rodahi;
1. "And passing along by the
Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of
Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen...
And going on a little further he [Jesus] saw James the son
of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat
mending the nets. And immediately he called them; and they
left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired
servants." (1:16-20)

That is accurate, and a little study will reveal that the
"sea" is the Dead Sea and that these fishermen are fishing
for the souls of men (Evangelists). Zeb'edee is Simon Magus
and he is the "chief priest" (father). These two young men
are John Aquila (author of the first chapter of Revelations)
and his real brother James Niceta.

These priests had pseudo titles such as "Earthquake", "Thunder".
"Wind", and "Lightning". (The extra hours of darkness is an
intercalation and we will have an extra hour ourselves come
this October.) With Simon Magus (Zebedee) being the chief priest
at Qumran (Jerusalem, Galilee, Egypt) his students are called
the "sons of Thunder".

Thanks, offa

James Still

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by offa:

Quote:

Originally posted by James Still: The problem is that the expulsion from the synagogues didn't occur until after the fall of Jerusalem in about 85 CE, a fact which the redactor seems unaware. offa; "Of course the redactor is unaware, he completed his book in AD 37!"

offa, you've misunderstood the point. If the expulsion was in 85 CE and John's author (or later redactor) mentions the expulsion in his writing, then the gospel must have been written after 85 CE. See how that works?

quote:
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I wrote: "It could very well be that the Signs Gospel was written by an eyewitness although we have absolutely no evidence to suggest that it was."
MEta =&gt;None to suggest it wasn't. But the further back we go the greater likelihood of eye-witness input.


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Touche. Until such time that the evidence tips the balance in favor of an eyewitness core to the gospel, I suggest we remain agnostic about the matter.

Meta =&gt;Well, I agree in principle that we can't prove either way, but I think it's a fair assumption in general that the closer we go back in time the greater the chances of eye witness testimony staning behind it. that has to do with the way I think the sotry spread in the first place; not just wild rumors and anyone telling anyone whatever gossip he heard, but through structured communities with organized intentions to reflect and study upon what happened. I may put up a post on this latter but there are hints in Acts and some good books have been wirtten to this effet. Now Crossan dates the signs Gosples with Passaion Narrative around the middle of the century, so only about 20 years or so after the events. Likelihood is pretty high that a core of eye witness testimony stands at the center of it.

But what I probably agree with you about is that there is no single author recounting what happened word for word as though it is the diary of someone who was there at every event and heard and saw ever pericope.


quote:
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I wrote: "I'm willing to admit that it is very early, even that it is contemporaneous with Q, since the Signs Gospel and the Q Gospel are not radically different. (What I mean by that is the "divine man" motif of the canonical John is wholly absent from the Signs Gospel.)"
Meta=&gt;How do we reallly know that?


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I don't know about you but my Greek isn't good enough to spot the seams where later redactors came along and inserted material into a more original document. So I'm forced to trust the findings of those who can (and here is where scholarly consensus becomes very important for me). The Signs Gospel -- which I've just found on the net by the way at http://www.earlygospels.net/translat...anslation.html -- has none of the divine man characteristics of the canonical version.

Meta =&gt;confidentially, my Greek always sucked, and not that it's been so long its very rusty. But, the point is, what are you assuming about "the divine man" motif? In the link you offer it quotes the alledged Gospel as saying that Jesus is the Son of God. This designation for the Messiah implied a pre-mundane qasi divine being to whom all the divine attributed were attrbuted. Now part of that is assuming that certain parts of the Talmud have pre-Christian antecendents, but there are also such implications found at Qumran. I think you are accepting some sort of Bautlmannian assumptions about Gnostic influences and using that for a late date, and that need not be the case.


quote:
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I wrote: "But in this case we have several church fathers and three letters, all of which fail to cite or mention anything from John."
Meta-&gt;I don't know how you figure that. The three next oldest sources of extracanonical origin to Clement quote John: Igatious, Polycarp, Papias (the latter speicifically attributes the Gospel to him). None of the Catholic epistles quote any of the Gospels. In fact there is much more ealry attestation to John than to Mark. see Koster Ancient Christian Gosples


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I think for Papias you meant to say Irenaeus who did attribute the gospel to John around 180 CE.

Meta =&gt; Here's what I was thinking of:
Meta =&gt; With the similarities between the 1John and John, the odds are high that this indicates that John existed before this time, but it's not direct proof; he could have had a differnt version of 1 John but in any case that's what I was thinking of. I remerebered it wrong. 1 John rather than John.

MEta =&gt; Right, butI think Ignatious Quotes John, he doesn't mention it, but he quotes it. I'll have to look that up. Polycarp attesting to John is the old McDowell argument. Eusebuis said that Polycarp attests to it, and so does Iranaeus; that John wrote it, so it had to have existed if he really said that. He maybe wrong about who wrote it, but it must have existed.


[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
What does Koester have to say in this regard? At a very early date Papias does specifically mention Mark as Peter's interpreter but as I've said we don't get early attestation for John. As you said it's probably because the Johannine community kept it close and didn't promulgate it outside of Syria and Alexandria (at least I think that's what Koester and Robinson have argued but it's been awhile since I've read their book). Well, if there are attestations in Asia or Rome earlier than Irenaeus then I've love to know what they are.[QUOTE]

Meta =&gt;Yes I agree that the sparceness of attestation could be accounted for by the closed nature of the Johonnine commmunity, which is what I argue for. But my theory is that they went to Asia Minor, based upon the Chruches of Revelation.Although that doesn't preclude some of them going to Egypt; and of course by 130 or so they could have began to propogate it. I figure they formed an alliance withe the Pauline circle at some point, based up mutual adoration of Jesus as Divine, and that opened their Gosple to wider Christain circles.

As for Koester, speaking of Mark, comparing it to other Gospel attestations he says:

These sources are Valentinian commentaries in Clement of A and Iranaeus. He goes on to agree with you about the major early second century bulwarks such as Ignatious not mentioning it, but also indicates that Ignatious lanaguage is very Johonnine. In a book by Eugene R. Fairweather (U. of Toronto--anthology of Chruch fathers, edited by Fairweather, he marks passaged from Ig. and P. which appear to be quotes form John. I'll have to dig that out latter).

The problem with my theory is it didn't show up in Asia minor until latter in second century, but that could just be because we don't know everything about what they did.Apparently it was circulating in Egypt before that.

quote:
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Meta =&gt;The "divine man" motif in John is different from the presentation of other Gosples, but it is not wholly absent from the synoptics. It's not in the same form, but references to "Son of God" are refrences to the Jewish concept of Messiah, and that was that of a pre-mundane being to whom all the divine names are applied.
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Meta =&gt;I think that's just reading in Gnsoticism. Because the whole point of the Logos prologue is that he is fully human, felsh is not evil, he became flesh. Those titles "Son of God" "son of Man" were not merely honorific, because they did believe he existed before the world, sits upon the thore of Y. and is called by names such as "Y. is a man of war." I'll get some of that material and post it for you.

Now granted, that's latter stuff, 1st centruy and second, such as Cyboline oracles. So don't say I'm a bad scholar because I recognize the limitation there. But Edersheim thought there was a tradition that reflected, and anti-missionaries have argued that against me as well. They stubornly defend the notion of the Talmudic tradition going all the way back, which is absurd of couse, but it is not so far fetched to think it mirrored pre-Christian teachings.


quote:
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Meta=&gt;Certianly they would be in a position. Being late has nothing to do with it. They are passing on the community knoledge, assuring for future generations that the community has testified to this. But than your assumptions about oral traditon are no doubt very different from mine. YOu probaby regard it as rumor itself, but I do not. I think they had organized efforts to keep oral testimony stairght.
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MEta =&gt; OK I agree there too. I don't think it was all wrote, although probably some organized attempt to pass it on in a preserved manner.

The fist is from a Dallas Theological Seminary Guy. I usually avoid quoting DTS men on general principles. But this guy, Wallace seems extradinarily broad minded for a DTS guy. IN fact I"m surprized he still teaches there, they usually fire anyone who wuld agree that the census in Luke can't be verfied. Anyway, Wallce brings out some remarkable textual attestations that I think could decide the matter. The matter of dating the Gospel that is, not authorship.

The Gospel of John:
Introduction, Argument, Outline
by
Daniel B. Wallace, Ph.D.

http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/jnotl.htm

Daniel B. Wallace has taught Greek and New Testament courses on a graduate school level since 1979. He has a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently professor of New Testament Studies at his alma mater. His Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Zondervan, 1996) has become a standard textbook in colleges and seminaries. He is the senior New Testament editor of the NET Bible. His email address is: wallace@bible.org
1. The Title

MEta=&gt;I'm still not arguing for Johonnine authorship, but as this argues for John's authorship back to the begining of the second century, it also place the existece of the work at the beging of the second century, making my dat of 90 very plausible.

Footnote to a point above,
1 I.e., which contain John either in its entirety or at least which have the first few verses, permitting them to reveal their inscription. It should be added here that P52, which is to be dated c. 100-150, only contains portions of five verses from John 18.
2 The simplest inscription is kataV jIwavnnhn, found in a B (“according to John”). As time progressed this became more elaborate: in the fifth century the title was customarily eujaggevlion kataV jIwavnnhn ([A] C D L W et al. [“The Gospel according to John”]), while still later it was called a{gion eujaggevlion kataV jIwavnnhn (28 and others [“the Holy Gospel according to John”]). Curiously, the two earliest MSS (P66 and P75) have eujaggevlion kataV jIwavnnhn, a fact which suggests that this gospel—even more than the synoptics—was already well accepted in the early part of the second century, for such accretions were usually associated with books which had a long-standing history of acceptance with the church. This further illustrates that even though these two papyri are our earliest (fairly) complete witnesses to John, the great codices of the fourth century may, at times, be more reliable guides to the wording of the original text.[/QUOTE]

Wallace on external attestations.

I'm marking the those quotes that indicate a date because the real point of quoting all this is to show the date, that the work existed going into the second century. I still maintain that all the "kata" John inscirptions are the result of confussing Johns and it was really the Elder John to which they originally applied.

His source:


NOw this is a really old source. Richard will probably come on and say "see Meta is a lousy scholar to quote such an old source." But it uses the Patristics really well. I have seldom found a modern source that makes such good use of them. It shows quite clearly several possible quotations in Patristics from John.


Etherial Library


http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history...vii.XII.83.htm

Philip Schaff, 1882

Here from the footnotes where he lines up the quotations. Quotations of Ignatius drawing upon the 4G..
Luke T. Johnson The Read Jesus


&lt;"Although the Gospels undoubtedly bear within them evidence of firsthand sources and even eyewitnesses, such material is not identified as such, and the narratives as a whole were most probably composed by authors of the generation after that of Jesus' immediate followers." (Luke Timothy Johnson, 1996, p.107)

ATTN:James Still

JOH 12:42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many
believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did
not confess him, lest they should be put out of the
synagogue:

offa;
The followers of Jesus would not support him because he had
gotten himself into a quandary. Simon Magus was previously
the chief priest at Qumran (Jerusalem, Galilee, Egypt) and
was excommunicated in a zealous action (with Judas
Iscariot). Jesus had released Simon (raising of Lazarus)
thus aligning himself with the zealots against the Romans.
Simon Magus was formerly called "the Pharisees" because he
was their chief priest. Simon was replaced by Jonathan
Annas (who was now called, "the Pharisees" and their was
now an animosity between Annas and Jesus (Simon and Annas
were adversaries). As chief priest at Qumran (Galilee)
Jonathan had control of the synagogue there. (BTW, the only
priest who out ranked Jonathan (angel, father) was
Caiaphas (GOD) and for this reason Jonathan was called his
"son-in-law" and it was to him who Jesus complained, "Oh
father, way have you forsaken me?")


JOH 16:02 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea,
the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that
he doeth God service.

offa;
Jesus is telling his disciples to keep the faith and beware.
The "god" he is referring to is Caiaphas.

Thanks, offa

Originally posted by Amos123:

. . . wherefore there are no churches in the New Jerusalem.


I really enjoy reading your posts Amos123.
My question is, "Where is the New Jerusalem?

I am just a construction worker, I sure wished I could grasp your writing style.

thanks, offa

James Still

Hey now offa there's not a damned thing wrong with being a construction worker and you ought not to apologize for it! At least you're building something tangible with your hands. Biblical criticism is often the art of building sandcastles out of thin air.

As for Amos, I too desire to grasp his writin style.

The New Jerusalem is the way of life when intuition is in charge of our destiny. It is not easy offa because you have to learn to walk on water first (lean heavily on the celestial sea, lol).

I once saw a picture of Krishna and Arguna that depicted this clearly. Here She was in charge of the chariot and Arguna (reason) was just along for the ride.

In Catholicism it is past the Coronation of Mary as queen of heaven and earth. This means that we have been born again, crucified, resurrected, ascended and have assumed Mary (our subconscious mind) into our faculty of reason and crowned her/it queen in our life so that intuition rules and reason induces the direction it is to take.

Thanks and I try not to miss any of your posts.

I used to be a construction worker, then a research technologist, sold vacuum cleaners, bought a farm, and another one, and so on. I am actually an educated farmer with a BA in philosophy at the age of 42.

Amos

Hi James, I wish I could share it with you and all of you. Your mind and my insight would cause a new revolution!

Amos

Yea, and the Justice Socieity was replaced by the Justice League, but they were on Earth 1 rather than earth 2 so the JSA came out of retirement when they met the Barry Allen Flash form eath 1 in "Revenge of the Immortal Villan." circua 1964.