Priority Of John?

[BibleWelt]

"Heh, if you see these two posts together, it's almost as if there's a common source text somewhere." - brilliant!

I really don't know where to begin with any of this. JoeTheJuggler stated "The later dating of John is also a pretty strong case." So then here's a bit of this...

Powell calls into question the arguments for a late dating of John, and finds the results to be inconclusive. He spends considerable time on this, before arguing FOR an early date of composition.

He focuses on these five arguments:

1. The Benediction Against Heretics.
2. Depth of Theological Reflection.
3. Jesus as Preexistent Man from Heaven.
4. John's reliance on the Synoptic Gospels.
5. Gnostic Influence.

It's very difficult for me to summarize these arguments, primarily because they seem already as concise as possible. Regarding the first:

J. Louis Martyn advanced the theory that the term aposynagogos (translated in the RSV as"put out of the synagogues") refers to a FORMAL excommunication of believers resulting from the Jewish enactment of an official Benediction Against Heretics. This Benediction is commonly thought to have been instituted sometime between 85 and 90 CE. The word "aposynagogos" appears three times in John. Thus, an argument that John was composed prior to the Benediction.

John 9:22 - "His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue."

Powell argues:

"However, Martin's analysis of 9:22 is subject to question. The phrase 'the Jews had already agreed' does not expressly connote a formal institutionalized policy established in all rabbinic synagogues. It only indicates that an agreement had been made by the authorities in control of the synagogue(s) from which the Johannine believers had been excluded. How formal the action was, and how widespread it was, cannot be determined from the references in the gospel.

"In reading this passage we must bear in mind that it is written by a Johannine believer who has interpreted the conflict from his perspective. However, what may have been a dutiful confession of faith to him may have been aggressive and offensive proselytizing to the Jews. John contains some of the most caustic anti-Semitic rhetoric in the NT. If Johannine believers were disrupting synagogue worship and proclaiming the the leaders were liars and children of the devil (John 8:44), that they were no longer the true children of Abraham (John 8:39), that those who did not believe in Jesus were condemned (John 3:18), and the wrath of God would rest upon them (John 3:36), the Jews of the congregation may understandably have decided to bar them from synagogue worship.

"Furthermore, synagogue authorities may have distinguished between followers of Jesus who embraced the radical Johannine dogma and those who did not, and elected to bar only those from the Johannine sect. This could account for the evidence in John that numerous followers of Jesus had not yet separated from the synagogue."

After five further pages of these types arguments against the theory, we have this, almost as an aside:

"Furthermore, if the Benediction Against Heretics had already been established, as a formal liturgical prayer that Christians might be "destroyed in a moment and blotted out of the Book of Life," it is almost inconceivable that the author of John would not have referred to it explicitly in support of his argument. Given all the anti-Semitic language in John, surely this Benediction, had it been in force, would have created fodder for further anti-Semitic oration."

My hands are tired from typing this incomplete transcription so I'll stop here. Quickly, though, Point 5 (Gnostic Influence) is countered by reference to the discoveries at Qumran. And an entire chapter is devoted to showing that Point 4 (John's reliance on the Synoptic Gospels) makes more sense when the theory is reversed.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

J. Louis Martyn advanced the theory that the term aposynagogos (translated in the RSV as"put out of the synagogues") refers to a FORMAL excommunication of believers resulting from the Jewish enactment of an official Benediction Against Heretics. This Benediction is commonly thought to have been instituted sometime between 85 and 90 CE. The word "aposynagogos" appears three times in John. Thus, an argument that John was composed prior to the Benediction.

I don't follow the logic here. The conventional argument is that since John 9:22 apparently refers to the act passed around 90 CE, that John must have been written after it.

Calling into question the conventional reading of 9:22, at best, argues for no correlation to the 90 CE event and not to an earlier date.

"However, Martin's analysis of 9:22 is subject to question. The phrase 'the Jews had already agreed' does not expressly connote a formal institutionalized policy established in all rabbinic synagogues. It only indicates that an agreement had been made by the authorities in control of the synagogue(s) from which the Johannine believers had been excluded. How formal the action was, and how widespread it was, cannot be determined from the references in the gospel.

I find that reading to be strained. It sure sounds like a reference to the official policy enacted around 90 CE to exclude Christians (not merely Johannine Christians, since that begs the question that this gospel was extent by that time--that is the reasoning is circular if you argue that the meaning of this text depends only on an earlier date to the text and the earlier date to the text depends only on this reading of the text).

"In reading this passage we must bear in mind that it is written by a Johannine believer who has interpreted the conflict from his perspective. However, what may have been a dutiful confession of faith to him may have been aggressive and offensive proselytizing to the Jews. John contains some of the most caustic anti-Semitic rhetoric in the NT. If Johannine believers were disrupting synagogue worship and proclaiming the the leaders were liars and children of the devil (John 8:44), that they were no longer the true children of Abraham (John 8:39), that those who did not believe in Jesus were condemned (John 3:18), and the wrath of God would rest upon them (John 3:36), the Jews of the congregation may understandably have decided to bar them from synagogue worship.

I find this version of history even more difficult to accept. It makes it sound like the reason they passed (around 90 CE) the Benediction was to keep Jesus out of the synagogue. My understanding is that at that point in the service Christians were easy to detect by their silence during the curse of "Nazarenes". Not by speaking out like Jesus did.

"Furthermore, synagogue authorities may have distinguished between followers of Jesus who embraced the radical Johannine dogma and those who did not, and elected to bar only those from the Johannine sect. This could account for the evidence in John that numerous followers of Jesus had not yet separated from the synagogue."

Again, if this isn't a circular argument, I don't understand it. Does he mean that non-Johannine Christians would not remain silent during the curse/Benediction of Nazarenes? How does he claim the Benediction would have singled out followers of the Gospel of John from other Christians?

ETA: You've definitely piqued my curiosity, and I'll add this book to the list of books I want to read.

 

[davefoc]

This topic has confused me a bit.

The theory is that some part of John was at one time tacked on to the end of Mark and that the Mark we know today is missing this section?

Does the missing part of Mark that is to be added from John go before or after the section of Mark that was already tacked on?

And does tacking the missing section of John onto Mark do anything to explain the various discrepancies between Mark and John?

I certainly defer to JoeTheJuggler's greater knowledge than mine about the history of early Christianity, but why is he interested in pursuing this theory farther? On the surface it looks silly. Has it been supported by any mainstream new testament scholars? There is certainly more than a lifetime of reading of books and articles written by random people out there spouting off about their unsubstantiated Jesus theories. Why investigate this one? At least wait until there is a modicum of mainstream scholarly interest in this guy's theories.

link to the Pascal's Wager site on John:
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/john.html

 

[fuelair]

There are often times when a john is my highest priority - especially on long trips.

 

[BibleWelt]

Responding generally to davefoc's questions:

As a new member I am not yet allowed to post links, but I found a reference to one of Powell's theories on line: "A SECOND GOSPEL - The Evolution of Mark" by David Ross. Should be easily enough found.

Here are some excerpts from Ross - references to specific verses etc. excluded by me - that briefly summarize the John 21/Mark 16:8+ theory:

"Evan Powell claims to see the ending of Mark in John 21. While I do not accept his conclusions - that John was the first Gospel - his theory that John 21 belongs to Mark is a strong one.

"John 21 has synoptic affinities which do not appear in John 1-20 (p. 58, 76-78). The sons of Zebedee appear (John 21:2). The disciples are fishing (John 21:1-3). 28 words in John 21 do not appear elsewhere in John, but only in the synoptics."...

"Moreover, John 1-20 and Mark have diametrically opposed aims with respect to Simon Peter. In John 1-20, Peter is described as a traitor to the movement..."

"Where John 1-20 does not allow for a rehabilitation of Peter, Mark does. Not only does Mark seek to make Peter look sympathetic, but Mark 14:27-28, 16:7 states that Jesus will reappear in Galilee. Moreover, the reappearance is linked with Peter's triple rejection (p. 103-105), and with Jesus's prophecy that "the sheep will be scattered" in Mark 14:27-30 (p. 111). John 21 provides the expected reunion in Galilee, in which Jesus issues Peter three demands to "feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17).

"This is not the only loose end tied up here. The "fishing" motif and "Follow me" as the last words to Peter in John 21 (verse 19 or 23) form a concluding bracket to the same themes in Mark 1:17, where "follow me" are the first words (p. 114-5). In Mark 1:19, the sons of Zebedee are mending their nets; in John 21:11, the nets are in danger of tearing.

"There are other clues that Mark foreshadows John 21. The disciples will be unaware of the empty tomb, because the women told no-one of what they saw (16:8). In John 21, Peter and other disciples have lost hope and returned to the lake; they do not realize Jesus is present in 21:4. The whole story is more like a first appearance to the disciples than a "third" (21:14).

"Powell further noted evidence that Luke knew Original Mark complete with John 21. Luke 5:3-10 merged Mark's story of how Jesus met Peter with a tale of a miraculous catch of fish (p. 113-4). This is also the only point in Luke (or Mark) in which Peter is "Simon Peter"....

"Powell concluded that John 21 is foreign to John. Instead, it is the missing ending of Mark which has been redacted to look Johannine. There is in fact much more evidence to support Powell's thesis than even he saw."...

And he continues...

I've been re-reading the Powell's book, and he is regularly pointing out tenuous assumptions which have been made by the scholarly community which seem so obvious I am just taken aback (particularly regarding Q).

 

[davefoc]

First let me welcome you to the forum BibleWelt and thank you for your thoughtful reply.

Your link:
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/Mark/

I am over my head here, but there seem to be three things being claimed here.
1. primacy of John
2. John 21 is missing ending of Mark
3. non-existence of Q

Is that correct?

Primacy of John
I haven't followed the arguments very well for the primacy of John but it looks to be such a remote possibility that it hardly seems worth investigating. There is a substantial scholarly consensus against it, but of course scholars can be feeding off of each other and just be reinforcing each others mistaken beliefs. The problem is that we won't know anything to certainty about the development of early Christianity and the life of Jesus and all that is left is making reasonable guesses. It is always possible to create counter scenarios in that kind of situation, but is this particular one likely enough to take time to consider?

Tack John 21 to end of Mark
Mark seems to be leading up to the death of Jesus, Jesus dies, book over. But Mark, the book generally considered first written originally had this Jesus returns and helps people with their fishing story at the end of it? This seems like a stretch. But the arguments for it in the piece you referenced seem complex and thoughtful, I guess it's a maybe, but without other scholarly support I'm still skeptical and not sure it's worth giving much thought to. What's the explanation for the different writing styles in the two books?

non-existence of Q
Mathew and Luke have similar material not in Mark. There are a variety of possibilities that could explain this. It seems like Q is just the most likely. I haven't understood the arguments put forth for the non-existence of Q or the tie in to John. But if they are just of the, well this might be true, type, then they don't add much. Almost nothing is well enough known about all this to exclude any ideas and just throwing another one into the mix may not be contributing anything.

 

[BibleWelt]

I am out of my depth here. But I'll try a bit more...

Re: The non-existence of Q:

Again, since I cannot yet provide a link (thanks, davefoc, for providing the link to Ross), "googling" the following phrase should bring you to a summary of arguments against Q:

Frequently Asked Questions on the Case Against Q

From that page:

Q: Why question the Q hypothesis? Is it not one of the assured findings of New Testament research?

Belief in Q is certainly a near-consensus, majority viewpoint in New Testament scholarship. It is part of the armoury of most New Testament scholars. But in every discipline it is worthwhile, from time to time, to re-examine our assumptions, our tools and our methodology. This is how scholarship moves forward. And if the Q hypothesis is 'an assured finding', then there should be nothing to fear in exposing it to fresh questioning.

Q: What, then, are the grounds for re-opening the case against Q?

My summary of Ten Reasons to Question Q should provide a useful starting point. The key works of those who have put Q to the test are listed in the Mark Without Q Bibliography. Ultimately it comes down to this: if one can make sense of Luke on the assumption of his knowledge of Matthew (as well as Mark), then Occam's Razor shaves away the need for a Q.

Powell argues for Matthew having copied from Luke, unlike the above.

Without Powell's previous arguments, this passage from page 291 may either seem compelling or just so much fluff:

"The idea that two independent writers each selected the same source materials and produced separate gospels that were virtually identical in literary scope has always been one of the puzzles of Q. How did the later writer manage to assemble all the same sources without being aware of the earlier gospel itself? The scenario seems unlikely, but since it is conceivable, the problem is most often written off as coincidental. Similarly, the array of minor agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark point toward a direct dependence of one writer against the other. Yet these are also in one way or another explained away as coincidental. Although these are two of the most common arguments against the Q theory, they are not the most compelling ones.

"The idea that there was a common Q Gospel used by Matthew and Luke fails on two counts. First, scholars cannot advance a strong argument that Matthew could not have been aware of Luke. Once this possibility is admitted, the notion that Q must have been a single document with its own literary integrity is undermined. Second, it requires that Luke copied large portions of Q verbatim in spite of the fact that all evidence indicates this was not Luke's style. That the theory can stand in the light of this inconsistency is remarkable.

"The evidence further shows that the literary style of Matthew allowed for frequent verbatim duplication of his Markan source, though at the same time he felt free to edit for clarity, efficiency of language, and occasionally for doctrinal reasons. When Matthew and Luke are compared, the same style is evident. There are frequent duplications of text, and when the text is not duplicated it most often looks as though it has been edited in the same manner that the Markan texts were edited. So the credibility of the Two-Document Hypothesis also suffers from the fact that the data are easily explained by Matthew's use of Luke as a source."

Google also this phrase

More Two Source Stuff (fwd from Ioudaios-L list)

to find this, posted by James Tabor (Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte):

"...Powell, who is apparently a non-professional among us, has produced a fascinating thesis, partly old, partly new. He writes for the informed non-specialist, but has basically done his homework well on critical Gospel studies, and so forth. His thesis is that John 21 is a doctored lost ending to Mark, that John 1-20 is an anti-Petrine Gospel, the earliest, and Mark knew John and wrote in direct opposition to "him," that Luke comes next, using Mark and other materials, and Matthew uses/knows Luke, so there was no Q "document" per se, but Q is Mt's selection of Lk (reversing Farmer here, old theory but newly presented by Powell in an interesting way). Powell concludes that our best grasp on the historical J is in John, but read more on the narrative level--so he surprisingly ends up with a revolutionary J, somewhat like Sander's J in intention at least (Temple takeover, etc.) but without the apocalyptic sayings per se, from Q, etc. He argues that the Luke/Q sayings material is mostly later, very theologically developed. Anyway, this book is great to read and I do accept it as a serious but welcome attempt by an "outsider" something quite fascinating, kind of stirring the pot. All along, as I was reading, I would say to myself, "no way," "here we go," etc. before I had read Powell's actual exposition, however, once he explained his arguments I found them to be much more compelling than I anticipated, given my fairly standard, but never entirely satisfied, "two-source" hypothesis approach."

I didn't paste the whole thing - but Tabor hardly seems like crank to me. Once again - my hands ache from all this typing.

 

[davefoc]

BibleWelt,

I didn't see anything in those arguments that surprised me. It all seems like the routine forging of alternate scenarios that is always possible when the evidence is shaky.

Here is a site that argues for the non-existence of Q but still argues for Markian primacy:
http://www.markgoodacre.org/Q/ten.htm

At this point I think I should defer to people more informed than myself, but I will summarize at least some of the information that makes the idea of Johnanine primacy for me at least less likely than the more accepted theories.

1. Mark, Matthew and Luke are similar. John is substantially different.
2. John seems to be have been written after 90 AD. The argument against this is strained but of course in the range of possible.
3. John seems to be fairly antisemitic and that to me argues for a document written more to impress the gentiles than to be a truthful representation of events.
4. John was very probably not written by John, son of Zebedee. If John was an early work it wouldn't be surprising that it would have an author that was closely linked to Jesus. Since it seems clearly to be written by a non direct witness it would surprise me if it predated Mark since anything that predates Mark is pretty close to the time where stories written by actual witnesses might be expected.
5. I think there is at least some of Mark which seems to be about Jewish Christianity and a real plausible Jesus. I, far from an expert, don't sense that in John. This suggests to me that Mark is the earlier more grounded work.
6. Mark is the book that is copied. That suggests a scenario where the Jewish Christians (perhaps led by James), the Gospel of Mark and Paul were the founding elements of early Christianity. And later Jesus story writers copied and expanded on the founding element, Mark. If John had come first, it seems at least likely that it would have been the book copied and expanded on.

 

[BibleWelt]

Glad to see there is interest in this. Although I think I can now understand what "He's making it up" means...

Again, I'm doing a disservice to Powell's step-by-step conclusions by - hmmm, I guess by not typing out the entire book! But I'll try to address some of these:

John seems to be have been written after 90 AD. The argument against this is strained but of course in the range of possible.

Page 197: "Thus, a variety of independent clues all lead to the same conclusion: John's gospel was a product of the primitive Jesus movement. It gives us a unique view of the early years of the movement, prior to the time when the synoptic legends began to dominate its expression.

"Those who would resist this conclusion face a difficult problem: Why would the church of the 90s accept as authoritative a document, written several generations after the fact, which (a) contained numerous historical and doctrinal conflicts with the established synoptic tradition, (b) portrayed Jesus as one with little moral vision, (c) ignored the tradition that Jesus taught in parables, (d) highlighted an unattractive squabble between two prominent apostles of Jesus, and (e) introduced the notion that John the Baptist was a competitor of Jesus who some thought was the authentic Messiah after all?"

John was very probably not written by John, son of Zebedee. If John was an early work it wouldn't be surprising that it would have an author that was closely linked to Jesus. Since it seems clearly to be written by a non direct witness it would surprise me if it predated Mark since anything that predates Mark is pretty close to the time where stories written by actual witnesses might be expected.

Page 295 (regarding the quest for the historical Jesus): "John and Mark are the earliest surviving records of the historical Jesus. John appears to have been composed by one very close to eyewitness sources, if indeed, he was not an eyewitness himself. Mark is the earliest record of the teachings of Peter. Since John and Mark are in ideological opposition to one another, a good starting point will be to isolate the common elements on which these two gospels are in agreement."

Page 316 (regarding the possibility of Jesus's having survived the crucifixion): "These two observations, that Jesus appeared only in the vicinity of the crucifixion, and only in private to his disciples, are strong enough to justify examination of the Johannine crucifixion and resurrection accounts for further evidence that Jesus did indeed survive the crucifixion. For there is now reason to suspect that these accounts may be connected closely to eyewitness testimony. Indeed, as we will soon see, these are only the first of many details in the Fourth Gospel which lend credence to the theory that Jesus survived the crucifixion."

I think there is at least some of Mark which seems to be about Jewish Christianity and a real plausible Jesus. I, far from an expert, don't sense that in John. This suggests to me that Mark is the earlier more grounded work.

C. H. Dodd (in "Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel"), etc., have argued well for the historical features of John, unfortunately the historicity is generally overshadowed by its awesome degree of weirdness...

Mark is the book that is copied. That suggests a scenario where the Jewish Christians (perhaps led by James), the Gospel of Mark and Paul were the founding elements of early Christianity. And later Jesus story writers copied and expanded on the founding element, Mark. If John had come first, it seems at least likely that it would have been the book copied and expanded on.

Great observation. Powell's arguments regarding the Johannine-Petrine indicate a harmonization of the two communities, with Mark consequently being the preferred source for Luke, then Matthew.

Page 86:

"If we can draw one final inference from the text it would be that pro-Petrine forces appear to have eventually gained ascendancy over the Johannine community, and that these two communities must have merged. Petrine ascendancy is implied by John 21's existence; the gospel which survived is one which was controlled by Petrine editors. The merging of the communities is implied by the existence of the gospel itself. For if the Johannine community had dissolved or gone its own way, why would Petrine leaders have continued to circulate the Gospel of John? Why would they not have simply destroyed it?"

Interestingly, Powell also points out (page 85): "So it is worth noting that even though the author of John is intensely aware of Peter as a formidable competitive threat, there is not the slightest hint in John 1-20 of an an awareness that Peter has suffered martyrdom."

(Page 86): "Where does this trivialization of Peter's martyrdom come from? It is not intuitively probable that a gospel written two to three decades after Peter's crucifixion, and especially one intended to win over the followers of Peter, would make light of Peter's willingness to die as a martyr. Not only is there a serious moral issue here, but as a practical matter it would have been extremely poor salesmanship. We may add this to the long list of paradoxes which characterizes the Fourth Gospel."

Powell's vision of Matthew is as an editor, who cleaned up loose ends and discarded a number of Luke's traditions for more plausible traditions (for example, Matthew sets the infancy events clearly within the reign of Herod) and who also anchored the stories to Jewish tradition.

My favorite example of Matthew's propensity for tying up "loose ends" is an explanation for Matthew's insertion of story of the saints rising from the grave (Matthew 27:51-53):

“And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, 'Truly this was the Son of God.' "

Matthew fulfills this prophecy found in John (RSV John 5:25-29):

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."

 

[davefoc]

thanks again for your comments,
I am well past my level of knowledge here to comment further.

My suspicion is that this what I have thought it was from the beginning one more plausible spinning of the scanty evidence into some sort of a scenario that there is enough evidence for to, at least, seem plausible to the non expert.

I am somewhat confused by this pro-petrine and anti-petrine discussion. Does pro-petrine describe support for the you-are-my-rock stuff and the use of peter for the figure head founder of the roman catholic church? Or does pro-petrine mean support of peter against Paul and for the requirement that gentiles follow the same rules as the Jews?

 

[davefoc]

"Those who would resist this conclusion face a difficult problem: Why would the church of the 90s accept as authoritative a document, written several generations after the fact, which (a) contained numerous historical and doctrinal conflicts with the established synoptic tradition, (b) portrayed Jesus as one with little moral vision, (c) ignored the tradition that Jesus taught in parables, (d) highlighted an unattractive squabble between two prominent apostles of Jesus, and (e) introduced the notion that John the Baptist was a competitor of Jesus who some thought was the authentic Messiah after all?"

The one part of this that resonates with me a bit is the argument about the introduction of John the Baptist as a competitor to Jesus. I suspect that John the Baptist and his following was a more important part of the story of the rise of early Christianity than is generally realized. John the baptist is referred to many times by Josephus while Josephus refers to Jesus only twice (and possibly not at all if one believes some people that have analyzed Josephus on this) and even then tangentially. ETA: My theory is that John and Jesus are the young guns from a holy roller type family (John and Jesus are cousins) and John takes the early lead as he builds his following. He gives some help to Jesus to get started and then John is killed and many of his followers move over to Jesus. When Jesus dies, James takes the lead and creates a sect built around the holiness of Jesus and his death.

Page 316 (regarding the possibility of Jesus's having survived the crucifixion): "These two observations, that Jesus appeared only in the vicinity of the crucifixion, and only in private to his disciples, are strong enough to justify examination of the Johannine crucifixion and resurrection accounts for further evidence that Jesus did indeed survive the crucifixion. For there is now reason to suspect that these accounts may be connected closely to eyewitness testimony. Indeed, as we will soon see, these are only the first of many details in the Fourth Gospel which lend credence to the theory that Jesus survived the crucifixion."

OK, this seems like some of the routine spinning of miscellaneous theories about Jesus that could be true in the face of conflicting and ambiguous evidence. But, is the theory that Jesus physically survived a particularly likely interpretation of the underlying evidence? I don't think so, but nobody will ever prove it wrong either.

Interestingly, Powell also points out (page 85): "So it is worth noting that even though the author of John is intensely aware of Peter as a formidable competitive threat, there is not the slightest hint in John 1-20 of an an awareness that Peter has suffered martyrdom."

(Page 86): "Where does this trivialization of Peter's martyrdom come from? It is not intuitively probable that a gospel written two to three decades after Peter's crucifixion, and especially one intended to win over the followers of Peter, would make light of Peter's willingness to die as a martyr. Not only is there a serious moral issue here, but as a practical matter it would have been extremely poor salesmanship. We may add this to the long list of paradoxes which characterizes the Fourth Gospel."

So the argument is here that the reason the author of John doesn't mention the martyrdom of Peter is because John is written before the martyrdom of Peter? Or perhaps he doesn't mention it because he didn't know about it. The internet wasn't what it is today back then. Or perhaps Peter was still the good Christian Jew hanging out in Jerusalem where he would be killed by the Romans in 70AD when they destroyed the city and Peter didn't make it to Rome at all.

The martyrdom of Peter is far from proven or perhaps even likely on the available evidence. The Roman Catholic version is that Peter and Paul came to Rome, won some converts and founded the Roman Catholic Church. But the evidence that Peter was ever in Rome is scanty and even if he was, one has to deal with the idea that Peter is on the side opposed to Paul and favoring the idea that gentiles needed to follow the same law as Jews if they were going to convert to Christianity. The Peter-you-are-my-rock stuff seems to be a later addition to the bible, inserted possibly to add gravitas to Peter as the founder of the church. It is certainly questionable historically, because the Peter equals Rock pun works in Greek but not in Aramaic.

 

[TimCallahan]

I didn't paste the whole thing - but Tabor hardly seems like crank to me. Once again - my hands ache from all this typing.

While he may not be a crank, he has some rater idiosnyncratic ideas. For example, in his book The Jesus Dynasty he argues that Jesus and John the Baptist were indeed cousins and were plotting a revolt to set Jesus up as king and John as high priest. Yet it is only in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus and John are presented as cousins. This is extremely slim evidence upon which to base such a theory. If Jesus and John the Baptist were indeed cousins, as Luke asserts, why did all the other gospels leave this out? I would take anything Tabor says with a grain of salt.

As to "Q," common saying material, seemngly derived from that lost document, occurrs not only in Matthew and Luke, but in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas as well. The idea that Matthew or Luke copied sayings, one from another, seems a bit odd, considering that they had widely varying Nativity stories. Where they share common narrative material, it seems derived from Mark.

 

[davefoc]

I didn't realize until TimCallahan mentioned it that the evidence that Jesus and JTB were cousins was so scanty.

Nonetheless I believe it because it fits in with my overall view of what went on. *

In doing a little research on this initiated by what TimCallahan wrote I came across a Wikipedia article on Holy Kinship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Kinship

It isn't a particularly detailed article or particularly relevant to this discussion but it does go to what I think is a persistent theme with regard to Jesus literature and tradition. People want to know more, the truth about what went on is long lost, so some people just make stuff up to satisfy the desire for more information about Jesus.

This has been going on for a very long time. The underpinning for the kinship of Jesus theories from the 15th and 16th centuries seems to be the Gospel of James, that dates from about 150AD (according to the Wikipedia article on the Gospel of James). The existence of so much Jesus fiction so early on I think really goes to how Christianity got going. The Christian story seems to have had traction early on, the problem was that Jesus, the main character, was a fairly obscure fellow for which almost nothing was known. In order to fill this void people just began making stuff up and in doing so the Jesus story gained even more traction which led to even more demand for Jesus fiction. This process seems similar to the way celebrities become famous today.

* Another spin on the JTB and Jesus were cousins claims in Luke is that it was just made up in an effort to tighten the link between JTB and Jesus because the early Christian writers were trying to attract the JTB followers to get on the Jesus bandwagon and tying Jesus to JTB as much as possible was one of their strategies to accomplish this. Once again, in the absence of actual evidence there is almost no limit on the scenarios that fit the available evidence well enough that they can be seen as plausible.

 

[TimCallahan]

That's an interesting article, davefoc. I didn't realize how far the kinship thing had been taken. it does fit well, however, with the ultimate kinship myth in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, to whit, that all the royal houses of Europe, via the Merovingians, were related to Jesus.

Another interesting spin on Jesus and john the Baptist is the Mandean religion, which holds that Jesus was a false prophet, whil the Baptizer was the true prophet.

 

[davefoc]

I was actually thinking a bit of the Mandeans as I wrote some of my posts above.

They might be another key to what happened, but I think their earliest history and the tie in to JTB is not clear, although just the fact of their existence if it could be traced to the first century would really give substance to the idea of a significant JTB following and potentially the idea that JTB was a key figure in the eventual rise of Jesus based religions.

One thing that I wasn't aware of as I read the Wikipedia article was that some of their earliest Mandean writings are in Mandaic which is apparently closely related to the language of the Aramaic portions of the Babylonian Talmud.

This would seems to give them a step up in credibility over the New Testament that was written in Greek.

 

[TimCallahan]

An interesting slip occurrs in Matthew. John, having been imprisoned, sends his desciples to ask Jesus (Mt. 11:3), "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" This doesn't mesh too well with the baptism of Jesus, where John says to Jesus (Mt. 4:14), "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

In Mark, Jesus simply goes to be baptized and experiences a very subjective epiphany. It is also in Mark that we have the detailed story of the daughter or Herodias asking Herod Antipas for the head of John the Baptist. Mark seems to be content with the removal of the Baptizer as a condition for the ministry of Jesus. However both Matthew and Luke felt they had to make Jesus both approved by John and greater than him. Matthew did it be making John say he needed to be baptized by Jesus, while Luke made them cousins.

The baptist is fully denegrated in John, where Jesus, as the pre-existing logos made flesh doesn't even seek baptism, but merely walks by where John is baptizing. John, seeing him, says (Jn. 1:35), "Behold, the Lamb of God!" This, by the way, is another blow to the idea of the priority of John. It's unlikely that the gospel writers would start out with Jesus as the "Word" made flesh who doesn't need baptism, then find reasons to make John recognize that Jesus really doesn't need the baptism even as he baptizes him. The baptism and temptation narratives favor Mark as the oldest gospel, followed by Matthew and Luke, with John as the latest of the four.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The baptist is fully denegrated in John, where Jesus, as the pre-existing logos made flesh doesn't even seek baptism, but merely walks by where John is baptizing. John, seeing him, says (Jn. 1:35), "Behold, the Lamb of God!" This, by the way, is another blow to the idea of the priority of John. It's unlikely that the gospel writers would start out with Jesus as the "Word" made flesh who doesn't need baptism, then find reasons to make John recognize that Jesus really doesn't need the baptism even as he baptizes him. The baptism and temptation narratives favor Mark as the oldest gospel, followed by Matthew and Luke, with John as the latest of the four.

Good point.

This also points to a huge difference in the Gospel of John. In the synoptics, Jesus keeps his divine nature under wraps until late in his career. In John, he proclaims it right from the start.

I find that to be another historically incredible thing. I can see a teacher or cult leader or whatever gathering a following with something like a conventional message and gradually making the message more and more radical (even heretical) only after solidifying the loyalty of his followers.

If Jim Jones had started out saying he would expect his followers to drink poisoned Kool Aid, I doubt he'd ever have gotten any followers. I think the Heaven's Gate cult leader started off with a message that was rooted in somewhat more conventional religious ideas (even connected to Christian scriptures), and only later hit on the idea of hitching a ride on a comet (by mass suicide).

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples.

I just doubt very much a guy who started out by proclaiming himself to be God and the only path of salvation for all mankind would get very far. I don't believe anything like that was historically accurate.

 

[davefoc]

An interesting slip occurrs in Matthew. John, having been imprisoned, sends his desciples to ask Jesus (Mt. 11:3), "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" This doesn't mesh too well with the baptism of Jesus, where John says to Jesus (Mt. 4:14), "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

An interesting point. I think there is a typo there though. The "I need to be baptized" quote is from Mt. 3:14 and not 4:14. Some of the surrounding text makes your point even more. This is from Mt. 3:11:

... But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Sounds like JTB knows of the power and importance of Jesus, and later when he's in jail he's not so sure what Jesus is.

But I think the apologist view here might be reasonable: JTB is quite taken with Jesus initially and recognizes him as a powerful entity and honors him as such, however when JTB is in jail his faith is shaken and he looks for confirmation.

On JTG's comments:

Those seemed like good points to me. But to shoehorn them a bit into a point I have tried to make about this topic. Your argument is a more-likely-than-not kind of argument. It doesn't rule out the possibility that John was written about the same time as Mark, it just adds more weight to the argument it wasn't.

This is roughly the process that is involved in almost all attempts to discern the historical truth of early Christianity. Because almost everything we know about the history of early Christianity is based on this kind of analysis, there is a huge opportunity for people to gin up counter scenarios to the generally accepted ones that can seem plausible given the lack of concrete evidence that could rule them out. And that is exactly what people do.

That Jesus didn't exist at all is one of the most extreme example of this kind of scenario proliferation. When people become aware of how shaky the actual evidence for anything in the life of Jesus is it's just easy to take that one step farther and posit that he didn't exist at all. There is no hard evidence that this isn't true, but a series of more likely than not kind of arguments make it unlikely.