The British New Testament Society meets at the end of August every year, and draws around 180 scholars from the UK, from Europe and some even come from the US for the weekend. It comprises three main papers from eminent scholars, a series of specialist groups, looking at sections of the New Testament, which meet three times during the conference, and a section of parallel short papers, one of which I presented this year. And, like any conference, a significant part of the value is building relationships and having conversations over dinner, between sessions, and at the bar in the evenings. I have attended most years since 1991 when I began my research, and for ten years chaired the Revelation group.
This year we meet at the University of Glasgow—I think for the first time—and we had lovely weather! The main papers were by Jenn Strawbridge from Oxford on whether loss of sight was a curse or a divine gift in ancient texts and the New Testament, Steve Walton of Trinity College, Bristol on the depiction of God in the early parts of Acts (handout here), and George van Kooten, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, proposing that John was early and that Luke was dependent on John.
Van Kooten is not by any means the first scholar to argue for an early dating of John and the other gospels. Perhaps the earliest and most notable in modern scholarship was John A T Robinson, who was bishop of Woolwich and in other ways a theological liberal, having written the notorious Honest to God in 1963, which appeared to argue for a non-realist understanding of God and an existentialist view of Christian faith.
In his Redating the New Testament in 1976, Robinson’s main arguments were:
- There appears to be little mention of the destruction of the temple in 70AD in the gospel, and this seismic event would surely have shaped the gospel if it had already happened.
- Though many have thought of John as a ‘spiritual’ gospel which was the result of mature reflection, in fact the theological ideas are not all that far from the Synoptics and from the ideas on Paul’s early letters. (We might note that Paul incorporates Jesus into the oneness of God expressed in the Shema [Deut 6.4] in 1 Cor 8.5–6, and the pre-existence of Jesus is assumed both in 2 Cor 8.9 and the ‘Christ hymn’ in Phil 2.5–11.)
- There seem to be many eyewitness details in the Fourth Gospel, including details about the geography of Jerusalem, which would have been lost after the city’s destruction in 70AD.
He therefore proposed that John was written at a similar time to Mark, possibly in the 50s or 60s, and that Luke and Matthew followed soon after. After his death, his notes for the Bampton Lectures were written up as The Priority of John (1984) which focussed further on the geographical data in John—though this text is less well known.
Robinson’s argument was, at the time, seen as an outlier by many critical, mainstream, scholars of the New Testament, and his ideas did not shift the debate at the time. There is symbolic reference to the temple and its end, such as Jesus’ claim about ‘destroy this temple’ in John 2.19; the text appears more concerned with theological ideas than historical reality; the Fathers in the second century appear to suggest a date for John late in the first century; the ‘logos’ theology of Jesus as the word of God appears to be very developed; and there is strong evidence of the gospel’s awareness of the synoptics, particularly the gospel of Mark.
But scholarly consensuses take a long time to change, like the proverbial oil tanker, not least because those who have been working with certain assumptions, such as the late date and non-historical nature of the John, have built their own work on this—and so a lot is at stake when these things are challenged. If, for example, you gained your PhD by analysing the theology of Q, the postulated source of sayings of Jesus that are shared between Matthew and Luke (as part of the ‘two-source’ hypothesis), you are not going to welcome warmly the argument that Q did not exist (which I think it doesn’t). Biblical studies is not like Physics or Maths; arguments are significantly shaped by philosophical presuppositions, and the only external data we have by which we can test various theories and reconstructions are the data of the texts themselves, and archaeological evidence. Other literary sources (such as the Jewish author Josephus) are not themselves reliable external data points, since such writers might have their own biases and agendas, and apparent contradictions between the two does not automatically prove that the gospels are wrong. As contemporary scholar C H Dodd said to Robinson at the time of his book:
I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton[;] the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic’s prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud.
The size of the task in challenging the general consensus can be gauged by noting that Rudolph Bultmann, the major German figure in NT studies, argued that John was a late, Hellenistic texts, strongly influenced by Gnostic ideas, and should be dated no earlier than the end of the first century, and possibly as late as mid-second century.
Others have taken up many of the themes in Robinson’s work, and also argued for an earlier date for John and the other gospels. (By the way, I am not persuaded that the apostle John wrote the gospel—and note that none of the gospels identify their authors. But ‘John’ is how is it commonly known.) Craig Bromberg has argued for the historical reliability of John; David Wenham has argued for an early dating of the Synoptics, following the work of his father John Wenham; R T France believes that Matthew was written before 70AD, though does not offer detailed argument for his view. But very often, the arguments of evangelical scholars are dismissed as having a vested interest, and the content of the argument is not engaged with.
Jonathan Bernier has recently offered an argument for the early dating of all the gospels, in his Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament (2022), with a conscious nod to Robinson. He, too, notes that absence of reference to the destruction of the temple; he also thinks that the conflict between Jews and followers of Jesus is not evidenced in the gospels; and he is critical of many of the assumptions made by those who draw on historiographical arguments. A major part of his case is what he sees as evidence of expectation of an early parousia, the return of Jesus, which did not happen. The gospels and letters must be early to have included this mistaken hope. Yet this argument is inherently problematic; if it is true that the expected event that the writers of the NT record did not happen, why were the documents preserved? On the book of Revelation, he argues for an early date during the Neronic persecution—because Rev 11 makes reference to the temple, which must have been standing! Others have drawn on this chapter to note that John talks of it in symbolic terms (as denoting the people of God), which shows that it was no longer standing—supporting a late date for Revelation!
The most substance body of work arguing (albeit indirectly) for an early date for all the gospels is Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, first published in 2008 and now in a second, expanded, edition, in which Richard responds to some of his critics of his arguments in the first edition. Richard had already argued, in his and others’ essays in the collection The Gospel for All Christians, that the historical evidence is that the early Christian communities were in good, frequent, and regular communication with one another, so that the idea of separate ‘Markan, Matthean, Lukan, and Johannine communities’ with competing and rival theological ideas was a complete fiction, created to justify speculative theories about the development of gospel narratives. He also there argued from the textual evidence that the author of John knew the synoptics (because of things in the text which assume prior knowledge without explanation) and in particular that he knew Mark, and that the narratives of Mark and John dovetail very neatly together.
In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses he notes that the proportion of different names that we have in the gospels matches very closely the proportions of names (though some have disputed his use of the statistics here), and that all the evidence of the text and its relationship with Mark, including its use of both named and unnamed characters, supports its claim to be an eyewitness account.
Onomastics (the study of names) is a significant resource for assessing the origins of Gospel traditions. The evidence in this chapter shows that the relative frequency of the various personal names in the Gospels corresponds well to the relative frequency in the full database of three thousand individual instances of names in the Palestinian Jewish sources of the period. This correspondence is very unlikely to have resulted from addition of names to the traditions, even within Palestinian Jewish Christianity, and could not possibly have resulted from the addition of names to the traditions outside Jewish Palestine, since the pattern of Jewish name usage in the Diaspora was very different. The usages of the Gospels also correspond closely to the variety of ways in which persons bearing the same very popular names could be distinguished in Palestinian Jewish usage. Again these features of the New Testament data would be difficult to explain as the result of random invention of names within Palestinian Jewish Christianity and impossible to explain as the result of such invention outside Jewish Palestine. All the evidence indicates the general authenticity of the personal names in the Gospels. This underlines the plausibility of the suggestion made in chapter 3 as to the significance of many of these names: that they indicate the eyewitness sources of the individual stories in which they occur (p 84).
Others, such as Cambridge professor Simon Gathercole, and the Warden of Tyndale House, Peter Williams, have noted that the use of place names in John is confirmed by archaeological and historical evidence.
These are not isolated examples of scholars noting the apparent historical authenticity of the Fourth Gospel; for some years there has been a seminar stream at the international annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature devoted to exploring ‘John, Jesus, and History’.
So what exactly was George van Kooten’s argument? It was quite extensive and detailed, and filled more than an hour of quite dense argument, but was clearly laid out on the handout which you can read here. His case is made in four parts.
Part One: First, he notes two key historical references to the geography of Jerusalem which would only be known by someone familiar with the city before its destruction in 70AD. In John 5, the text mentions the Pool of Bethesda next to the Sheep Gate. The pool’s description is unusual, since it is described as having ‘five porticoes’ or roofed colonnades, which would suggest (in the absence of actual knowledge of the place) a pentagonal structure, which is unknown in the ancient world. Supposing this to be a fiction, some scholars have read this as being of symbolic significance. No pool was known in this area until excavations in the nineteenth century uncovered a pool. But it was not until 1964 that it was established that there was a dam separating two pools at different depths, with a portico on the dam making it a ‘pool with five porticoes’. You can see the reconstruction of this in the model of Jerusalem at the Israel Museum at the right.
Secondly, van Kooten notes that
The Sheep Gate (ἡ πύλη ἡ προβατική) is mentioned in Nehemiah as the gate that was built on the north-eastern side of the Jerusalem temple, as part of the rebuilding of the walls which Nehemiah instigated in the Persian period (Nehemiah 3.1, 32 and 12.39; LXX 13.1, 32; 22.39).
This was destroyed in 70AD, and today (as far as I can make out) the only archaeological evidence for it is the presence of a tunnel in that location. It would have been impossible to know about this gate without knowledge of Jerusalem before the Jewish War. van Kooten cited a fascinating example of a parallel to this from the Battle of Ypres in the First World War, where a soldier talked about the presence in Ypres of buildings that could only be known about by someone who had been there.
Thirdly, van Kooten notes the use of the present tense, ‘Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool…’ Like Mark, John makes extensive use of the historic present (that is, the present tense to describe an action that happened in the past) to describe the actions of Jesus. But a descriptive present tense like this cannot be translated as historic, and its occurrence here makes the claim that the author was writing whilst these features were still in existence.
Part Two was much more brief, noting the evidence in the text for a Jerusalem location for the author. This is something that Richard Bauckham has also argued; Jesus is in Jerusalem for more often in John than in the Synoptics—for example, when he sends the Twelve out on mission in Mark 6.7–13, what is Jesus doing? Answer: he is in Jerusalem in John 5, which takes place immediately before the feeding of the 5,000. As an observant Jew, Jesus would have visited Jerusalem for the pilgrim festivals, as John records, contrary to the impression of the Synoptics.
Part Three is where van Kooten argues for Luke’s dependency on John. He notes the striking verbal parallels between Luke and John, agreeing with each other but different from Mark and Matthew, in six significant places:
- The anointing of Jesus in Luke 7.37–38 and John 12.3, contrasted with Mark 14.3 and Matt 26.7.
- The wounding of the right ear of the high priest’s slave in Luke 22:50 and John 18:10, contrasting Mark 14.47 and Matt 26.51.
- Pilate’s triple assertion of Jesus’ innocence in Lk 23:4, 14, 22 and John 18:38, 19:4, 6, absent from Mark and Matthew.
- The burial of Jesus in an unused tomb in Luke 23:53 and John 19:41, contrasting with Mark 15.46 and Matt 27.59–60 (table below)
- The run to the tomb in Luke 24:9–12 and John 20:1–10, absent from Mark and Matthew.
- The post-resurrection demonstration of Jesus’ ‘hands’ and his ‘feet’ or ‘side’ in Luke 24:36–40 and John 20:19–20, 24–28.
It is worth looking at these examples carefully, and the texts are all laid out in the handout. The parallels between Luke and John at these points are striking; the question remains, which is the direction of influence? van Kooten is committed to a late date for Luke, since he believes that Luke makes use of Josephus. And the evidence for an early, pre-70AD date for John resolves that question for him.
Part Four consisted of a summary of the arguments for seeing Matthew as making use of John, and van Kooten’s own belief in Mark as written in 70AD (at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem) and so disagreeing with the evidence for John’s knowledge of Mark (since John must have been earlier).
In his conclusion, van Kooten made the bold claim that we should reconsider described Matthew, Mark and Luke as the Synoptics, with John in a separate category—and instead consider John, Mark and Matthew as the Synoptics, with Luke as the outlier!
Why does all this matter, what issues does it raise, and what is its significance? I think there are some important issues worth noting both for scholarship and for ordinary readers of the New Testament.
First, it seems very significant that a main paper in the main British academic conference of the year is making the case for John, and the other gospels, to be early, based on eye-witness accounts, and to a large degree historically reliable. It puts down a marker: believing in the essential reliability of the gospels—albeit as interpretations seeking to make theological claims—is not the hobby horse of a small section of scholarship, which is mostly evangelical. There are good textual and historical reasons for believing this.
Secondly, much of the evidence for these kinds of claims is based in textual and archaeological evidence, and so it hard to undermine for ideological or theological reasons. Biblical studies is subject to trends and fashions like other arts subjects, but some of the points that van Kooten makes here are hard to ignore.
Thirdly, one of the key points that van Kooten made was that the theological reading of John as a ‘spiritual’ gospel detached from historical concerns or interests was based on a lack of supporting archaeological evidence. But when the archaeology refuted the premise of the argument, the conclusion of the argument was not revised. Critical scholars on John continued to treat it as late and ‘spiritual’ despite the evidence to the contrary. van Kooten was here seeking to roll back the legacy of 150 years or so of a ‘consensus’ which actually now lacked its intellectual foundation.
Fourthly, his argument still left many questions unanswered or open to challenge. I think the overall case for a closer relation between the gospels, and an early dating for all of them, was very persuasive. His particular argument about the relation between the four was less persuasive. The key question is one of method: when two texts appear to agree or have a close relation, on what methodological grounds do you believe that Text A is dependent on Text B, or the other way around?
Mark Goodacre has argued that John’s language of God as Father is an expansion of Matthew’s extensive use of that language, and not the other way around, and that Luke’s parallels with Mark and Matthew show signs of ‘editorial fatigue’, explicable only as Luke coming after the other two. When I posted some initial comments on Facebook, he commented:
MG: Yes, it’s good that George is with the angels on Q, but disappointing that he is not on John.
My forthcoming book argues that John knows, uses, and transforms all three Synoptics…
IP: my repeated question on this is: when we see two texts agreeing, possibly ‘against’ others, how do we know the direction of influence? Can we? GvK made a good case of the points where Luke and John agree ‘against’ Mark and Matthew. But what does that tell us about the relation of Luke to John, and why? How do we know that they are not related at all, and rather drawing on common sources?
MG: Thanks, yes; this is the key question. I argue in my forthcoming book that the direction of dependence is from Luke to John because (a) John presupposes elements in Luke’s narration; (b) John shows knowledge of Luke’s redactional fingerprints; (c) John’s Anointing makes best sense as John’s version of the Marcan/Matthean anointing, with the addition of a key element from Luke that creates a problem in John’s narrative.
I often find Mark Goodacre’s arguments persuasive—but I would still want to raise the question: why do we discount all four gospel authors work from historical data which they know through eyewitnesses, rather than simply working with textual sources? The interweaving of undesigned historical coincidences is good evidence of that.
But, at the end of the day, it is refreshing and encouraging to be an evangelical scholar in an era where the historical plausibility of the gospel narratives is firmly on the scholarly agenda.
This is really fascinating – I noted the point you made about the pervasive power of a scholarly consensus.
I also reflected that understandably scholars look primarily to archeology and the text to inform judgments on historicity although the section on onomastics was fascinating. I wondered though if anyone has written from the perspective of the effects of collective trauma on the formation of the gospel canon. I know that the Jewish community went through a process after AD70 of reflecting what texts were authoritative and I suspect the same would have happened within the Christian community. It would be interesting to read someone versed in trauma studies reflecting on how a community would be likely to react to the dislocation of an event like AD 70, in particular how texts might be treated. I feel, although I can’t point to examples, that scholars and preachers make assumptions as to how the Christian community might have responded at the time without those assumptions having a sound theoretical root.
Thanks. That is a very interesting question!
I would go half way round the world to hear George speak. He is a classicist well versed in history, archaeology, philosophy, use of language.
It has been clear that Luke is dependent on John since (if not earlier) the evidence laid out synoptically by Cribbs in JBL’71 and SBL’73, ’76. Cribbs is far too cautious (and therefore unnecessarily far too complicated) in his conclusions when his evidence that he has just laid out points to a far less cautious conclusion.
There is no way of looking at the question other than synoptically – what overall pattern emerges from the overall evidence.
Since then there have been the fine studies of Shellard, Matson and others.
But there never was any good reason either (a) to think John was dependent on Luke or (b) to think it would be a strange thing for Luke to be dependent on John.
On a wider question, the ‘John and the Synoptics’ question has so often been laid out in an extraordinarily illogical way, as though there were just 2 alternatives (!) – either John knew something called ‘the Synoptics’ (it is never suggested that these are 3 separate works or 3 separate questions; yet it is implied that their similarity to one another somehow means that each of the three must stand date-wise in similar relation to John. Similarity and date are not connected!) or ‘common oral tradition’ (which sounds great until you get into how it would actually work; to question this concept is not at all to question oral tradition itself).
When these 2 alternatives flipflop in scholarly favour, it never occurs to anyone that something totally true could not have equal evidence for it as something totally false. Since it is impossible that both be true, it follows that the equal evidence for both shows that both are false.
Meanwhile, the two other major alternatives (John knew Synoptics; John knew some of them while others of them knew him) never get a mention. Bats.
I am sorry to have missed the Glasgow meeting, as my elderly mother’s funeral, which went as well as one could wish, was on 20 August.
It is clear to me that the order of the gospels is Mark, John, Matthew, Luke, and that all knew all predecessors. ‘Mark, John, Matthew, Luke’ was indeed the title of the 1992 paper which I circulated to 20 scholars, and in summary to another 20.
Hi Christopher,
Could it be that John and Mathew were written before 70AD? Luke about the same time or just prior, and Mark after 70AD, written in a hurry, as a short version in a time of peril? Mark seems to me to read as a synopsis of the others, not a precursor.
On the relation of Mark to the other synoptists I recommend various literature including RH Stein, The Synoptic Problem.
Thank you. I’ve orderd a secondhand copy.
On the date of Mark and its relation to the accession of Vespasian:
-We know (NT Wright and many others) that counterclaim to imperial claims are at root of much of the early Christian message. The Christians assert their own ‘unveiling’ (as against that of the statue of Nero; the word, once used, ceases to be useful in the body of the work) just as they assert their own ‘announcement of glad tidings, euaggelion [an imperial term]’. Rev 1.1; Mark 1.1 – the first Christian narrative, perhaps both from Rome, but likely within 2 of each other at the quintessential crisis date. Both texts are littered with counterclaims to the imperial claim, and trumpings of (specific claims to superiority over) everything imperial.
Mark section 1/4: Jesus like Vespasian begins with a Galilean campaign asserting kingship, and this campaign runs from village to village.
It climaxes in two especially spectacular events: victory in a sea battle on the Lake of Galilee (Taricheae), and in a precipice massacre (Gabara) (both: late in 67 fighting season).
Mark section 2/4: Period of withdrawal (in Vespasian’s case, first in Caesarea then in Alexandria).
The section begins (feeding of 5000) with a withdrawal from the action (rest in a quiet place) where the most spectacular thing is now the well-organised camp mealtimes by hundreds (centurions in charge of their century) and fifties (centurio in charge of 50, optio in charge of 50). For Vespasian, years 68 and especially 69, as time progressed, saw much less military action, as news was awaited from Rome, in Caesarea.
Whereas section 1 corresponds to the Galilee campaign, section 2 corresponds to the period when Vespasian withdraws from the action. This is first in Caesarea and then in Alexandria.
The Alexandria links are:
-frenzy at his arrival at the port (Mark 6.56; cf. 6.31,33)
-people wanting him to touch them 6.56 growing into clamour for healings.
-Two imperial healings conducted with distinctive use of spittle. One is of a blind man in each case. In each case the healing of a withered hand is mentioned.
-Announcement ‘You are the King’. Whereas this was essential in Vespasian’ case, in Jesus’s there are three unusual features – that he should ask others about his identity and expect an authoritative answer which simultaneously he did not already know himself; that the source of this answer is even then an unreliable one; that he affirms it as though it had never been necessary to ask the question.
-That this takes place at a place with the imperial name *Caesarea* Philippi.
-This very announcement immediately precedes/entails/sets in motion the journey to the city where he is to reign.
Mark section 3/4: The journey to the city where he is to reign.
-There is a build up of excitement. Going out to meet the incoming emperor was standard, but there was never such excitement as on this occasion, captured in the superlatives of Jewish War 7.4 – with the long wait for Vespasian’s final arrival; the fall of Jerusalem occurring at this very moment; and the promise of stability and Pax after quite unprecedented turmoil.
-Jesus’s entry to the city like Vespasian’s is also Septemberish with Tabernacles references to Ps 118 – branches and so on. It is not said by Mark that this entry is for Passover. The first Passover references come later.
Mark section 4/4: Arrival in the city and what he did there.
-Imperial colt (not donkey).
-King acclamations.
-Hope of salvation acclamations.
-It is odd for Jesus’s arrival to be anticipated before Jerusalem is reached – the following is prior to his arrival. This makes sense for the emperor, whereas in Jesus’s case it is hard to see how the news went out of his impending arrival when as soon as he reaches the city the throngs become less and his other Bethany to Jerusalem journeys later are (far from being an increase or crescendo) not attended by throngs at all, only by the disciples.
-First thing he does is go to the great temple site (in Vespasian’s case, this is where his brother has recently perished and his younger son escaped by a miracle). Vespasian is forever associated with temples (destruction of that in Jerusalem by proxy; establishment of the temple of Pax).
-It is late in the day by the time he gets there.
-Jesus’s symbolic act of temple destruction (shown to be such by the figtree withering, with which is also mentioned the abrogation of the significance of the temple mount Mark 11.23) reminds us that Vespasian’s entry was precisely coordinated with the time of Jerusalem’s destruction Aug-Sep 70.
-Mark 12.13-19, with Zeichmann CBQ’17 – Vespasian instituted what is known as the Jewish tax directly after the completion of the Jewish War. The year 71 was dominated in Rome by swingeing tax reform, because of that war and recent civil wars and because of Nero’s latter excesses – etc..
-Prodigies/omens attending his accession (after which Jesus is immediately crowned) include – cutting off of high priest’s servant’s ear; flight of a semi/naked man (Vitellius); a ‘gallus’ heralding the time of condemnation to death. The accession of Vespasian took place at the point of the death of Vitellius.
-Schmidt NTS’95 lists the links to possibly the most spectacular (and long planned) imperial triumph: the whole cohort gather in advance of the march to the cross (as though at the start of a massive coordinated and planned procession like the imperial triumph); location for this it praetorium. Both emperors are robed and crowned. Official ceremonial acclamation as triumphator / king – in one case sarcastic. Each is conducted out at the start of his procession, and each is ‘carried’ (15.1), though Vespasian on a sedan chair. Jesus the sacrificial victim wears a crown yet is led by another man who wields the instrument of execution (cf. crowned bull led by axe-bearer) – this one seems tentative. Mark calls Jesus’s destination Kraniou topos, while Vespasian’s is the Capitol – both mean ‘head’. Vespasian has a formal refusal to drink the wine at the sacrifice. There are placards both times – Vespasian’s proclaim who has been defeated. Both processions / ceremonies commence at the third hour. In both case the king is flanked by precisely two (‘in your glory’ – Mark 10.37): this will have been notable in Vespasian’s case as it was his 2 sons both of whom were already of imperator status.
-The veil of the temple was split from top to bottom, as (to some extent) it will have been by Titus on his entry to and occupation of the Holy of Holies where he performed atrocities.
Meanwhile back in Jerusalem in 71, 3 conditions are in place: (1) the destruction is a fact; (2) there is intent to level the whole area; (3) not all of it is so far levelled (nor in the event was 100% of it levelled, though this would not have been known in 71, when complete levelling was anticipated) because of soldier-quarters being needed. All in preparation for the land being portioned up and handed over to those of other non-Jewish nations (12.9).
Vespasian is acclaimed King specifically by the military (1 July 69); so is Jesus.
Dec 20, year 69 was of prime importance for Christians for two reasons: (a) accession of Vespasian over Vitellius when Jesus needed to be shown as superior specifically to the lauded Vespasian, temple-destroyer; (b) marks 3 and a half years since the start of the war, which is at the forefront of Rev’s priorities and those of the inevitable and attested other calculators of the time.
Gethsemane in Mark has the word ‘signal/sign’ (syssemon) preceding nothing other than a succession of 3 Vitellius/Vitellius-demise motifs or signs/omens:
(a) the kissing by a military leader of [an]other male[s] – see Suetonius, Vitellius 7.3. This is the sort of thing that would have characterised Vitellius in one phrase to a Jewish milieu just as Nero was characterised by his prowling around incognito as a spy (1 Ptr 5 cf. Tacitus Annals 13.25 and also 2.13). To kiss soldiers would be one thing, but to kiss lots of them in the hope of currying favour when one was an avowed homosexual, as Vitellius was, was another.
(b) Cutting off of ear of high priest’s servant;
(c) flight of naked or seminaked man.
The dove in ch1 is interesting. It is not an OT motif but new to Mark and closely follows on his ‘euaggelion’ heading which intrinsically sets Jesus up to supplant the emperor. It is appropriate therefore that the dove appears at the time Jesus is anointed King as per Ps2/Isa 42. Vespasian was primarily associated with peace because (a) his reign was what stopped the most complex civil war ever; (b) the temple of peace was planned by him at a time when the prime temple of Iuppiter Capitolinus lay in ruins; (c) he had to stabilise things after such costly wars including that in Jerusalem – for which financially the new ‘Jewish tax’ bore much of the brunt. Certainly his predecessor Vitellius was associated with ravens – see coinage, derived from his association with the prophetic guild whose feasts took much of his daily time. And certainly birds (and auguries) were of greater weight in the world of omens and prophecies than were anything else.
Nero had been fabled to destroy the sacred Ruminal figtree of Rome in 58 (Tacitus, Annals 13.58) – another thing that Jesus has to be shown not only to have matched the emperors in but to have trumped them by preceding them in it. (In each case, moreover, the figtree is symbolic of the city as a whole and its welfare/fortunes.) This kills 2 birds with one stone since the figtree combined with Jesus’s actions and his saying about ‘this mountain’ is what is meant to show that he not Vespasian was the true/earlier supplanter/destroyer of the temple.
Interesting is the tradition that the Nero figtree then miraculously revived. But we have no hint in Mark that he linked this to ‘…and rebuild it in 3 days’.
For SBL understand SBLSP.
Christopher – in your post above with Mark’s links to Vespasian, would Mark have known all those individual Roman details? If so, where from?
Yes. He is widely agreed to have gone to Rome. He is in Paul’s entourage in Col, Phm, is desired to be in 2Tim, and is Peter’s right hand man in 1Ptr (as in Papias). All Roman documents on my analysis (Tyndale NT conference 2019) and on most people’s.
The emperor’s doings are however always the main world news whatever part of the empire you are in.
But Mark was in Rome. So, all the more so.
As to date, Mark seems to have Jesus besting Vespasian on all these things in the way he structures his gospel (Papias heard from the John the Elder that Mark did not know the order of the ministry just its contents). This makes sense if Vespasian has already done all these things (which abruptly peak and then peter out in the year 71, and are entirely from the 4 years previous) but none if he has not.
Oh dear. Penultimate para of my main comment should read:
‘Meanwhile, the other two major alternatives (Synoptics knew John; John knew 1 or more of them while 1 or more of them knew him) never get a mention.’
How do you reply to Mark Goodacre’s arguments that John depends on Luke?
In the following, ‘GMark’ is the Gospel of Mark, and ‘Mark’ is Mark Goodacre.
I was at the Cambridge New Testament seminar at the end of last term and heard Mark’s talk. It was great to get his handout which was one of those superb Goodacre lists. We have in addition discussed this over the last 32 years.
I need evidence that Mark has seriously considered ‘Luke knows John’, but his new book is top of my wants list. (John with all his distinctiveness is also to be spotted sometimes in Matthew.)
In my view Mark has been guilty of seeing things in terms of the false dichotomy I said (”common oral tradition” vs John knowing all 3). There are various reasons why that dichotomy has not a leg to stand on, but it is surprisingly common. I mentioned that George is into philosophy, and I am sure he will have seen the logical flaw.
Mark has been right all these years to point out that logically Q breaks Occam’s razor. This present logical error is also stark and to be avoided.
In the paper Mark gave, almost all the examples pointed to John knowing GMark, which most seem now to agree with anyway.
There was an interesting passage (start of John 11) which he argued pointed to Luke being known to John, but there are many factors in analysing this passage source-critically. Otherwise small beer in terms of evidence. Hence my interest in seeing the full text of the book.
I believe that Goulder’s new paradigm is instrumental in Mark’s formation and presuppositions. Goulder believed in John’s knowledge of all the other 3, but he did not go into the option ‘did Luke know John?’ at all. Which means he was not in a position to draw that conclusion, having not yet gone even so far as to examine the main options.
One of my points at question time was that John visavis the Synoptics is clearly three questions that are unaccountably being treated as one question, and on this George and I agreed.
I rib Mark about it.
Could you email me Mark’s handout?
Yes, I think I know where it is. It is typically clear, and strong on observation as ever.
Just because something ‘breaks’ Occam’s razor principle does not mean it is false.
You are exactly right there.
There are instances of this all the time in real life.
But it bears no relation to the present case. Q breaking Occam’s razor is Q being posited as the likeliest explanation when a simpler AND UNCONSIDERED explanation, which would be agreed by all to be simpler if they DID consider it (and an explanation, moreover, which makes Q look a wildly uneconomic explanation) is waiting in the wings.
Such a situation could be found even with documents that actually existed. But what we have here is a pure hypothesis for which there is not a shred of direct evidence nor citation or hearsay.
Once one starts to list the illogicalities of the Q theory, they are many indeed. Together with the fact that contrary characteristics have been posited for Q at almost every angle of its being (Q is what you make it).
Great post, Ian. I love engaging with George, with whom I agree on many things! I am not so impressed with the present tense in John 5.2 given that the Bordeaux Pilgrim also uses the present tense for this site in the 4th century. It’s not true that no one knew about the pools until the 19th century:
“From Caesarea in Palestine to Jerusalem it’s 116 miles, 3 rest-stop, 4 changes.
There are in Jerusalem two big pools to the side of the Temple, that is, one to the right, another to the left, which Solomon made, but inside the cite there are two twin pools with five porches, which are called Bethsaida.
There those who have been sick for many years have been healed.
These pools have water which becomes scarlet when disturbed.”
https://andrewjacobs.org/translations/bordeaux.html
It’s kind of you to refer to me in this post! I plan to finish my manuscript on John by the end of September, for release in Fall 2025. There I argue extensively for John’s familiarity with Luke as well as Mark and Matthew.
That’s a travel document from the 4th century, written in Latin. Any comparable Greek texts to John?
I would have to read the Latin original to be sure, but the report does read rather credulously, as if the author wasn’t aware of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, and many places are simply asserted as biblical sites
The issue is whether after 70 it was possible to say that there “is” a pool called Bethzatha with 5 porticos. George says that that part of Jerusalem was so thoroughly destroyed by the Romans that it was not. Can we rely on the Bordeaux Pilgrim?
The account goes on to say that the water in the pools turns scarlet when disturbed. Later we are told that the fountain that feeds the pool of Siloam flows only 6 days a week and rests on the 7th. We are not dealing with a straightforward eyewitness report! We need more evidence about the history of the site. Since this is really the only one of George’s arguments that really convinces me of a pre70 date for John I would be interested in any further evidence about the history of the site
Yes, it’s a rather folkloric account, perhaps influenced by both John 5 and local legend.
I wonder if it’s no coincidence that it was written not long after Christianity became the official religion of the Emperor, and the writer is trying to ignore the fact it was his own people, the Romans, who destroyed Jerusalem?
John would have had no such motivation.
Ah The University of Glasgow, my old alma mater. I was always impressed by the main building, it’s what a university should look like!
Ive always thought it telling that John uses the present tense ‘is’ when referring to the pool. As you say, despite the grammar many scholars including evangelicals have still held to a later date, arguing that a single word should not be given much prominence. Hard to know. Is it possible John was started before AD70 and finished after?
My own view is that all of the Gospels could have been written pre-AD70. Mark in the 50s or 60s (I think Mark may indeed have used the principle of protective anonymity, which is why for example, he didnt specifically name the High Priest who condemned Jesus – this might then indicate a time of writing in the 50s or 60s when the significant influence of Annas’ family would have dissipated), Luke/Acts in mid-60s, Matthew perhaps around the same time, and John just before AD70. But I dont really have a problem with all of them being written after AD70, as I dont think it matters for reliability. Three decades isnt much different to five. Well, except that quite a few of the eyewitnesses would be dead if the latter. But that in itself doesnt mean the dating of the written document was early.
I understood the case was strong for Matthew and Luke both using Mark as a basis for their own Gospels based on their texts. But again, open mind as Im just an amateur.
Reading through the article, I would make the following comments:
The fact the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem is not strongly referred to in any Gospel does not mean they could not have been written after AD70. Why? Because they are written about the early 30s and set therein. Jesus’ words about the coming destruction may be a nod to it, after the fact. Some argue the words ‘the reader should understand’ is referring to the destruction already having happened. That isnt to doubt Jesus spoke about it, but rather the writers ensured his prediction was included.
Eyewitness details, for example about the geography of Jerusalem, does not imply the writing must have been completed then. That’s like saying if I asked my parents about an event 30 years ago and I write down what they describe, I must have written it at that time, 30 years ago! Similarly an apparent explicit absence of conflict between Christians and Jews seems pretty irrelevant to dating. There was certainly recorded conflict between Jesus and Jewish leaders, at the time of the events described.
Richard Bauckham – it’s a while since I read his book (2nd ed) but Im pretty sure he doesnt think the Gospels are early, ie pre AD70. I think he refers to a proto-Mark being early, but not the Gospel itself. Similarly I think he dates Luke and Matthew to around AD80 and John AD90s. Indeed I think he uses the AD80s date as supporting his argument for John the Elder being the author of John. My memory may be at fault so please correct me if Ive misremembered.
It is highly debatable whether or not Luke used Josephus.
One thing I still find odd about John is that so much of what Jesus apparently said is not recorded in the other Gospels, particularly though not limited to his own person, ie divinity. Did the writers of the Synoptics really not know about it, or their eyewitnesses? Can anyone offer a reasonable explanation for that?
If you look at the work of Evans, Winn, Incigneri, Schmidt NTS’95, Zeichmann CBQ’17 et al, you will see the year 71 all over Mark.
Top insights from Mark G. – may the debate continue.
Correction – I meant to say Mark may have been written at a time when Annas and his family still had significant influence on the Jewish leadership, which may have lasted beyond the mid-40s.
In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses I accepted the most common dating of the Gospels (with Mark soon after 65, as many agree). It is important to me that my argument in the book is independent of arguments about dating as well as about Synoptic relationships other than Markan priority. Since all such arguments are only probabilistic it is methodologically important not to make them all inter dependent. That would reduce the likelihood of any of them.
I have always thought the end of John fits an author who was an especially long-lived disciple of Jesus, and I am strongly of the opinion that it is an integral part of the design of the Gospel, not a later appendix. So George’s argument about 5.2 has disturbed me!
Nowadays I am toying with a date for Mark in the 40s and Luke and Matthew (in that order) before 66.
Thanks for that clarification Richard—very helpful. The question of whether John represents eye-witness testimony, and its early dating, are indeed distinct.
I think your point about interrelationship is important and often neglected. One of things that struck me about George’s overall scheme is that putting a number of less likely things together does not make the overall scenario more likely!
Mark in the 40s? Isn’t that what John Wenham says? – Although I don’t think he believed in Markan priority.
If I remember rightly John W relied onpatristic traditions that I would not credit at all, including the idea that Peter went to Rome in the 40s. Naturally the Church of Rome would have liked to think Peter was one of their founders. I don’t think the Fathers knew much at all about these things that they did not get from Papias.
Gerd Theissen argued (1) that Mark 13 dates from the Caligula crisis in the 49s, (2) that Mark’s passion narrative was written while the Annas family was still in power (hence “protective anonymity”). One might think these good reasons for dating the Gospel in the 40s (maybe in Jerusalem?), but T’s form critical ideas about the development of traditions in the rest of the Gospel prevented him from considering that. I don’t share those ideas.
I used to think (like most people) that what Papias says about Peter and Mark and the Gospel relates to when Peter was in Rome at the end of his life, but now I wonder whether it might refer to Peter’s preaching tours in Palestine as recounted in Acts. Mark could be a gospel for the Pauline mission.
In your book you say ‘the period of which he (Papias) is speaking must be c.80. It is the period in which the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John were most likely all being written. This makes this particular passage from Papias very precious evidence of the way in which gospel traditions were understood to be related to the eyewitnesses at the very time when three of our Gospels were being written’.
So you seemed to be arguing the the timing of the writing of the Gospels was very important, specifically as to how eyewitness testimony was understood. You make a similar claim on pg 19 where you say Matthew and Luke were written c.80-90, and John a little later. Given how much emphasis you put on Papias’ words regarding The Gospels and specifically John (the elder), the timing of the writing would seem to be important to your argument.
Yes, I’d forgotten that!
In my last post 49s should be 40s.
And in response to some one else I think John the Elder, a Jerusalem based disciple of Jesus, was the Beloved Disciple and wrote the Gospel. He ended his life in Ephesus and was later confused with the son of Zebedee.
So, was Beloved Disciple = John/Mark of Acts? There are some good arguments and Dean Furlong seems to be moving in that direction. I agree with you, Richard, that John 21 was written by the author of the gospel. Many problems in NT studies are solved when we accept that third person self-reference was common.
If John/Mark wrote John, then another Mark likely wrote Mark. I am exploring the idea that “Matthew” was this other Mark’s semitic name. Mark’s audience would then likely have known that his other names were Matthew and Levi, and this would explain why he did not need to explicitly identify Levi as Matthew. Those who edited and extended Mark’s gospel to create the gospel of Matthew, just called Mark/Levi “Matthew” consistently, and attributed the gospel to him under the name “Matthew”. Mark/Matthew would be a Latin/Semitic name pair with some phonetic similarity between the two names. As you know, this fits the pattern that we see among the earliest Christians who left Palestine.
Dear Richard,
I remember how excited I was when John Proctor announced to me in my shop the forthcoming ‘Eyewitnesses’, whose latest edition is a treasure and sells here.
On Luke and Matthew, I see no possibility that Luke precedes Matthew (in a Qless world, anyway). This would require Matthew to unpick – to no purpose – the Deut & Elijah material from all of the little central section pericopae where Luke has Deuteronomised or Elijah-ised. These are many. Whereas the reverse – that Luke Deuteronomised and Elijah-ised what he found in Matthew is both far simpler and more explicable. Christopher.
I have been convinced especially by Alan Garrow’s arguments for Matthean posteriority, though I was already thinking in that direction. I find it the only plausible substitute for Q (which is still a powerful hypothesis). As with Marian priority it requires careful attention to parallel passages.
Dear Richard
I spoke to Alan in Exeter about this with my counter-argument, having also presented it in writing at Twickenham. He said, more or less, ‘That is your perspective.’. Which indeed it obviously is (as no-one had doubted, anyway!) but that doesn’t get us very far – the question is whether it can be gainsaid. Alan had no immediate answer, nor since.
It is precisely the doing away with Q (which in itself is quite correct) that creates the problem here. In Luke’s central section, CF Evans et al list many Deut (apparent) redactions by Luke which moreover are in sequence. Brodie lists Elijah (apparent) redactions of which the plausible ones are about 10 in number.
To my mind, this can only leave us with Matthew cutting out every single one of these – and without motive to boot.
While the alternative explanation of Luke using Matthew simply has Luke Deuteronomising and Elijah-ising Matthew.
Making me think you are compelled to say the former of these processes was the one that happened, very unlikely as that seems. But have I missed something?
Because Jesus’s return was naturally expected in the lifetime of his apostles, it follows that people would expect that his final apostle would not die but would see the Son of Man’s coming.
John’s death may be presupposed by Mark 10 (date 71) and John’s gospel also views Peter’s death (Purim 68) as topical and perhaps therefore recent.
Rev 1 may have been written partly as consolation showing that John did indeed see [a] coming of the Son of Man before he died on Patmos – under Galba (17.10), thus later in 68.
We note the words, all giving the message that death is not insuperable, reassuring to one who has seemingly actually died: ‘I fell as though dead [less of a topos at the time than may be supposed], but he laid his hand on me [reassuringly] and said…I am the Living One; I died and behold I am alive; and I hold the keys to death and Hades’.
John is never said to return from heavenly realms.
As to John the Elder writing both works on John the Apostle’s behalf in a Hengelian dual identity, the outer framing of both works is very distinctive and very similar to this precise end (as I argued BNTC Rev 2018); while indications of the duality of the identity are several.
Christopher
On your point about Luke and Matthew: (1) why do you assume Matthew would have recognized that design in Luke, seeing as most readers have not? (2) if he did why should he want to reproduce it? His gospel it’s own design. Matthew merely plunders Luke for teachings of Jesus to augment his great discourses. Mark provides the main structure of his gospel. His use of Luke is much more piecemeal.
Dear RIchard
And therein lies the num=b. In order to remove the said material (which is nowhere to be found – 60 sequential Deuteronomy correspondences and 12-15 Elijah), Matthew would have had to see it there. As interpreters before 1950 did not, it is quite possible that Matthew did not either.
But it is precisely the fact that he removed every single scrap of it that shows that he did indeed spot it (IF he was posterior to Luke, and there was no Q).
Because in general he has much much close verbatim correspondence with Luke in the central section wherein all this material is found.
In order to be so wholesale about his removal of it, he would need to have recognised the pattern.
But even then his antipathy to it is unaccountable. And it is remarkable that he identified the same passages as 2021st century scholars do, without exception, as falling within said pattern.
Take the lowest estimate – just 30 Deut bits and 8 Elijah bits. What are the odds of literally none of them leaving a trace in Matthew, given how conservative Matt often is with his sources (accepting for a moment what I deny, that the double tradition material involves Matt working with a source)? One thing is for sure, the odds are steeper if Matt did not recognise the pattern and *still managed to delete it wholesale, extirpate it (your scenario) than if he did not recognise it.
Finally we repeat that the alternative (Luke Deuteronomising and Elijah-ising Matthew) is easy – and moreover as OT Christological templates go (my normal seminar paper topic) Luke uses passages where there is a prophetic forbear (Moses, Elijah etc) which provides a motivation for him to act this to boot.
I certainly agree that Matt stays closer to Mark than he is to Luke. But he can be verbatim or very close in the Luke material including in the material parallel to Luke’s central section, wherein all of this is found.
The odds we are talking are astronomical or (given that Matthew’s score is zero for these 40-75 contexts) infinite. (This is, incidentally, an example of how large scale overall patterns can be more telling in the synoptic question than the needlessly difficult procedure of minute analysis of comparative probabilities pericope by pericope, which sometimes does not see the wood for the trees).
Unless there is something I have not seen.
First line: ‘…therein lies the nub.’
Forgive me, I made another typo in the middle: I meant ‘…the odds are steeper if Matthew did not recognise the pattern and still managed to delete it than if he *did recognise it.’
Are you familiar with Luuk Van De Weghe’s work Living Footnotes? He also mentions the relationship between Luke and John (in a book that focuses on Luke & Acts) and argues that Luke either knew the author of John or the Gospel of John based on how often he sided with John over Matthew and Mark (keeping in mind how conservative Luke uses the latter two!).
Van De Weghe has also published a paper with a statistician to expand Bauckham’s onomastic argument and respond to criticisms of it. It’s very good!
The response to criticisms of the onomastics sounds important—not least as I am aware that Mark Goodacre had some challenges to Richard’s observations.
But on ‘Luke siding with John’ again I have the question: how can you know from the texts alone the direction of the influence? Does van de Weghe address that question? I think George vK leaves it hanging—at least in that presentation.
In my Tyndale 2019 paper and handout I addressed this very point: How can you know from the texts alone the direction of the influence.
There are numerous patterns, listed there, where A knowing B is far more likely than B knowing A.
Also it is not surprising that this should be the case.
That is even before we get to the real thing, which is the large-scale picture, since the above consideration generally applies only to minute analysis, important as that is.
Hi Ian,
Here’s an open access paper by Van De Weghe on the relationship between Luke and John: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/beloved-eyewitness/964BF90DF6ECDC4EA7C6144A17F55754. He gives some reasons to suspect the direction of influence in section 3.
Regarding onomastics, here’s a link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14883. It’s not a response to Goodacre, but to others recently questioning its statistical relevance. It’s a very tightly argued paper that also applies the same test to Josephus and modern historical novels.
Thanks very much!
I have done the maths myself and can confirm that Bauckham and Van De Weghe are correct. The names in the gospels are indeed what we would expect of historically accurate documents.
Thanks Richard. Have you specifically responded to Mark Goodacre’s comments?
Where can I find the Goodacre comments that you mention, Ian?
I think he posted them on his blog.
I can’t find it. He pointed out an error in Bauckham’s calculation of the probability of Jesus’s sisters being called Mary and Salome, but that was not in “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”. Is that what you are referring to?
Than you, Ian for the excellent summary! I have for long speculated that John was at least as historical as the synoptics, and the synoptics at least as much theological reflections as John.
Well, with apologies, I’m sceptical about the whole business. There always seemed to me to be a great mismatch between what a person who has come to faith and has therefore passed from death to life (John 3:16) would infer about authorship, dating, etc …. when reading Scripture and what learned biblical scholars seem to come up with. When I first became aware of JAT Robinson’s ‘The Priority of John’, I latched onto it, even though the man was a self-confessed heretic, because the inferences he made led to a much more ‘natural’ reading than what the biblical scholars with their textual and historical analysis had come up with. When Richard Bauckham’s book ‘Jesus and the Eye Witnesses’, this made an awful lot of sense – presenting a much more natural way (at least to me) of considering how the gospel came about, the thought process of the author, etc …. But why some strange fun-and-games with the authorship? If ‘John’ appears at the top of the page, then the natural assumption is that this refers to John bar Zebedee rather than someone who is keeping his identity a big secret. Even if the BD was a different ‘John’ this would still mean that those who passed the gospel down were guilty of deliberate deceit, since your average punter seeing ‘John’ without further qualification in the context of ‘the gospel according to’ would take it to mean the obvious (and would not take it to mean ‘according to a committee of followers of John from some ‘Johannine community’). Even without stating anything wrong, putting in ‘John’ in this context referring to a John different from John bar Zeb is deceit and is breaking the ninth commandment.
To illustrate the mismatch between what passes for ‘biblical scholarship’ – some of them euphemistically describe John 9:22 as an ‘anachronism’; they argue that Christians were only thrown out of the synagogue much later – this didn’t happen during the lifetime of Jesus. In other words, ‘anachronism’ is the wrong word and they are stating that the author of the gospel was a blatant liar – since the author of the gospel tells us that this happened during the ministry of Jesus.
Of course, with John’s gospel, one of the main reasons that scholars seem to give against a reasonably early dating is that they don’t imagine that the ‘logos’ theology, stated in the prologue and which permeates the whole gospel, would have been understood by anybody shortly after the ascension – even though in the time between the resurrection and the ascension, Scripture informs us that Jesus was teaching the disciples. Of course, what is really behind this argument is that Christian thinking in and of itself wasn’t enough to develop the ‘logos’ theology – it needed a heavy infusion of ‘the empty philosophies of men’ from the Greek philosophers; the wisdom of Jesus wasn’t enough.
I share the encouragement that 21st century scholarship seems to consider historical plausibility of the text – but I continue to be sceptical – there is still the basic assumption that, to some extent, the authors of the gospels and those responsible for passing them down (who were supposedly Christians) were a bunch of deceitful liars.
Many points here:
Only a few names accounted for a high proportion of the Jewish population – Iochanan being among them.
You commit more than once the fallacy of assuming that what is true/alleged of one portion of a library or collection must be true/alleged of every member of that library or collection. I have sometimes been the only Christian demonstrating about something in the whole of London, only for passers by to say exasperatedly, ‘These Christians – they are all demonstrating.’.
Other Johns could be famous.
The gospel was initially circulated anonymously, quite likely – though differentiating headings for authorship or assumed authorship would be added after a certain date and once gospels circulated as a collection. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark 64-84; The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Given that John was (pace Bauckham) the beloved disciple though not the author, and indeed the prime witness, it could be said to be John’s gospel. But all the more so if the two of them shared a name, which seems to be the case from history and from punning wording used.
‘Early’ and ‘late’ are not dates – and that applies to all of this discussion. Vagueness will never be above precision, and indeed will always be less good than precision.
You are talking in generalities some of the time, but many many have gone into this in detail, and it is them that we should listen to.
The text itself perhaps suggests that the identity of the author is a puzzle to be solved.
Jesus himself was thrown out of the synagogue according to Luke 4. I don’t get why perceived blasphemy and innovation would be treated that differently in earlier and later times. We do not get any indication of any era at all when the new Christian mode did not attract substantial hostility in some (generally official) quarters.
Jock, I think youre making false assumptions about what the early church knew or didnt know. Why believe that they ‘assumed’ the author of John’s Gospel was John the son of Zebedee? Many today only assume that because we dont know for sure who wrote it and as John is referred to in the text we jump on that and claim, oh he must be that John. But I would imagine some or many in the early church knew precisely who the author was, which explains why it was accepted as authoritative. It wasnt some Tom, Dick or Harry, it was John the apostle or John the Elder – take your pick.
So I dont think it’s appropriate to say the early Christians were being deceitful. It would have been the same with all the Gospels – the authors were known (the argument they were ‘anonymous’ for years is nonsense) and because of their standing in the community their writing was accepted.
PC1 – a different John doesn’t make sense to me, since if we had an early dated gospel written (for example) by someone called ‘John the Elder’ (a different John from John bar Zebedee), who was a renowned and fearless evangelist, then surely Luke would have at least given this chappy a mention in his Acts. With Matthew, we believe that the gospel originated from the disciple Matthew – so when we read ‘according to Matthew’, we know which Matthew is being referred to; Luke (although he records it himself) was a companion of Paul (which gives us some idea of the specific purpose of Luke’s gospel – as the gospel for the Pauline mission) – so (just as with Matthew) we learn something about Luke and where he fits into the picture. Mark also gets a mention in Acts (I don’t think anybody believes for one minute that the Mark who was responsible for the gospel was a different Mark from the one mentioned in Acts; nobody is trying to say, ‘this isn’t Mark from Acts – it’s Mark the Elder, a complete stranger from outer space’). The theory that Mark somehow wrote down what Peter told him to makes a lot of sense – so we know who the author is and we have a pretty good idea where he got his material from – a reliable eye witness.
So all the other gospel writers – and indeed all the serious New Testament writers get a mention – either as named disciples of Jesus or as serious characters in Acts. So yes – it does seem very strange to me that they should write ‘according to John’ (and the ‘according to’ in all four gospels have been there from the very beginning) if they meant a ‘John the Elder’ when there isn’t even so much as a cheap about him in Acts. And yes – I would regard the designation ‘according to John’ as deceitful – especially if an early dating is appropriate.
Also – John bar Zebedee gets very serious mention in the gospels as not only one of the twelve, but one of the top three – he was with Jesus at the transfiguration. So he was in prime position to write a gospel (and in fact the Lord seemed to be preparing him for such a task). Do we believe that John bar Zebedee was the author of Revelation? Because if so, then he clearly had the theological capacity for the gospel according to John – and there aren’t very many of whom this is true.
Jock, John the Elder could easily be mentioned or referenced in Acts 4.6, 6.7. Together with this note that in John 12.42 Jewish leaders’/priests’ apostasy is what gets his goat more than anything else.
But he is allowed to have a later floruit than 62 which is where Acts ends. His known works all date from well after that. So if he is not much part of the story up till 62, Luke will naturally not mention him.
Christopher – yes – Luke clearly identifies another John, different from John bar Zeb, who has not appeared before. This John (at the time of Acts 4:2) is ‘on the other side’, one of the high priest’s family. This would therefore exclude the possibility that he was the ‘beloved disciple’.
He could have subsequently undergone a Damascene conversion (perhaps even as a result of Peter’s sermon Acts 4:8-12 – although I’d expect Luke to mention this if it had happened) and (like Paul) he could also have been a man of phenomenal intellect and theological understanding (a necessary requirement for author of either 4G or Revelation) – but if this is true then it’s very difficult to see him as author of 4G – if only because John bar Zeb isn’t mentioned by name in that gospel (which would be rather odd, following the encounter outlined in Acts 4:7).
Could have had a Damascent conversion? If he did, he was far from alone. Acts 6 says quite a number of priests became obedient to the faith. John 12.42 is also interesting here. You need to be familiar with what Polycrates says about John’s priestly background. By the time of Polycrates it is possible that different Johns (like different Philips) were being confused with one another.
Damascene.
When you get to heaven Jock be careful not to start an “I’m Sparticus” moment!
Writing a book about events does not make one a ‘renowned and fearless evangelist’ so there’s no particular reason why he would be mentioned in Acts. In fact Ive found that people who are excellent at writing are often not good at public speaking etc, they are different skill sets. The Twelve plus Paul take centre stage in Acts.
I think youre just presuming that noone except one of the Twelve, or a companion thereof or of Paul, could have written a theological biography of Jesus. It’s as if no other disciples existed.
Im not sure whether the author was the son of Zebedee or John the Elder, or indeed another John who was a disciple of Jesus and whose testimony others trusted, but Bauckham I think gives a decent case for the Elder. But as I said I am unsure.
For what it’s worth, I have been at this for 32 years, and having looked at numerous angles find John the Elder streets ahead of any other contender for authorship.And Bauckham and Hengel make the best cases – though there are some fine cases made by others. These 2 leading scholars disagree on the identity of the Beloved Disciple. I spoke at BNTC 1999 in favour of Hengel’s position that the BD is John the Apostle, introducing four new arguments for that.
I have a book called “Ani Maamin” by Rabbi Dr Joshua Berman, who is an Orthodox Jew and writes about the challenge to faith posed by academic study, particularly concerning the Pentateuch. He writes:
“Indeed, our forefathers in the time of the Tanakh thought and wrote in ways that differe greatly from the ways that we do. Consider the following words and concepts: belief, law, hisutor, author, fact, fiction, story, religion, and politics. … as we shall see, the Tanakh has no knowledge of any one of [these terms].” (pxxiii)
“When we as moderns read a passage of historical writing such as this, we do so with a set of presuppositions that we rarely think about or acknowledge. The presuppositions I draw attention to here will seem banal, perhaps even obvious. But they are important to identify because they are at odds with how people – including those living in the periods of the Tanakh and the Talmud – read accounts of the past before the modern age. Only by grasping the difference can we understand how the Tanakh relates to us the events of the past.” (p16)
wise words.
David,
That reminds me of something similar, but in the opposite direction, if remembered correctly, (a critique of modern scholarship of his day in understanding and interpreting scripture, by CS Lewis, who was himself outside the ‘inner ring’ of biblical scholars. It could be dug out, but not tonight). His essay/lecture the ‘inner ring’ is apposite here.
It serms to me that, in summary, all this scholarship amounts to speculation by specialists and is beyond proof even by the evidential standard of ‘balance of probabilities’ and self- serving of the academic guild with internal authority referencing in support.
Jock, you say, ‘Even without stating anything wrong, putting in ‘John’ in this context referring to a John different from John bar Zeb is deceit and is breaking the ninth commandment.’ But which ‘context’ are you referring to here?
Are you misunderstanding again how we use language in human communication? Where do the Gospels say ‘John wrote this’, ‘Mark wrote this’ etc? By accusing early Christians of deceit here, arn’t you also accusing writers using irony or loose language (‘she has a round face’) of deceit?
A question for you and Steven Robinson below, not on the Gospels, but on names in the New Testament: was John Calvin justified in claiming the Onesimus of Col 4.9 was not the Onesimus of the letter to Philemon? (And a question for Geoff: are most copies of Cheshire & Fifoot’s Law of Contract deceitful?)
Bruce – are you suggesting that the ‘context’ may be that the ‘according to …’ designation was never intended to be taken seriously – and was only ever inserted by the publisher as a ‘cool’ name to help get off a first edition – everybody at the time understood this, so nobody was hood-winked by the name ‘John’? I’m reminded of the dedicatory epistle that Jonathan Swift wrote, along the lines of ‘both God and your lordship know your lordship’s faults and merits. I personally am unacquainted with the matter, but I just thought that your lordship’s name on the front might help to get off a first edition.’
You’re correct that when a name appears (‘according to Matthew’, ‘according to Mark’,
according to Luke’, ‘according to John’) then my presupposition is that someone whose name appears in the ‘according to ….’ fully endorsed the work and that it was (at the very least) written under the direction of that person. Furthermore, I make the presupposition that the designation was unambiguous (i.e. there weren’t several Matthews or several Marks or several Lukes or several Johns who might have been gospel authors).
There is actually enough evidence within the NT texts to substantiate the presupposition that there was a degree of honesty and precision when it came to names (and that they weren’t simply using the name of a big cheese to get off a first edition). In all the gospels, when there are different characters each with the same name, the gospel authors always make sure that we know who is being referred to. When the name Judas appears, we are always told if it was the one who betrayed Jesus, or the other disciple of that name. When John is mentioned, we are left in no doubt if it is John bar Zebedee or John the Baptist who is being referred to.
So there is internal evidence in the texts that the authors were not cavalier in this regard; they did make an effort to ensure that we knew who they were referring to. Therefore, a cavalier use of name in the ‘according to …’ designation would require a completely different mind-set from that of the gospel authors.
Jock,
The question of truth is central central to Christianity, God who is truth and truth would be the mindset of the authors.
I’m not sure wether more copies could be sold, being passed+ off as the known apostle, rather than a mere “elder”, eho few would know and would have little authority except those in the know, in the inner ring/ circle Jerusalem.
How could the veracity, historicity, of contents be established if the author were not a known eyewitness?
It seems to be something of a speculative stretch to aver that someone known as John the elder based at Jerusalem wrote down what John the apostle told him (when, where, how) and then misrepresent or not correct any understanding that would arise that the apostle was the true author.
Geoff – yes – exactly what I think – thanks for spelling it out.
The idea that ‘according to Matthew’, ‘according to Mark’, ‘according to Luke’, ‘according to John’ does not necessarily mean what it says (and, furthermore, that their identity was indisputable) doesn’t actually bear thinking about.
The possibility that there might be cultural or linguistic considerations to offset this, is quite unthinkable.
The only case that could be made for ‘John the Elder’ authorship of the gospel would be that (a) John the Elder was well known at the time as a leading Christian – and they had every reason to presume that this would be passed down to remote posterity – and there weren’t any other ‘John’s’ who could possibly have been responsible for the writing of the gospel.
Jock, I already gave references to whether ‘according to…’ were part of the original text.
A title is not always, more particularly not always when the first verse contains a title.
If you think everything we now see in our New Testaments was part of the original text, then why are there variants? Different translations accept different variants.
Of published biographical narratives of the time, how many of them began with the author’s name? It is an unanswerable question. Think about it. Sometimes the author will supply his own name at the start of the text, but very often he will not. Those selling the work will often want the author’s name to be at the head. So whem it appears there, that will often be an editor’s or scribe’s or seller’s doing.
And these people will sometimes accurately know the name of the author, sometimes not. In publication terms, it is far better to have the author’s name at the head, and that applies whether or not the author was the one who put it there. If he did not, then we are at the mercy of whether someone some years down the line knew who the author was. Generally speaking the author will be known in his own lifetime, and one hopes that those circulating his books will be among those who know the author’s identity. Generally they will do, at first. But some will not, and the later we get, the fewer will. The names we now have the gospels attributed to would be the natural candidates for ‘best guess’ in each case. But the best guess is best guess precisely because it is the answer mosgt likely to be right. So the four names we have remain the four names that are most likely to be right. Think of all the considerations we must factor in, rather than jumping to a conclusion in one step. To do so is not to have seen the other angles, and we will always prioritise depending on how many angles an interpreter has seen.
So Jock, you disagree with John Calvin about Onesimus in Colossians. That’s good, you have set aside his presupposition.
Well Bruce, that was a set text, which I no longer have, for my LLB.
If it is updated with case law, the authorship will be knowable, traceable, recorded within living memory.
It certainly is not a “document of Public Record.”
Your point is, what? Please explain for this dullard.
Well, Geoff, one point is that even lawyers seem to be able to cope with eponymous authorship! 🙂
To help us non lawyers could you point to any narrative that you would call a ‘document of Public Record’ and explain why documents of Public Record do not need to be understood and interpreted as examples of human communication. Thanks.
Well, I can understand why this matters to the guild of scholars with varying stripes of belief and unbelief, but I do wonder the effect it has on the orthodox
doctrine of inspiration of scripture.
For what it is worth, to me , as a none scholar, lay believer, the whole question of datal order of composition of the Gospels is irrelevant to the question of the cumulative, corroborative evidence of the reliability of the Gospels. (And that seems to be the position on which biblical scholar Peter J Williams bases his, lay oriented book, “Can We Trust The Gospels?
Again, for what it is worth, John, is reliable both on the question of historicity, on what it records in space, time, and place and on the question of its Biblical Theology.
And my conclusions are drawn from conversion as a then 47 year old atheist solicitor with a training, understanding of the law and rules of evidence.
I’d suggest that The Gospels, are evidentially akin to what are known today as “documents of public record” and uncorrectable. Of course more could be said about eyewitness accounts and the recording of testimonies, witnesses and has been.
I concur with the view forcefully expressed by Jock, at both the instinctive and the more intellectual level. If there were two illustrious Johns and the gospel writer was not the apostle, it would have been necessary to distinguish between them clearly once they were both dead and once it became increasingly difficult to assume that everyone would know which of them was meant.
In the opinion of Prof. Kenneth Berding, the idea of two Johns may have originated from Eusebius, who quoted Papias in his Church History):
“… If by chance someone should pass through who had actually been a follower of the elders, I questioned them about the words of the elders: what Andrew or what Peter, or what Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew, or some other of the Lord’s disciples said—and whatever the Lord’s disciples Aristion and the elder John were saying. …”
Papias, according to Eusebius, was a close disciple of John. A better explanation of the passage, in Berding’s view, is ‘that Papias mentioned John twice because he was distinguishing between 1) those who died and 2) those who were still alive to consult with personally. John the Apostle belonged to both groups — that’s why he was mentioned twice.’
Papias seems to be using the term ‘elder’ as synonymous with ‘apostle’, i.e. one of the twelve. Aristion, significantly, is not said to be an elder.
Berding does not make the point, but at least two of the apostles – John and Peter – referred to themselves as elders (1 Pet 5:1, 2 John 1), on a par with those who were not apostles. I think the attempt to distinguish John the apostle/elder from John the Elder gets a bit ridiculous in this light.
If John the Elder was the Beloved Disciple who wrote the Gospel, the time to have started distinguishing between them would in fact have been from the get-go. In the gospel the Beloved Disciple appears to have been one of the twelve, for he is present at the last supper (John 13:23) and is so close an associate of Peter that he could hardly not have been one of them (John 20:2, 21:7). In other gospels John son of Zebedee is not just one of the twelve but one of the inner circle, the others being Peter and John’s brother (Matt 17:1, 26:37). If there were two Johns, Matthew ought to have listed two at Matt 10:2-4, just as he listed two Simons and two Jameses. Matthew lists those whom Jesus chose to be his disciples, but how can the Beloved Disciple be considered not to have been chosen on the same footing, if he was so close to Jesus? He was the one that Jesus loved above all!
Richard Bauckham’s argument seems to be that there were actually 13 apostles – 12 based in Galilee and 1 in Jerusalem. Why, then, after Judas had gone, did they not nominate ‘John the Elder’ to be his replacement rather than draw lots from among those outside the 13?
In John’s gospel Peter is mentioned many times. The two other members of the inner circle only once, and then only indirectly (John 21:2). Isn’t that strange? – unless the Beloved Disciple is in fact John son of Zebedee. At John 21:2, five of the other twelve apostles are mentioned as well as the sons of Zebedee. It is after the resurrection, and all seven are fishing on the lake. The Beloved Disciple (John 21:7) is the first to notice Jesus and he cries to Peter, “It is the Lord!” How can this disciple be other than John son of Zebedee, Peter’s fishing partner (Luke 5:10)?
I do not think you should criticise my view without reading my very thorough argument, which deals with your and others’ objections. See Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2nd edtn) chap 20.
Richard Bauckham – Aristotle presented a theory of gravitation which the physics community accepted for approximately 2000 years until Galileo came along and showed that it was rubbish – and got banged up in chokey for his troubles.
For all I know, your theory may turn out to be correct – but it does mean that Christians have got it wrong for approximately one and a half millenia – where the general understanding (at least among your average saved person sitting in the pew – I’m not referring to intellectuals here) does seem to have been that the fourth gospel was written by John bar Zebedee.
Furthermore, scholarship in general has, quite rightly, had a ‘bad press’ among saved people over the last 200 years – you ought to be aware of what you’re up against.
Hello Richard Baucham,
Apologies for obliquely talking about you without you.
True I’ ve not read your book. It seems that PC1, (Peter) above has and he is not persuaded.
Could you summarise your main points and sources please and at the same time counter the points made against, both in these comments and elsewhere.
I’m of an age and demography that I’ll not be buying many more books in the category of yours , having concluded the the gospels are based on eyewitness accounts, dismissed by many Historical/Higher critical scholars and liberals today.
I can understand some reasons you might not want to accede to this request.
Thank you for your scholarship in pursuing the evidential theme ‘Eyewitness’.
There seem to be people in places of influence in the church, who follow Albert Schweitzer and others who divide, separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of faith.
Thanks for your input here. Many wouldn’t do so.
Simon May, above.
Did not the dislocation start after the death of Jesus and the relocation Christian dispersal start after Pentecost?
And any trauma through destruction of the Temple would not be in evidence in believers “living stones” in the true Temple, Jesus.?
So it is not so much a ‘theoretical root’ but a root of radical conversion.
Is not the root of the speculation over date of John grown in the ground of unbelief that Jesus did not know, foresee, prophesy in advance the destruction of the temple and his was a divine corrective during his own lifetime ministry?
Late to the party as ever, but this is a fascinating study. As has happened in the comments, the identity of the author of John does have a bearing on the inferences drawn. If as Richard Bauckham so excellently inferred in ‘Jesus and the Eyewitnesses’, the author developed an especially close relationship with Jesus, then one would expect there to be personal touches in the gospel account which reflect that.
One which did not figure in the van Kooten handout was the incident captured in Eugène Burnand’s portrait, “Jesus looks at Peter”. This detail has always fascinated me being exclusive to Luke. In his commentary on John, William Hendriksen is at pains to explain how this was possible since Jesus was tried indoors and Peter was in the courtyard. He suggests that it happened as Jesus crossed the courtyard between examination by Anna and then Caiaphas. John, the Beloved Disciple, was there witnessing the details having been allowed in as someone known to the High Priest and as someone familiar with Malchus. There is surely no way that John the Galilean fisherman was known in those High Priestly circles! Jesus looking at Peter would be a detail which Luke obtained from the Beloved Disciple.
Ian mentioned that the events in John 5 may have happened while the Twelve were sent out on mission. In this case, it is was the Beloved Disciple who witnessed these events and the detailed discourses which took place in Jerusalem while John the fisherman was in Galilee. This may also be the case with the events of John 7-10 which took place in Jerusalem. Again, only Luke records that there was a second sending out mission this time involving the Twelve with seventy (seventy-two) involved altogether. If Jesus took himself to Jerusalem during that mission, then again it was the Jerusalem resident who witnessed these events and heard the detailed interactions; Luke would have registered the connection. I have wondered if John may have made some kind of record of these detailed conversations and teachings which he later compiled into the gospel account.
The details of the discourses in Jerusalem between Jesus and the Jews are complex and not easily memorable. Van Kooten draws a connection between a saying in John and one in Matthew. But it illustrates the essential difference in the sayings of Jesus in Matthew with the discourses in John. Matthew records memorable and pictorial sayings which Jesus no doubt repeated on many occasions (viz. difference in the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke). John records detailed and complex discourses which John the fisherman would not have heard had he been in Galilee on mission.
I cannot reply to everything, but I will make a few points relevant to the recent comments.
(1) It is now quite widely agreed that the Gospel of John does not portray the BD as one of the 12, but as disciple resident in Jerusalem. This view is based simply on study of the Gospel itself. George van Kooten holds that view. Most scholars who hold it do not attempt to identify the BD and most do not think he write the Gospel. But the issue is how the B D is portrayed in the Gospel. I am not at all eccentric on that pojnt and in the first edition of ny book, I thought it enough to take that for granted, referring to a lot of scholars who have argued it, and focus on my interpretation of the external evidence for authorship. But in the 2nd edition I did devote most of a long chapter to arguing that point in more detail than anyone else has and to refuting the arguments for the traditional view (BD = John son of Zebedee). I am not aware that anyone who holds the traditional view has engaged with that chapter and tried to refute my arguments.
(2) My suggestion that the BD was John the Elder is a separate argument based on my reading of the 2nd century evidence. I think it solves a lot of problems, but it must be lower on the scale of probabilities than that the BD was not one of the 12.
(3) The date of the Gospel is a quite separate issue. In fact everyone is the patristic period who said anything about it agreed that John =was the last of the 4 Gospels, written very late in the first century, when John was an old man. That was the general view throughout church histoiry. So if you care about maintaining traditional views you should resist the argument for an earlier date. I saw no reason not to accept the late date until George produced his argument about 5:2.
(4) What is surely most important is that an eyewitness disciple of Jesus wrote the Gospel. For a century or so few scholars have been able to accept that. There have been many attenpts to read the last verses of the Gospel differently, without success in y view. But people just thought ti impossible that an eyewitness wrote the Gospel, even if the BD lurked somewhere behind the actual author. In arguing that the BR wrote the Gospel I have been quite out on a limb. I do think it is easier to believe that if the BD was not a Galilean fisherman.
(5) A lot of people seem to think the only close disciples of Jesus were the 12, probably because Matthew and Mark focus so much on the 12. But from Like and John it it is clear Jesus had many other male disciples: Nathanael, Cleopas, Lazarus, Matthias, Joseph Barsabbas, and many whose names have not survived. (Of course there were also women.) Moreover the term apostle (which actually John never uses) was not limited to the 12. Paul uses it of other personal disciples of Jesus. (In 1 Cor 15 he refers to one appearance “to the twelve” and another to “all the apostles.”)
(6) It is true that from the late 2nd century until modern times all Christians thought the BD was John son of Zebedee. For much the same period they thought Paul wrote Hebrews (in older versions of the English Bible it is called the Letter of Paul to the Hebrews), but the reasons for not ascribing it to Paul are so strong that few people who have given the matter any thought at all would now do so. For much of Christian history it was thought that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute because she was identified with the woman who anointed Jesus in Luke 7. Most people are now happy to think that was a mistake. These are not matters of salvation. Ig soeone says they do not have the time or inclination for such historical niceties, that’s OK, but then they shouldn’t be dogmatic about the views they do hold.
Let me leave you with one observation. It is very clear in Mark’s Gospel that Mark thought all of the 12 deserted Jesus in Gethsemane, except for Peter who got no further than the high priest’s courtyard. Mark portrays John the son of Zebedee as one of the three who made up a sort of inner circle of the 12. He is quite prominent in Mark. If Mark had known that John son of Zebedee was present at the cross (as the BD is in John), how could he not have said so? Not to have said so would have been a serious injustice to one of the most prominent disciples.
Thank you Richard B for honouring us by taking to time to respond.
As a lay person, with no skin in the game, I’d not not press this much further other than to make a couple of points, related to authorship.
1 Hebrews anonymous, John isn’t.
2. Your last point is a two edged sword so far as it relates to the author of John, which has been pointed out in the comments; who gets or takes the credit, and misrepresentation?
There are many speculative answers, but scripture shows that there was competition between the disciples, not least at the end of John, with breakfast on the beach provide by our risen Lord Jesus.
3. In my ignorance when did the idea and language of believing ‘eldership’ at Jerusalem which give rise to John the elder at Jerusalem being advocated as author arise? In Acts?
Already, some couple of years or more ago now, on this site, liberal comments have without really understanding what it is, have pored scorn on the whole idea of eyewitnesses, by denouncing it as hearsay.
The proposal that the author was not John, the disciple, the BD, runs very close to the suggestion that it is based on second-or-third hand hearsay and therefore unreliable. And it could go some way to undermining your own work on eyewitnesses thereby falling into the old argument that the Gospels are the product of a community of believers, not witnesses at all.
Once again many thanks for engaging, many wouldn’t.
Peter J Williams, in his lay oriented book, ‘Can we Trust the Gospels?does not engage in the question of the authorship of John, other than attributing it to John, the son of Zebedee, ‘said to have been an eyewitness.’ p 42, 43!
Bauckham believes John the Elder was a disciple of Jesus, just not one of the Twelve. So still an eyewitness.
Hi Geoff
Briefly to your points:
1. The name John is only in the titles of the Gospel and letters. I don’t know offhand when Paul’s name started appearing in the title of Hebrews. but it remains the case that most Christians throughout history have read it as awork of Paul. We think it’s anonymous (or rather the name of its author must somehow have got lost), but they had no way of knowing that.
2. I don’t think you’ve got the force of my point. Mark is really not interested in disciples other than the 12. He focuses exclusively on them. So if the BD were not one of the 12, it is understandable that he does not mention is presence at the cross. But if the BD were John son of Zebedee, then I think it is extraordinary that he does not say that John was at he cross. I cannot believe that this a deliberate insult to John.
3. I think :the elder (“the old man”) was a nickname John acquired in old age when he was an exceptionally long lived disciples of Jesus. As an title for ecclesiastical office, “elder” was far too common to distinguish an individual, and I don’t think we know of anyone else called “X the elder.” The author of 2 and 3 John calls himself simply “the elder.” I think that is very revealing because It was virtually obligatory to begin a letter with one’s personal name. It must be that “the elder” was a nickname which identified him perhaps even better than “John.”
4. Frankly I don’t think the eyewitnesses hypothesis will convince determined sceptics. Strictly speaking in the book I argued that the Gospels claim to be based on eyewitness testimony, because this is something most scholars deny, in the case of the Synoptics at least. The usual way of rejectin g historicity in John has been to suggest that John just invents stories for the sake of their theological meaning. That view, I’m glad to say, is less often found nowadays.
Richard,
I based my conclusion of eyewitness accounts on,
1 my training and practice as a solicitor and questions of law and rules of evidence, including police evidence where, pre video recording, police wrote up together their notes of incidents. They were invariably word perfect. But where there were slight differences, while the defendant’s advocate used it as a wedge to argue against reliability, unbelievability, in reality the differences argued for trustworthy witness not contradiction!
As for skeptic dismissal of biblical witness testimony, Peter J Williams writes,
‘I do not want to suggest for a moment that all this can not be explained away. Humans are ingenious, and therefore, of course, they can explain away anything. In fact, a significant section of professional biblical studies has been relatively successful in providing explanations for each of the isolated phenomena mentioned in this book. However, that could be more of the high levels of human ingenuity than of the correctness of these explanations.’
2 In study as part of local preaching, two books by Josh McDowell supported my conclusions with biblical and theological authority referencing to refute and counter Historical/higher, criticism, post -modernism, Schweitzer, and more:
2.1 He Walked Among Us
2.2 The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, (already having the two volume paperback set).
Peter J Williams book brings McDowell up to date but McD’s argumentation remains, to me, the underpinning of much in Williams book.(Although our host Ian Paul isn’t a fan of McD it seems.)
I have a question for those who take the view that the gospel according to John was written by a different John from John bar Zebedee.
Who wrote Revelation? Was it the same John who wrote 4G, or a different John? When was Revelation written? Was it before 4G? or after 4G?
As far as I can see, the author of Revelation describes himself as ‘I, John’. He doesn’t need any further qualification; this identifies him. This would be OK if either it was the same author as 4G or if it was written before 4G (so that the new John hadn’t yet started contributing), but causes problems otherwise.
Also – if there are (at least) two different Johns writing New Testament Scripture, this also causes another problem; I’m sure that everybody would agree that a phenomenal exceptional mind would be needed to compose the gospel – also, a phenomenal exceptional mind would be needed to compose Revelation – and we’re asked to believe that there were several of these around.
(This is one of the reasons I believe that those who attribute Hebrews to the apostle Paul are right – it also requires an exceptional mind at the level of the apostle Paul; I don’t see a reasonably anonymous person coming in, writing one text and then goofing off back into obscurity).
I agree with you totally about most of that, Jock. Guthrie put it well in his introduction (I paraphrase). Was the Mediterranean crawling with geniuses by the name of John, each of whom had only to state hist name for it to be understood which he was?
The extremely distinctive interrelationships between Rev and John are many and I gave a paper on this at BNTC, though had to pack a lot into 20 minutes because of the necessary format. Rev is year 69-70 and John somewhat later when the fall of Jerusalem has by now happened and a realised eschatology seems best.
What Papias says on the Johns is packed with things that could be taken more than one way. But we finally find a telling datum in that there is a John who is called simply ‘the Elder’ despite this being a world of many elders. The datum is telling because it is confirmed by the Johannine epistles.
The situation is complicated by the extremely clever way in which the author of John structurally plays with the two witness theme (2×2 witnesses: God and Christ; Johns apostle and elder: John 17.11 ‘Thy Name which Thou hast given Me’). He has already found a way of piggybacking on John the Apostle by the device of fourfold identity for all the main characters which he uses in Rev, and justifies by the fourfold identity of God himself revealed in Ezekiel who in many ways is his main precursor.
Christopher – many thanks – that was very useful.
He also has the same set of 7 festivals in/as his structure: more fundamental in the earlier work.
Telling is the fact that in the earlier work they are in the logical order, but by the time he comes to the later work he sees them as a system of 7 and plays around with the ordering depending on how well each festival meshes with each element of the prior I AMs / works structure (cf. Lewis’s Narnia use of the 7 planets, not in order but according to suitability). It is easy to see how an ordered structure could gain complexity in this way, whereas both to begin with complex and to revert to simple (or the combination of the two) would be less likely.
The name John was the 6th most common male name among Palestinian Jews, and the common names were VERY common. It is not surprising that there should have been more than one early Christian leader called John. In the list of the 12 there are two Jameses and two Judases, also very common names.
In my view there were just two Johns who wrote things and display exceptional genius: the author of the Gospel and letters and the author Revelation.
The author of the Gospel and letters actually does not call himself “John” The name is only in the titles (which he certainly did not write) The name must have been attached to these works when they first circulated, so I think it is reliable. But it is not how the author himself chose to identify himself. He DOES identify himself in 2 and 3 John by the nickname “the Elder,” which evidently was sufficient to identify him. The author of Revelation does identify himself in the opening (oriuginal) title as “God’s servant John.” This may not serve to distinguish him from other Johns, but it may be that he uses “servant of God” as equivalent to “prophet” as in some other places in Revelation. In any case, Revelation was delivered to the seven churches by a messenger. There would be no doubt who it came from .
Like most scholars, I postulate a different John as author of Revelation because it is so different in language and conceptuality. I confess I am just not impressed by thne sort of resemblances you find. If one person wrote the Gospel and Revelation, then I think we would be dealing with an author who had the literary skill to compose brilliantly in two completely different styles. This is not a usual featire of genius. I cannot think of an ancient author who did that. But I admit it is not impossible. Just unlikely.
I have no problem at all in supposing there were several exceptional thinkers among the early Christians. Why not? God chose them to be the writers of the works that would serve as scripture for the church until the parousia. If you want a secular comparison, there were a remarkable number of writers of genius in fith-century (BC) Athens and in Elizbethan England.
In truth, I haven’t yet mentioned many of the resemblances that I do find – I just happened to mention the same precise collection of 7 festivals in passing, including wedding and funeral; and also the framing wherein the actual author always speaks in a separate voice at start and finish, framing the words of the putative author/witness, whose style is the same as his own. The fact that both times it is highly plausible to identify these with John the Elder and the Apostle just brings the two works into too great resemblance, among other factors.
In my paper I gave a larger array of resemblances, not just in highly distinctive structuring but also in what Farrer called rhythm, which encompasses many things mostly somewhat numerical.
Both works are so incredibly unified because they are each a single concept; but if you begin with a different kernel or germ each will blossom into a distinctive work.
Both are colossal in vision – a comprehensive fulfilment and a comprehensive re-creation.
Golden ages of literature and music arise as iron sharpens iron.
I am looking forward to reading your autobiographical work in due course, and if time permits to attending the NT seminar occasionally now my daughter is opposite at Newnham.
I mentioned Rev’s idea of fourfold identity. One of these is Christological: Lamb – Man – Shepherd – King. This comes in the four structural beholds of the gospel (2 from the Baptist and 2 from Pilate) (the second of which is a lamb who is paradoxically followed, which comes straight from Rev 7). These are also, in order, the four times Jesus appears in Revelation. The second (the man child) uses poimaino which is from the only scripture Rev quotes.
I could write ten times as much, but my final point is the simplicity of the Greek. The combination of profound thought and simple Greek is distinctive. I see the author as less familiar with the language at the time he writes Rev, and clearly Rev is written at fever pitch because of circumstances whereas the gospel weighs every word – but at any rate both show a limited vocabulary.
Rev (with futurist/imminent eschatology) reflects the mood of the chaotic year 69; John (with realised eschatology, perhaps as a pendulum swing from the former – noce bitten, twice shy) the calmer time after the catastrophe.
Lamb-Shepherd-Man-King, not the order I said.
I think you also have to take into account how it came to be the that the early Church accepted these books as canonical within a canon that the Church closes. The early Church, which was (by definition) much closer in time to when these books were written was clear that they believed that they had apostolic authorship.
True but there were more apostles than the Twelve.
And Mark and Luke were not apostles at all. The early church used a quite broad understanding of “apostolic”, meaning writers who were close enough to the apostles to be reliable in their understanding of the apostolic gospel, and also with a time period defined by the death of John in the very late first century.
All four gospels are in the nature of testimonies, attesting the historical truth about Jesus of Nazareth, claimed by some to be the Son of God. To be of the highest value – and we can demand nothing less in relation to so great a matter – they need to be eye-witness testimonies, and the person giving them needs to be himself borne witness to as a person known by name to both the original readers and to us. ‘Us’, because all generations after the early Church also have to judge whether to credit the testimony.
We know of Matthew – he was one of the disciples, as we know from Mark and Luke.
We know of Mark – he is mentioned several times in Acts and also in Paul’s letters.
We know of Luke – he is mentioned in three of Paul’s letters.
We know of John, son of Zebedee – he is mentioned as one of the Twelve in the other gospels, and as I have shown from John 21, he is clearly the Beloved Disciple of the 4th Gospel.
If the author of the 4th Gospel was another John, then we know nothing of such a man.
yes, apostolic authority is not the same as apostolic authorship. The early church was interested in the former.
Mark and Luke weren’t apostles but were understood to have written what the apostles had shared with them.
Indeed. If Mark is primarily based on Peter’s testimony and teaching. Luke is more difficult though likely based on eyewitness testimony, ie some apostles and women etc.
Is it so unusual for an ancient author to have bequeathed to us just one highly impressive work. In the Jewish tradition, think of the authors of Job, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, 4 Ezra.
They are all anonymous. I don’t think Hebrews can have been anonymous originally, because the ending shows it to be a letter sent to a specific audience. It is a puzzle how the name got lost. But among the suggested authors, Apollos and Barnabas would seem, from what we know of them to be plausible.
I reckon the highly literate and articulate Jew Silas ticks all the boxes. The work had remarkable influence in Rome (in 1 Clement and in the so-called Christ hymns) where he, unlike the other two, was. It is unlikely that the work of any nonapostolic nonresident of Rome would be so highly regarded there.And he was a close companion of Timothy. This works best with a date 58-59.
Thanks Peter @ 3:50 pm.
Fair enough. But that proposition seems to be outside the selected inner circle inhabiting obscurity and to me is another head scratching moment. On what weight of evidence is the belief or contention based? Intra or extra biblical?
It wasn’t persuasive to you, or so it seems, from your much earlier comment.
It’s above my pay grade to know either way. Bauckham makes reasonable arguments, but then do those myriad of scholars who opt for John the son of Zebedee.
Im happy for there to be some mystery about it, just as there is some mystery about Matthew. But no doubt the mystery is only because we are so far removed from the 1st century.
Reply mainly to Steven Robinson
I repeat, I see no point in discussing the identity of the BD with people who have not taken the trouble to read and take full account of chapter 20 of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which is the fullest available demonstration that the BD is not one of the 12 and refutation of arguments for the traditional view. You may ignore my work, of course, but you have no right to think you can argue against me without reading my case. You are just parading your ignorance.
Richard: Steven thinks the ‘day of trumpets’ occurred last September 16th so maybe he has returned from that particular apocalypse with superior knowledge. Either way, a look at his website will give you an idea of his exegetical approach.
And yours is what? Was it not you who responded with hearsay, to the whole question of eyewitnesses and has questioned Ian Paul whether Jesus really
did say the words recorded in the Gospel?
You are correct, Geoff – Andrew Godsall is affecting to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In reality Andrew disagrees very much with Richard Bauckham’s conservative view of the historical veracity of the Gospels, because he holds to the old Bultmannian view that probably still prevailed at Cuddesdon in the 1980s, that the early church had little interest in the historical Jesus and the Gospel sayings were the invention of Christian prophets.
I would be quite surprised if Andrew believed that John’s Gospel is actually historical, as that is counter to what he was taught. But maybe he has learned differently since.
Geoff: I don’t know of any reputable scholars who believe that Jesus literally said, verbatim, every word that the Gospels record him as saying. To believe that would be to misunderstand what kind of documents the gospels are.
I don’t hold to the Bultmann view and never have. And I didn’t study NT at Cuddesdon. I had a first degree in theology. I was taught NT as an undergraduate by a Roman Catholic scholar whose approach was a very classical one – the NT has the benefit of post resurrection spectacles. They interpreted Jesus through that lens.
And I was making an absolutely fair point about Steven Robinson. I have asked him about his ‘prophecy’ three times now, and he has not replied. Anything he says must be interpreted through his own words.
Andrew Godsall writes: “I was taught NT as an undergraduate by a Roman Catholic scholar whose approach was a very classical one – the NT has the benefit of post resurrection spectacles. They interpreted Jesus through that lens.”
Andrew may or may not realise how far Roman Catholics in places like Birmingham embraced liberal Protestant assumptions in the 1970s and the 1980s. I had a Roman Catholic schooling in the early 70s, and even then I was becoming aware of how liberal German Protestant ideas were being embraced by European Roman Catholics, like Karl Rahner, Hans Kung and Edward Schillibeeckx. These writers tried to marry liberalism with the Magisterium, but even then the strain was evident. “Post resurrection spectacles” is something every scholar (other than a Bart Ehrman) can affirm, but in very different ways. In liberal circles it is sometimes code for disinterest in the actual deeds and words of Jesus before the crucifixion (i.e., historical scepticism) and the ‘creative’ (i.e., inventive) activity of prophets in the early church who, according to Bultmann, made up all kinds of sayings and attributed them to the Risen Lord. I suspect the leading English-language RC scholar of that time, Raymond Brown, was moving into that territory. Bultmann’s scepticism was modified a bit (but not much) by Ernst Kaesemann and his school (‘the Second Quest of the Historical Jesus’), then tackled head-on by N.T. Wright and others in the 1980s. The Tyndale Fellowship did earlier work in its three volume ‘Gospel Perspectives, (ed. France and Wenham). The burden of their work was to establish real continuity between the words and deeds of the pre-and post-resurrection Christ. Richard Bauckham’s magnum opus ‘Jesus and the Eyewitnesses’ took this approach to a new level by arguing systematically for:
1. the validity for early church testimony (Papias et el) for gospel authorship – largely repudiated in the 1970s and 80s;
2. the onomastic evidence for the Palestinian origin of this material (I am reminded of William Ramsay and titles in Acts);
3. the evidence of actual living eye- and earwitnesses of Jesus in the early church in Palestine and a study of how memory actually works in religious communities.
The upshot of all this is to put the Gospel writers in living touch with people who actually lived in Palestine in the 20s and 30s and preserved their own memories of Jesus. This is very, very far from the liberal idea that the early Gentile church c. 50-70 in Antioch or Rome largely invented the narrative.
On John’s Gospel, I am pretty certain that Andrew Godsall doubts that these distinctive narratives, conversations and discourses actually happened but are the “creative invention” of the author (or authors, as Raymond Brown thought). But Andrew can tells us for himself – if he wishes to – whether he believes Jesus really did meet a Nicodemus one night in Jerusalem, or really did talk to a Samaritan woman by a well, or healed a lame man by the pool of Bethsaida, or gave a long discourse in the synagogue in Capernaum, or any of the other ways in which John differs from the Synoptics. What do you think, Andrew?
There is no alternative to having post resurrection spectacles when you are post resurrection.
What is the connection between that and playing fast and loose with facts? The former does not exactly necessitate the latter.
And James,
In these comments section Andrew G has expressed subscribing to JT Robinson in his Honest to God writings.
Further, as we have pressed into the question of Jesus of faith not being the historical Jesus, a la Schweitzer and others and as it morphed into the charade of the Jesus Seminar and its vestigal influence, it is asked again, what is the exegetical methodology employed and what sections of the Gospels recording the words of Jesus are accepted as reliably registered as true and how AG determines wether it is all, none or some? Let’s get voting again, shall we in this comments seminar?
Who is playing fast and loose with facts Christopher? Steven Robinson I guess….
You surely don’t believe that Jesus *literally* and *verbatim* said all the things he was recorded as saying in the gospels?
“But Andrew can tells us for himself – if he wishes to – whether he believes Jesus really did meet a Nicodemus one night in Jerusalem, or really did talk to a Samaritan woman by a well, or healed a lame man by the pool of Bethsaida, or gave a long discourse in the synagogue in Capernaum, or any of the other ways in which John differs from the Synoptics. What do you think, Andrew?”
Oh I think those distinctive elements of John are actually more real than some of the events recorded in the Synoptics. I really do believe those happened.
Whether the actual narrative recorded is verbatim is the question I am asking.
And what does it have to do with Steven Robinson’s claim about the day of trumpets?
Andrew Godsall writes: “Oh I think those distinctive elements of John are actually more real than some of the events recorded in the Synoptics. I really do believe those happened.”
That’s an interesting position to hold: that John is more historically reliable than the Synoptics (a view that I think was held by some in Germany in the 18th century). Which parts of the Synoptics do you think are fictitious? How do you decide what is historically true or not?
“Whether the actual narrative recorded is verbatim is the question I am asking.”
Why are you asking this, when you clearly don’t believe that is so? Do you think Jesus spoke Greek to all and sundry? Or do you think he usually spoke in Aramaic and Hebrew and his message has been translated and expressed in the idioms of the particular tradents and Gospel writers, as they sought to share that message with a Greek-speaking world? To say nothing of the theological promise that the Holy Spirit would guide them in preserving the message received. Of course the style of John is quite different from the Synoptics, and it is difficult to tell (e.g. in ch. 4) where quotation ends and commentary begins. But that’s why the Orthodox call St John ‘the Theologian’.
And I am sure you know the distinction scholars draw between ‘ipsissima verba’ and ‘ipsissima vox’. All history writing and biography (bios) meant a severe amount of omission, condensation, summary and interpretation, especially when you were trying to fit it all into the length of a first century scroll. Incidentally I sometimes read the Gospels in Delitzsch’s 19th century translation of the NT into Biblical Hebrew and it’s remarkable how readily it lends itself to the idioms of BH.
I meant John 3, not John 4. Since there is no punctuation in the manuscripts, it is difficult to tell where quotation ends and commentary begins. It’s also the case that ancient historians often reported as direct speech what later historians would report as indirect speech (oratio obliqua) or as a summary of what such a person would likely say in such a scenario. This has long been recognised about Thucydides’ account of speeches in his Peloponnesian Wars. It should also be remembered that Thucydides wrote as a recent participant or near contemporary of the events he recorded, similar to the Gospel writers (and quite different from Arrian’s life of Alexander, written about 400 years later but drawing on earlier written sources).
James, pay attention to the language used. I did not say that John was more historically reliable. I said it felt more real. Very important distinction.
And why am I asking the question? That’s how discussion works. You ask questions. I answer. Then I ask some.
Do you think the gospels record verbatim and literally what Jesus said?
Attention to a synopsis shows the word variation between the evangelists at many points. But that was not my point. My point was that being post-resurrection has no connection to a downplaying of facts. Non sequitur.
As to Steven R playing fast and loose with facts? – AG’s question ‘Who is playing fast and loose with facts?’ suggests that in this vast world only one person can be doing that. But that is another non sequitur. Lots of people could all be doing that, and by the laws of averages probably are.
Andrew, pay attention to your own language:
“Oh I think those distinctive elements of John are actually more real than some of the events recorded in the Synoptics. I really do believe those happened.”
You wrote ” those elements are actually more real” and “I really do believe those happened”, not “I said it felt more real.” Big difference. If you wish to withdraw your earlier statements about the historicity of John (and the Synoptics), then do so. Then tell us which parts actually happened in history, in Palestine c. 28-33 AD.
As for your final question: my answer is: yes, sometimes they do record Jesus verbatim (snatches of Aramaic or Hebrew), sometimes they record accurately in Greek the gist of what he said (most likely) in Aramaic, with their own stylistic turns. I am influenced by Reisner, ‘Jesus als Lehrer’, Bauckham’s great work, and what I know about ancient history-writing techniques. Did you grasp what I said above about ‘ipsissima verba’ and ‘ipsissima vox’?
Now I have answered your question, you must reciprocate: since no one else was present at the alleged meeting at the well in Sychar in John 4 other than Jesus and the woman, do you think this conversation (as recorded) actually happened in spacetime and essentially as it is reported? And if so, why do you think that?
Christopher: as usual you make vast general and waffly comments. I don’t know which facts you are referring to, and neither do you by the way you respond.
James: you are being far too literalistic. Wooden.
I don’t withdraw any statements. They stand together and are not contradictory.
What are the options regarding the woman at the well.
1. Jesus told the disciples what happened.
2. The woman told the story abroad and it became known.
3. Both of the above
4. Someone made the story up.
Maybe you can think of others….?
Whichever you choose (and I don’t opt for number 4), we will never recover the exact conversation literally and verbatim. But we do have a sign, by faith, and by tradition, of a very ‘real’ (note the word) encounter.
My question was to Steven Robinson about his prophecy. Let’s hope he responds.
The fact that you don’t understand may make that which is hard to understand impenetrable to you, which makes you then call it waffle. But the writer is not to be blamed for lack of understanding in the reader.
The writer was not, and is not at all clear. And is prone to waffle and generalisations. These are well noted traits of his. Hence the frequent confusion.
The mistake is to think there is such a thing as objectively ‘clear’ outside context and without reference to the hearer/reader. Different people will and will not find different things clear. A rule of thumb is that someone is not clear (or possibly ahead in thought) if most people do not understand what they say.
Generalised waffle again Christopher.
No, this is not the way to engage. I don’t know why these exchanges lapse into trading insults. Please do this elsewhere.
There are some pearls in a short chapter 5, “Do we have Jesus’s Actual Words?” in “Can we Trust the Gospels” by Biblical Scholar, Peter J Williams
The pearls are not a new string from the newly cultured crop but are emphatic in their brevity. Shall these pearls be thrown?
Andrew can’t understand how his two statements contradict each other:
First statement “These distinctive elements in John are actually more real than some of the events recorded in the Synoptic gospels. I really do believe those events happened” is very different from second statement “I said it felt more real”. No you didn’t. Read your own words.
The first is about historical facticity, the second about the
persuasive impression created. Remember that fiction can “feel very real” too, if the writer is skilful. Ernst Haenchen, for example, believed that the second half of Acts (at least) was historical fiction pretending to be history. Just as Bultmann thought that most of the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics were invented (while John was even less historical).
Now which parts of the Synoptics do you think are not historically
true and why do you think this?
James:
What are the options regarding the woman at the well.
1. Jesus told the disciples what happened.
2. The woman told the story abroad and it became known.
3. Both of the above
4. Someone made the story up.
Maybe you can think of others….?
Whichever you choose (and I don’t opt for number 4), we will never recover the exact conversation literally and verbatim. But we do have a sign, by faith, and by tradition, of a very ‘real’ (note the word) encounter.
My question was to Steven Robinson about his prophecy. And I asked you as well.. you haven’t responded. What does any of what you say have to do with Steven Robinson’s claim about the day of trumpets?
Thought your comment was mere diversionary game of finding Wally, or spot your fallacies as you rode in to rescue RB, whose eyewitness work you do not subscribe to.
So Andrew Godsall continues to refuse to say which parts of the Synoptics he thinks are historically untrue, and why.
In all likelihood Andrew hasn’t read Richard Bauckham or Rainer Riesner, and perhaps not even N T Wright, to understand why the 1970s liberalism and historical scepticism be picked up in Birmingham (home of Goulder, Hick etc) has long been superseded.
It is a complete red herring to rabbit on about the impossibility of recovering a verbatim account of a conversation in the ancient world, as if this mattered. Historians have never bothered about such fantasies. Andrew doesn’t understand how the discipline of ancient history works either, but as with Gospel studies, has the outlook of a bright sixth former.
*he* picked up.
Rabbit and red herring don’t make a good meal, either.
James, I don’t refuse to say anything or answer anything. It is you who seem unwilling to answer questions put to you, though I note what you say in the following sentence:
“It is a complete red herring to rabbit on about the impossibility of recovering a verbatim account of a conversation in the ancient world, as if this mattered. Historians have never bothered about such fantasies. “
So here we agree. Exactly. So you don’t need me to go through the Synoptics line by line and tell you which lines are historically true or untrue. We don’t need to bother about such fantasies. I have already told you that I believe the events recorded really happened.
You haven’t given any other options as to how we come to know about the woman at the well. Or responded to the question there.
And you haven’t responded at all about Steven Robinson’s claim.
Andrew:
1. We know about the woman at the well because somebody (perhaps Jesus, maybe the woman or one of the people of Sychar) told the author of the Gospel. I don’t believe the story is fictional, as many liberals do. If you had read Bauckham or Riesner, you would have recognised that was where I was coming from in my question to you.
2. You are fixated on verbatim accounts and raised the issue, nobody else did. Every competent historian of the ancient world knows how to use reported speech in ancient documents and how to understand the conventions. Do you know how ancient bioi were written?
3. I understand that you are not a biblical scholar but we can all learn something. I think I am correct in discerning that you haven’t actually read Bauckham’s book or understand how his argument
goes. I have read it twice. Have you read Bauckham – or even Wright’s books on the Gospel traditions? You don’t seem to know them.
4. You have indeed refused to say why you think John is more historically reliable than the Synoptics, as you stated above.
4. I couldn’t care less about modern day prophecies and have never expressed an opinion on them. This is a thread about the priority
and facticity of John’s Gospel not one of your personal crusades
which don’t interest me.
Andrew, you need to recognise that form criticism of the Gospels, on which you were reared, is dead, and to understand what Gospels criticism is saying today. Bauckham’s book is a good place to start, so is Riesner on the teaching methods of Jesus. When you have read them, let us know what you think.
Let me reply to each point.
1. You didn’t answer, so I could not know. So we agree on this point about the woman at the well and how it came to appear in the 4th gospel
2. Yes, I do understand how ancient bio were written. It has already been noted we agree on this point.
3. I am impressed by Bauckham’s work about eye witness accounts. Very impressed. I don’t enjoy reading N T Wright but have his books still. I don’t care for his style I am afraid. But he is obviously a fine scholar.
4. No I haven’t. I think all gospels record historical events. I said I find some of the episdoes in John to be more real .i.e. they come to life more than some of the accounts in the Synoptics. It is to do with Johns style.
5. Then why did you bother to respond. I was making a point about Steven Robinson and his exegetical approach. You don’t need to respond if you are not interested.
You don’t need to tell me what I do or don’t need to do. Please don’t be rude and condescending.
What has style got to do with scholarship? It is a surface issue.
Goodness, do you find it hard to read what has actually been written Christopher?
Style obviously has nothing to do with scholarship. And I said Tom Wright is obviously a fine scholar.
Style is connected with how much one might enjoy reading a particular author. As I said, I have Tom Wright’s books and have read them. I simply noted I don’t enjoy reading him because of his style.
I suspect C is referring to your comment on John’s ‘style’.
But Andrew Im not surprised others pick up on what you say because it is rather confusing. In a comment above you say “Oh I think those distinctive elements of John are actually more real than some of the events recorded in the Synoptics. I really do believe those happened.”
By saying ‘I really do believe those happened’ ie those events described in John with distinctive elements, you are clearly contrasting those with some of the events described in the Synoptics (and John for that matter). That is what an objective person would conclude from what you have said.
And although you have also said that ‘all the gospels record historical events’, given what you said above that would seem to mean you only accept some of the events described in the Synoptics and presumably John too as having actually happened, even taking into account the standards to which ancient historians and biographers wrote.
Peter
No, I am sure Christopher is referring to my comment about Tom Wright’s style.
Comments are brief and can sometimes be shorthand. I have expressed clearly that I think the events described by both John and the Synoptics refer to actual events.
Why isn’t it possible to ask, in a polite way, ‘I wonder if you could clarify for me…..?’ Why the combative style? Why the inquisition?
So you haven’t actually read Bauckham and don’t see how it undermines form criticism. That’s what I suspected.
Yes I have and I do understand how it challenges form criticism.
Was John the first Gospel?
As an inclusio – What have we learned from the combination of the article and comments?
How about, Isaiah as the first?
And off we go again.
It’s an entirely logical question. Because some gospels overlap at many points, with interesting little differences, we have millions of pieces of data, multiple within a given verse. We are absolutely spoilt by how much data there is.
The existence of OT templates just adds to the logicality of it, and in fact the templates are what face down the apparent oddities among the large-scale patterns of synoptic interrelationship. The Deut and Elijah example being just one – in this ‘Q’ context people often previously relied on laborious word-by-word comparison, but attention to the large scale picture renders this redundant.
Andrew
‘I have expressed clearly that I think the events described by both John and the Synoptics refer to actual events.’
Could you clarify if you think ALL the events and discourses in all 4 Gospels refer to actual events and discourses, and accurately reflect what was said and done, taking into account for example that discourses may be summaries of what was said etc. I suppose it’s a question of reliability of the Gospels, can they be trusted to reflect what was said and done, especially by Jesus, understanding that we should not try to force 21st century literary or historical writing standards onto such texts. Personally I think so, perhaps with the exception of the Matthew verses re the saints being raised. I have sympathy with Mike Licona on that. Hard to know either way.
Just for clarity.
But I agree some of the comments here end up appearing to be personal attacks. Sometimes I can be rather abrupt, but I mean no offence. Something Im working on…
Peter
Peter – thank you.
I did think that each episode in the gospels refers to some actual event. Why on earth would people make up something that has no reference to anything? The question about the actual discourse I have answered several times above.
The important thing is the interpretation. What does it mean….thats far more interesting. And of course, that’s more contentious.
Andrew – but the meaning loses its force as a ‘divine imperative’ if we start thinking (for example) that Luke was a master at parables (which basically means that we’re listening not exactly to the words of Jesus, but rather words of Jesus that have been subject to rather heavy interpretation by Luke). I do not recall who attributed some of the parables to Luke, but it wasn’t you.
And Jock,
If scripture is not reliable and trustworthy in what it says, what it means can can be whatever you make it, whever it means to you, entirely
reader subjective.
The is a “gospel grammar,” that is, gospel indicatives always precede imperatives.
Once the gospel indicatives are removed, only the
subjective relativity of imperatives remains,(perhaps reducible to one word: interpretation).
Geoff – yes – absolutely.
Particularly, the gospels had one and only one function: to demonstrate that Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Messiah. So the function of the gospels in particular was forensic proof. As soon as what one might euphemistically call author’s interpretation, putting words on the lips of Jesus or his followers comes into play, this casts doubt on the whole thing – the ‘evidence’ is so contaminated that it is simply thrown out of court.
Furthermore, the gospel authors in particular wanted to point *away* from themselves and point *towards* Jesus. So while they clearly had to make some selection as to which material they put into their accounts, it was all about Jesus and not about them. (In particular they wouldn’t use the task of writing the account to put forward their own literary abilities – for example, with making up parables).
One persuasive argument (at least for me) as to why John bar Zebedee was the author of John is that the transfiguration story does not appear in John. He couldn’t really write about it without ‘blowing his own trumpet’ (‘I was there’).
Great stuff, Geoff! you’ve introduced me to a new seam- “indicatives and imperatives”
Jock and Steve,
My spiritual antenna is sensitive to the order in sermons, and teaching, which frequently emphasise imperatives, do’s, don’ts; should, shouldn’t, and not the indicatives of who Christ is and what he has: done, done. done from which therefores arrive.
We can often be left with exhortations to believers which quietly shout, you’re not measuring up, try harder: condemnation.
In Romans the first 11 Chapters are all indicatives before there is a mention of imperatives, starting chapter 12.
As it happens, could it be suggested to give a listen to Thing’s Unseen, this weeks episodes which, to me exemplifies the application of Gospel grammar operating at the end of Romans 8.
Yesterday may be a good place to start, but the whole week is good. 5-7 min podcasts with transcripts.
“Who Shall Bring Any Charge?” from Ligonier Ministries https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/things-unseen-with-sinclair-ferguson/who-shall-bring-any-charge
Similarly, could it be suggested to try reading Ephesians in that way. Imperatives result from the indicatives in Christ Jesus.
Yours in Christ,
Geoff
The Gospel Templates theory, which I spread at conferences (Mark structured by Servant Songs, John by Genesis 1ff., Matthew by Moses’s life and Luke by a septet of prophets of which Joseph runs through the whole as well as being the climax) satisfyingly deals with the puzzling features of gospel relationships.
Why do Matthew and Luke have such different beginnings (especially if one knew the other)? Moses; Samuel/Joseph. James Bejon said as much.
Why is Luke’s ‘central section’ in such a perplexing order? It is the order of the sequential Deuteronomy 1-26 sections that provided its template.
Did Matthew use Luke or the reverse? The reverse, because otherwise Matthew would have had to unpick every last bit of the many tiny Elijah/Deuteronomy differences between the two from that ‘central section’, whereas Luke would merely have had to Elijah-ise and Deuteronomise Matthew.
Why is Matthew in 5 teaching blocks? Cf. Books of Moses.
Why is John sevenfold? Gen 1ff.
Why is Mark fourfold by most analyses? (see agreed section divisions, Watts’s meta-analysis) and also why are the four sections asymmetric? 4 Servant Songs – and where these are longer/shorter so are Mark’s sections in proportion.
Why is Luke’s ending so different? Joseph (to take one among many examples, the revelation of the unknown one’s identity as well known is the climax). While Matthew’s ending has Josh 1.9, end of the Moses cycle and start of the new era.
Why is Matthew somewhat reordered? This is partly necessary to give fairly equal material between each teaching block, once the decision has been made to put the compiled Sermon on the Mount (not Markan) first.
Why is John so different? As only Mark had by then been written, Mark had not been treated as basis of any other gospel. If you are doing a sevenfold Jesus as Creator, then it certainly will be different.
Why does Luke add new stories? There is a female-then-male of all that the ch4 Nazareth sermon refers to, namely Elijah-Elisha; two captives freed; two debtors forgiven.
Richard Bauckham writes: “I have always thought the end of John fits an author who was an especially long-lived disciple of Jesus, and I am strongly of the opinion that it is an integral part of the design of the Gospel, not a later appendix. So George’s argument about 5.2 has disturbed me!” An exegetical argument for an early date could also be made from Jn 21:19. After Jesus gives Peter a hint of his martyrdom in his old age, the narrator adds, “This he said to show by what kind of death he WILL (δοξάζω) glorify God.” The verb is a future tense, and it’s written from the narrator’s perspective in time. The curious thing is how it parallels two other statements by the narrator (Jn 12:33, 18:32) referring to the kind of death that Jesus himself was “about to die” (ἤμελλεν ἀποθνῄσκειν). In other words, though his comment is similar to his earlier statement about Jesus, with regard to Peter, the tense had to be changed. In my opinion, the narrator put Peter’s glorification in the future tense because from his perspective, it hadn’t taken place yet. I discussed this with Daniel Wallace, and he agreed with this conclusion (start at 39:44 here: https://www.humbleskeptic.com/p/is-johns-gospel-late-and-unreliable). FYI, we spent most of our conversation discussing the implications of Jn 5:2.