Loading...I have very much enjoyed doing this mini-thread on the Holy Spirit in the biblical tradition as part of the larger thread on the question of where the Trinity came from. I’ve never written on this before (the biblical views of the Spirit) or even thought about it systematically, though I have, of course, thought about the individual pieces of the puzzle for many years. But putting it all together has been instructive and interesting.
I have been talking about the role of the Spirit in Paul, Acts, and the Synoptics (esp. Luke), but all along I’ve thought that a passage in the Gospel of John is in many ways the most significant for understanding how the Spirit became part of the Trinity in later years. The passage occurs in the longest speech of Jesus in the New Testament, the “Farewell Discourse” of John 13-17.
This is a flat-out amazing speech that most people do not realize is so remarkable, simply as a speech. As you may know, in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke Jesus tells a lot of parables (Mark 4 tells us it is the only way he taught the crowds); he also has a significant number of “one-liners” (“Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath, therefore the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”; “If a blind man leads a blind man, both of them will fall into a pit”); and a lot of short pithy statements between the two. In these three Gospels he does not actually give long connected speeches so much as occasionally long speeches that veer from one topic to another in rapid-fire, most famously in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7; not found in any of the other Gospels, though Luke has a number of the sayings scattered throughout his).
It is also striking that in these various teachings of Jesus in the Synoptics, Jesus says very little indeed about
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Mr. Ehrman, did the Church Fathers acknowledge a transition from an exaltation Christology (in the Synoptics) to an incarnation one (in John)? Can we find intimations of such an acknowledgement in their writings?
No, not at all. They assumed high Christologies were there from the outsdet.
Could you talk about Luke 10:18 “For I beheld Satan as he fell from the skies like lightning”? Is this talking about Jesus’s pre-existence?
In it’s context it is saying that the work being done by the apostles in Jesus’ name, when they were sent out, were defeating the powers of evil. Their chief was “falling from heaven.”
Fascinating speech by Jesus in John, I wonder if the historical Jesus actually uttered this long Farewell Discourse?
Question Dr. Ehrman: In reference to the Farewell Discourse that mentions the coming of the Holy Spirit, were there professed followers of Jesus that later interpreted the Holy Spirit to imply or mean the coming of another person, a human being as a guide after Jesus?
“And they shall not depart from any counsel of the law to walk in all the stubbornness of their heart, but they shall be governed by the first ordinances in which the members of the community began their instruction, until the coming of The Prophet and the anointed ones of Aaron and Israel” Damascus Document ?
No, I don’t think he coudl have delivered the discourse; and no, the early CHristians did not think of the Spirit as a human wyuos would come.
I’ve loved these threads on the Spirit. Thank you very much for them.
Separate question about the Gospel of John. In this gospel there are at least three instances of Jesus being taken literally in what he is saying (Nicodemus and born again; Samaritan woman with living water; and you must eat my flesh and drink my blood) but he is speaking in religious metaphor and symbolism. Clearly there is a motivation here in this pattern for the writer. What was their motivation?
Also, is this pattern a sort of proto-Epistle of Barnabas? Did the author of Barnabas use these literalism examples in the G of J as a basis or inspiration for their epistle which basically amplifies this literalism vs. symbolism pattern?
It’s a clever way to construct a conversation, to show that Jesus speaks mystically but can be easily misunderstood by those who don’t realize it.
Luke mentioned that ‘many’ had written about Jesus. He quotes from Matt and Mark, and perhaps he quoted from other Gospels we no longer have. But John seems to have resisted writing his own account until very late in his life. It’s clear he saw no need to go over what ‘many’ others had already written. And John wasn’t an academic – with his brother James they had a simple fishing business with his father. He was a gentle man, we see him as the one leaning on Jesus’ breast (perhaps he was still a boy at the time.) He was the one ‘whom Jesus loved’ the most, and that says a lot about others who might have been brave, smart, adventurous, charismatic, historical etc.. Jesus loved those who loved. This is seen in John’s letters and his touching Gospel, full of his deep humanity.
And John was unique in that he was writing in the Post Temple Era. And it never interested him to mention it.
The Gospel of John wasn’t written by the apostle John. Nor were the letters of John by the same author as the Gospel.
Is it ‘clear’ John knew Greek?
Is there any church father who objected to the inclusion of the book of John in the canon due to it being different from the first 3 gospels in theology? It’s hard to imagine that non of them noticed the big difference in theology between the gospels.
No, none that we know of.
But John has one of my favorite stories, the women taken in adultery. Doesn’t that count as a story the same way as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son?
That story was not original to John; it’s one of the very important textual changes that were made by later scribes. I talk about it in my book Misquoting Jesus.
Will have to reread it. Thanks!
Seems John in what you’ve highlighted is defining and dogmatizing highly evolved religious thought, particularly against heretical Gnosticism. Is the late writing of John emphasizing the divine status of Christ, to reject out of hand the popular notion that Jesus was merely a man on whom the Holy Spirit had descended? Seems suspicious he would suppress entirely the sequence where John baptised Jesus and have the baptist further demean himself. And then to hammer the point home with all the “I am” passages to elevated Jesus to nothing less than eternal co-creator of the universe – beat that, heretic!
Do scholars think that anything in John is even the slightest bit historical?
Oh yes. THere are disputes about how *much* — but even in broad terms, it recounts Jesus as a Jewish teacher who gathered disciples and engaged in an itinerate preaching career before going to Jerusalem at a passover feast at which time he was betrayed by one of his followers, handed over to Roman authorities, and crucified under Pilate, etc. etc.
Indeed Bart;
but I suppose the key question is whether there are aspects of John’s narrative where that differs from that in the other three Gospel accounts of the same events; but where we would, on balance, prefer John’s version as historically more plausible?
I might suggest:
– the date of the crucifixion; was Good Friday the Passover festival day (Synoptics); or the day of Preparation (John)?
– the trial of Jesus; was there a formal session of the Sanhedrin (Synoptics); or an informal interview with the High Priest, followed by a formal trial before Pilate (John)?
– the duration of Jesus ministry; did this all happen in one year, with the fateful Passover being Jesus one Jerusalem visit in his ministry(Synoptics); or over three years, with Jesus regularly coming up to Jerusalem for pilgrim festivals, and then returning to Galilee (John)?
– driving the money-changers out of the Temple; did this happen on Palm Sunday (Synoptics); or at the start of Jesus’s ministry (John)?
I suspect the majority of scholars agree with John on the first bullet, if only because there are plausible astronomical dates that fit better. Not a few would prefer John’s narrative in the rest.
My sense is that the majority of scholars go with the Synoptics on the day of Jesus’ death; John has changed it in order to show that Jesus was killed on the day and at the time as the Passover lambs, since for John Jesus himself is the lamb. That’s certainly my view, but I believe it’s what is widely held. The trial scene of John is widely seen as expanded in implausible ways (where Pilate serves as the messenger boy going back and forth between accuser and accused; I really don’t think we have an idea how long Jesus’ ministry lasted. But the Synoptics do have the more plausible explanation that it was the incident at the temple that led to Jesus’ death, rather than being the first in his ministry. Do you know Raymond Brown’s Anchor Bible Commentary on John. It is well worth reading on all these points.
Raymond Brown follows John on the day of Jesus death – at least in his commentary on “The Death of the Messiah”; page 1372 (its a big book). “the odds do not favor John’s having created the chronology to fit that theological insight”. In support of this, Brown refers to 1 Corinthian 5:7, which establishes an early link between Jesus death and the paschal lamb – which in turn implies John’s chronology.
Brown also appear to prefer (at page 557) John’s presentation of Jesus’s ministry as coming up to Jerusalem on occasions prior to the fatal Passover; as also John’s presentation, in chapter 11, of a ‘trial’ of Jesus in absentia as a meeting of the Sanhedrin at some time during Jesus’s final visit. Though Brown proposes this as representing the earliest pre-Gospel tradition, rather than necessarily being ‘historical’.
Brown prefers the Synoptic chronology of the Temple incident.
You need to look at his discussion of Jesus’ trial: he lays out how it is set up as a drama.. And yes, there are others as well who think that the earlier versions represent the modified format; in that case they were the ones changed for theological reasons (to make the Christian meal occur on the same time as the Passover meal). He, btw, loved writing big books!
Why cant i see the whole blog, instead just up to the point Jesus says very little about?
Thanks.
I don’t know. There was a problem that I corrected, but if you still can’t see it … I don’t know!
When you run across a problem like this, send Support a note and we’ll see what we can figure out.
Hi Bart, I interpret that the Synoptic Gospels and Paul imply that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three different persons, while John explicitly teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three different persons. Do you agree with me?
None of them actually uses the term “person” for them; that’s an important point. We might think of them as “persons” but then we have to define what we mean by personhood. And it may not be at all what they have in mind. The term “person” became very important in later theological controversies.
I understand various definitions of the term “person” and the controversies. I’ll get more specific. Paul and the Synoptic Gospels implied that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different entities or things, and the Synoptic Gospels describe a social relationship between the Father and Son. Do you agree with me?
Yup!
In John 17:20-23, the author of that work has Jesus asking the Father to grant ‘oneness’ to all of his followers. Would it be fair to say that the author of John intended ‘oneness’ to include things like doctrine, or was he probably intending this ‘oneness’ to be strictly mystical and metaphysical?
It’s hard to say, I’d say. But certainly doctrine and ideas and thoughts and views; these would surely be included if they are metaphysically “one” (they woudln’t have disagreements!)
It is certainly nonsense or unreasonable for us to talk about OT in Christianity because Chritian appologists intended to interconnect with NT by predetermined intent. Basically NT is distorted so much from original Jesus’ sayings. There are so many errors and discrepancies in terms of Christian history and Jewish backgrounds of Jesus. Jewish asserts that OT is their own history not inter-related with Christianity. But most Chritians think that OT is also part of Chrianity, presumably not knowing intentional connections or chains with OT by the then appologists. Modern christian pastors preach a sermon both NT and OT not understanding real Christian history. What do you think about OT in terms of Chritian history? Appologists just concerned about the dissemination of Gospel despite internal and external errors and discrepancies in NT. Am I right?
I’d say it’s a very complicated business and not easily generalized (or at least *accurately* generalized). I would say the Old Testament definitely *is* part of Christianity. It’s also part of Judaism and Islam and other things.