I have been providing the evidence that the Gospel of John is not a single composition written by a single author sitting down to produce the account at a single time, but is made up of written sources that have all been edited together into the finished product. (See my previous two posts.) Now I can say something about these sources of Jesus’ life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection.  Again, this is taken from my Introduction to the NT. ****************************************************************** Thus the theory of written sources behind the Fourth Gospel can explain many of the literary problems of the narrative. These sources obviously no longer survive. What can we say about them? Character of the Sources in John (1) The Signs Source. Some of the seams that we have observed appear to suggest that the author incorporated a source that described the signs of Jesus, written to persuade people that he was the messiah, the Son of God. There are seven "signs" in the Gospel; it is possible that these were all original to the [...]

So far in this going-to-be-substantial thread on the Johannine Writings (Gospel of John;1, 2, and 3 John) I have shown how John is very different from the other Gospels in numerous ways, argued that it's account is not based on those of the others three (whether or not the author knew of their existence), yet maintained that he must have had other sources at his disposal that provided him with his stories.  Before detailing what scholars have said about these other sources I need to give the argument that seems most convincing that his account is indeed based on earlier written accounts that he has taken over.   It also happens to be the argument that is most intriguing, at least for my money. The other two argument I gave may not seem in isolation to be convincing.  This one is meant to be.  There are inconsistencies in John's narrative that are easiest to be explain if he is compiling various sources together; these sources didn't all say the same thing or have the same view; [...]

In my previous two posts I've talked about how John is very different from the other three Gospels, the "Synoptics" -- both in the stories it tells and the way it tells them.  That leads to the natural question.  Where did "John" (whoever the author was) get his stories from?   It's widely assumed he didn't make them all up -- and he certainly didn't make up the ones found in other Gospels, since they were written before him.   Then where did his stories come from? Did Some of them -- the ones they have in common --  come from the Synoptics themselves?   The traditional answer is yes, since he was writing later.  But then the issue is why he didn't use *more* of the stories, including the ones that would have especially suited his purposes, and why he so drastically changed the ones he (allegedly) borrowed. But the prior question is whether there is sufficient *evidence* to suggest he used the Synoptics.  It is absolutely not good enough to think he must have because they [...]

In yesterday’s post I began to show how vastly different the Gospel of John is in comparison with the Synoptics, purely in terms of contents.  What is even more striking are the differences when when John and the Synoptics contain the same kinds of stories (e.g., miracles; teachings; passion narrative).  This is where you can see how the portrayal of Jesus is REALLY different in the fourth Gospel (something no one can see if they simply assume they're all saying the same thing and all have the same views -- as happens when people will read one passage from one Gospel, then another from another, and yet another from another, instead of reading one at a time and seeing what *it* has to say, apart from what the others do). Here is how I deal with it in my textbook, slightly edited here. ************************************************************ Comparison of Emphases The differences between John and the Synoptics are even more striking in stories that they have in common. You can see the differences yourself simply by taking any [...]

I am about to embark on a very long thread, on the Gospel and epistles of John.   As many of you know, my colleague, Hugo Mendez, assistant professor of New Testament and early Christianity at UNC, has started publishing on a major project involving the "Johannine Community."  That phrase will not mean a lot to many of you.  To New Testament scholars it means volumes.  In fact there *have* been volumes written about it.   It is almost certainly the most important view about the Gospel of John and 1, 2, and 3 John to be developed over the past fifty years.  We all teach it in our classes.  And Hugo wants to challenge its existence. Hugo is on the blog and I asked him if he'd be willing to write some posts about his views.  But then we both realized that I would need to set it up by explaining what the issue is all about before he shows his different perspective.  And when I started thinking about how to introduce the matter, I realized, [...]

This will be my final post dealing with the recent book, The Case Against Miracles, edited by John Loftus.  As you know, here on the blog we have guest posts from scholars with a wide range of views on the blog, so long as they relate to the issues we are concerned about here, the history and literature of early Christianity, starting with the New Testament.  Our guest contributor now is Darren Slade, author of chapter 4 of the book.   He supports the same basic view we have seen by the other two contributors, that there is not and cannot be sufficient proof of miracles, in either the ancient or the modern worlds.  What do you think? One of the values of the blog is that we can see different views from ours, on topics we are all interested in.  In your comments with Dr. Slade, please be respectful, even if you disagree.  Dr. Slade here summarizes his views in the third person, and he will be willing to respond to comments and questions you have. [...]