Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

I remember going to a revival meeting in the Ozarks, before I was a believer in the Lord Jesus, and this was the very topic. As I remember, the teaching given there was that each Pharisee saw his own individual sins (a couple of other possibilities may have been mentioned en passant).

There was a powerful move of the Holy Spirit, just in relaying the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ and the confrontation with the men vent on trickery and the wisdom and compassion which came forth from Jesus.

From that experience I got the sense that the Holy Spirit left the issue of what was written undetermined quite deliberately.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Susan2

Just let the Hitlers come along and fill in the blank? Gees, that's a scary thought. Drink that poison, handle them snakes, speak confusion, lay hands on the sick, and or stones if you have them, and all in the name of Jesus.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Susan2 Just let the Hitlers come along ...

Just back a couple of days and already Godwin lays down the law.

Shalom,
Steven

Toto

While I would prefer that participants in this forum refrain from mentioning Hitler, you did open the door with If the gospels are based on supernatual authorship, why are there ambiguities and uncertainties?

Susan2

I agree.


There is no evidence that the woman committed adultery, absolutely none.

There is no evidence that Jesus is supernatural, especially in this story. None. There is no evidence that he is compassionate, nor wise.

Cunning? Shrewd? Yes, there is evidence, imo.

jakejonesiv

It is a Socratic pose.

In Plato's Meno, Socrates scratches in the dirt to elicit latent knowledge of the Pythagorian theorum from one of Meno's slaves. Jesus is portrayed to write in the dirt to in the same way draw inate knowledge about sin from those about to stone the woman.

Jake

sschlichter

Why would you assume a supernatural author would remove all ambiguities? I can think of many situations where a person is given lee-way and a lack of instruction on details. How about a boss that does not micro-manage or a parent that does not answer their students homework for them. These seem like ways to use ambiguities to draw things out of people. Why assume God is not motivated similarly to those in these roles.

RParvus

The pericope about the adulterous woman makes its earliest textual appearance in several of the Old Latin (Pre-Vulgate) versions of John. Some of the Old Latin versions date to the late second century. Tertullian, for example, apparently used an Old Latin version. I think the pericope was inserted as a symbolic acknowledgement of Philumena, the prophetess associate of the ex-Marcionite Apelles. Here’s why:

I have a theory that the current text of John’s Gospel was put together in the mid-second century using materials from the “Phaneroseis” (= “Manifestations”) of Apelles. It is known that Apelles, in composing the “Phaneroseis,” used the revelations of Philumena. Philumena, whose name means “Beloved,” claimed to receive revealed discourses of Jesus and Paul through a boy who appeared to her: “The same phantom (“phantasmata”) appeared to Philumena dressed as a boy (“puer”) and sometimes stated he was Christ, sometimes Paul, and she would tell the audience what the phantom said.” (Patrologia Latina, 42, 30, n.1). These revealed discourses appear to have been viewed as a gospel, for Tertullian later dismissed them by quoting Paul’s warning that “if we or an angel from heaven should preach a GOSPEL other than the one we preached to you, let him be anathema.”

The name “Phaneroseis” (“Manifestations”) is an appropriate title for the Fourth Gospel. The signs that Jesus did are a prominent theme in that gospel, so much so that many scholars believe the earliest layer of was some kind of “Signs Source” or “Signs Gospel.” And the signs were the means by which the Johannine Jesus manifested himself: “This, the beginning of his SIGNS, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and he MANIFESTED (Greek: ePHANEROSEN) his glory.”

Apelles, in breaking with teacher Marcion, possibly as early as the 130s CE, definitely moved in a proto-orthodox direction. He abandoned docetism for a “real-flesh” Christ, and rejected Marcion’s two-principle teaching for a one-principle monotheism. He also jettisoned Marcion’s canon and his sexual rigorism. Apelles did remain, however, very critical of the Old Testament. Whereas Marcion rejected the Old Testament because he viewed it as the record of a god unrelated to Jesus, Apelles taught that Old Testament contained outright fables and falsehoods. For Marcion, the Old Testament was basically a trustworthy account but it concerned a Jewish warrior Messiah who was yet to come. For Apelles, on the other hand, much of the Law and the Prophets contained contradictions.. It is known he wrote a work (“Syllogisms”) consisting of at least forty-six volumes exposing contradictions and falsehoods in the Old Testament. But it is important to note that Apelles’ opposition to the Old Testament was not absolute. There were certain parts he accepted. And even in regard to the Law and the Prophets Origen says of him: “non omnibus modis Dei esse deneget legem vel prophetas” (“He (Apelles) did not entirely deny that the law and prophets were of God”). That lack of dogmatism on Apelles’ part left an opening, I believe, for the proto-orthodox to reach some kind of discreet arrangement with him and his followers. The proto-orthodox waited until after Apelles’ death which occurred around 180 CE to attack his errors. Thus whereas Justin and Irenaeus never mention Apelles or his followers by name, Tertullian, at the beginning of the third century devoted a special tract to them and named Apelles together with Marcion and Valentinus as the three “more prominent and better known corruptors of truth” (“On the Prescription of Heretics,” 30).

John’s Gospel contains many features that are consonant with what is known about Apelles’ doctrine. The Johannine Jesus disassociates himself from the Jewish Scriptures, calling the Torah “your” Law. He denies that anyone before him had seen or known God (contradicting the Jewish belief that Moses spoke with God face to face). He likewise denies that anyone previous to him had ascended into heaven (contradicting Jewish beliefs regarding Enoch and Elijah). He denies God ever rested on the seventh day (“My father works until now and I work”). He disassociates himself from the Jewish people, referring to earlier generations of Jews as “your” (not “our”) ancestors and labeling all those who shepherded them “thieves and robbers” (“I am the good shepherd… ALL who came before me were thieves and robbers”). His opposition to Judaism is also seen in that his last supper, in contrast to its presentation in the Synoptic Gospels, is clearly not a Passover celebration. On the other hand, the author of the fourth Gospel was not a strict Marcionite. His Jesus, for example, turns water into wine; Marcionites did not drink wine. And his Jesus attended and worked his first sign at a wedding. Marcion discouraged marriage among his followers.

There are other indications in the Fourth Gospel that point to Apellean authorship of it. For example, the story of the healing of the man born blind implies, as Robert Price notes in his “Pre-Nicene New Testament,” belief in reincarnation or pre-incarnation (Was the blindness due to some fault the man committed before being born?) It is known that Apelles taught at least pre-incarnation. He taught that the fiery angel (the Jewish god) lured souls down from heaven to earth with food and then locked them into bodies.

Another example: The fourth gospel appears to have once contained an account of a visible, observable ascension by Jesus, for he tells his disciples “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before.” This issue is left hanging, for the (obviously edited) current text of John does not contain an Ascension scene. Apellean authorship of the original text would explain the deletion. Apelles taught a unique version of the Ascension that was unacceptable to the proto-orthodox (See Epiphanius’ “Panarion” for the proto-orthodox attack on Apelles’ teaching on the Ascension).

An Apellean origin for John’s Gospel can also account for the philosophic and Alexandrian bent of the Johannine Jesus. Peter Lampe, from a study of the extant literary fragments of Apelles, is of the opinion that "Apelles was better philosophically trained than his teacher, Marcion." And he concurs with Harnack's assessment that Apelles was "highly educated." ("From Paul to Valentinus," appendix 1). It is also known that when Apelles deserted Marcion, he fled from Rome to Alexandria and spent some time there.

Finally, many scholars have wondered why Marcion adopted Luke's Gospel rather than John's when--by all accounts--the doctrine of the Fourth Gospel would have suited Marcion's purposes much better My proposed scenario for the origin of that gospel provides a plausible solution to this problem. It is known that Marcion showed no enthusiasm for prophecy and prophetic gifts. He must have known, I believe, the prophetic origin of the new gospel and he didn't believe it. In addition, the split between Marcion and Apelles was likely a bitter one, causing splits within a number of Marcionite communities. Apelles accused Marcion of lying and largely rejected Marcion's teachings. In such circumstances, it is not surprising that Marcion made no use of Apelles' gospel.

As mentioned above, Philumena claimed to receive her revelations from a phantom “boy” (Latin: puer). With this in mind, note what pseudo-Hilary wrote:

“John the most holy evangelist was the youngest among all the apostles. Him the Lord held in his arms when the apostles discussed who among them was the greatest and when he said: ‘He who is not converted as this boy (“puer”) will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ It is he who reclined against the Lord’s breast. It is he whom Jesus loved more than the others and to whom he gave his mother Mary, and whom he gave as son to Mary.”

Ambrose too claims to have read in a gospel “dictated by the voice of John himself” that the evangelist was a youth (“adolescens”). And Jerome says he read in certain ecclesiastical histories that the evangelist John was a mere boy (“puer”), the youngest of all the apostles. (On the evangelist John as a boy see chapter 12 of Robert Eisler’s “The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel”).

These then are a few of the reasons that lead me to suspect that the John’s Gospel started life as the work Philumena and Apelles. I think that some time around 140 CE Apelles converted Philumena's revelations into his “Phaneroseis” gospel. Shortly afterwards, as part of a reconciliation of the proto-orthodox and the Apelleans, parts of the “Phaneroseis” were taken and reworked by the proto-orthodox into the Gospel according to John. And I think that someone who made an Old Latin translation of John’s Gospel in the late second century was aware of the true origin of that gospel and inserted the pericope about the adulterous woman as a symbolic acknowledgement of Philumena and her role in the writing of the Fourth Gospel. This is why the Johannine Jesus writes on the ground in her presence. And the reason why a story about a woman caught in adultery was chosen to symbolize Philumena is because she, unfortunately, experienced a fall from grace. Tertullian probably amplifies her crime somewhat when he says that “she became a monstrous prostitute.” Whatever the nature of her fault, it no doubt caused disillusionment among the Apelleans, and it likely had some part to play in their decision to reunite with the proto-orthodox.

In the Old Latin versions the pericope de adulultera is located in one of three locations in the John’s Gospel. Sometimes it is immediately in front of John 7:37 where Jesus, using the image of the living water, speaks of the Spirit that those who believe in him will receive. This is obviously an appropriate place to insert a symbolic acknowledgement of the prophetess who, in the Spirit, provided the church with so many new discourses of Jesus. Sometimes the pericope is inserted at the end of the Gospel after Jn 21:35. This is also an appropriate spot for it contains the church’s voucher as to the truth of the testimony of the Beloved Disciple. Why would the church have to vouch for the veracity of an apostle unless that testimony was given in somewhat unusual circumstances? (i.e. through Philumena). But perhaps the most revealing location for the pericope is the location it is found in our Bibles immediately in front of Jn. 8:12. In that verse Jesus proclaims that he is “the light of the world” which, in Latin is “LUMEN saeculi.” Phi-LUMEN-a’s name, though originally of Greek origin, contains the Latin word for light,” LUMEN, and a latin translator could hardly have failed to notice that.


Roger

Toto

A boss who gave incomplete or inconsistent directions, or promulgated rules that led to inhumane results, but still retained the right to burn his employees in hell if they guess wrong about what was in his mind - yes, it sounds like some dysfunctional corporations I've known. But it doesn't sound like an omnipotent omnibenevolent deity.

Toto

Hi Roger - please explain this: What does the writing on the ground symbolize?