ApostateAbe

I think it can be best understand in its fuller context.

Jesus Comforts the Sisters
17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles[a] from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

27"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ,[b] the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

28And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34"Where have you laid him?" he asked.
"Come and see, Lord," they replied.

35Jesus wept.

36Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

37But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

I think the story serves an apologetic purpose given that it was written well after the apostles are long dead. Why did they die? Couldn't Jesus have kept them alive until his return, much like he promised? Jesus did in fact make such a promise, as in Mark 9:1.

"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

Or in Mark 13:30.

"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."

But, "this generation" really did pass away, and the disciples are dead and buried. To help keep the prophecy true, Jesus would raise them back from the dead. The story of Lazarus gives Jesus that power.

The new theology was accepted by Christians, but it did not cause them to stop mourning for the deaths of their loved ones. Such death is naturally and inherently sorrowful, and it is very difficult for belief in an afterlife to override the tendency to cry. Jesus cried in order to express a similar sort of humanity.

aa5874

But, the gospel of John is considered to be later than the Synoptics perhaps the crying of Jesus in gJohn may have been an attempt by the author to show that his Jesus was fully God and STILL fully human and NOT a Phantom.

In gJohn, Jesus cried, when he was crucified blood and water came from his side and when he was resurrected he ate fish with his disciples.

The author of gJohn may have written his gospel after Marcion.

Voice of reason

This is proof that Jesus was his own father.

Solo

I think the big question is whether John was actually writing a story or whether he was redacting an older text which had a completely different meaning.

The mystery starts with the dispatch from the sisters to Jesus to come and fix Lazarus. Jesus tells them that the illness of Lazarus is not unto death (pros thanaton) but for the glory of God,.....John of course had his own way of interpreting that and appended..."so that the son of God may be glorified by it." The problem with the operation is that the redaction leaves in the crucial verse 6 which attests that Jesus actually was helping by staying where he was (which only makes sense if he was "near Lazarus"). But John relocates Jesus to Perea (10:40) and this causes his modified story to go badly off course. First, Bultmann keenly observed that the verse 11 repeats Jesus' intent to go to Lazarus (in v.7) and camouflages the reason. Jesus has to go to Judea, because this is where Lazarus is, so the question his disciples pose and his non-sequitur answer in 9-10 is completely irrelevant to the proceedings. The problem of course points again to the probability that the text of 9-10 was the original script and an answer to a different query ("why was Lazarus sick ?"). In the original tale, when the sisters send to Jesus, he is camped in the neighbourhood, so his agreeing to stay was to agree to monitor Lazarus' progress. When no more complaints were heard he went for a walk.
The plot of the story of is about Lazarus whom Jesus ritually entombed falling asleep and not responding to his sisters when they come to check on him after he complained to them of feeling terribly ill previously. They panic and when Jesus does not appear on the appointed day they convince themselves and their superstitious neighbours that Lazarus is dead for real.
So, when Jesus comes back, he gets a whiff about a funeral party being held at Mary and Martha's for their brother, so he sends for one of the sisters to re-assure her that the burial magic will do Lazarus no harm and he would be restored. (The talk of Lazarus "sleeping" in 11-12 by Jesus was a segue to the revelation that the villagers believed Lazarus was dead) But when Mary leaves the house, the neighbours follow and Jesus is forced to extricate Lazarus publicly. This makes him angry and frightful. It is very interesting to follow the emotions of Jesus through the process of Lazarus' raising.

The query here should focus on the confused emotions displayed by the protagonist – ranging from absolutely dominant self-confidence (25-26), to fear (28), to being angered and troubled (33), to helplessness (35), to being angered and troubled again (38), to supreme confidence (40), to (somewhat suspect) selfless gratitude (41-42), to confidence again(43). Does this rapid cycling truly reflect a tradition of Jesus’ conduct at the gravesite, or does it speak of the redactor’s difficulties in visualizing a stressful (but also somewhat comical) scene into which he feels compelled to write his own high Christology ?

Jiri

Elijah

Maybe you should reconsider the "all-powerful deity" understanding and go with a messiah figure with the power that faith produces. In the story Jesus said it’s if his sisters believe, faith is required for it to work, there isn’t power coming from him but from their faith that he is trying to give them.

As far as him crying I don’t think it has to do with him doubting that he would be able to raise him, though it surely could. I think, given his behavior in the story, someone is describing someone experiencing some kind of post traumatic stress disorder. Either from the death of JtB or Joseph or whoever he was hanging with during his missing years, but a guy ready to die like that and so focused on the resurrection of the dead would indicate that he is probably coping with some loss.

So coming from a man who experienced some loss in life that type of response is expected when anything that reminds u of death reminds you of the death that defines your life now. Minus the past trauma I would say that type of response is fairly normal for someone who gets caught up in the emotion and the perspective of those around them. Like crying during a movie even though you know the person doesn’t really die. Not the best example but all I could come up with right then. Crying can be like laughing, as in it can be contagious even though you may not get the funny. There just aren’t a lot of situations where everyone is grieving and you don’t have enough information or more information than those around you making changing your perspective enough to really see if crying is simply contagious if enough people are doing it around you.

Dave31

I thought it was really interesting too, Toto. You might consider giving "Christ in Egypt" a serious going over. I think you'd like it.

The gospel doesn't say that Jesus is weeping to raise Lazarus, but this strange and unprecedented phrase "Jesus wept" is stuck in there for a reason, and I would suspect that it may be due to it being a motif in Egypt. I would also bet that this "weeping" and "tears" motif is part of the mysteries. Jesus IS represented as using spittle, another type of moisture, to cure blindness, so it's not unprecedented. Oh, and the spittle thing is also an old Egyptian motif (CIE page 297).

So, Osiris as god of the Nile and water, which overflows the banks (of Isis) every year was a symbol of the return or resurrection of life. And that union also created life via Horus. So, it sounds like according to the ancient Egyptians, the sacred water of the Nile (Osiris) both resurrected the dead every year and created life.

Then we have another comment by Renouf in CIE...

I'm reminded of watching Nova. When NASA is searching for life on other planets they always look for water. Where there's water there's high potential for life. The above is probably the ancient Egyptian way of recognizing the life giving properties of water in all its forms.

ChristMyth

What get me is the emotions Jesus is supposed to be feeling here. In verse 33, we are told that Jesus is "deeply moved." By verse 35, he is weeping. But once again in verse 38 he is deeply moved. All of this before he ever reaches the tomb?

spamandham

This seems to be the raising of Osiris rehashed with a Christian spin to emphasize how the squeaky wheel gets the grease. What moved Jesus? The emotions of those grieving Lazarus is what moved him.

ApostateAbe

To explain details like that, I think we are best to look at the purpose of the whole passage and the perspective of those who were writing it. This would be the first miracle story where Jesus raises somebody else from the dead. None of the earlier gospels contained such a story, so it was theoretically new to Christian belief. I gave my explanation for the general purpose of the story in my previous post. The purpose was apologetic, to defend the otherwise-failed prophecy, but that would not be a good reason to make explicit to the Christian audience. So, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead because he cared for him, and that is reflected in Jesus crying and becoming "deeply moved." I think that the down-to-Earth explanations, the explanations that connect to the immediate evidence, are far better than the explanations that summon the Egyptian myths, though that is just my opinion.

ApostateAbe

There is the Osiris explanation, which is difficult enough, and then there are several more explanations given in this thread that are almost impossible to understand. Christ, I know that the New Testament is a difficult subject, but it doesn't need to be made so much more difficult with bizarre propositions when far simpler explanations are available.