How much evidence of any kind do we have about John, other than the gospels, Acts and a brief shout-out in Josephus?
That’s basically all the evidence.
I’m in awe of Joel Marcus being able to write a whole book based on it.
I don’t consider there to be any overwhelming evidence, for much of anything other than his having existed and known Jesus, and you could argue against that, and probably some do. (Actually, I think Stephen kind of half-argued they never knew each other.)
I’d like to make a distinction here, between Messianic claims and Messianic rumors.
And here I have very well-documented evidence.
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Robert said
Stephen said
…we have good reason to think John’s followers did claim he was Messiah, since his cult persisted quite a long time after his death (and you are in a bad position to deny that, with your ramblings about the Mandeans)…Ok I’ll need a citation to the effect that John’s disciples thought he was the Messiah. In every source I’ve seen (Jewish, Muslim, Christian) he is located firmly in the prophetic tradition. The fact he had disciples is not a sufficient reason in and of itself to claim Messiahship (is that a word?). All the classical prophets, both pre-literary and literary, had disciples. Not saying there is no such citation you understand just saying that I’m not aware of it. Here’s your chance to educate me.
There’s a couple of references in the pseudo-Clementine literature to disciples of John who claimed he was the Messiah, but I don’t think these are generally considered good evidence. This is also sometimes said of the Mandean literature, but I’ve read very little of this so cannot comment on or cite the relevant passages. Generally, I have seen this claim supported by some scholars, but I do not know how widespread this conclusion is. Some of the arguments I’ve seen advanced for this thesis from some New Testament texts are of very little merit in my humble opinion, while others do make me wonder if this might have been the case.
Thanks Robert. I wasn’t aware of the references in the pseudo-Clementines. I’ll have to look them up. The Mandeans are non-Abrahamic and also reject the authority of Moses so they tend to avoid overt Jewish categories. This only adds to the mystery because they are clearly influenced by Judaism and not just because they revere John.
Actually I think it was generally very polite here.
It was with only two exceptions.
For a while there was a hyper-fundamentalist poster whose name I can’t remember who filled every thread with Bible quotes and sermonettes. Eventually he vanished so I assumed he was asked politely (or not) to leave.
Our friend Mr godspell started with the insults. I simply refer everyone to this very thread for typical examples. His pomposity and self-importance brings out the worst in me I’m afraid and I have responded unkindly on occasion. I enjoy conversation and vigorous argument but I can’t sit quietly while my views are distorted or misquoted. godspell provides us with an example of this here as well. The psychology seems pretty obvious. Any criticism or negative response to an assertion is interpreted as a personal attack to be responded to in kind.
I’m perfectly aware of what I don’t know. I am always ready to be corrected and to learn something new. That’s how we grow. I guess some people have just evolved past all that. Lucky for them. Unlucky for the rest of us.
godspell said
Yeah, what Jesus is quoted as saying flows a lot better–Jesus had a certain cogency that comes across in the gospels, even though we may not have his precise wording–but of course, part of a saying being remembered has to do with how well it flows off the tongue. Probably most of what Socrates is quoted as saying was derived from earlier philosophers, but at least as we have it from Plato, he said it better. Originality of expression is, in fact, a thing. Even when what’s being expressed has been expressed many times before, and what sayeth Ecclesiastes to that? You know the quote. 😉
I only had time to find this one section – it is just one variation of something being said in various ways at this time (reference the Hillel “Torah on One Foot” story from the Talmud.) We also have a version attributed to John by Josephus in Antiquities: “Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God.”
However, your point about how it sounds is precisely the issue here. The section from the Damascus Document is primary evidence about Palestinian Jewish apocalypic thinking during this period. The quote from Josephus is from a person of that period who is identified and described, who writes with the intent of a historian and who in fact knew people concerned with these events and therefore is a solid secondary source.
Whereas a statement in the Gospels written for and possibly by Gentiles (or if not some VERY Hellenized Jews) is very second/third hand with many plausible reasons to radically change the context of received statement. Nonetheless, it is close enough to these other sources to see that it fits as something the historical Jesus might have said.
Obviously translating it into Greek would change it, and it might have been changed multiple times before that, but if you have an ear for style, it’s pretty easy to pick up on a consistent voice in the gospel sayings (in the synoptics, not John), which were after all collected (most scholars believe) well before the gospels were written.
Jesus was not merely repeating what he’d read/heard–he was expanding on it, and as he would see things, improving on it–finding the meaning behind the words. I find it unlikely there were all these brilliant writers attracted to the teachings of a dead rabbi who had no gift for self-expression.
And furthermore, the style of someone writing for an audience of literate scholars of the Torah (however offbeat they might have been) is going to be different than the style of an itinerant preacher speaking to ordinary people, who is going to look for more elegant ways to express these ideas. Jesus wasn’t writing theology. He was conducting a ministry. That’s why his words jump off the page, and the Qumran writings–well, probably some of them are better than that.
Stephen said
Thanks Robert. I wasn’t aware of the references in the pseudo-Clementines. I’ll have to look them up. The Mandeans are non-Abrahamic and also reject the authority of Moses so they tend to avoid overt Jewish categories. This only adds to the mystery because they are clearly influenced by Judaism and not just because they revere John.
Actually I think it was generally very polite here.
It was with only two exceptions.
For a while there was a hyper-fundamentalist poster whose name I can’t remember who filled every thread with Bible quotes and sermonettes. Eventually he vanished so I assumed he was asked politely (or not) to leave.
Our friend Mr godspell started with the insults. I simply refer everyone to this very thread for typical examples. His pomposity and self-importance brings out the worst in me I’m afraid and I have responded unkindly on occasion. I enjoy conversation and vigorous argument but I can’t sit quietly while my views are distorted or misquoted. godspell provides us with an example of this here as well. The psychology seems pretty obvious. Any criticism or negative response to an assertion is interpreted as a personal attack to be responded to in kind.
I’m perfectly aware of what I don’t know. I am always ready to be corrected and to learn something new. That’s how we grow. I guess some people have just evolved past all that. Lucky for them. Unlucky for the rest of us.
Sticking with the Baptist for the moment: i don’t have quotes right now, but it seems to me that I have read along the way that in Messianic Judaism there is an ambiguity regarding who may be the Messiah at any given moment. Hence the questioning and the search for signs and scriptural warrant – and the expectation of Doing the Job as final proof that any particular person is The Guy. This is why you get various contenders as detailed by Josephus. They are coming out of the one Messianic Movement but – they are variations on that theme. John is, in some one, part of that “pool of possibles” – clearly why Herod – i.e. Rome’s quisling – decides to get rid of him, before he decides to go Full Messiah. John’s reputation is good enough (and Jesus apparently followed him) that early Christians wanted to clarify that, though they really really liked him, he was not The Guy: rather Jesus was The Guy.
godspell said
Obviously translating it into Greek would change it, and it might have been changed multiple times before that, but if you have an ear for style, it’s pretty easy to pick up on a consistent voice in the gospel sayings (in the synoptics, not John), which were after all collected (most scholars believe) well before the gospels were written.Jesus was not merely repeating what he’d read/heard–he was expanding on it, and as he would see things, improving on it–finding the meaning behind the words. I find it unlikely there were all these brilliant writers attracted to the teachings of a dead rabbi who had no gift for self-expression.
And furthermore, the style of someone writing for an audience of literate scholars of the Torah (however offbeat they might have been) is going to be different than the style of an itinerant preacher speaking to ordinary people, who is going to look for more elegant ways to express these ideas. Jesus wasn’t writing theology. He was conducting a ministry. That’s why his words jump off the page, and the Qumran writings–well, probably some of them are better than that.
1) Your first part of your first sentence is the entire problem.
2) The second part of that sentence contradicts the first. You get a consistent voice when you get a single writer. “Having an ear for style” in material that has been changed, orally transmitted, interpolated, translated, and then written up isn’t evidence for anything. Its not a standard with any measurable meaning to it.
3) We also have no evidence about how Jesus himself changed the basic teachings of the existing Messianic Movement that he was heir to. We DO see that he preaches in the Gospels some things very consistent with that movement, and faces the same end as others in that tradition. We also see he teaches some things – like table fellowship with gentiles – that is contradicted by the information we get in Paul’s letters. So we know that the tradition/Writer has changed things dramatically.
4) It is the point of the early Christian writings that there is a strong theology behind Jesus ministry – otherwise there would be no reason to have followers. These are not contradictions – theology complements preaching.
Stephen said
Thanks Robert. I wasn’t aware of the references in the pseudo-Clementines. I’ll have to look them up. The Mandeans are non-Abrahamic and also reject the authority of Moses so they tend to avoid overt Jewish categories. This only adds to the mystery because they are clearly influenced by Judaism and not just because they revere John.
Actually I think it was generally very polite here.
It was with only two exceptions.
For a while there was a hyper-fundamentalist poster whose name I can’t remember who filled every thread with Bible quotes and sermonettes. Eventually he vanished so I assumed he was asked politely (or not) to leave.
Our friend Mr godspell started with the insults. I simply refer everyone to this very thread for typical examples. His pomposity and self-importance brings out the worst in me I’m afraid and I have responded unkindly on occasion. I enjoy conversation and vigorous argument but I can’t sit quietly while my views are distorted or misquoted. godspell provides us with an example of this here as well. The psychology seems pretty obvious. Any criticism or negative response to an assertion is interpreted as a personal attack to be responded to in kind.
I’m perfectly aware of what I don’t know. I am always ready to be corrected and to learn something new. That’s how we grow. I guess some people have just evolved past all that. Lucky for them. Unlucky for the rest of us.
Stephen, my experience is that people are often only aware of other people’s bad behavior, just like they are only aware of other people’s bad breath. Actually, Jesus had a saying about that……
Nobody I know–including many people I converse with online–would recognize me in your words. And perhaps the same would be true for you. But you do come on pretty strong, and you do have a very thin skin. Maybe I’m a mite too callused, but there are reasons for that.
And can I ask–did you read my critique of your belief that Jesus was arrested at the courtyard? I don’t see a response, and I put a bit of work into that.
Anyway, a few more weeks, I’ll be gone. And I won’t be flouncing out the door in a huff, as you did a while back. How was Reddit? I’ve heard good things. (No I haven’t.) 🙂
Baligomingo said
1) Your first part of your first sentence is the entire problem.
2) The second part of that sentence contradicts the first. You get a consistent voice when you get a single writer. “Having an ear for style” in material that has been changed, orally transmitted, interpolated, translated, and then written up isn’t evidence for anything. Its not a standard with any measurable meaning to it.
3) We also have no evidence about how Jesus himself changed the basic teachings of the existing Messianic Movement that he was heir to. We DO see that he preaches in the Gospels some things very consistent with that movement, and faces the same end as others in that tradition. We also see he teaches some things – like table fellowship with gentiles – that is contradicted by the information we get in Paul’s letters. So we know that the tradition/Writer has changed things dramatically.
4) It is the point of the early Christian writings that there is a strong theology behind Jesus ministry – otherwise there would be no reason to have followers. These are not contradictions – theology complements preaching.
1)Okay….
2)The four gospel authors have distinct narrrator voices, definitely–and John’s Jesus speaks in verse, so that’s very different–but we know they all worked from pre-existing sources, some of which were probably sayings of Jesus preserved, with variations. And they are often reproduced almost verbatim in different gospels, indicating an earlier source. We’re not talking about a writing style–you seem to keep missing this. Jesus left us no writings. He left us sayings, and they are memorable, and minor changes in the wording aren’t going to detract from the overall consistency of the style. Plato wasn’t taking shorthand when Socrates spoke–are we going to say we have nothing Socrates actually said, that we are never hearing his voice when reading Plato or Xenophon? Be consistent in your standards. If you question one ancient source, question them all. And not just ancient sources. But don’t deny the obvious. When something effortlessly keeps people’s attention for millennia, there’s a reason for that. And when you can read a hundred different translations of something Jesus wrote–and the voice comes through, over and over, in language after language–that’s not something people just made up out of nothing.
3)I don’t see anything here that I contradicted, so there’s no argument.
4)Agreed, but theology, as written by scholars, is intensely boring to everyone other than students of theology. Bart Ehrman can write scholarly papers with the best of them, but we’re mainly here because of his accessible mass market books for laypeople. However, I think he’d have to agree, he can’t turn a phrase the way Jesus does in the gospels–that’s a rare gift. So how common do you think it was in First century Judaism or Christianity, to be able to take complex ideas and boil them down into a few memorable words that almost anyone can bring to mind?
1) There may well have been sources – even written sources. These MAY include sayings from Jesus. These MAY also include sayings attributed to Jesus that actually came from others who proceeded or succeeded him (John the Baptist and James his brother come to mind but of course there are others).
2) The writers do not merely write differently, they are clearly adding material that is very unlikely came from Jesus, as it is pro-Gentile, pro-Roman, anti-Law, and anti-Jewish. They change the context of sayings in ways that radically change what a Jesus is likely to have meant (the Righteousness-Piety Commandments are great examples of this – who is your neighbor? The evil Romans?) They give it a plot line that may or may not be historical. They add of the supernatural, the mythic and the symbolic and claim as though it happened.
3) I absolutely agree with you about Socrates. We have nothing that Socrates said – we have only what others present of him. However – Plato and Xenophon are what the Gospels are not: sourced and primary. That doesn’t mean they are TRUE. But it means that they can only represent what those two individuals themselves might say about a man that they knew personally and well. And there are two first person witnesses. And they were writing to an audience who also knew Socrates and others who knew him, in the shared language that all of them – including Socrates – spoke. Contemporary playwrights also wrote about Socrates during his own lifetime in plays that we have. In all, we actually have an amazing amount of primary material even though we do not have his own writing. I really rather liked IF Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates” btw
So, while we should be very critical of what we “know” from these sources – they all of biases and all the potential faults of human memory and ideological purpose – they are MUCH better sources than the Gospels could ever be.
4 – i have seen people moved by freaking idiots. I don’t think we can know that sweet talking is what moved people to follow Jesus. He may have come from the right family (priestly and Davidic), demonstrated particular piety, possibly seemed to heal sick people and performed things viewed as signs. People are moved by many things besides the gift of coherent speech, as we see in our current politics. They project things onto people from their own needs and expectations.
1) So you’re sayin’ there’s a chance!
2)I agree the gospel authors have added material. I was never arguing against that. The question is, did they come up with all or even most of it themselves, and no expert thinks they did. I assume you don’t either. So what’s the point?
3) Plato and Xenophon definitely knew Socrates (unless they made him up as a teaching aide–can we prove they didn’t?) They were also definitely absent during some of the dialogues they later preserved for posterity. And it’s a bit odd that nobody else, unless you count Aristophanes (I know of no other contemporary play featuring Socrates other than Clouds), mentions him–including Thucydides, who wrote about the exact period of history in question, and prominently featured Socrates’ most infamous student, Alcibiades. The Trial of Socrates is a great read, makes some valid points (many of which had been made earlier) but Izzy Stone was entirely self-taught as a scholar, and you really should take some of his conclusions with a grain of salt. (Also, he seems to have regularly accepted cash payments from Moscow to maintain his expensive lifestyle, which was very disillusioning to read about.)
If Jesus didn’t say a lot of interesting things, why were all these people so interested in him? See, you don’t want to deal with that. No doubt at all Socrates was interesting–and given how different Plato and Xenophon were in their interests, there are enough consistent elements in their account of him to make us believe we do know things about Socrates–but what you’re missing is that in many ways we have better sources for Jesus, because we have more of them. We know Socrates from the self-serving highly polished testimony of two men with very distinct and discernible prejudices. We know about Jesus from a wide variety of different sources, as Bart has pointed out. We know those sources are not 100% reliable, and really, what ever is?
Of course we should be critical–question everything. And you’re part of everything. So I’m questioning you. And everybody questions me. 😉
1) Always a chance.
2) My point is we start with the purposes of the Writer and work backwards, not the other way around. We assume major change first, historical accuracy absolutely last. And we look for some kind of historical measure to ground us in 1st century Palestinian Jewish theology from which Jesus emerges. We have Josephus, the Scrolls, Paul’s Letters as the only primary materials. But they are very helpful.
3) Jews in Palestine were hungry for freedom from foreign rule – for political, economic but particularly religious reasons. There was a movement that was already saying these things at the time Jesus was born – and he joined it. There were numerous individuals who arise in this movement and gain followings. But this is not why we know Jesus today. That movement died in 70 AD.
4) However, there were smart people like Paul who re-imagined Jesus for Gentiles. Took out the nationalist politics. Jettisoned that pesky Law. Kept enough genuine Jewish tradition in to make it feel ‘real” to pagans on the lookout for something new – which they were at the time.
5) What are these sources you speak of? All inferred. Unknown origins, unknown authors – disputed by scholars (some new book out about how there is no Q…). The scholarship shifts, moves, groans under its own ability to pin it all down. There is amazing scholarship out there – but much of it, including our host here, ends up in very speculative “gut” feelings about things.
6) What you say about our sources on Socrates is what makes them good! When you know something about the writer, you can discuss the ways in which their biases effect their reporting! That is a good thing! This is why Josephus is great – he tells us enough about himself to make us careful about some of what he reports – because we know that he is caught up in these events and has a personal stake it what he writes.
Robert said
Hngerhman said
I want to tarry a moment on this point:”However, what is most noteworthy is that Isaiah 61:1 says nothing about this Anointed One raising the dead. Indeed, in the entire Hebrew Bible there is nothing about a messiah figure raising the dead. Yet, when we turn to the Q Source, which Luke and Matthew quote, regarding the “signs of the Messiah,” we find the two phrases linked: “the dead are raised up, the poor have the glad tidings preached to them,” precisely as we have in our Qumran text.”
Is this Qumranic text (which might have originated outside) the only example of this, aside from its quotation in Q/Matt/Luke?
I’m not sure Tabor is right if he reads 4Q521 as indicating that the Messiah will be the one who raises up and makes alive the dead. Both times this language is used in 4Q521, the immediate context seems to imply that it is God who is giving life to the dead.
Note also that the language used is very similar to the Amidah, where there is no mention of a Messiah and it is abundantly clear that it is God who is making the dead alive.
4Q521:
… ומתים יחיה
and the dead he makes alive …
.יקי]ם המחיה את מתי עמו]
he raises them up, the one making alive the dead of his people.
Amidah (2nd Blessing):
אתה גבור לעולם אדני.
מחיה מתים אתה רב להושיא
You are mighty for eternity, my Lord;
the one making alive the dead, great (are you) to save. …
ברוך אתה הי, מחיה המתים
Blessed are you, O God, the one making the dead alive.
1 Cor 15 also uses similar language, but there for the first time is it clear that it is Christ, the second Adam, that becomes the life-giving spirit (contrast vv 22 & 45, passive verb to active participle).
Fantastic. Thank you!
Let’s stipulate that it’s God doing the raising in 4Q521. For Tabor’s broader point to work, I think, it would be possible that God is doing the raising, but said raising is somehow correlated with the Messiah. LMK if you disagree.
Curious, would you think that Matt/Luke, when quoting this passage, have the flavor that the dead being raised is from the Messiah or from God (but correlated with the Messiah)?
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