yalla

John Marsh "St. John" Pelican, commenting on 9.22...being put out of the synagogue.

"It is highly doubtful, as learned commentators remark, whethers the authorities had at this stage, or ever during the earthly ministry of JC, decided upon excommunication from the Jewish religion for any sort of adherence to or confession of JC"

So the issue is not just alleged ordinary style persecution but specifically excommunication from the synagogues in Palestine for confessing JC.

Elsewhere it is suggested that this is a reference to the bikhat ha minim [sp?] the oath taken by Jews against [allegedly] Christians and which, it is suggested, marked the beginning of the split from the synagogues of the nascent Christianity.
The date for the initiation of this oath seems to vary from about 85 to 95 ce and presumably "John's" reference would post date that by some indetirminate time.

TedM

I don't see the justification for saying this is equivalent to an excommunication. If someone stood up in the middle of church and cried out "David Koresh is Lord", don't you think that person would no longer be welcome? Can we really conclude that the examples in John are anything more than that? If Jesus was creating a stir in some places, is it not reasonable that the religious authorities would have made it known that he is not to be proclaimed in the synagogues?

ted

TedM

Good spot. If not a genuine prophecy then this does seem to have been written after those 2 events. Of course, that passage could have been a later addition to the original, too.

thanks,

ted

yalla

TedM
'' If Jesus was creating a stir in some places, is it not reasonable that the religious authorities would have made it known that he is not to be proclaimed in the synagogues?"

Well apparently that is what happened, the followers of an alleged Christ were virtually self-banned from the synagogues because they would not voice the condemation of the "minim'' according to the 18th benediction.
Also apparently that occurred very late in the 1c gaining impetus into the 2c and thus is an indication that "John" postdates same.
Marsh is of the opinion, based on unnamed "learned commentators'', that this did not occur in the alleged time frame of the gospel, he reckons "John" is retrojecting back a later development.
What the reality was I don't know but it seems there is an orthodox timeline into which the action in the gospel does not fit.
What evidence there is suggests anachronism from a [much] later date.

After all Acts has Paul operating within a Judaistic framework, including synagogues, and although I would be sceptical of the specifics, Acts suggests that the Jewish/Christian split was not irrevocable at that stage viz 50s or 60s, to the knowledge of the author of Acts writing whenever and wherever he did so.

pharoah

This seems to me to show that GJohn had knowledge of the destroyed Temple. Note that the evangelist does not have Jesus himself giving an explanation of what he meant by "destroy this temple". That means that it was probably inserted by the Evangelist to counter claims by some Jews that Jesus falsely predicted that he would miracously restore the destroyed temple.

yummyfur

It wouldn't matter if it was a real prediction, to be honest, because they wouldn't have realized it as such till after the event had occured, so wouldn't mention it or want to mention it, because an unfullfilled claim would make them look wrong. GJohn says the apostles didn't understand the rebuilding the Temple in three days predicition, till after Jesus's ressurection. Besides if it was real, the story would have had to have filtered back from the Samaritans themselves, as no one but Jesus and the Samaritan women heard the exchange, and the apostles, we are told, are unintersted in the exchange when they return. It's extremely unlikely such a story would filter back, unless it was thought to have been fullfilled. Of course, I personally think it's unlikely the exchange was a real event.

If it was a later addition, then verses 24:19-26, become very awkward without it, I would say this whole section would have to have been added at the same time or substantially reworked. If this section of verses was added, then the whole Samaritan women story becomes somewhat silly. I can't see any good justification for speculating that this verse was added other than wanting GJohn to be pre-destruction.

robto

I just wanted to point out that not all scholars think GJn is dependent on GMk. Crossan, for one, thinks they're independent. Certainly there's none of the extensive verbal parallelism that we see in the synoptics.

TedM

Good point about Acts. If there was a ban earlier it may have been much less structured--and only applied to certain places--maybe those where Jesus was at, at the time.. Given that Paul was persecuting Christians, it isn't unreasonable to conclude that they were being prohibited by certain groups like pharisees from doing certain things. That may have been more pronounced when Jesus was preaching in the synagogues also, since he could have been seen as a bigger threat than his followers at the time.

ted

Steven Avery

In fact Robinson is one of those scholars who said no to that idea. He wrote a book "The Priority of John" (published posthumously) that takes that point, and he assigns a date I believe in the 40's for John.

Here is an article by Mark A. Mattson that covers some of the this material
http://www.stone-campbelljournal.com...nfeature71.pdf
Current Approachs to the Priority of of John.

In fact there are a number of scholars that place either the Gospels or all of the New Testament at an early date. It might be a good exercise to devolop a bibiography of scholars with a pre-70 AD date for the NT (perhaps also noting also some who place the Gospels or most of the NT as pre-70 but not the whole NT).

The Johannine priority question is actually rather fascinating. Looking for other good web material on that.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

TedM

Good points I hadn't considered.

Maybe the whole section was added later. My impression is that a number of scholars think large sections of diaologue were added to earlier works. You may find Bernard Muller's reconstruction interesting: http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/jnintro.html He concludes that that whole section was added after Luke was known but before Acts.

ted