JW:
Super-Skeptic Neil Godfree is at it again finding parallels so good between "John" and
Bacchae it's enough to turn you Jew:
Jesus and Dionysus (2): Comparison of John’s Gospel and Euripides’ Play
Quote:
Then some (“very general”) similarities. Both texts are:
poetic prologues
centering on a divine being who assumed mortal flesh
presenting the theme of revelation: each god will reveal himself to humanity
complaints about the failure of the god’s own people to recognize and receive him
praises of one man who did publicly recognized the deity (Cadmus and John the Baptist)
Following the Prologues, both narratives introduce the institutional powers (the king and the priests) that step in to block the purposes for which the deity has come. These powers, the king of Thebes and the Jewish leaders at Jerusalem, are blind to the truth of the god, ignorant, and they are stubbornly rebellious when confronted by him.
The very suggestion that Jesus is God’s Son is enough to drive the Jewish authorities into a frenzy of hate and determination to kill him. Jesus himself disappears when a crowd wants to make him king, only to be eventually tried and executed for that very charge.
Stibbe validly observes the way the gospel narrative sits well within “the essential mythos of tragedy”. John’s story is closer to Mark’s than the other Synoptics, and the Gospel of Mark has been thoroughly dissected and argued to be a form of tragedy. The liberated Gospel : a comparison of the Gospel of Mark and Greek tragedy by Gilbert G. Bilezikian is one work dedicated to arguing that Mark employs all the characteristics of Greek tragedy. Again, like Stibbe, Bilezikian assumes this was the most natural thing to do since Jesus’ real life was, coincidentally, lived just like a tragedy on stage.
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Godfree limits himself to demonstrating fine parallels only between "John" and
Bacchae. I think it likely that "John's" good parallels to Greek Tragedy are mainly due to its using "Mark" as an outline (as opposed to "Matthew/Luke" that use "Mark" as a base). What is reMarkable here is that "John" has
moved its Tragedy base closer to
Bacchae.
What defines the main difference between "Mark" and "John" is not the genre since both parallel best with Tragedy. It is the issue of Witness. "Mark" uses Tragedy at its extreme to show (with Apologies to Adam) that no one of Jesus' time was a proper witness to Jesus. "John" scales the fishes back to show that key Disciples were proper witnesses to Jesus. Note that "John" makes an explicit point that the miracles convinced Disciples of Jesus from the start.
For anyone still following Adam's mishegosh, "John" is good evidence that the author claimed there was eyewitness to Jesus but bad evidence that it was eyewitness to Jesus (because "John's" primary source, "Mark", discredited historical witness).
Joseph
ErrancyWiki
05-11-2013, 09:00 AM
