Vinnie

I got no takers in there so I figured I'd plug the debate offer here in case some readers here do not frequent that forum:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=107149

Anyone here accept traditional authorship of some or al of the gospels?

Vinnie

judge

Hi Vinnie, hope you are well.

Sure, I accept that Yukhanan (John) was written by Yukhanan the disciple of Jesus. It was written in Aramaic and survives word for word, letter for letter, in the text used by the Assyrian Church of the East (the peshitta).

If you know of any reason this is not true I am all ears..

Vinnie

I'd start by asking, what is the 2d attestation for authorship on John? Is there any before 150?

Vinnie

judge

Which writers do you expext would have mentioned it?
I mean is there some writer who wrote in Aramaic from this period who curiously does not mention whom you would have expected to mention it?

Diogenes the Cynic

Without getting into the question of Aramaic priority (IMO, an untenable position in itself) how do you explain John's anachronistic placement of the expulsion from the synagogues? Would not a contemporary of Jesus know better?

Also, how did such a patently Alexandrian Greek concept such as the Logos find its way into the vocabulary of an Aramaic speaking Palestinian Jew?

Oh...and how old was John when he wrote this thing?

cloudyphiz

Vinnie

If you post your challenge at the apologetics.org discussion board I'd imagine someone there will take you up on the offer.

Gary

judge

Can you elaborate?

Well obviously logos does not ocur in the original. The aramaic uses miltha. But the concept of the word of God creating is not foreign in jewish thought. See psalm 33 for example.

For the word of the LORD is right and true;

he is faithful in all he does.

5 The LORD loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of his unfailing love.



6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,

their starry host by the breath of his mouth.

How old do you want him to be?

Diogenes the Cynic

John's Gospel places the expulsion of Christians from the synagogues as being contemporaneous with Jesus when in reality it didn't occur until the mid 90's CE. If the author was a contemporary of Jesus why did he get that wrong?
There is no Hebrew pecedent for conceiving the word of God as distinct force or entity of its own, nor is there any Jewish concept of the "Word" as a mediator. Those are Hellenistic ideas and they only got into Judaism by way of Philo, an Alexandrian Jew.
Well, I have no personal preference but he'd have to have been close to a hundred at least.

What is the textual basis for your assertion that this Gospel was a.) written by an apostle or b.) that his name was John?

judge

How does one prove this did not happen prior to the mid 90's CE?

Is this how you understand the Aramaic of John?
Even Jesus is quoted in John as sayinmg "of myself I can do nothing"
How does this make the word " distinct force or entity of its own"


IOW your thoughts on the nature of the woprd of God may be just another theological opinion (no offence intended)

I suppose all we have textually is evidence that it was written in Aramaic whilst there is none that it was penned in greek.

I can't imagine any textual basis for it being written by someone named John though. I suppose I see no reason to challenge this idea and presume that the tradition handed down by the COE is trustworthy.
Of course it may not be but in the end how could one prove it either way according to "the rules of evidence"

judge

Just to give another view

From the intertestamental book of wisdom

On the mediatorship of the word from the Encyclopaedia Judaica