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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/20/2008 2:16:08 PM
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Eracos
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The language of the Gospel of John is emotional, rather than intellectual. Even to say it is poetic or rapturous or mystic doesn't quite do it justice, because it is coming from a higher faculty of our human perception than what we customarily experience in our day-to-day existence, and we are trying to digest it from a lower field of perception. That is why his work is so hard to talk about. Often another means, such as music (see J.S. Bach and his St John Passion) can be useful to further one's understanding and appreciation of the content in this extraordinary work.
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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/20/2008 2:56:29 PM
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steve7150
Posts: 215
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quote:
but Jesus immediately informs him that, “My kingdom is not of this world” (18.36).
This declaration is totally at variance with any known contemporary Jewish concepts of messianic sovereignty.
The jewish understanding of Messiah was totally fragmented because there are different types of allusions in the OT but Isaiah 53 is universally acknowledged as a messianic prophecy and it clearly describes a righteous suffering servant who would die for the sins of others and whose days would be extended which could only be through a resurrection.
The jewish scholars generally claim the servant to be Israel but that would violate the Torah which said if Israel would be righteous she would be blessed, not suffer for the sins of others. Thus the suffering servant was to be a real person whom Isaiah beautifully described.
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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/20/2008 3:31:26 PM
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Denker
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quote:
ORIGINAL:frankman
Apologetics claim the Gospel of John was written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20). This must have been John the Apostle. There is both external and internal evidence to confirm that this eyewitness Gospel account was indeed written by John, the disciple of Christ .
Why “must have been?” [extraneous evidence required] Apologetical stances ancient or modern are as, I have been persistently attempting to explain, totally at variance with the writing of history. Please realise that Patristic apologetical homilies and historical inquiry are totally different things.
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ORIGINAL: frankman Externally we have both the John Rylands Fragment and the testimony of the early Church Fathers. The Rylands Fragments argues strongly for a first century origin of the Gospel, since an early second century copy (A.D.177) was found in Egypt.
These are matters relating strictly to palaeography, not historical criticism of the work itself.
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ORIGINAL:frankman
Apologetic E.F.Harrison states "Among the earlist witnesses to Johannine authorship are the ANTI-MARCIONITE PROLOGUS TO JOHN and the MURATORIAN CANON, both in the second half of the second century." Also Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria argee that the writer was John the Apostle. They were from the same period of time.
In point of fact the Muratonian canon is preserved in a single 8th century manuscript. The original document is believed to date to the late 2nd century, though alternative scholarly opinion would assign a 4th century date. It lists all the extant NT works except for the epistle to the Hebrews, the epistle of James and the 1st and 2nd epistles of Peter. The earliest complete list of our NT books remains that appended to the Easter festal letter of Athanasius [bishop of Alexandria] in 367 CE.
The so called Anti-Marcionite Prologues are prefixed to the gospels of Mark, Luke and John in forty manuscripts of the Vulgate. This Latin translation of the Bible was commenced by Jerome in 382 CE , at the request of Pope Damasius, and began with a revised version of the gospels. The completed translations were not finally collated until the 6th century. The Vulgate remaining the Bible of western Christendom until the Reformation . It is therefore a somewhat late and probably unreliable source for authenticating antecedent literary attributions three centuries previously.
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ORIGINAL: frankman Irenaeus testimony is crucial because John`s disciple, Polycarp, was Irenaeus teacher. ---- There was a Alogoi sect around A.D.170, who denied John`s authorship, which turned out to be a fabrication to deny John`s authority in teaching about the Logos (John 1:1+14) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." However they were proven wrong, because external evidence for the Book of John written by John as being the very Word of God was to strong. Sounds familiar!
Familiar? Yes, but quite unconvincing [see my original post regarding Λογος] There is no authenticated historical evidence that Polycarp was “John’s disciple,” or that Irenaeus and Polycarp even knew each other, let alone that Polycarp “was Irenaeus’ teacher.” This is all nothing more than pious hagiographic tradition.
The Alogoi were a group of gnostic Christians in Asia Minor [c.170] who seem to have been opposed to Montanism [an apocalyptic, charismatic sect originating in Phrygia in 156/7 or possibly 172 CE]. They held that Cerinthus, another gnostic teacher, [fl. c.100] was the author of both John’s gospel and the Apocalypse [Revelation] Under the prevailing local social and religious circumstances they might be excused for this error of misattribution.
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ORIGINAL: frankman Internal evidence is even stronger. The Author of John was an eyewitness to the resurrection and the other events of Jesus` life indicated by the many first person references like in John 20:2 + 21:4. The author was a Jew because he was thoroughly aquainted with the Jewish customs of (a) PURIFICATION (2:6) (b) BURIAL (19:40) (c) FEASTS (5:1) (d) JEWISH ATTITUDES (7:49) The author was also a Palestinian Jew familiar with the geography and topography of the land (2:12, 4:11, 5:2; 18:11; 19:17). All this evidence points to John the apostle of Christ being the author.
No critical comparative examination of all the four Gospels can justify a purely literal interpretation of John. It is patently obvious to any religiously unbiased reader, that if the fourth evangelist is right, then his predecessors must be wrong or vice versa.
The Synoptics and John cannot be simultaneously correct when the former assign to Jesus a public career lasting a year, while John stretches it to two or three years by mentioning two, or possibly three, consecutive Passover festivals during Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and Judaea. Likewise, if John’s dating of the crucifixion to the day before the Passover [14 Nisan], is accurate, then the Synoptics who depict the last supper as a Passover dinner and place the events leading to the execution of Jesus on 15 Nisan must be erroneous.
Who was the actual author of John and when was it written? The oldest known manuscript fragments date to somewhere between 125-150 CE and the earliest reference to it in early Christian literature comes, as has been seen, from the mid 2nd century. Accordingly the work must have been completed before those dates. The highly developed theology in John indicates a period after the redaction of the Synoptics, estimated to have taken place in the last quarter of the 1st century.
The split between Judaism and nascent Christianity, reflected in John, with the followers of Jesus being expelled from the Synagogue, is hardly conceivable before the turn of the 1st century CE. The work was therefore published some time in the early 2nd century, probably between the years 100-110 and this chronological hypothesis best fits the available evidence.
The identity of the author is unascertainable. Apart from the title “according to John,” which is ambiguous – which John? – and was only later attached to the composition, the Gospel itself from chapter 1-20 mentions no author.
In chapter 21, appended by someone distinct from the original writer,
[cf. v.24] an attempt is made to identify him with “the beloved disciple of Jesus,” who is tacitly assumed to be John, the son of Zebedee.
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ORIGINAL: frankman Conclusion; The Johannine authorship of the 4th Gospel is important whatever date is assigned to the book, whether the late date of A.D.80-100 traditionally given to it by scholars or the earlier date argued more recently on the basis of comparision with Qumran literature. George Ladd summed up the early view as follows.
To actually envisage that this literary work is the product of an “uneducated and common” Galilean fisherman [Acts, 4:13] who was nearly a centenarian, yet not only still creative but fully conversant with Hellenistic philosophy and mystical speculation, requires a leap of imagination beyond the bounds of reason.
Judging by his writing, “John” was either an educated Hellenized Jew of esoteric inclinations or, much more probably, considering his violent detestation of the Jews, a cultured Greek who had dabbled with Judaism and subsequently embraced Christianity. The total irreconcilability of John’s Gospel with the Synoptics, combined with the late date of its composition, strongly militate against the author being any kind of alleged “eye-witness” of the historical Jesus of Nazareth.
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ORIGINAL: frankman"Many contemporary scholars now recognize a solid Johannine tradition, independent of the Synoptics, stemming from Palistine and dating from A.D. 30-66." If the early date can be established, then so much better. But even with the late date we have in our possession a historian`s treasure- a firsthand, eyewitness account of the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Christ.
This is a concatenation of hyperbole and pious anticipation. Which “contemporary scholars” may these in fact be? No “early date can be established” for this idiosyncratic work without first abandoning all semblance of modern historical and comparative methods of investigation. Where is the corpus of relevant evidence to corroborate any such contention regarding alleged, [...] “Johanine tradition , independent of the Synoptics, stemming from Palistine and dating from A.D 30-66” ?
The fact that the dualistic stance reflected in John’s gospel is paralleled in certain writings from the Qumran sectarian community, is about as far as the comparative evidence will allow us to go. Further speculation concerning such conjectures is neither warranted or really appropriate here.
See the authoritative article on John’s Gospel, in, Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, Oxford University Press 2000.
[With full bibliographical references]
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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/20/2008 4:52:18 PM
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ta_mosquito
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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/21/2008 4:22:37 PM
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frankman
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From the very beginning all Books of the N.T. from Matthew through to Philemon were universally acclaimed to be canonical, including the Book of John, and were universally and immediately accepted as the Word of God. These Books were classed as HOMOLOGOUMENA. There were some disputed Books which for some reason or other became debatable. These included Books like James, 2 Peter, 2+3 John, Jude and Revelation. These Books were classified as ANTILEGOMENA. Then there are the PSEUDEPIGRAPHIA books which have always been rejected by everyone as unauthentic. These may include books like the gospel of Thomas, Ebionites, Egyptians, etc.. For some reason the O.P. has lumped the Book of John (see Post 23) into this class.  However this is historically incorrect.
However the O.P. is correct in pointing out to us that the Book of John is somewhat different then the Synoptic Gospels. This is because John was given the special task of writing a Book to both Jews and Gentiles presenting Jesus to us as the Son of God. Whereas Matthew wrote to the Jews and introduced Jesus to us as a King. Mark wrote to the Romans and introduced Jesus to us as a Servant. Luke wrote to the Greeks and introduced Jesus to us as the sympathetic Son of Man. In the Book of John the major theme of this Book is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and if you commit yourself to Him, He will give you eternal life. John 20:31 states "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name."
 If one refuses to believe that Jesus is the Son of God than one really has no choice but to find a way to reject the authority of John`s Book as Holy Spirit inspired. However if the Book claims we can not be saved unless we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, fully God and fully Man, we can`t afford to get this one wrong. Our eternal destiny depends on it.
_____________________________
"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." Isa. 40:8 Greetings- Frankman
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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/21/2008 8:49:55 PM
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steve7150
Posts: 215
Joined: 5/16/2005
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quote:
Whereas Matthew wrote to the Jews and introduced Jesus to us as a King. Mark wrote to the Romans and introduced Jesus to us as a Servant. Luke wrote to the Greeks and introduced Jesus to us as the sympathetic Son of Man. In the Book of John the major theme of this Book is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and if you commit yourself to Him, He will give you eternal life.
Exactly and the way to understand the gospels is realize they are complimentary and the full picture of Jesus is seen by soaking in all four. After all God said that truth is revealed by 2-3 witnesses so He gave us four.
Yes John is different from the synoptics since John had no reason to repeat what was already said and the final revelation of who Christ is still waited to be told. John added much information , even telling us what happened between Jesus's baptism and the start of his ministry in Galilee.
Jesus said you had to believe in his name , which means who he is and the things he said.
All the gospel writers could do was to tell the truth and folks who desire to know God have a way and folks who don't can go their own way.
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RE: John's Gospel, History or Aretalogy? - 8/21/2008 9:12:25 PM
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9drtr
Posts: 1646
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Toronto the Good
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Denker
Why “must have been?” [extraneous evidence required] Apologetical stances ancient or modern are as, I have been persistently attempting to explain, totally at variance with the writing of history. Please realise that Patristic apologetical homilies and historical inquiry are totally different things.
Allow me to translate: what Denker is saying is, "My evidence is evidence; your evidence isn't." Why? Because he wants it that way.
_____________________________
Edwin
When we know who is coming, how can we worry about what is coming? When the last hour belongs to us, how can we worry about the next minute?
Ross Crighton
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