dost

I understand that the 4th gospel is not deemed much historically reliable by most New Testament scholars and is not used to a large extent in historical Jesus research studies, mainly because of the very different image and story of Jesus presented within it.

Strobel, however, quotes McRay, who is presumable a reliable scholar, who suggests that John is actually a historically reliable source. I would just like to know if the following claims of discovery are correct or exagerrated?

"Archaeology may support the credibility of Luke, but he isn't the only author of the New Testament. I wondered what scientists would have to say about John, whose gospel was sometimes considered suspect because he talked about locations that couldn't be verified. Some scholars charged that since he failed to get these basic details straight, John must not have been close to the events of Jesus' life.

That conclusion, however, has been turned upside down in recent years. "There have been several discoveries that have shown John to be very accurate," McRay pointed out. "For example, John 5:1-15 records how Jesus healed an invalid by the Pool of Bethesda. John provides the detail that the pool had five porticoes. For a long time people cited this as an example of John being inaccurate, because no such place had been found.

"But more recently the pool of Bethesda has been excavated - it lies maybe forty feet below ground - and sure enough, there were five porticoes, which means colonnaded porches or walkways, exactly as John described. And you have other discoveries - the pool of Siloam from John 9:7, Jacob's well from John 4:12, the probable location of the Stone Pavement near Jaffa Gate where Jesus appeared before Pilate, even Pilate's own identity - all of which have lent historical credibility to John's gospel."

"So this challenges the allegation that the gospel of John was written so long after Jesus that it can't possibly be accurate," I said.

"Most definitely," he replied. (Strobel, The Case for Christ - A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus [Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1998; ISBN: 0-310-20930-7], p. 99)

And who is "John Elder" who is said to have said:

"Nowhere has archaeological evidence refuted the Bible as history." (Elder, Prophets, Idols And Diggers, p. 16)

Coming back to John, even if we accept McRay' claim without question, would I be correct to say that that still does not mean that John is a historically reliable source in its entirety because accuracy of such type relate to fairly ordinary matters of fact, which does not mean that the document is historically reliable?

I have come across similar claims made for the historical accuracy of Luke - that he names countries correctly, names places correctly, mentions certain festivals correctly, names officials correctly etc. But Dan Brown also presents such types of accurate details in his Da Vinci Code. Does that mean this is also a historically reliable source?

andrewcriddle

John's Gospel does appear to contain (some) accurate information about the geography of Jerusalem before 70 CE.

This may well mean that some form of the narratives in which this information occurs goes back to before 70 CE.

However, in its present form John's gospel almost certainly is much later than 70 CE probably around 100 CE or even later.

Any early traditions behind John have been rewritten in the light of the special concerns and beliefs of the author of John and his audience.

This is particularly an issue for the discourses of Jesus in John.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

Jeff Lowder comments on Strobel's use of McRay here (revised version here)

There is a review by Scott Bidstrup here which gives a more detailed discussion of McRay's claims.

John McRay has been described as "one of evangelicalism's premier New Testament archeologists."

offa

The dateing of biblical texts is a deflection from discovery. John was written before AD 50. The reason I am blunt is to get to the point. Biblical scholars do not recognise the fact that the Jerusalem in "John" and the Jerusalem in Josephus' "War of the Jews" are different locations. You have to separate the two Jerusalems. It is like the dateing of Jesus' birth. Both Luke and Matthew are correct, the problem lies mostly in the fact that biblical scholars believe in spooks ... they can not accept the fact that Jesus was a real person just like Martin Luther.


In another thread about the moneychangers, Jesus was able to overturn the tables because he was in a different Jerusalem.


The biblical expertise we have today is from those that believe in locations. The Jews were never in Damascus, they were not in Egypt, Alexandria is a local town ...

John was written 1st and before Jesus became a spook.

offa

judge

Thanks
Do you have a any reference to evidence to back this up?

offa

Thanks
Do you have a any reference to evidence to back this up?



You may read "The Antiquities of the Jews" book 13, chapter 11. Then you may ponder, verse (313) tells that locatons are arbitrary.

Josephus already tells us that their are more than one TYRE. So, by evolution of thought, you realise that the one and only TYRE is within the bounds of a very small state called Judah ... about ten or fifteen miles in radius, becoming the biblical world.

offa

Amaleq13

I tend to agree with this summary and I've always been willing to grant that some unknown and unknowable parts of John could be dated quite early. However, it occurs to me that, given the ultimately irrelevant nature of the archaeologically confirmed information (at least to Christianity), couldn't the late-1st century authors have had a non-Christian, pre-70CE source text for their information?

yalla

From "St. John" by John Marsh p.22-"Geographical details [of "John"] are also questioned :for example the Sea of Tiberias was not known by this name until the second century."
I would suggest that "John" was not cognizant of the geography of Palestine, there are many unknown places he "names" eg Aenon, Salim, Sychem, Jacob's well, Bethany across the Jordan, to list a few.
I, too, was impressed with the claims that various "John" sites had been found but then discovered that the claims did not stand up.
Cana has been found apparently but unfortunately there seems to be 2 of them.Another example of painting the target after the arrow has struck?Times two?
To find a stone pavement [the meaning of Gabbatha] in a city is not real hard, my local town of 1000 people has a couple and I've seen lots in European and other ancient cities [to set a scene at a pavement in Epuesus for eg. would not require local knowledge].
Jacob,s Well being found is new to me but I suggest the story set there has at least one inherent absurdity which casts doubt on it's overall credibility.[As far as I know Jake's well is not mentioned in the Tanakh]. If the woman was to try and draw water with a ceramic jug she would have broken it on the stone sides of the well - local wells had this characteristic apparently.It should have been described as leather but was not.
Sychem is unknown and many have run around in linguistic circles trying to find it -they "suggest" it is a corruption of Shechem via Sychar via some Tanakh confusion by "John".That does not inspire confidence.
The "discovery" of the Jerusalem portico was apparently made by Allbright whose "discoveries" have not stood the test of time.I believe the description also is ambiguous and needs to be strained to match that of "John".
Now I'm willing to be corrected on any of the above but at this stage I would regard "John" as non Jewish, non Palestinian and writing well into the second century.

laFemme

I would state that John was as accurate as he needed to be for his purposes which differred from the Synoptic authors. John seems intent to tell a story based about mythological contexts (seven signs rather than lots of miracles) which adds a greater contextual meaning to Christianity (rather than Jesusanity).

andrewcriddle

Josephus in the late 1st century appears to mention the 'lake of Tiberias' in Jewish War Book 3 chapter 3 http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...phus/war-3.htm

Andrew Criddle