Loading...I’ve received some interesting and important questions involving the Gospel of John — who actually wrote it and whether it’s record of Jesus’ claims to be divine are likely historical. Here are the questions an my attempts to answer
QUESTION:
I heard Mike Licona say the other day, that he seems to think Tertius wrote Romans in the same way a literate Greek-speaking secretary wrote the Gospel of John on behalf of John, the son of Zebedee.
So strictly speaking, these are his words and the letter ought to be called, the Letter to the Romans according to Paul.
What is your understanding of Rom 16:22 – ‘I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord”? Was Tertius simply taking dictation or did he put his interpretation of Paul’s thoughts into words?
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Dear Bart,
I’ve been reading some online discussions about what may have happened to the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. I believe you hold that he was most likely left to rot, as that was part of the punishment.
If we assume Peter started the Church in Jerusalem (where presumably people would have known if Jesus had not been buried), how does it all fit?
I guess either Peter’s original preaching did not mention a burial and that was a later development (Paul in Corinthians 1); or it did, but people would not really know any better (or most did and hence the Church was small) (this would make Peter a liar).
Do you reckon the Church starting in Jerusalem is something which would need to be addressed in this debate in general more than it is?
If the crucifixion of Jesus was a major public event with hundreds of people observing it (as in the movies), then yes, it seems likely people would know where he had been buried. But he was simply a person crucified that day — no one in Jerusalem thought he was the Son of God who was dying for the sins of the world. My view is that no one knew where his remains were deposited any more than they knew where the remains of the other two victims that day (or the ones the day before or the ones the day after) were buried.
If my memory is correct, the movie Risen actually portrays that quite realisticaly, in my opinion. Not many people were around, and he was just off the city wall. They had him basically at ground level too. It was portrayed as a procedural thing, and nobody was that excited other than some women crying. I got the impression that it was business as usual, with people walking by, and soldiers just bored and waiting.
Interesting.
My grandfather worked as a lumberjack into his 30s, then married, bought a farm, and raised a family. He could read, mostly the Bible, Farmer’s Almanac, etc, and write, mostly short notes. There is no way he could have authored any sophisticated material like the Gospel of John. He didn’t even think in those terms. How much more would that be true of “unlettered” fishermen? I’m inclined to think that those who argue for the disciples’ authorship of the gospels have had little or no contact with people who have had little education, let alone those with none. If you have never read philosophy, you will not describe a person in philosophical terms, no matter how amazing or charismatic that person is. You will talk about them in terms that you are familiar with!
Well stated.
Has anyone interpreted this logion 13
(13) Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”
Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”
Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”
Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.”
Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”
Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”
Gospel of Thomas Logion 13
Jesus
His
Me and whom like
Said you
A Matthew
Him
Like philosopher
To my wholly saying are
Not because drunk
Become the which measured
He
And told things
Returned companions
Him
Jesus
You to
I
One
Things told will
Stones them
A come The burn
Burn the come
A them stones will
Told things
One
I
To you
Jesus
Him
Companions returned
Things told and
He Measured which the become
Drunk
Because not are
Saying wholly
My to
Philosopher like him
Matthew
A
You said like whom and
Me
His
Jesus
Off topic: In your podcast on Myths last night (6/23), you asserted that Jesus did not institute what we now call communion but it came into practice after his death. Could you give us some background on how you arrived at this conclusion? This is new to me.
Thanks
It takes a long while to explain, but it’s because Jesus almost certainly was not planning to be arrested and executed. He was in Jerusalem to proclaim that the kingdom was soon to arrive and people needed to repent. I think it’s virtually certain (well, it is to me!) that Jesus was not planning on being a sacrifice for the sins of others, as indicated in his words at the Last Supper.
Thanks, Bart.
> Jesus almost certainly was not planning to be arrested and executed. He was in Jerusalem to proclaim that the kingdom was soon to arrive and people needed to repent.
I’ve long wondered whether The Man from Galilee — i.e., the hinterlands — simply got in WAY over his head in the big city; inadvertently angered powerful people; and paid with his life. The post-crucifixion appearances have the earmarks of Elvis sightings in our day. It seems plausible that Joseph of Arimathea moved the body out of his own tomb after the Sabbath and didn’t deign to tell the Eleven, who were mere hoi polloi.
(C.S. Lewis’s too-facile “liar, lunatic, or Lord” trichotomy leaves out so many other possibilities — such as “sadly naïve.”)
An amanuensis might not just literally transcribe the words spoken by the “author.” S/he might instead do the writing, based on general direction from the author — who might or might not be particularly good with words.
A pretty-typical example: A law student graduates high in her class at Yale Law. She spends her first year out of school working as a judicial clerk for a federal appellate judge. Toward the end of her clerkship, she knows her judge’s mind pretty well. He has confidence in her work. So for one case, the judge gives the clerk general directions on what to say in the opinion the judge has been assigned to write. The clerk produces a stellar opinion — which the judge reviews and lightly edits before it’s issued and published over the judge’s signature.
(Toward the end of his Supreme Court career, the late Justice Thurgood Marshall reportedly delegated a lot of his opinion writing to his law clerks. According to The Brethren, a book by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, Marshall would often tell his clerks “just follow Bill [Brennan],” in writing dissents IIRC.)
Much the same happens with good junior lawyers working for partners in law firms: Once a junior lawyer gets her feet under her, she’ll often draft briefs, contracts, etc., that go out over the partner’s name.)
It would be great if we knew of any examples from the ancient world. But alas. In many ways, it was a different universe from ours. It’s probably the hardest thing for readers of the Bible to get their minds around.
Hello Bart,
The second question above got me contemplating claims the synoptics may seem to make regarding Jesus’ divinity and the meaning of the term Son of God in these books, and this led me to the well-known exchanges in Mark 8:27-30 / Luke 9:18-20 / Matthew 16:13-20 (“Who do people say I am?”). In Matthew, Peter’s response includes “You are..THE Son of the living God” compared to his shorter response in Mark (“You are the Messiah”). I assume these are words put on Peter’s lips in line with a Matthean adoptionist view that Jesus became THE Son of God during his life (at conception/birth/baptism?) ? And what does Luke’s “Messiah of God” version mean, if anything, in terms of Sonship/divinity?
Thanks, Andrew
Yes, I think Matthew is expanding the story in Mark. “Messiah” typically referred to the future ruler. For the Gospel writers, it was possible for that future ruler also to be a divine being.
On the first Q&A I think you are right.
On the second Q&A I would slow down.
Notice what the questioner and you actually share. He lists passages from John and concludes: here he says it, therefore he is God. You answer: only in John, therefore not likely historical. You disagree on the verdict. But you agree on the rule. Both of you treat an explicit, self-identifying proposition, an “I am God,” as the thing whose presence or absence settles the matter. The apologist hunts for the place where it is said; you mark the place where it is absent. Same measure, opposite reading.
So the question I would want to put on the table is the one neither side defends: why should authentic divine self-disclosure be expected to take the form of an explicit self-identifying claim in the first place? Suspend that expectation for a moment, and the Gospels look less like a claim-database with one late entry, and more like books that disclose identity in quite another way.
That is not an argument that Jesus must have been divine. It is a question about the form we have quietly agreed revelation would have to take before it counts.
I understand and generally accept the force of your argument. At the same time, perhaps because I am a Christian, I still wonder about a more hopeful possibility.
Is there an important distinction between saying that the Gospels preserve Aramaic oral traditions behind the Greek text and saying that they are translations of earlier Aramaic written or dictated sources?
For example, could Peter or John have dictated some core material in Aramaic, perhaps through an amanuensis, which later Gospel writers then rendered into polished and rhetorically elegant Greek?
Or should we think of the canonical Gospels as compositions created in Greek from the beginning, even if they incorporated earlier oral memories, traditions, and sayings of Jesus that originally circulated in Aramaic?
Are there linguistic or literary features that enable scholars to distinguish a Greek composition from a translation out of Aramaic? If so, would those features make my scenario unlikely?
I realize this may reflect a Christian’s hopeful imagination, but I would be grateful for your historical and linguistic assessment.
What I’m saying is that we have no record of anythying like that ever happening in the ancient world: a person dictating in one language and the amanusensis translating it into another putting his own literary touches on it.
And yes, the Gospels have been shown by linguists to be original Greek compositions, not later translations from Aramaic originals. (A clear case is Matthew, the one to have been said in antiquity to have been written in Hebrew; it copies Mark’s Greek sentences word for word in Greek, so was not a Hebrew composition but a Greek one using Greek sources.)
Excellent question about why did the synoptics leave out something as critically important as the deity of Jesus, but here’s some observations:
You forgot to include this information from the previous post you’re citing. Jesus claimed to be “THE” Son of God, different from “A” Son of God, and their culture knew that it was an identification with divine nature. This identification(son of God) with deity is in fact found in the synoptics. Matthew 4:3, 14:33, 16:15-17, 27:40, 43, 54, Mark 3:11, 14:61, 62, 15:39, Luke 1:35, 4:41, 22:70.(see Romans 1:3,4). This is why the Quran denies eight times that Jesus is/was the Son of God.
Here’s a similar situation to your question:
John is familiar with the word *metanoia*(repentance). We know this because he used it in Revelation chapters 2 & 3. However, John never uses the word in the gospel account. You would think something as important to salvation as repentance(Mark1:4, Luke 13:2-5, Acts 2:37,38) wouldn’t be neglected in a book speaking about the reception of eternal life, but it was. Should we disqualify the entire document because of it? No.
Should we disqualify John’s gospel, or the writings of Ignatius, because they emphasizes Jesus as God? No.
Continued:
Doctor, you said,
“in Paul and in all the other books of the NT apart from John, we have no indication that Jesus called himself God.”
Jesus was understood as being, “Our great God and savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). “Our God and savior Jesus Christ.” (2nd Peter 1:1). And even though highly debated, “God was manifest in the flesh” (1st Timothy 3:16). “shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” Acts 20:28.
I don’t think Peter and Paul, the most important guys in the formation of the church, and key figures in the book of Acts, were making this up. Exaggeration is a form of dishonesty which violates the 9th commandment. The doctrine of the deity of Jesus came from Jesus, through the apostles, to the churches, “like a rich man depositing his wealth in a bank” Irenaeus: Against Heresies, bk. III, 4:1.
I’m talking about whether Jesus himself called himself God, not if later followrs called him God. Big difference.
Right, I’m with you on that, but doesn’t Jesus call himself *The Son of God* on a number of occasions in John AND the synoptics? Isn’t that Him claiming to be God? The reactions of those who heard him indicates that’s what the claim meant to them. John 10:33-36, John19:7, Matthew 27:40-43, Mark 14:61-64
Most definitely. In John he uses the term to indicate he is a divine being come from heaven and in the Synoptics that he is the future messiah of Israel (the “king” of Israel is the “Son of God” thorughout the Hebrew Bible).
So Jesus claimed to be God, yes?
The Gospel of John has Jesus claim to be God, yes. The historical Jesus did not claim to be God. An analogous situation would be to notice that in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas has the young boy Jesus wither and kill playmates who irritated him. But the historical Jesus did not wither and kill playmates. I’m pretty sure….
In trying to be clear about your view, John has Jesus claiming to be God (a number of times), but yet you say, “that didn’t really happen,” is that correct? If it is, people I’ve shared this with, and myself, are curious to know, based on what evidence do you draw this conclusion? Also, do you see Jesus’ claim to be God in the synoptics the same way?
It seems like I’ve explained this a number of times? Jesus never calls himself God in Matthew, Mark, or Luke — our three earliest Gospels — or is said to have said that in Paul or any other book of the New testament. The three synpoptics appear to be based on earlier written and oral traditions, and there’s no hint of Jesus making the claim in them either. That means that of all our Christian writings of the first century there is only one that indicates Jesus made the claim, and it is also the only one that celebrates the divinity of Christ as an incarnation of God on earth. So Jesus’ self-claim fits with John’s theology. ANd it’s missing everywhere else. It seems completely implausible to me that no other surviving Gospel or Gospel source would mention that Jesus called himself God if they knew that he had. They give many, many of his other teachings. But not that? As if that part wasn’t important enough to mention? I don’t think that’s plausible.
I have read that a Gnostic named Cerinthus was somehow connected to the gospel of John. Irenaeus wrote that the gospel was written by John in order to correct Cerinthus’ heresy. However, another church father Epiphanius wrote of people (called the “Alogi”) who rejected the gospel of John (and the “logos” doctrine) because they thought it had been written by Cerinthus. Randel Helms in his book seems to agree, suggesting that an early version of the gospel may have had a more Gnostic flavor, but that revisions were made to have it more conform to the “orthodox” Christian view.
I have read the Bible many times, but I still find this question difficult to understand clearly.
How much can we know, from the internal evidence of the texts themselves, about whether Paul’s theology influenced the theology of John’s Gospel?
It seems that Paul’s letters circulated relatively early. Also, as you have often pointed out, information could move surprisingly actively among educated people and urban networks within the Roman Empire. Given the likely date of John’s Gospel, it feels somewhat unnatural to assume that John knew nothing at all about Paul or Pauline Christianity.
At the same time, I realize that this may be very difficult to prove. Are there significant signs within John’s Gospel that it knew, used, or responded to Pauline ideas? Or is it more likely that Paul and John simply developed similar themes independently within the broader world of early Christianity?
The big difficulty is that Paul was not the only one saying / teaching the things he said/taught. I’d say with respect to John that so much of his Gospel stands at odds with Paul that it’s hard to believe he was a big fan. (Especially e.g., their views of the coming day of judgment)
Re John , what do we do with 21:24 where it says the disciple witnessed things and wrote them down?
If John was written circa CE95 , could he not have received an education in the decades after Jesus’s death?
Yes, “he” wrote them down. And “we” believe him. He’s differentiating himself from the writer. If I say, “Sam Harris wrote this, and we believe him” you wouldn’t think that I was claiming to be Sam Harris….
Good morning, Bart! I’m listening to MJ Podcast as I do every Tuesday. Today’s release is on the Gospel of John. You just emphatically stated that the idea Jesus was Yahweh incarnate is wrong. I was raised to believe this though. We referenced John 1 for this idea. The Word (wisdom, reason, mind, or consciousness) was with God in the beginning and was God, and this being became flesh. God is a spirit (also a reference in John when Jesus talks to Nicodemus), and so it wasn’t much of a leap to understand that the Spirit of the Creator God aka Yahweh was embodied/incarnated in the man Jesus. I can understand not agreeing with this line of thought, but you lost me when you said it’s not biblical. Can you help me understand your position?
Interesting. If Jesus was Yahweh — who was God the Father? Jesus in John speaks of himself as lesser than his Father (John 14:28), and the apostle Paul indicates that Christ was not originally equal with God (Phil. 2:6-8), and Paul speaks of him as subordinate (1 Cor. 15). Since Yahweh is the creator God of the Jews and the one who is superior to all others (as in the OT), then .. how could he be Jesus if Jesus is subordinate to him?
?: the triune GOD. I never understood Jesus, how could I love something I didn’t understand.
but jesus was divine. & i have no relationship nor understanding of that. for instance: i can be grateful to the white FOUNDING FATHERS 250 years ago, b/c of sufficient history. but from what i know the Christian church was developed by fluent koine greek, romans, german, french, english & folks in tHe USA. my grandparents were all born & developed in China. Actually close to nothing to deal with me.
Furthermore, my over 25 years mostly in URBAN China, developed NOT from “god bless China” as i was engrained with “GOD BLESS AMERICA”
We would have said God the Father is also Yahweh. We were “Oneness” people, who actually rejected Trinity doctrine. In fact I never even heard or read the Nicene creed until I was an adult (!!!) I can’t recall which of your books I read in which you talked about modalism—Maybe it was *How Jesus Became God*. I remember thinking that it sounded very familiar to the doctrines in my United Pentecostal faith tradition. Basically God took the form of man in Jesus, but was simultaneously still omnipresent. That Jesus willfully subjected Himself to authority and will of God. One thing that I remember being a big problem for our people was the idea that God would send His son to die. We instead believed that God Himself entered creation to die for reconciliation.
Right, does sound like modalism.
So when Jesus says before Abraham was I am, is he claiming to be the God of Israel or is he claiming to be the angel of the lord or is he saying that he preexisted before Abraham as some sort of divine being?
He’s saying he is a divine being who existed before Abraham.