Vorkosigan

I suppose what is slightly purturbing is that neither the synoptics nor John's gospel acknowledge each other's existence, which strongly suggests John's gospel is a completely original work, and that John did not have the synoptic gospels before him when he wrote it.

GJOhn is not an original work. First, that would be arguing that the unique gospel genre was thought up twice independently. Secondly, John clearly knows Mark, as John 6 and the Markan intercalations preserved in John show. Third, John 21 was originally part of Mark. See Evan Powell's argument summarized here (scroll down to middle for discussion).

GJohn is a patchwork of several redactional hands. There might be a core down there that is earlier than 100, as Brown apparently thought, but that would be difficult to demonstrate.

the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Typical late legendizing; good evidence that this book was probably written in the second century.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Neither, just that GJohn does not tell us very much about the historical Jesus. I think we must stick primarily to the synoptic Gospels if we want to try to learn about the historical Jesus. Obviously I'm not defending anything new here

LOL. I don't think the Synoptics contain anything useful about the historical Jesus either. The HJ has been lost to theology, politics, and mythologizing.

Vorkosigan

Amos

I would say it is just the other way around. The historical Jesus is created in theology, politics and demythologizing, as opposite to understanding, of the myth.

Vinnie

I know but my view is that we can learn a good deal about the HJ from the synoptics (probably not enough to an evangelicals liking but enough). I think the Christian creativity was somewhat limited. But more on that later when I finish that thing on methodology.

Vinnie

Geoff Hudson

Of the four gospels, John's retains the most references to the Spirit. I get the impression that John was older than James and closer to Jesus (imo the prophet John) than James. Recognitions 12 has (brackets as usual):

The scene is Rome.

Geoff