Rycke Brown

I first read the Gospels when I was nearly forty, to find out if I could take Jesus as my king--for strictly political purposes, as I am an atheist. A dead king is the best kind; he can't change his laws, which are eternal.

The first three gospels read as expected, telling the life of the same man from three different points of view. I figured that everything prior to his coming out of the wilderness and preaching was made up, as men are wont to do about their heroes. But they told the same stories, the same parables, the same miracles, and the same major events in the same order, particularly the last week in Jeruselem. Before I even finished the gospel of Matthew, I decided that I liked Jesus, I could follow his few and simple commandments, (only 6!) and I was qualified to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, despite my non-belief in the Father. I still like Matthew's Jesus best; his story is most detailed, and he's a gentler soul.

But when I read John, I was stunned. He starts out putting the whipping of the money changers from the temple at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. Jesus wouldn't have lived a week after doing that, and he didn't; he was directly challenging the Pharisees on their home turf. But in John's gospel, it's a minor event of no consequence.

It goes downhill from there. No parables, no stories about working on the Sabbath or eating with unwashed hands. Instead, we have long, rambling monologues about him and his father, and how you have to believe in him to be saved. John's gospel also has the most spectacular miracles, that somehow never made it into the other three gospels, like changing water to wine and raising Lazarus from the dead after 2 days, and stopping the stoning of an adulteress by guessing the sins of her persecutors.

In the first three gospels, Jesus called himself the Son of Man and speaks of himself and his followers as sons of God. In John, he calls himself the only begotten son of God. In the Synoptics, he tells the people he heals to tell nobody. In John, he tells them to go out and spread the news. In the Synoptics, he doesn't say a word to Pilate, and Pilate wonders. In John, he converses with Pilate. In the first three, he says nothing on the cross but "My God, why have you forsaken me?" In John, he talks to the thieves, and then to John, giving his mother to John, his mother who wasn't there in the other gospels. In fact, in the other gospels, his family rejected him and vice-versa.

Jesus brags a lot in John, and John brags about himself, calling himself "the beloved disciple" and having Jesus put his aged mother in his care at his death.

I went back to John recently trying to discover why he wrote such a pack of lies. I decided that it was written to sell two points: that Jesus is not only the only begotten son of God, but an aspect of a tripartite god; and that belief in him can bring one to eternal life.

In the other gospels, Jesus never claims to be a son of God, or even a son of David. In fact, he pointed out that the messiah couldn't be a son of David. Nonetheless, Matthew and Luke insisted on making him a descendant of David.

More important, the Synoptic Jesus was most concerned with what one does, not what one believes or claims to believe. He made that clear at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. And when the young man asked what he should do to be saved, he said, "Keep the commandments." "Which?" asked the young man. "Do not steal. Do not murder Do not commit adultery. Do no bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. And love your neighbor as yourself."

Having one story from three witnesses and a completely different story and character from a fourth witness, I can only throw out the testimony of the fourth witness in all particulars. If there's a word of truth in there, it's purely coincidental.

Febble

I dunno, I think you've been reading a different gospel. The gospel starts with a poem about why Jesus came, and about John the Baptist's mission. Jesus first appears when some of John's followers (possibly including John the apostle himself) leave John to join Jesus, and the first story is the wedding at Cana. And there is a bit about working on the Sabbath - the story of the man at the pool at Bethesda. But nothing about talking to the thieves from the cross, although narrative corroborates Luke that two other people were crucified at the same time.

Structurally, it's mostly poetry, interspersed with carefully selected narrative. And yes, the narrative differs from the synoptic gospels, but the the fact that the other gospels are synoptic suggests that the observations are not independent (stats geek talking).

My sense is that at least some of the narrative is from a direct eye witness, which may be why we get more so much detail - and there is a huge amount of detail, including things like weather. and who was standing exactly where etc. If we postulate that at least some of the narrative detail is from an eye witness who was the "other disciple" who had, for example, access to the high priest's court (and therefore managed to get Peter in too), then a lot of it makes sense.

Of course, it may be pure literature, or it may be misinterpretation of real events. I don't see any evidence that it is a lie.

But the narrative is certainly interspersed with large sections that are poetry.

If you are interested, I did a paraphrase of the whole shebang for my son, who liked it best of the three gospels, precisely because has the most detail. He was 5 at the time, and he wanted to know what the different gospel writers actually said, and how they differed, rather than having a composite children's bible (he's a born scientist, and liked properly referenced evidence, even then).

Here it is.

Sven

I'm amazed how one could come to such a strange conclusion before in investigating the problem a bit closer first.

Had you bothered to do only the slightest bit of research, you'd know that Matthew and Luke simply copied from Mark. So it's no wonder they mostly agree. You don't have three witnesses against one, you have one against one.

Apart from this, no one of the four was an eyewitness.

Rycke Brown

Febble, the story of Jesus chasing the money changers out of the Temple in in John 2:13-21, directly after the wedding at Cana, which is not in the other gospels. In the other three gospels, the whipping is in the last week in Jeruselem.

Funny how people claim that Jesus was without sin or crime. Whipping the moneychangers away from their money was assault and robbery. Little wonder he was arrested soon after, as soon as they could catch him without a crowd around him.

I was wrong about the thieves; it is in Luke. My bad. But then, I consider Luke the least reliable of the Synoptics. In fact, I consider the four gospels to be listed in order of reliability.

As for John being poetry, it is poetic, but I wouldn't call it poetry. It largely consists of rambling, raving monologues that don't fit what Jesus says in the other gospels. But it is poetic enough that it was probably written by a Greek, long after the disciple died.

Sven, how do you know that none of the writers was an eyewitness? I do not take the word of Biblical scholars for much; how do they know? None of their suppositions are supported by independent histories; people haven't found independent evidence that Jesus even existed, as far as I know. All I can go on is the gospels themselves, and comparing the accounts in light of my knowledge of Jewish politics under Roman occupation.

For instance, John refers to Jesus' enemies throughout as "the Jews," as though Jesus and his followers are not Jews. Matthew and Mark refer to Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians.

I've heard that Mark was written first, but that doesn't mean that Matthew didn't write an independent account. But I'm perfectly willing to believe that Luke cribbed the facts from Mark's account and added his own fictions to it.

Julian

That is an accurate observation, of course.
Using the same line of argumentation, one could then classify King Kong as coming from a direct eye witness. Same for any other story that includes details. It is not convincing. Especially, considering that it differs quite a bit from the earliest canonical gospel (Mark.) It seems entirely arbitrary to conclude that GJohn is more correct than the synoptics just because it is different.
Given the fact that much of GJohn is impossible, we must call the entire gospel into question. It is written too late for it to be an eye witness source. The material it is based on, the Signs Gospel, is within eye witness range but doesn't have much of the detail you point out.
Really? How would the author know what happened with the God and the Word? The fact that scientifically impossible miracles are reported means that, at least, part of the gospel is a lie.
I like your version far better than the actual gospel. Well done.

You are a very smart woman and a scientist. What happens when you apply your scientific principles to an analysis of the events in GJohn? Are all the things that Jesus does scientifically possible?

Julian

RUmike

Yes but there is plenty of other material in Matt and Luke that did not come from Mark which largely corroborates Mark's Jesus (and certainly not John's Jesus)

Rycke Brown

Thank you RUmike and Julian; I thought much the same thing. Fiction and good lies are rife with details. But there is more detail in Matthew about Jesus' actual sayings, as opposed to details in Luke about Jesus' early life that Luke probably knew nothing about, though he says he got the details from Mary. If Matthew really was a tax collector that signed on early, he would make a witness with a good ear for detail, and he would be literate.

I take all writings of men with a grain of salt, and try to tease out the truth from the lies and known from unknown.

Yes, I am a scientist. I do not believe in miracles, because I believe that the impossible is always impossible. I prefer my universe at least somewhat predictable. But most of the miracles attributed to Jesus in Matthew and Mark have a naturalistic explanation. Except where John repeated an earlier story, like feeding the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, his miracles are completely made up and don't require an examination of their probability.

But then, I am not attracted to Jesus because he performed miracles or because he is The son of God. (John seeks to prove Jesus is The son of God by his spectacular miracles, but you have to buy the miracles to believe it. In Matthew, Jesus even says that even those who commit evil may do mighty works in his name, but they will be left in the cold, because they do evil as well. In the Old Testament, miracles are not restricted to holy men. Pharoah's court magicians could also do some.) I give him my allegiance because his laws are few and logical, and because he is a perfect example for activists like myself, and gives good advice about activism. ("You must be subtle as serpents, and harmless as doves," he says as he sends the disciples out to preach.)

Julian

In case my posts are in danger being read too harshly, I want to point out that there is a difference between GJohn being one big lie and GJohn containing lies. It may be either one, we don't know, but at this time I am not advocating one view or the other.

Julian

Febble

Well I was influenced by John Robinson's "new look", particularly by apparent evidence (I say apparent, because, as will be obvious, I have only dipped my toe in to this stuff) that details such as the architecture of the Pool of Bethesda had been corroborated archaeologically, and yet did not survive the destruction of Jerusalem, not referred to on John, even as a post hoc "prophesy". So I have been willing to entertain the possibility that its source was an eye witness, possibly an aging John aka beloved disciple.

Actually, I've been thinking about that since I wrote my post. You are right. The striking thing of course about John is that not only is it fine literature (I claim that it is) but that it actually claims to be the testimony of an eyewitness. So it needs to be assessed as "true" on a literal basis as well. In other words it doesn't have the excuse of being not supposed to be literally true, like King Kong. So, if it isn't true, maybe I have to call it a lie.

OK. I suppose what I meant is that, purely subjectively, it doesn't read like a lie. And I suppose, being a catholic, I am aware that whatever the literal truth of such events as happened at Lourdes, Medjugorje or Fatima, there does appears to be such a phenomenon as shared perception, even when the perception is illusory. So again, suspending belief, or disbelief in the actuality of the events described by John (or whoever), I am (so far) prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt as far as intention to lie is concerned. It was certainly written to convert. And I balk at the idea that anyone deliberately tries to converts anyone to something they don't believe.

Boy, that is feeble... Anyway, I'm thinking.

Well, thanks. As I said, I love that gospel as literature, and wanted my son to have something I could sign on to, theologically at least. But I had to make certain assumptions, so it was also an experiment in finding out how it would read if wherever "another disciple" was mentioned, it was in fact the author. The idea that the author was a disciple of John the Baptist makes sense of some passages rather well. And it also reads as though the author was in some kind of competition with Peter, literally, when it came to racing for the tomb. But I suppose I have to decide whether it is great fiction or (auto)biography. Maybe docudrama....

I don't know. Watch this space.

Julian

Why do you think that John was the beloved disciple?

Also, the reference to the Pool of Bethesda means one of three things.

1) The author was once in Jerusalem before 70 and saw it.
2) He knew somebody who had seen it and described it to him.
3) He read about it.

One of those things is the only thing that can be inferred from the reference. To go from "he knew of a piece of architecture" to "he was an eyewitness to Jesus" is simply not reasonable.

Notice that most fiction, including King Kong rely on real people and places for their setting. That doesn't mean that the story is factual. The white house exists but I am pretty sure it wasn't blown to bits by space aliens and that the hollywood film makers weren't eye witnesses to such an event no matter how real the white house is.
Well, Victor Frankenstein was witness to a monster, we have many letters saying so, preserved by Mary Shelley. You will notice that urban legends always have the teller either be an eye witness or personally know the person it happened to. Claims to have special knowledge count for little in a document which, by your own admission, has an agenda and pushes its point in a tendentious manner.
Could that be baggage talking? No disrespect intended, just asking. I didn't grow up with any knowledge of the bible at all, never read it back then, never knew anyone who did. When I read it, it reads like a fantastic tale that I find utterly impossible to believe. I would be more likely to believe a Grimm fairytale. That doesn't mean that it might not be based on some real events but as it is written it is wholly in the realm of the unbelievable, but that's just my impression, of course.
Those events never stand up to scrutiny. As Carl Sagan points out, when comparing the number of miracles at Lourdes actually acknowledged as such by the Catholic Church with the number of diseases that go into spontaneous remission, it is actually more beneficial to stay at home.
But why would a scientist want to suspend disbelief? Isn't that against everything that science stands for? Have you asked yourself why it is okay to suspend disblief in connection with christian religious tales but not in other things? Could it be a bias? Aren't biases generally a bad thing?
I am sure that the writer believed in some sort of christianity. He probably believed in Jesus and the resurrection and so forth. I am sure he wrote the gospel with the best of intentions. That doesn't mean that it is real. Who knows why he wrote it and why he put it in what he did? We can only speculate but even I doubt that his motives were 'evil.'
No telling where that may lead...
Nothing wrong with that.
Maybe the gospel writer did the same thing? You think it is okay to change the story a bit, add some stuff, remove some stuff so that it would appeal to your audience and reflect what you find to be defensible theology. Maybe the author of John felt the exact same way. Maybe those could be his exact words when asked why his gospel was different.
There are some theories that Jesus himself was a follower of JtB and split, hence Jesus the Nasorean (the followers of JtB.) It is a good theory, in my mind.
Maybe none of the above. Remember, there are more than twenty gospels. Each with their own views and ideas. Why are any one of them more correct than others?
We're watching...

Thanks for a good reponse.

Julian