jjramsey

If it's intentional irony, then highlighting the mistake would be essentially explaining the joke.

Diogenes the Cynic

But John had no reason to assume that the audience would know about the Bethlehem tradition. If he really intended the passage as irony he could have included some kind of Nativity info at the beginning of his Gospel and then let the audience connect he dots later.

I think the "irony" defense is a reach. It's a priori and it's unsupported by the text. If you were to read GJohn without any knowledge of the synoptics, you would never infer any irony in that passage.

S.C.Carlson

Quite a few scholars (including B. H. Streeter) have argued that John 11:2 ("Mary was the one who annointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair") betrays the knowledge of Luke in John's audience. If they're right that John's audience is already familar with Luke, then I don't think that the ironic understanding of John 7:42 is much of a reach at all.

Now, conservative scholars tend to favor John's independence over the synoptics, so you do have some company for your position.

Stephen

Buster Daily

Why would the tradition develop that Jesus was from Galilee anyway? The most obvious possibility was that there was a real human (possibly named Joshua) that lived in Galilee around whom the traditions emerged. For those that do NOT believe in a single human figure for Jesus, why Galilee? Why not place him in Jerusalem? Does Galilee improve the story from a literary standpoint?

jjramsey

As I pointed out above, if John did not think his audience knew about the Bethlehem tradition, he would have written in such a way as to avoid the damage resulting from the suggestion that Jesus didn't fulfill the prophecies. I don't contend that John is accurate, only that he is not likely to write anything to make Jesus look bad. Also, it's not as if subtle humor is entirely unknown in John. For example, in John 1:46-47:

Doug Shaver

Why not? He was being portrayed as anti-establishment, or at least to some extent opposed to the conventional thinking of his place and time. That's always a good role for people from places nobody has heard of.

Jerusalem was symbolic of much that he was portrayed as opposing. That is why the stories had him go there to be killed.

Amaleq13

Galilee was certainly not a place nobody had heard of. In fact, given common knowledge of Judas the Galilean, I would think there would have been an automatic assocation with "anti-establishment" troublemakers.

jjramsey

Galilee does not appear to be used in the Gospels as symbolic of being "anti-establishment."

Amaleq13

Why could "nothing good" come from Nazareth?

mdarus

Here is one hint. Nazareth, of course, is a town in the region called Galilee.
The reputation seems to have stuck.