Can you show that he did not? Can you?

Can you show me anything outside the ggospelsthat mentions anything about Jesus or CChristensthat is not a fforgery

Were are the writings of others who saw the mirricals - why did NO ONE bother to write it down?

Why did not Jesus bother to pop in on the current hhistoriansof the day?

There are no eeyewitinessreports. Just a hhandfulof three manuscripts written by unknown people that Paul knew about or found or both, and made a cult on.

Now, I could be wrong in my theory here, sure - I'll accept a rebuttal of my theory, show me that I'm wrong! I'd love that, I'd learn something new. Teach my the history- but you can not use the gospels to do so as I sugest that they were made up, you will have to find some other way to prove that I am wrong in this.

[naturalist griggsy]

Why then would a rational person put credence in Paul the Hallucinator? He made up his theology in large part.No one can ever vouch for his honesty or claims.
That's why we can call that superstition Christ-insanity!
Yeshua was another failed apocalyptist, god-man, miracle monger with no better an ethic than anyone else and worse as he reveled in Hell and has silly and dangerous advice.
Why would a rational person care what the jerk says?

[Mithrae]

I did not question your use of the Muratorian Canon as evidence of an early date of composition of John however since you raise the issue again it is worth noting that it [the Muratorian Canon] cannot be adequately dated, with scholars suggesting various dates ranging from late 2nd century to the 4th century.

It was discovered in 1740 by L.A. Muratori, librarian in the ‘Bibliotheca Ambrosiana’ in Milan, in a manuscript of the eighth / ninth century CE. It reproduces a text possibly translated from the Greek into barbarous Latin; it is mutilated at the beginning and perhaps also at the end.

It is never referred to by anyone, and would have remained thoroughly unknown if it had not been recovered by Muratori. Even Eusebius shows no awareness of it.

Consequently it is inappropriate to use the Muratorian Canon as a means of determining the date of John.

As for your comparison of Dialague 105.1 and John 1:1-3, 1:18, 3:16-18, we have been here before. As before I must point out that selectively picking the odd word or phrase from over half a dozen verses of John cannot be construed as a quotation. Furthermore whilst it might be possible to ‘manipulate’ English translations to provide some sort of congruity it fails completely when we compare the Greek texts. For example

From Dialogue, 105.1
“only begotten for that was of the father of all things�
μονογενὴς γὰ� ὅτι ἦν τῷ πατ�ὶ τῶν ὅλων οὗτος
From John 3:18
“of the only begotten son of the god�
τοῦ μονογενοῦς υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ.

Same idea, different words, different declensions, so not a quotation of John by Justin.

The same applies when comparing 1 Apology 61.4 and John 3:3

Justin – “Unless you are born again you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven�.
ἂν μή ὰναγεννηθῆτε ο� μή εισελθητε εἰς τὴν βασιλειαν τῶν οὺ�ανῶν

John – “If any one may not be born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God�
�ὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, ο� δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

There are any number of differences, for example in one we have “entering the kingdom of heaven� and in the other “seeing the kingdom of God�, but most significantly we cannot ignore how differently each author expresses the idea of being born again. Justin uses ὰναγεννηθῆτε “be born again�, whereas John uses the more unusual phrase γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν to “be born from above�. If Justin was quoting John, word-for-word, why doesn’t he adopt John’s more peculiar idiom?

Put simply the only conclusion that can be safely drawn is that while Justin and the author of John had certain ideas in common, Justin did not quote from the gospel of John. Perhaps John and Justin simply shared the same source materials.

Justin therefore cannot be used as evidence of an early date of composition of John.

Furthermore “There are such differences between the Synoptic and Johannine narrative, in content as well as order, that it is impossible to suppose that both derive from the original apostolic witness.� (Marsh; St. John; p.22) In other words, if the Synoptic accounts contain eye witness materials, then John cannot, and vice versa.

Thanks for the information on the Muratorian canon - I only glanced at some info because it's not central to the point I'm making: It simply adds to what we know from Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage (and Tatian now that I think of it), that the four-gospel canon was widely accepted by the end of the 2nd century. So unless you dispute that Justin quotes from the first, second and third gospels (material specific to each of those), we've got a reasonable basis for supposing that his comments about Jesus being 'only begotten,' the Word, and his close paraphrase of John 3:3/5 are from the fourth gospel. If you don't think it's strong enough evidence that's your call of course - I don't think there's sufficient evidence that it's merely coincidence, or for any alternative view

[Mithrae]

I did not question your use of the Muratorian Canon as evidence of an early date of composition of John . . . .

Consequently it is inappropriate to use the Muratorian Canon as a means of determining the date of John. . . .

Justin therefore cannot be used as evidence of an early date of composition of John.

I agree that if I had been using those as arguments for John's date of composition they'd be pretty weak points, but I wasn't. I've simply assumed that sources like www.earlychristianwritings.com are fairly reliable in giving a range of 90-120CE for the composition of John, plenty early enough to have been known and used by Justin (Wikipedia suggests a majority of scholars propose 90-100CE for its final form).

• http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/john.html
  The external evidence fixes the terminus ad quem for the Gospel of John. Irenaeus of Lyons made use of John (c. 180), and Tatian included the Gospel of John in his harmony (c. 170). The Gospel of John is also mentioned in the Muratorian Canon (c. 170-200). Justin Martyr (c. 150-160) and the Epistula Apostolorum (c. 140-150) may have made use of the Gospel of John. But the earliest known usage of John is among Gnostic circles. These include the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140), the Valentinian texts cited in Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodotou (c. 140-160), a Valentinian Exposition to the Prologue of the Gospel of John quoted in Irenaeus' Adv. Haer. 1.8.5-6 (c. 140-160), and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary). The oldest fragment of the New Testament, known as p52 or the John Rylands fragment, attests to canonical John and is dated paleographically c. 120-130 CE.

Personally I think the content of the gospel and appendix offer the best suggestions as to when it was written. The repeated comments of believers being "put out of the synagogue" and the distinction drawn between Jesus and his followers and "the Jews" suggest a time sufficiently after the temple's destruction that rabbinic Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity were in the process of clarifying their own identities and relationship to each other - while the issues were current and the tensions running high, not so long after that it was old news.

Likewise John 21:15-23 only makes sense if someone believed to be the 'beloved disciple' had lived sufficiently long after the others' deaths and after the Jewish Revolt to become the remaining sign and hope of Jesus' expected return. After even he had died, the author of the appendix downplays that failed expectation and reaffirms Petrine leadership of the church. 80-100 CE seems to fit the bill on both of those counts.

[micatala]

Why then would a rational person put credence in Paul the Hallucinator? He made up his theology in large part.No one can ever vouch for his honesty or claims.
That's why we can call that superstition Christ-insanity!
Yeshua was another failed apocalyptist, god-man, miracle monger with no better an ethic than anyone else and worse as he reveled in Hell and has silly and dangerous advice.
Why would a rational person care what the jerk says?

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[Student]

I did not question your use of the Muratorian Canon as evidence of an early date of composition of John . . . .

Consequently it is inappropriate to use the Muratorian Canon as a means of determining the date of John. . . .

Justin therefore cannot be used as evidence of an early date of composition of John.

I agree that if I had been using those as arguments for John's date of composition they'd be pretty weak points, but I wasn't. I've simply assumed that sources like www.earlychristianwritings.com are fairly reliable in giving a range of 90-120CE for the composition of John, plenty early enough to have been known and used by Justin (Wikipedia suggests a majority of scholars propose 90-100CE for its final form).

• http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/john.html
  The external evidence fixes the terminus ad quem for the Gospel of John. Irenaeus of Lyons made use of John (c. 180), and Tatian included the Gospel of John in his harmony (c. 170). The Gospel of John is also mentioned in the Muratorian Canon (c. 170-200). Justin Martyr (c. 150-160) and the Epistula Apostolorum (c. 140-150) may have made use of the Gospel of John. But the earliest known usage of John is among Gnostic circles. These include the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140), the Valentinian texts cited in Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodotou (c. 140-160), a Valentinian Exposition to the Prologue of the Gospel of John quoted in Irenaeus' Adv. Haer. 1.8.5-6 (c. 140-160), and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary).
  The oldest fragment of the New Testament, known as p52 or the John Rylands fragment, attests to canonical John and is dated paleographically c. 120-130 CE.

I’m afraid I do not share your confidence in the quality of information presented by Kirby. His site has numerous errors and unsubstantiated statements masquerading as facts.

For example, he writes “the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140)�. The impression this creates is that Hippolytus quoted the Nassene Fragment sometime between 120 and 140. This is not the case. Hippolytus’ Refutation of All Heresies, is a third century work. The ‘Naassene Fragment’ only survives in Hippolytus quotation so there is no means of determining how faithful Hippolytus was to the original work, or indeed if such a work existed at all. For any and all information on the very existence of the Naassenes we are entirely reliant on Hippolytus. As for the date of the fragment, the Naassenes are supposed to have existed during the time of Hadrian i.e. from 117 to 138 CE so the fragment is dated accordingly. Given that we only know of the Naassenes through Hippolytus the supposition that they existed during the time of Hadrian is pure conjecture.

As for the contents of the extant ‘fragment’, in common with the writings of Justin, the fragment appears to share ideas and terminology similar to the gospel of John, but contains no explicit quotation from the gospel. So it does not ‘prove’ an early usage of John in Gnostic circles.

His treatment of Heracleon is similar:
“and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary).�
Origen’s commentary on John was written some time after c. 238 CE and it is the only source for Heracleon’s materials. The work attributed to Heracleon may or may not be a pseudopigraph, as we have no other contemporary record of its very existence.

Yet another example of Kirby’s mis-information is his statement that “P52 is dated paleographically to c. 120 to 130 CE�. This is completely false. In Roberts own words:
“On the whole we may accept with some confidence the first half of the second century as the period in which P. Ryl. Gk. 457 [P52] was most probably written�. (C. H. Roberts; An Unpublished Fragment of the fourth Gospel; p.16)

It is impossible to obtain a time span as precise as 10 years, as stated by Kirby, just by using palaeography. As Roberts himself points out:

“Any exact dating of book hands is, of course, out of the question; all we can do is to compare the script as a whole and the forms of particular letters with those found in other texts and particularly in dated documents.� (ibid; p13)

And even Roberts 50 year estimate is suspect.

Roberts in part based his estimate on the then estimated date of the Egerton gospel [also obtained paleographically]: “The second text - and this resemblance, by no means the only one between the two manuscripts, is suggestive is P. Egerton 2, assigned by the editors to the middle of the second century, a judgment which, as they remark, errs, if at all, on the side of caution.� (ibid;p.14)
This last comment, “erring on the side of caution� has since proven to be somewhat ironic, for in 1987, P.Koln 6.255 was identified as an additional fragment of Egerton Papyrus 2. P.Koln 6.255 displays an apostrophe between two consonants, a feature that has led it [the Egerton Papyrus] to be dated considerably later, ca. 200 C.E. So much for caution!

[Nb Elsewhere on his website Kirby gives a date of 70 – 120 CE for Egerton Papyrus 2, and makes no mention of P.Koln 6.255]

Obviously Roberts could not know of this development however there are other reasons why he should have been more reticent. The principle comparanda he used for dating P52, were, for the most part the same as those to date Egerton Papyrus 2. The independent value of Egerton Papyrus 2 for dating P52 is therefore minimal.

And, if the original ‘cautious’ dating of P. Egerton 2 has since proven to be anything but cautious perhaps greater degree of caution should be expressed regarding the dating of P52, given that most conservative New Testament scholars base their estimates for the date of the composition of John on the dating of the Ryland’s fragment.

For example, D. Moody Smith, in his commentary on John, writes the following about the date of John: “For a time, particularly in the early part of the twentieth century, the possibility that John was not written, or at least not published, until [the] mid-second century was a viable one. At that time Justin Martyr espoused a logos Christology, without citing the Fourth Gospel explicitly. Such an omission by Justin would seem strange if the Gospel of John had already been written and was in circulation. Then the discovery and publication in the 1930s of two papyrus fragments made such a late dating difficult, if not impossible, to sustain. The first and most important is P52, dated by paleographers to the second quarter of the second century (125-150); the other is a fragment of a hitherto unknown gospel called Egerton Papyrus 2 from the same period, which obviously reflects knowledge of the Gospel of John.... For the Gospel of John to have been written and circulated in Egypt, where these fragments were found, a date no later than the first decade of the second century must be presumed.�

Other commentators have been proven to be ever bolder with their estimates for the date of P52, and, without providing so much as a scrap of additional evidence, have pushed the date of P52, and as a consequence the composition of the gospel of John, ever closer to the earlier end of Roberts estimate culminating in Kurt & Barbara Aland describing it as the "consensus" view: "The critical significance of p52, which preserves only a fragment of John 18, lies in the date of 'about 125' assigned to it by the leading papyrologists. Although 'about 125' allows for a leeway of about twenty-five years on either side, the consensus has come in recent years to regard 125 as representing the later limit, so that p52 must have been copied very soon after the Gospel of John was itself written in the early 90s A.D." (The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism).

How should we describe a scholarly “consensus� for a date of composition of between 90CE and 120CE, resting as it does purely on conjecture and assertions lacking evidence. Would highly dubious be far off the mark?

[Student]

Personally I think the content of the gospel and appendix offer the best suggestions as to when it was written. The repeated comments of believers being "put out of the synagogue" and the distinction drawn between Jesus and his followers and "the Jews" suggest a time sufficiently after the temple's destruction that rabbinic Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity were in the process of clarifying their own identities and relationship to each other - while the issues were current and the tensions running high, not so long after that it was old news.
Likewise John 21:15-23 only makes sense if someone believed to be the 'beloved disciple' had lived sufficiently long after the others' deaths and after the Jewish Revolt to become the remaining sign and hope of Jesus' expected return. After even he had died, the author of the appendix downplays that failed expectation and reaffirms Petrine leadership of the church. 80-100 CE seems to fit the bill on both of those counts.

In my opinion the internal evidence of the gospel clearly points to its composition well after c.90CE.

The references to being put out of the temple, the reference to the test benediction (9:22) and the clear implication that the author of John thought the High Priest held office for a single year also points to a date some time after 90CE. Referring to the Sea of Galilee as Lake Tiberias points to an even later date as it (the Sea of Galilee) was not known by that name until the second century.

However, I feel the most compelling reason for the gospel not being written by someone personally acquainted with Jesus is why would an eye-witness superimpose the situation of the late first century onto Jesus’ time if he was intending to portray events as they actually happened?

[Mithrae]

Other commentators have been proven to be ever bolder with their estimates for the date of P52, and, without providing so much as a scrap of additional evidence, have pushed the date of P52, and as a consequence the composition of the gospel of John, ever closer to the earlier end of Roberts estimate culminating in Kurt & Barbara Aland describing it as the "consensus" view: "The critical significance of p52, which preserves only a fragment of John 18, lies in the date of 'about 125' assigned to it by the leading papyrologists. Although 'about 125' allows for a leeway of about twenty-five years on either side, the consensus has come in recent years to regard 125 as representing the later limit, so that p52 must have been copied very soon after the Gospel of John was itself written in the early 90s A.D." (The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism).

May I point out that you've accused Kirby of 'misinformation' in suggesting 120-130 for p52, then quoted the Alands as suggesting a consensus that c.125 is a later limit rather than earlier. On face value I myself, in my ignorance, am quite dubious of paleographic dating outside a century's time-frame at best. But I would hardly accuse someone of misinformation for suggesting the later end of what others describe as a consensus view!

Personally I think the content of the gospel and appendix offer the best suggestions as to when it was written. The repeated comments of believers being "put out of the synagogue" and the distinction drawn between Jesus and his followers and "the Jews" suggest a time sufficiently after the temple's destruction that rabbinic Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity were in the process of clarifying their own identities and relationship to each other - while the issues were current and the tensions running high, not so long after that it was old news.
Likewise John 21:15-23 only makes sense if someone believed to be the 'beloved disciple' had lived sufficiently long after the others' deaths and after the Jewish Revolt to become the remaining sign and hope of Jesus' expected return. After even he had died, the author of the appendix downplays that failed expectation and reaffirms Petrine leadership of the church. 80-100 CE seems to fit the bill on both of those counts.

In my opinion the internal evidence of the gospel clearly points to its composition well after c.90CE.

The references to being put out of the temple, the reference to the test benediction (9:22) and the clear implication that the author of John thought the High Priest held office for a single year also points to a date some time after 90CE. Referring to the Sea of Galilee as Lake Tiberias points to an even later date as it (the Sea of Galilee) was not known by that name until the second century.

By the 80s and 90s CE the development of rabbinic Judaism would have been well under way, with both Christians distinguishing themselves from the Jewish messianic implications of the revolt and Jews distinguishing their identity from Christians and their politics from that 'Christ' aspect in particular. I'd guess that those features of John make best sense in the 80s or 90s, potentially 100s - though following the bar-Kokhba revolt is admittedly a possibility.

Saying someone was high priest for that year (you mean John 11:49 I assume?) could be as easily understood as saying they were high priest at that time, if it's someone writing in a second language. And since Tiberias was founded in the early 1st century, even the earliest surviving non-Johannine references to the lake by that name wouldn't establish a later date for John. The author identifies it as the Sea of Galilee also, implying that it was known by both names when the gospel was written.

And there's contrary points to bring up of course. Why would some unknown fellow writing in the 2nd century know or bother to mention that Herod's temple project had been underway for 46 years (c.19BCE to 28CE) when Jesus visited? Utterly superfluous with the temple destroyed, and ever stranger with each decade; but a decade or two later, when word of the magnificent project lost might still linger in memory - and especially if it's in the author's memory - it makes more sense.

However, I feel the most compelling reason for the gospel not being written by someone personally acquainted with Jesus is why would an eye-witness superimpose the situation of the late first century onto Jesus’ time if he was intending to portray events as they actually happened?

If you were intending to portray events as they actually happened, would you begin with "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God... the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us... light... darkness... etc etc"? The gospel screams theology right from the beginning. And if the author figured others had already done an adequate enough job describing the important events, why not? We might be more interested in What Jesus did than in What Jesus meant to me, but that doesn't mean some old codger of a disciple must write what we'd like him to.

[Student]

May I point out that you've accused Kirby of 'misinformation' in suggesting 120-130 for p52, then quoted the Alands as suggesting a consensus that c.125 is a later limit rather than earlier. On face value I myself, in my ignorance, am quite dubious of paleographic dating outside a century's time-frame at best. But I would hardly accuse someone of misinformation for suggesting the later end of what others describe as a consensus view!

I am disappointed though not totally surprised that you chose to misrepresent what I posted and ignored the context of my criticisms of Kirby.

I accused Kirby of disseminating misinformation on a number of counts, and presented supporting proofs. For example:

Yet another example of Kirby’s mis-information is his statement that “P52 is dated paleographically to c. 120 to 130 CE�. This is completely false. In Roberts own words:
“On the whole we may accept with some confidence the first half of the second century as the period in which P. Ryl. Gk. 457 [P52] was most probably written�. (C. H. Roberts; An Unpublished Fragment of the fourth Gospel; p.16)

Is Kirby’s dating in conformance with the palaeographer who originally dated P52?

I also pointed out that :

Elsewhere on his website Kirby gives a date of 70 – 120 CE for Egerton Papyrus 2, and makes no mention of P.Koln 6.255

which is significantly at odds with the revised dating of the Egerton Papyrus 2, to c.200 CE.

As for my reference to the Alands, and their statements regarding the ‘consensus’ view for the dating of P52, it clearly was not my intention to promote their claims, on the contrary, I was criticising them.

Other commentators have been proven to be ever bolder with their estimates for the date of P52, and, without providing so much as a scrap of additional evidence, have pushed the date of P52, and as a consequence the composition of the gospel of John, ever closer to the earlier end of Roberts estimate culminating in Kurt & Barbara Aland describing it as the "consensus" view:

I was trying to demonstrate how conservative Christian scholars, such as the Alands, have been willing to play fast and loose with the date of P52 while failing to provide any evidence to back up their bold claims.
If I failed to make this distinction sufficiently clear, and as a consequence you misunderstood my intentions, I apologise.

Perhaps Kirby has been misled by the Alands’ claims, but that still does not exonerate him from the charge of disseminating misinformation on his website.

By the 80s and 90s CE the development of rabbinic Judaism would have been well under way, with both Christians distinguishing themselves from the Jewish messianic implications of the revolt and Jews distinguishing their identity from Christians and their politics from that 'Christ' aspect in particular. I'd guess that those features of John make best sense in the 80s or 90s, potentially 100s - though following the bar-Kokhba revolt is admittedly a possibility.

Saying someone was high priest for that year (you mean John 11:49 I assume?) could be as easily understood as saying they were high priest at that time, if it's someone writing in a second language. And since Tiberias was founded in the early 1st century, even the earliest surviving non-Johannine references to the lake by that name wouldn't establish a later date for John. The author identifies it as the Sea of Galilee also, implying that it was known by both names when the gospel was written.

With regard to Tiberias [the town] and Lake Tiberias. Tiberias the town was, as you say, founded in the first century. No debate on that matter for my part. However the Sea of Galilee was not known as Lake Tiberias until the second century. Why John, an alleged disciple and eye-witness to Jesus, would refer to a place by a name not known until the second century makes no sense unless the gospel was composed at a time after it was named as such.

And yes, I was referring to John 11:49 [as well as 11:51, 18:13] where we find Caiaphas described as “being the chief priest of that year/who was the chief priest of that year�. It is very hard to interpret this phrase in any other way other than as meaning the chief priest served a term of one year, as was the case in the Diaspora of the second century. In Hebrew/Aramaic an indeterminate but extended period was time was referred to using the idiom ‘days’ plural and not ‘year’ singular.

So, had the author of John intended the meaning “during the extended time Caiaphas was Chief Priest� he would no doubt have used the common Semitic expression “in the days of Caiaphas the Chief Priest� as in Mt 2:1 “in the days of Herod the King�.

From which it is reasonable to conclude that the author of John believed that the Chief Priest served a term of a single year. Hardly the words of an eye witness who would have known that the chief priest in Jesus time served for as long as it pleased the ruler of the day, and in the case of Caiaphas that was from 18 to 37 CE.

And there's contrary points to bring up of course. Why would some unknown fellow writing in the 2nd century know or bother to mention that Herod's temple project had been underway for 46 years (c.19BCE to 28CE) when Jesus visited? Utterly superfluous with the temple destroyed, and ever stranger with each decade; but a decade or two later, when word of the magnificent project lost might still linger in memory - and especially if it's in the author's memory - it makes more sense.

To say “it makes more sense� simply isn’t evidence, it proves nothing. To whom does it make more sense? To you perhaps but how likely is it that the rebuilding of the Temple could pass without comment or notice by the wider Jewish population. Jewish pilgrims would have carried word of its construction throughout the Dispora so it was highly improbable that you could find a Jewish community ignorant of when it started and how long it took to complete. And such information easily passes into folklore. Ask any Milanese about Duomo!
So, it would have been widely known that Herod started the project when he ascended the throne in 19/20. Pilate was appointed prefect in 26/27CE, so by rough and ready arithmetic you arrive at 46 years for the period between the start of the Temple reconstruction and the earliest date that would allow for the start of Jesus mission during the prefecture of Pilate. No doubt many Jesus/Christian communities would have cherished this ‘fact’ as proof of the existence of Jesus. The author of John being as good a plagiarist as any incorporated this fact into his gospel to prove it’s authenticity as an eye-witness account.

If you were intending to portray events as they actually happened, would you begin with "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God... the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us... light... darkness... etc etc"? The gospel screams theology right from the beginning. And if the author figured others had already done an adequate enough job describing the important events, why not? We might be more interested in What Jesus did than in What Jesus meant to me, but that doesn't mean some old codger of a disciple must write what we'd like him to.

I agree that John is not a biography, nor a history but a theological work. However it represents a theology and Christology that is the product of, and a response to second century Gnosticism. It is not the work of an eye-witness.

[Mithrae]

May I point out that you've accused Kirby of 'misinformation' in suggesting 120-130 for p52, then quoted the Alands as suggesting a consensus that c.125 is a later limit rather than earlier. On face value I myself, in my ignorance, am quite dubious of paleographic dating outside a century's time-frame at best. But I would hardly accuse someone of misinformation for suggesting the later end of what others describe as a consensus view!

I am disappointed though not totally surprised that you chose to misrepresent what I posted and ignored the context of my criticisms of Kirby.

I accused Kirby of disseminating misinformation on a number of counts, and presented supporting proofs. . . .

Perhaps Kirby has been misled by the Alands’ claims, but that still does not exonerate him from the charge of disseminating misinformation on his website.

You accused Kirby of disseminating misinformation. That's what I said you had written. You quoted the Alands' suggestion of a consensus that c.125 CE was more likely the later end of dating for p52. That's what I said you had written. I have noted, though I didn't mention it, that the paleographer who first dated p52 suggested a period which centers on c.125 CE.

You're free to level a charge of disseminating misinformation against Kirby for saying that the fragment is dated paleographically around 120-130 CE, and I'm free to point out that I myself would not describe it that way; the plausible c200CE dating of a fragment possibly from a manuscript which has some relevance to p52's paleography notwithstanding. I'm not sure why you think I misrepresented you, unless you think that I (like apparently Peter Kirby) am obliged to mention and either support or refute every possible pro and con detail of what's under discussion. It's possible to legitimately disagree with Student without exhaustive back-and-forth on all minutiae I repeat that paleographic dating of a possible fragment from John matters little to me one way or the other; but I wouldn't charge a fellow of 'misinformation' for offering a 10-year estimate rather than 30, 50 or 100.

By the 80s and 90s CE the development of rabbinic Judaism would have been well under way, with both Christians distinguishing themselves from the Jewish messianic implications of the revolt and Jews distinguishing their identity from Christians and their politics from that 'Christ' aspect in particular. I'd guess that those features of John make best sense in the 80s or 90s, potentially 100s - though following the bar-Kokhba revolt is admittedly a possibility.

Saying someone was high priest for that year (you mean John 11:49 I assume?) could be as easily understood as saying they were high priest at that time, if it's someone writing in a second language. And since Tiberias was founded in the early 1st century, even the earliest surviving non-Johannine references to the lake by that name wouldn't establish a later date for John. The author identifies it as the Sea of Galilee also, implying that it was known by both names when the gospel was written.

With regard to Tiberias [the town] and Lake Tiberias. Tiberias the town was, as you say, founded in the first century. No debate on that matter for my part. However the Sea of Galilee was not known as Lake Tiberias until the second century. Why John, an alleged disciple and eye-witness to Jesus, would refer to a place by a name not known until the second century makes no sense unless the gospel was composed at a time after it was named as such.

How do you know it wasn't known by that name 'til the 2nd century? If the town Tiberias was founded in c.20 CE, and let's say the first known written (non-Johannine) reference to it by that name comes from c.130 CE (I'd be interested in knowing the actual first reference), can you legitimately conclude that it began being known by that name in the 120s or 110s CE? Who says it must appear in the surviving literary record so soon after its rechristening? As I've pointed out, John's explicit clarification that he means the Sea of Galilee implies that it wasn't yet universally recognised by a new name - the term 'Lake Tiberias' was probably still becoming widely known and used, and therefore still quite recent.

And yes, I was referring to John 11:49 [as well as 11:51, 18:13] where we find Caiaphas described as “being the chief priest of that year/who was the chief priest of that year�. It is very hard to interpret this phrase in any other way other than as meaning the chief priest served a term of one year, as was the case in the Diaspora of the second century. In Hebrew/Aramaic an indeterminate but extended period was time was referred to using the idiom ‘days’ plural and not ‘year’ singular.

So, had the author of John intended the meaning “during the extended time Caiaphas was Chief Priest� he would no doubt have used the common Semitic expression “in the days of Caiaphas the Chief Priest� as in Mt 2:1 “in the days of Herod the King�.

From which it is reasonable to conclude that the author of John believed that the Chief Priest served a term of a single year. Hardly the words of an eye witness who would have known that the chief priest in Jesus time served for as long as it pleased the ruler of the day, and in the case of Caiaphas that was from 18 to 37 CE.

Good point about the common idiom. I'd be interested in more information on 2nd century diaspora Jewish high-priesthood though - can't find anything from a few seconds' searching. Trouble is that if the author was familiar enough with Judaism to know about that (and to know about the temple's construction) we'd be proposing quite remarkable naivete or ignorance for him to simply assume 1st century priests served for a single year. The occupying power's appointment and dismissal of the local religious authorities happened semi-famously prior to the Maccabean revolt, probably in Roman regions besides Judea, and indeed the author may well have heard that the high priest Ananus was dismissed following the killing of Jesus' brother James.

Can we legitimately conclude, based on divergence from common idiom, that the author was simultaneously versed in 2nd century Jewish practice and the temple's construction, but so naively ignorant of 1st century priestly offices? I think you've got a noteworthy point here, to add to our collage of information.

And there's contrary points to bring up of course. Why would some unknown fellow writing in the 2nd century know or bother to mention that Herod's temple project had been underway for 46 years (c.19BCE to 28CE) when Jesus visited? Utterly superfluous with the temple destroyed, and ever stranger with each decade; but a decade or two later, when word of the magnificent project lost might still linger in memory - and especially if it's in the author's memory - it makes more sense.

To say “it makes more sense� simply isn’t evidence, it proves nothing. To whom does it make more sense? To you perhaps but how likely is it that the rebuilding of the Temple could pass without comment or notice by the wider Jewish population. Jewish pilgrims would have carried word of its construction throughout the Dispora so it was highly improbable that you could find a Jewish community ignorant of when it started and how long it took to complete. And such information easily passes into folklore. Ask any Milanese about Duomo!
So, it would have been widely known that Herod started the project when he ascended the throne in 19/20. Pilate was appointed prefect in 26/27CE, so by rough and ready arithmetic you arrive at 46 years for the period between the start of the Temple reconstruction and the earliest date that would allow for the start of Jesus mission during the prefecture of Pilate. No doubt many Jesus/Christian communities would have cherished this ‘fact’ as proof of the existence of Jesus. The author of John being as good a plagiarist as any incorporated this fact into his gospel to prove it’s authenticity as an eye-witness account.

If memory serves Tacitus called Pilate a 'procurator' - but you're suggesting a 2nd century Christian author should've known when Pilate gained his office? You make a good point that Herod's temple project from early in his reign probably would have been well-known in the diaspora, perhaps even into the 2nd century. But I'd guess that the specific date of Herod's reign and particularly of Pilate's would not be such common knowledge. We should be careful not to merely stack arguments on one side or another. While it's nowhere near a conclusive point, I'd say knowledge of the temple's construction measures up against the above divergence from common idiom - if we're looking for where the balanace of evidence points, the two could be considered as cancelling each other out. That's just my own approach, of course.

If you were intending to portray events as they actually happened, would you begin with "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God... the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us... light... darkness... etc etc"? The gospel screams theology right from the beginning. And if the author figured others had already done an adequate enough job describing the important events, why not? We might be more interested in What Jesus did than in What Jesus meant to me, but that doesn't mean some old codger of a disciple must write what we'd like him to.

I agree that John is not a biography, nor a history but a theological work. However it represents a theology and Christology that is the product of, and a response to second century Gnosticism. It is not the work of an eye-witness.

All the opening talk of the Word becoming flesh probably derives ultimately from Philo, rather than gnosticism. The scene of Jesus presenting his wounds for the disciples' physical inspection occurs also in Luke - when do you date Luke?

As Marcion did, a docetic view of Jesus might be extracted from various comments by Paul, as indeed might a somewhat negative view of the Jewish God, especially as the Christian/Jewish split became more pronounced. If Irenaeus' claim that Cerinthus taught 'the Christ' descended on Jesus when he was baptised but did not remain to suffer his crucifixion were accurate, I can see why John's ommission of Jesus' baptism and the other key ritual of Lord's supper could be construed as anti-Cerinthian. Even the Johannine epistles are more concerned with the identity between Jesus and Christ than with the 'flesh' and countering docetic notions.

We're hobbled somewhat by the lack of reliable information about Cerinthus (and for that matter gnosticism), but some more information on why you believe John to reflect gnostic influence would be interesting

[Student]

Regarding the date at which the Sea of Galilee was known as the Sea of Tiberias, in the introduction to his commentary on John, Marsh says:

“Another criticism which points in more than one direction, according to the critics of the traditional view, is the knowledge of Palestine and its customs of the time of the gospel story. A notable instance is found, for example at 18:13, where the indication is clear that the author believed the High Priest of the time to have held office for only one year. Geographical details are also questioned: for example, the Sea of Tiberias was not known by this name until the second century*. Finally the claim to apostolic authorship is made only in chapter 21, which is manifestly an addition to the gospel.� (Marsh, Saint John, p.22)
[*Marsh does not identify his source of this information - I think that it might be from Higgins, The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel, but my copy has gone astray]

In reference to Pontius Pilate’s title, in 1961 a limestone block was discovered in Caesarea Maritima, bearing the inscription:

[DIS AUGUSTI]S TIBERIÉUM
[...PO]NTIUS PILATUS
[...PRAEF]ECTUS IUDA[EA]E
[...FECIT D]E[DICAVIT]
The letters in brackets are missing and are therefore a matter of conjecture, but there are no doubts regarding the reference to Pontius Pilate and his title Praefectus, i.e. Prefect.
Clearly Tacitus got the title wrong. Had Tacitus used the Imperial records as his source presumably he would have referred to Pilate by his correct title. The error tends to support the contention that Tacitus was merely repeating the story as relayed by Christians in Rome, who in turn got their information from the gospels.

As for the Gnostic influences in/on John, there are numerous suggestions. For example
“The discovery of the Qumran scrolls and the Nag Hammadi writings gave a new twist to the debate. On the one hand, the former demonstrated that several features of the Fourth Gospel which had previously been considered as typical of oriental Gnosticism, particularly its dualism, were after all thoroughly rooted in the Palestine of Jesus –albeit in a form of sectarian Judaism. But the latter have begun to expose a number of significant parallels with Johannine thought, as in the case of the ‘I ams’ and the coming of the Son from the Father into the world and back again. More important, both sets of discoveries have strengthened the case for viewing the background of John not simply as an either-or of Palestinian Judaism or gnosticizing Hellenism, but as an extremely syncretistic milieu which had absorbed influences particularly from the Wisdom speculation of Hellenistic Judaisism and the mythological soteriology typical of early proto-Gnosticism. There is indeed a growing consensus among NT scholars that influences from some kind of very syncretistic (or Gnosticisizing) Judaism have to be assumed if the character of the Fourth gospel is to be explained and understood (though the precise nature of these influences is greatly disputed).�(Dunne, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, p.298)

“From all of these considerations [discussed by Kümmel the previous five pages which I’m not going to reproduce], there follows undoubtedly the probability that the background of the Johannine thought-world was a form of Jewish Gnosticism, which bore a stronger mythological character from the thought world of the Qumran community, and which, above all, knew the myth characteristic of John, that of the descending and ascending envoy.
……....As confirmation of this contention is the observation that the Johannine Christological self predications with ego eimi nowhere have such close parallels as the Mandaean texts. There is also the proof of the stylistic closeness of the Johannine to the Gnostic revelation discourses.�(Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament; p.160)

“……John is considerably indebted for his conceptual world, especially as it appears in the Johannine Jesus discourses, to a heterodox Jewish-Gnostic milieu, which must be supposed on the edge of Palestinian Judaism, and which was strongly influenced by a Syrian mythological Gnosticism.�(ibid p.161)

So it appears that there is broad agreement that Johannine Christianity was influenced by Gnosticism but no certainty or agreement as to which kind, or rather which kinds of Gnosticism.

I suppose you pays your money, and you takes your choice.