outhouse

the multiple authors of Gjohn from a jewsih community?



I posit they were god-fearers who held on tighter to jewish tradition then much of the early movement.


even though the author may not have been anti-semetic, its played out in the scripture and obvious at that.

I find this to be true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisem..._New_Testament

Some critics suggest that the text displays a shift in blame away from the Roman provincial government, which actually carried out the execution, towards the Jewish authorities, with the intention of rendering Christianity more palatable in Roman circles

Duvduv

What evidence exists that there was such a thing as a Johanine community?
The gospels were always presented as a set anyway.

aa5874

What evidence exists that the gospels were always presented as a set??

No such evidence exists.

Was the Gospel of Judas a part of a set??

Duvduv

The apologist writings always present the four gospels as a set. No one ever claimed that there was a time when the church accepted only two gospels or five gospels in their canon.

Cesc

Isn't the common view on John that it reflects a situation where the producers of the gospel are Jews that have been excluded from their local synagogue on account of their Christianity.

Duvduv

Beyond pure conjecture, what are their sources for the existence of communities such as this which (according to Eusebius allegedly followed only a single gospel, but are never shown to have existed anywhere)??

Heck even "Justin" couldn't describe the location of a single community that he allegedly represented to the emperor in the "second century."

Cesc

I didn't say anything about a community.
Some of the conjecture concerning a supposed Johannine community are historically way out of line, with some scholars even tracing the life and personality of their supposed leader! However, with the origins of the gospels shrouded in so much mystery I don't see why such a proposition as an early community following one particular gospel is so far out. Although there are big differences in theology and language between the different Johannine writings there clearly is some kind of school of thought within them as well. I don't believe myself that there was a particular Johannine community, but what does Justin or Eusebius have to say about the origin of gJohn? Do you believe that? They're not exactly oracles of truth concerning the earliest Christianity.

On another note, I personally am not fully convinced that gJohn is not the first of the gospels. What if gJohn (or the oldest parts of it anyway) were the first and Mark got the idea to write a different kind of narrative?

Diogenes the Cynic

The existence of the Gospel is ipso facto proof that a community produced it. It is hostile to the synoptics, so it is not the same as the communities which produced those.

tanya

Thanks, Cesc, for this provocative thought.

Doesn't John's version reflect an advanced evolution in christology? Are there parallels found, for example, with David, in the Tanakh? In other words, do we find revisions, written decades later, which diminish David's stature, rather than elevate his triumphs, with added hyperbole?

If you were assigned the task of rewriting Catch-22, would you demote Yossarian from captain, to corporal, from pilot to mechanic?

Are there comparable examples in literature where a divine power is demoted over time? Usually, if I am not mistaken, the demigod's accomplishments grow with revision, I am thinking of Hercules, in particular, but I suppose the same could be said for other mythical figures, including Superman, and Paul Bunyan, and for legendary characters, such as Robin Hood.

Cesc

How so? Why not one original author, and then later things were added by others who didn't necessarily belong to the same community, if one at all?