The Gospel of John is extremely important for understanding where the doctrine of the Trinity came from. I should stress: the Trinity does not appear in the Gospel – nowhere does the Gospel say that there are three persons, all distinct from one another, all of them equally God, and yet there is only one God. That, in a nutshell is the doctrine of the Trinity. But even though the Gospel does not express the doctrine (either does any other book of the NT), the book could later be mined by those who wanted to find support for it. To that end, no passage could be more important than John 14.
In my previous post I explained a bit about the “Farewell Discourse,” the long five-chapter speech and then prayer of Jesus on his last evening, before his arrest. In chapter 14 Jesus hits on many of the key themes of the entire address (chs. 13-17; the longest speech of Jesus in the Gospels). He prepares his disciples by telling them that he will now be leaving them, but they should not despair; they should take heart, because he is going to “prepare a place for them” in his “Father’s house” where there are “many dwelling places/rooms” (14:2; in the KJV the word was translated “many mansions,” which warmed the cockles of many a Christian’s heart).
In other words, in the context of John’s Gospel (and only there in the NT), Jesus is now to return to the place from which he originally came, to heaven above, with his Father, where he will now dwell forever more, having fulfilled his mission by bringing salvation to earth, and his followers will soon join him there for eternal bliss. So they should not at all be upset that he is leaving them.
Throughout this passage Jesus speaks of his relationship to the Father, and to many readers it seems that he is delivering mixed messages. The passage has long been used to argue
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Do you think John had read what Paul said about the Spirit? Or did he get it from the same place Paul got it? Or is this an independent tradition?
No, I don’t think there’s anything to suggest John knew the writings of Paul.
Mr. Ehrman, I assume that fundamentalists explain the fact that one has more or less accurately presented a 5-chapter long speech, given 65 years ago, due to the oral tradition? Or is it something else also? Do fundamentalists really believe this? Because it seems to me one of the toughest mental gymnastics there is in the field.
Fundamentalists would say that the Spirit gave the author the knowledge of what was said.
But how do they know? The author of John never claims this, and neither does any other Biblical author. This has always confused me, why the NT books are divinely inspired.
Hey, you know because the Spirit tells you! OK< it's circular logic, but... that's the logic!
There seems to be a high probability that this long speech is entirely “made up” by the unknown author of John’s gospel, and that he didn’t think clearly enough to be able to deliver a consistent message. Or maybe it was cobbled together from earlier traditions, along with a healthy dose of home grown theology, but the result was still not seamless or entirely self-consistent. Evidently, if the holy spirit had a hand in this, it didn’t do a very good job. Or, if the gospel WAS written by the beloved disciple, he was having issues with cognition. He would have been awfully old, in his nineties surely, for a person of that era. The beloved disciple was more than likely long dead. All of the original disciples should have been long dead by the time “John” was written.
One thing I always liked about John is the oneness discourse. Jesus and the father are one. Jesus and the disciples can be one. The disciples and the father should be one. If they were one with God, then they would be one with each other.
Read in a strict trinitarian sense, John seems to imply they believe every human is god, or is at least capable of becoming so.
John 14:28 is not necessarily the clincher for Arianism because there can be a difference between the Trinity’s eternal ontology and economic roles. The Nicene perspective of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being made of the same substance while they exhibit hierarchical roles in creation is plausible. I disagree with two points of the Nicene Creed (eternal generation and eternal procession), but John and the rest of the New Testament can be coherently interpreted in the context of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally existing with the same substance and exhibiting hierarchical roles in creation.
How could the orthodox bishops argue against the Arian view in this? Verse 28 is clear, as is Arius’ argument that when Jesus was praying to the Father, he would not have been praying to himself. It would seem they simply cooked up a contorted logic to support what they had already decided to believe.
Oh, wait, I suppose I see that pretty much in every Christian church….
Yup. Amazing what people can argue…. (Including physicists!)
Ha ha, indeed so! Especially physicists…
Dr.Ehrman,
Would you agree these two verses speak against Jesus and the father being equal? Or am I just reading them wrong?
Matthew 24:36
“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,but only the Father.”
Luke 22:42
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”
Yes I would.
Unrelated, but how common was Hebrew in Jesus’s time? I’ve heard Aramaic was spoken in Galilee and Samaria, while Hebrew was spoken in Judea. Is this true? What about Greek, where was it spoken and how much?
No, Aramaic was teh spoken language. Not much speaking of Hebrew, though the literate could read it. Greek was spoken only among the educated elite; I very much doubt if anyone Jesus knew spoke it, at least fluently.
Hm, I’ve read that Hebrew still had some vernacular use in Judea in the time of Jesus.
It may well have done. But not much, so far as I know.
Can you recommend a good book or books about subordinationist Christology in the 2nd & 3rd centuries?
Thanks
I talk about it in How Jesus Became God.
Yes precisely the book that in large part really sparked my interest. (Perhaps my favorite of your popular books.) However I’m looking for something a bit, shall we say, further down in the weeds? I realize I’m in the minority of your audience in that I’m a non-specialist who can read specialist literature. For example I read Forgery and Counterforgery with a great deal of interest and enjoyment. (You have convinced me that Ephesians and Colossians are forgeries.) Let’s say you conducted a seminar on ante-Nicaean Christology. I would like the titles to a book or two that would be on your reading assignment list. I can take it from there.
Thanks!
I’d suggest starting with Larry Hurtado’s Lord Jesus Christ (his very large book) and using the bibliography he cites.
Excellent, thanks! A good bibliography is the proverbial Pearl of Great Price. And I always know I’m on the right track when the hardback edition costs $100 and the paperback $40 (if it even exists). Ha! (And ouch!)
John does not reconstruct the events that occurred 65 years earlier. John reinterprets those events and casts them in a light that in many respects is inconsistent with and contradictory to the more accurate and authentic synoptics. By the time John was written, about 95 CE, the schism between establishment Judaism and the Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus had become irrevocably fixed. John’s 14:6, “No one comes to Father except thru me” was not written to convince the followers of the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses, or the Eastern religions of Hinduism or Buddhism that then existed. John 14:6 was written to convince establishment Judaism that they were making a tragic error. Everything in John should be interpreted with that context. If you need more rationale, read Chapter 4, the Historical Context Of The Gospel Of John in my book, Today’s Christian Heretics?
As you probably know, there were groups for centuries who claimed that Judaism and the followers of Jesus were not distinct entities; scholars have had long and heated debates about whether it is possible to establish a time for “the parting of the ways.”
Bart, as you say, “enter another divine power” but perhaps Jesus and the Spirit are manifestations of one power? I guess that makes me a modalist.
There are a variety of interpretations as you said, that can be made from the NT and I wonder whether we have the same spread in people’s heads as in the time of Sabellius. It’s interesting to me that 1700 years later, the same ideas are still around, but Christians (mostly) have tired of talking about them. I suppose most Christians then did not much care about the debates either.
In Greek, there are two words for ‘another’ with different meaning s. The Greek word for “allon” refer to another of the same kind like Jesus Christ. The Greek word for “heteros” refers to another of a different. In the Greek Bible, the word is “allon” refers to man same as Jesus Christ.
2) Jesus was described as a Paraclete in 1 John 2:1. The one yet to come, had to be a man
3) John 16:7, eliminate Holy Ghost because he was already present.
4) The word “he” was mentioned twelve times, emphasizing that it had to be a man.
5) Prophet Muhammad fulfilled all the requirements.
6) Holy Ghost never performed all the requirements.
7) Quran verse 61: 6 confirm that Jesus, like many previous prophets, had foretold the coming of Prophet Muhammad.
Your quotation “I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” cannot be taken in the literal sense. In John 17: 21, Jesus, Father as well as “they also may be one is us” indicates clearly that it cannot carry a literal meaning because everyone was in us. In the Semitic languages, many of the verses in religious matters, especially several of your quotations, have figurative meanings. For example, the meaning of son of God in the Semitic language, refers to someone obedient to God or a prophet of God. That is why, many were called son of God or children of God in the Bible. Ancient Greeks and Romans misunderstood the Hebrew language and interpreted it literally when it is actually metaphorical. Subsequently, God was changed to be the Father because He was supposed to have a son. Eventually, Trinity was formulated and it becomes a man-made non-existence deity.
I don’t understand your comment. The book of John was written in Greek. Semitic languages have nothing to do with it.
Speaking of oral traditions, so to speak, I was just reading a review of a book on the Homeric Question and was reminded that early work on that apparently developed approaches and methods that were subsequently applied to Biblical text criticism. Any suggestions for reading about that development of critical technique?
Biblical criticism actually happened before the Homeric Question became a big deal in the 19th and 20th centuries. Biblical scholarship was dealing with issues before that. Textual criticism per se goes back to the 16th century, but became a particularly big concern in the 18th. For histories see George Werner Kuemmel, The New Testament: A History of the Investigation of It’s problems (as a place to start;it’s a classic).
Michael Servetus, who was one of the founders of the anti-Trinitarian Christians, said there was no justification for the trinity in the scriptures.
Dr Ehrman,
I understand from your posts that it was the genius of 4th century Church leaders who lead us to believe that the concept of Trinity exists in frequently contradictory text of NT.
Maybe if you are given the task today, as a project, to add a 4th person into Trinity, you can definitely put up a solid argument for that as well…but WHY the 4th century Church leaders were doing it?
What was the PURPOSE the Trinity and specially HS were going to serve in the development of Christianity?
Regards
The purpose was to understand God, who he was and how he acted in the world and through which means — all important questions for those who thought “truth” about such things had a direct effec on a person’s salvation.
Bart,
Don’t you see the most important part of 14:7 is what you don’t SAY? ,…. “now you know Him AND HAVE SEEN HIM.” 14:7b… He says they who are saved, like also in John 6:40, have TO SEE the Son. Only living Masters can save. The “ransom” was “for many” — not for ‘all.’ Mark 10:45. Masters walk the earth. rssb.org “His own, WHO WERE IN THE WORLD.” 13:1
But having “hierarchical roles” implies an inequality of position, does it not? That’s the nature of a hierarchy: the colonel is not equal to a general, the major is not equal to the colonel, and on down the line. They’re all officers and all wear the same uniform (more or less “of the same substance”), but they are not equal. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit cannot be co-equal, and yet be in a hierarchical relationship with each other. Not if words have actual, consistent meanings, at any rate.
I’m not sure which of my statements you’re referring to. Part of my point is that John 14 both supports a sense of equality and a sense of hierarchy, which to us, at least, seem to be at odds with each other.
You have stated that the words of Jesus in the fourth gospel was not his own, but put in his mouth by the evangelist. What is the evidence for this? If this is so, then one is in reality being exposed to the theology of the writer. Also what about the signs, miracles that Jesus did?
The evidence is the same as used to establish all historical Jesus material in teh Gospels. Look for “criteria” on the blog and you’ll see what kinds of argument typically get made. The same criteria would apply to the signs.
Dr. Ehrman,
Admittedly, when Jesus says He’s going “prepare a place” for His followers, it sounds on its face like He’s describing some kind of heavenly place/location.
But the same word for “place” / “dwelling” (mone) in 14:2 is also used in 14:23. And there it doesn’t describe a place “out there” or where one “goes to”, but instead some kind of communion with between the “Father”, Jesus (& perhaps the full Trinity) and the person who “loves” Jesus. This suggests a relational status and not a literal “place”.
With that in mind, do you think the traditional interpretation–not to mention its common use at memorials!–needs rethinking?
Thank you.
THe word refers to a place that a person lives. In v. 23 Jesus indicates that he and the Father will make their home with the one who obeys his teaching; that is, they will “be together.”
Thank you.
What I’m getting at is that since other Scriptures indicate that Christ’s followers (present tense) “are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit,” this “dwelling” must have been and remains, if true, spiritual (even if the Greek for “dwell” is different here in Ephesians 2:21-22).
In other words, are these “dwellings” fairly viewed as describing the same phenomenon? Or are they describing two different things, (John’s being a future, literal and ostensibly visible living place, and other instances, like in Ephesians, being the Spirit’s invisible indwelling in the believer since the time Jesus said these words–or at least beginning with Pentecost in Acts 2)?
I’d say both are more concerned with “place where you are/exist/live” than with “building as a physical structure,” if that’s what you mean.
What I mean/what I’m getting at is, whatever the “dwelling” is, do the meanings in John 14:23 and Ephesians 2:22 indicate that /it has already begun/, albeit spiritually, since some followers of God remain on earth and are not in heaven yet with God ‘literally’.
The word itself is just a noun, and so doesn’t given any indication os when it occurs. in John 14:23 the verbs are in teh future tense, so it is referring to something yet to come after Jesus’ life; different words are used in Eph. 2:21-22 and the verbs are in the present tense of a present reality.
Leovigild June 9, 2021 at 2:31 pm – Reply
I don’t understand your comment. The book of John was written in Greek. Semitic languages have nothing to do with it.
Where did the Greek writers obtain their information from if it did not originate from those Aramaic speaking Jews? If you serious about wanting to know the truth about Jesus you must understand more about the Semitic languages than the Greek language.
Surely it had to do with Semitic languages.