mullerb wrote:I am Bernard Muller and, maybe a bit late, desire to answer some of the comments on my web site from Mithrae.
1) "after these things" in John6:1 might refer to Jesus in Cana, going to Capernaum with family and staying there for days. I do not see here a problem of discontinuity for my reconstruction of the original gospel.
2) "John" does not cut Jesus in Galilee, he just does not mention many things happening there (with gMark as the reference). Instead he preferred to show Jesus very active in Jerusalem in order to "show yourself to the world" Jn7:4
3) I gave a lot of evidence about the relocation of the disturbance in the temple. Please read about it in 3.6. I also explained explained why one festival is not named.
4) For the reasons of moving a part of chap5 and the disturbance, I did not go into that, because any number of reasons can be imagined, but not proving anything. There is discontinuity generated by the move of part of chap.5, but (with Jn5:47 followed by Jn7:11) there is continuity in the narration in the reconstructed original version.
5) Did you read my reconstructed version? I do not think I got awkward repetition and redundancy.
6) Yes, during the later additions and reshuffling, it is obvious awkward link clauses were inserted. I specified them in my subsequent pages, more so the one following the intro page.
7) Jerusalem is in Judea and "John" took advantage of the "Judea" in Mk10:1 to set Jesus in Jerusalem.
8) The original John's gospel, as I reconstructed it, would have Jesus going only twice to Jerusalem/Judea, as gMark gospel had it.
I'll send Bernard an email to let him know I've finally returned, but for now I'll keep my reply brief.
Muller proposes that in a reconstructed original John, which closely followed Mark's gospel, everything from 2:13 to 5:47 was either located elsewhere or added later. My main objections are:
* This would leave only a few days in Capernaum (2:12) to account for all the content of Mark 1:37 to 6:32. The original 'John' needn't describe all that content of course, but if he were following Mark as Muller suggests, he'd surely use a phrase other than "they did not stay there many days" to account for that gap
* It's a rather sweeping theory to base on a smattering of incongruous phrases, and indeed doesn't provide as smooth a solution as we might hope. This bears further discussion - I did indeed miss his points from 3.6
* Even granting that sweeping change, it doesn't line up 'original' John with Mark as well as Muller implies, since John would still have Jesus going twice to Jerusalem whereas in Mark he only goes once
If there's one incongruity which Muller has persuaded me is worth noting it's the story of the lame man in John 5; the festival in that case is not named, and 6:1 would follow on better from the end of chapter 4. Whether that's an indication of redaction is another question entirely, since there's other possibilities which may explain it better. For example, the possibility that the author drew upon an earlier
Signs gospel seems intriguing, since the use of these signs in John is one of it's distinctive features even to the casual reader. If that theory were correct, the miracle in chapter 5 would be the only one of the seven generally accepted signs which occurred in Jerusalem - so no wonder it's the only festival which John doesn't name.
Slopeshoulder wrote:Forgive me if I posted this before:
- John is not a synoptic Gospel; it is more theological. While all the gospels are works of theology/interpreation as much or more than they are historical accounts, John is later, moreso, and has it's own agenda or vision.
- Reading John for history per se is a big mistake and misses the point and greatness of John's work. he is worlds away from Mark, and reading it for it's unique vision is a wonderful thing.
- John is the most christologically high and mystical Gospel, closest to Gnosticism but written in opposition to Gnosticism, and possibly to Thomas as well. It's original value was exactly that.
- All the gosples reflect the oral tradition and particular emphases, experiences, and polemics of the early church communities in which they were written.
So reading it for historical accuracy and worrying about time and memory and credibility and statutes of limitations is all off the point and a waste of time. Worse, it's amatuer. Kid stuff.
The real interesting questions have to with how Christianity migrated between Mark and John, how the christology got so high, how John differs from the gnostics, the spiritual implications of the language of light that is so prevelant in John, what the tradition has done with all this, etc.
Anything that deviates from this basic intro understanding is wrong. It may be a fun hobby, but as knowledge or exegesis it's worthless.
As you say, it's obvious from the opening verses that John's purpose is far more theological than historical, even compared with the synoptics. But that doesn't mean it's completely worthless in finding or confirming bits and pieces of the historical puzzle, even if it were thrice-redacted by a 'Johannine community' (or Cerinthean community, for that matter). Its value in further confirming, shedding different light on or casting into doubt aspects of Jesus' final days in Jerusalem is obvious for example, particularly if (as a slim majority of scholars apparently believe) it was independent of the synoptics. If, as it claims, it were indeed written by a companion of Jesus, this value could only increase - though as McCulloch and Furrowed point out, a healthy dose of common sense is always required, as is the attempt to recognise the author's real purpose, biases and so on.
Cathar1950 wrote:Scholars tend to think the author of John knew of the Gospel of Mark and was reacting to his theology where Mark was Pauline and Gentile the community of John's gospel were kicked out of the Jewish community. The gospels give us more history of the times of the writers then they do of Jesus.
What's curious to me is that while this is more or less accepted as axiomatic in gospel criticism (and not without some justification), on the basis of passages which show the mark of their times rather than of Jesus' some scholars then feel justified in making further inferences about the authors. Specifically the case in point - that John's gospel reflects expulsion from the Jewish community - is proffered as evidence that the author couldn't have been a disciple because that doesn't reflect Jesus' times. The implication presumably being that the writings of an eyewitness surely wouldn't reflect the events of his own times! To me, this notion is almost absurd even on face value, even before we note that the gospel obviously wasn't intended as a strict historical record.
By the way, I read today that "The matter is debated in contemporary scholarship, but Kysar says that the theory of Johannine independence commands a "slim majority" of contemporary critics" (
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/john.html). Though of course often even a large majority doesn't really prove anything in a field as uncertain as this.
Cathar1950 wrote:The Gospel of John shows its Greek influence and it is little wonder it was used to interpret the other gospels by the Greek fathers as the were formulating their theologies as its Gnostic overtones can be seen in modern Christian ideas of personal relationship and spiritual experience informed by interpretations of John.
I've read that the Greek
language of John is very well-written, but I'm not so sure about the general concepts. Shermana seems to believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that an original of the gospel was written by the Philo-influenced Jewish Christian Cerinthus, and certainly the idea of the divine Logos can be traced to Philo at least as plausibly as to Greek philosophy. Intriguingly, just last night I came across an article about the parallels between the gospel and the concepts found in the Essene's Dead Sea Scrolls. It's from 1957 and not exactly scholar's fare, but interesting nonetheless:
- The Essene scrolls are closer in feeling and language to the Gospel of St. John than to any other part of the New Testament. And words that seem almost like a paraphrase of John's famous Prologue occur in the Rule of the Community: "And by His knowledge, everything has been brought into being. And everything that is, He established by His purpose; and apart from Him nothing is done." Professor William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins has pointed out that many phrases are duplicated in both, and in both the dualistic coupling of opposites recurs again and again " light and darkness, truth and error, spirit and flesh, death and life. The parallels and similarities are, in fact, so numerous and conclusive that they seriously challenge the theory that the Gospel of John was the latest to be written and that it shows marked Greek influence. Instead, many modern scholars now view John as thoroughly Jewish and his Gospel perhaps the earliest of the four.
~ Religion: Out of the Desert (Time magazine)
While I think the themes emphasising the distinction between the Christian and Jewish faiths are too important to readily concede a date before 80CE or so, if the thoughts and concepts of the work share strong similarities with Jewish thought of decades before the revolt it would certainly be an interesting factoid to bear in mind, and wholly compatible with authorship by a follower of Jesus.
