Back Again

Are we sure that this material in Tatian's work comes from John? Could the Diatessaron (or the source material it uses) be the source for John 21?

EDIT: AA, is your point to dispute the dating of the Diatessaron or to dispute that John 21 is an add-on. For me John 21 seems to be an obvious addition and I would be surprised if that was disputed here.

aa5874

I am just trying to show that the Church writers are not credible. It appears that the writer called Tertullian in Praxeas was not aware of John 21 but Tatian who supposedly lived before Tertullian was aware of a writing that appears almost identical to John 21.

Now, if the Diatessaron was written after Tertullian, sometime in the 3rd century, then it appears that the Diatessaron was not written by Tatian or inversely, Praxeas was written earlier in the 2nd century before the Diatessaron, and not by Tertullian.

It should be noted that it must have been well known that gJohn had only 20 chapters at the time Praxeas was written but, except for that single passage in Praxeas, no other church writer made such an admission.

Back Again

Thanks for clarifying...exactly what I thought you meant. Any comments on this:

Note that I'm not asserting this position. I'm curious however how we can rule this out. Are the sources of the Diatessaron only the four gospels or do they consist of a possibly larger collection of manuscripts?

andrewcriddle

Hi Jake

Are you suggesting that the rest of the passage in Matthew is original and only those two verses are third century ?

If so my problem is that (assuming Markan priority) verse 17 shows Matthew modifying the Markan pericope so as to enhance the status of Peter. Verses 18-19 are arguably part of the same redactional process.

Or are you suggesting a larger interpolation (at least verse 17-19) ?

If so my problem is that we do have early attestation of verse 17. Clement of Alexandria Stromateis Book 6 chapter 15 and Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 3 chapter 21.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

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Well, if John 21 is examined the information in the chapter may give some indication when it was written and who may have written it.

But, first look at John 20, there are two verses that caught my attention.

John 20.19 John 20.26 These two passages appear to support Marcion phantom that Jesus had no flesh, Jesus managed to enter a building when the doors were shut on two occasions. If gJohn ended at chapter 20 then it may appear or give credence to the notion that Jesus was some kind of spiritual entity or apparition after resurrection.

John 21 will counter John 20 or Marcion's phantom, Jesus was not all Spirit or an apparition, Jesus was human, he was hungry and he ate fish and bread with the disciples, in fact, in John 21, Jesus was the cook.

John 21.9-12 So, based on those verses, it would appear to me that John 21 was written sometime during or after Marcion, but when the Peter Primacy theory is applied, John 21 approaches the 4th century or may have been written when it was established or the scheme was devised by church authorities that Peter would be named the 1st bishop of Rome.

jakejonesiv

Good comments.

Jake

Solo

You are mistaken aa, because you are cherry-picking: in both instances of breaching the door, Jesus demonstrates his physicality to the disciples, in the first instance without Thomas, in the other through the famous test of his wound by the rationalist doubter. The Johaninne idiom which became the doctrine of the church, anabashedly combines the spiritual and transformed physical body of Paul's risen Lord (that can walk through closed door) with the flesh- and-blood Jesus of the Petrine Nazarenes operating past rigor mortis. It is the function of faith to bridge the cognitive gap in the self-contradictory proposition. Jesus of John 20 is not an apparition in the traditional sense; he is more of a walking&talking theological thesis.

I agree that the resurrectional texture of John 21 is of a different cloth.

Jiri

aa5874

I am neither mistaken nor cherry-picking at all.

Look at Luke 24.36-43. The author of gLuke has basically combined parts of John 20 and John 21, and showed that there was still unbelief when Jesus showed the disciples his hands and feet.

The disciples still thought Jesus was a Spirit even though they "handled" him.

But Jesus would prove that he was still flesh and blood by eating fish and honeycomb.

Luke 24.36-43 These verses in gLuke clearly shows that it was believed that Spirits could not consume food. It was not enough just for Jesus to show his hands and feet to the disciples or for them to touch him. Jesus must eat food and then all their doubts all be removed.

And further the inclusion of certain words in gLuke 24.36-43 are indications that John 21 was likely written after gLuke 24.36-43, and that gLuke 24.36-43 was written after John 20.

John 20.26
Luke 24.36
John 21.5Luke 24.41 So, it would appear that parts of gLuke may have been written after Tertullian's Praxeas or after John 20, the final chapter of gJohn, according to a writer called Tertullian.

mountainman

from the Acts of John ....

.... Sometimes when I meant to touch him [Jesus],
I met with a material and solid body; but at other times
when I felt him, his substance was immaterial and incorporeal,
as if it did not exist at all ...

And I often wished, as I walked with him,
to see his footprint, whether it appeared on the ground
(for I saw him as it were raised up from the earth),
and I never saw it. (§ 93)

Solo

I am not not going to look at Luke for clues to John 20-21 until you give me some credible reference (better in August since I'll be out of touch until tyhen) that assures me there is a recognized connection or textual dependency between the two passages.

That looks like Luke's anti-docetist propaganda which has zero to do with John. John 20 clearly says that all the disciples who saw the Lord's hands and side, that it was Jesus, materially and spiritually. Thomas was not there, and does not want to take the disciples' word for it. So, a second appearance is arranged, for Thomas to embrace the Johanine thesis, after he puts his hand in Jesus' side and for Jesus to bless all those who believe the theological humdrum without making fuss. John does not give even so much as a hint that the disciples might think Jesus is a bodiless apparition.

Jiri