Malachi151

I don't know what the consensus is, but I am confident that that writer of GJohn knew GMatthew.

First of all, if he knew of the synoptics it was defiantly Matthew, for Matthew is the on that he shares the most with, and indeed it is the only synoptic that contains each parallel between John and the synoptics.

How he knew GMatthew is another story, which I have no idea of. He could have heard it read aloud or recited, he could have read it directly, he could have read a different writing that was based on GMatthew, he could have simply heard bits and pieces that all came from GMatthew. There are lots of options, but I think it's very clear that he knew GMatthew in some fashion.

The differences in GJohn and GMatthew are primarily in order of events, and the addition of the "Signs Gospel" pieces. All of the narrative events that GJohn adds is similar and comes from a consistent theme or source.

It looks to me like GJohn comes from 3 sources:

1) A short Gnostic theological piece that has no narrative, which simply talks about "The Word", etc.

2) A "Signs Gospel" or signs tradition.

3) GMatthew, or something sourced from GMatthew.

A lot of my arguments are based on other arguments that are themselves not widely accepted, so it's a bit difficult, but here are some:

GJohn contains events that originated in GMark as literary allusions to the Hebrew scriptures, and thus were not historical. If these events originated from GMark, then the fact that they are in GJohn means that the writer of GJohn had to have been influenced by the synoptic tradition.

Example 1: The clearing of the Temple. I argue that this originated in GMark as a literary allusion to Hosea 9 and thus never happened in real life, thus any inclusion of this has to stem from literary influence, directly or indirectly.

Example 2: The crucifixion scene, with its references to Psalm 22, etc. I argue that the writer of Mark originated this scene, and thus anything that includes these elements was influenced directly or indirectly by it.

Some people argue that there was a pre-existing passion narrative which both GMark and GJohn used, but I disagree. Here is why. I don't think that any independent passion narrative would have put the words "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me." in the mouth of Jesus.

The reason that the writer of Mark did this is because GMark is a tragedy.

There are many other aspects of the crucifixion scene in GMark that tie into GMark in such a way that I think it was all written by the writer of GMark.

If Jesus never existed, then of course the writer of GJohn HAD to have been influenced by the synoptics. The only argument that he wasn't is that Jesus really existed and did all of these things, thus the commonality comes from the shared observation of the same events.

I argue, of course, that there were no events to serve in this role, thus, of course, the writer of GJohn was influenced by the synoptics.

GJohn may have been written or compeleted as late as 120 CE. If so, it would surely have been influenced by the other Gospels.

Ben C Smith

Are you still handing out this errant statement? Did you read Streeter? I gave you the link the last time round. He exhausts virtually every verbal link between John and Matthew, and their sum is not very impressive. Mark and Luke come out ahead of Matthew.

It appears the only way you are going to accept the basic facts of the case is if you sit down and start coloring up synopses (as Streeter himself recommends). You could even do it in English translation.

Ben.

Malachi151

That link, while informative, talks about linguistic similarities between the texts. While this is certainly one indication of influence, it isn't the only indication.

This is something that I have never understood when it comes to Biblical criticism. Textual criticism isn't the only method of finding influences between texts. It's like saying that the only type of influence between writers is copying. Obviously this isn't the case.

That's not to say that there aren't valid points made in the link, and the arguments there may well be valid and the best arguments, but those arguments only work if one assumes that the influence results in textual parallels and that the author wasn't intentionally changing the passages, didn't simply hear the works read orally, didn't simply pick up the story elements from a variety of general public exchanges and separate stories, etc., etc.,

What if the author of John simply picked up his story elements from general public gossip? In this case there isn't going to be any specific borrowing, and indeed we won't be able to point to any specific gospel that he got his ideas from, but nevertheless he would have been influenced by the synoptics, in a fashion that may be totally impossible to tease out via textual criticism.

Zeichman

How would you, personally, distinguish this from a common tradition that both evangelists used? Or did you just assume the conclusion of indirect dependence?

jgibson000

OK. I'll bite. What are the others?

You are confusing textual criticism with source criticism.

Before you continue making various claims about the deficiencies of the methods employed by professional scholars, let alone how inconsistently or badly they are employed, I suggest you do some serious study of what these methodologies actually are.

JG

MortalWombat

Holy Spirit descending as a dove at Jesus' baptism:
Matt
3.16 And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him;
Mark
1.10And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove;
Luke
3.21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 3.22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove,
John
1.32 And John bore witness, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.


Woman with the ointment:
Matt:
26.8 But when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, "Why this waste? 26.9 For this ointment might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor." 26.10 But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. 26.11 For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.
Mark:
14.4But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted? 14.5For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they reproached her. 14.6But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 14.7For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me.
John:
12.5 "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" 12.6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. 12.7 Jesus said, "Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. 12.8 The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."


Jesus identifying the betrayer:
Matt
26.20 When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; 26.21 and as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." 26.22 And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?" 26.23 He answered, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me.
Mark
14.17And when it was evening he came with the twelve. 14.18And as they were at table eating, Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me." 14.19They began to be sorrowful, and to say to him one after another, "Is it I?" 14.20He said to them, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.
John
13.21 When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." 13.22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. 13.23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; 13.24 so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, "Tell us who it is of whom he speaks." 13.25 So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, "Lord, who is it?" 13.26 Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it." So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

Ecrasez L'infame

Excuse my ignorance - I've always taken it for granted that the raising of Lazarus in John owed something at least to Lk 16:19-31, some kind of free adaptation perhaps? Is that wrong? But then the OP uses the DIFFERENCES between the two as an argument that John hadn't seen Luke? Don't get it.

gnosis92

Well thanks. Still I wonder how these overlapping material ended up in John (or his source, the Signs Gospel), common oral tradition or literary dependence?

If John did know Mark (or Luke) how is it he used so little of Luke/Mark in John, and how did he decide when to use Luke/Mark when he does?

Solo

The answer to that could be that "John" felt the need to rearrange the synoptic material to accomodate a new narrative form stressing the mystical union of the narrator and the Godhead. In that form, the staged progress from the baptismal self-revelation of Jesus to his passion, is suppressed in favour to more complex itinerary and discoursive speech. The class of nocturnal nature miracles and mass feeding lose their function (i.e. reader's participation in the mystery) as they are replaced by signs of Jesus' divinity, which is non-refractive, and controlled by the emerging church. (Jn 10:1-18).

As for John's knowledge of the synoptics: I believe he did know them. Robert mentioned the "Lazarus" connection to Luke. I also think the annointing scene is a literary implement of Mark, a metaphoric allusion to the intrinsic worth and transitoriness of the indwelling Spirit, and as such unlikely originating in oral traditions about Jesus. Note that John repeats the Luke's "sinning woman's" act of wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair (Lk 7:38Jn 12:3), a detail absent from Mark and Matthew.

Jiri

Malachi151

This all goes back to GMark. The first task is determining what in GMark was original to GMark.

My view, for reasons that I have explained several times, is that GMark is almost completely an original work, that the author made up himself. Obviously the idea of crucifixion isn't original to GMark, nor, perhaps, is the last supper ritual, but I think that pretty much everything else is original to GMark.

If that is the case, then anything in GJohn that is similar to GMark came from GMark in some way or another, even if the author of GJohn had never even seen GMark.

IMO GMark is too cohesive and so many of the scenes contain strong symbolism that is specific to his narrative for his narrative to simply be a loose collection of other pre-existing story elements.

There are also too many cases in GJohn where the exact same scriptures are referenced in GJohn as are referenced in the synoptics, and many of these are obscure references that I think would only be common between the two if the writer of GJohn were influenced by the synoptics in some way.

The only other explanation is that all of these references are part of a common source that pre-dates GMark, and this is just nonsense, as that common source would had to have been an entire Gospel basically, for which there is no evidence.

For example:

This is typical and found throughout GJohn. He takes the exact same scriptural references that are found in the synoptics and then works them into the narrative in a more dynamic way.

Instead of simply quoting or paraphrasing a passage, such as the casting lots for cloths from Psalm 22, he describes that event taking place, with additional details, and then says "this was done in order to fulfill the scriptures", etc.

Or, as in the example above, he has Isaiah say the passage from the scriptures, etc.

But the thing is is that there are dozens of instances of this, too many for the author of GJohn to have had no knowledge of the synoptics and then just to have coincidently come up with all of the same scriptural references.

The only other explanation, as you say, is a pre-Mark common source that included all of this, which Mark, Luke, and Matthew all used, which is not only unlikely, but has no support and really makes no sense.