Loading...I’ve discussed how John differs strikingly from the Synoptics, especially considering the stories and sayings/discourses in each. I’ve also indicated that they differ strikingly even when they tell the same *kind* of story, but I haven’t been able to illustrate that yet. Here is one of my favorite examples. How does Jesus raise from the dead?
In Mark 5 Jesus raises an unnamed young girl, the daughter of Jairus, from the dead; in John 11 he raises a (young?) man from the dead, Lazarus, sister of Mary and Martha. How do these stories compare and contrast?
The following discussion is based on what I say in my textbook (The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 7th ed. Oxford University Press), expanded and edited a bit here.
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The differences between John and the Synoptics are particularly striking in stories that they have in common. You can see the differences yourself simply by taking any story of the Synoptics that is also told in John, and comparing the two accounts carefully. Try it! (Jesus baptism; his last evening with his disciples; his …. well, here I’ll show some). A thorough and detailed study of this phenomenon throughout the entire Gospel would reveal several fundamental differences. Here I will emphasize two of them, differences that affect a large number of the stories of Jesus’ deeds and words.
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Hi Bart, I was watching your youtube video about Mark having vendetta for the disciples. In there, you bring 3 scenarios of passion prediction: 1) chapter 8 – Peter calls him Messiah, but as soon as Jesus says about crucifiction, he calls peter Satan. 2) chapter 9 – disciples arguing who is greatest and Jesus telling them they don’t get it. 3) chapter 10 – 2 disciples’ favor so they sit at right/left in Jesus’s kingdom and again, Jesus tells them that they don’t get it. After looking into Matthew, we have exactly the same three scenarios(chapter 16, 17, 20). So, it’s NOT ONLY Mark having this vendetta, but Matthew has it as well. If so, why are we saying Mark is exceptional about this fact ? Are you saying that these 3 scenarios are copied from Mark by Matthew which makes Matthew non-independent source and that is why you think Matthew doesn’t have vendetta against disciples ? So only way you would say that Matthew has vendetta as well would be if Matthew had said things like this in (M) ? but then if Matthew didn’t have a vendetta, he would change these scenarios, why didn’t he ?
Matthew is getting these three scenes directly from Mark (as does Luke), so he is taking something over rather than coming up with it (as Mark may have done); and in other places he tones down Mark’s negative portrayal of the disciples. It is possible, of course, that he too had mixed feelings about them. But I don’t believe I affirmed that Mark actually had a vendetta, did I? I normally oint out that some scholars ahave argued that, and that this is part of the evidence they cite. I myself think Mark portrayed the disciples as uncomprehending, but that he wasn’t going for their jugular.disabledupes{c020221dd0775d4e8346b39f6da25425}disabledupes
Hello. Unrelated question, if that’s allowed.
I understand that Dale Allison is a scholar you admire and that you generally agree with his views on the historical Jesus. I’m curious—where do you and Allison disagree, if at all? Are you on the same page regarding what Jesus said, did, how he saw himself, and how others saw him?
Thank you for your time.
My sense is that Dale tends to be more cautious in what we can know.
“Indeed, unlike the Synoptics, Jesus does nothing to hide his abilities;
on the contrary, he performs miracles openly in order to demonstrate who he is.”
“In the Synoptic Gospels …his regular mode of instruction is the parable. In John, however, Jesus does not speak in parables;”
“Whereas Jesus scarcely ever talks about himself in the Synoptics, that is virtually all he talks about in John.”
It’s hard not to conclude the author of John knew the synoptics (or at least Mark) but he did not like the way Jesus was portrayed and decided to write a gospel of his own but repeating the overall story.
Interesting
John must not have liked the Synoptic account of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist (JTB) in the Jordan River so he rewrote the story such that JTB only witnessed Jesus’ baptism by the Holy Ghost. Moreover, John likely thought it was demeaning for Jesus to have been yanked around by the devil for forty days of temptation in the wilderness so he recounted instead that immediately after Jesus’ Holy Ghost baptism he went north to Galilee for a wedding in lieu of immediately going into the wilderness to be tempted. Such blatant contradictions and irreconcilable differences prove to my satisfaction these gospels were never written to be in harmony and are actually the impeached words of errant men instead of the inspired, inerrant and infallible words of some Omnipotent, Supreme Being we call God.
Indeed, he rewrote Jesus’s baptism by John; in fact, I have my doubts about the historicity of Jesus’s baptism.
We know that in Jesus’s time, John the Baptist was a more prominent figure than Jesus.
Since Mark’s gospel is earlier than John’s (I think it predates it by maybe half a century) and Christianity was far less widespread, it would not have been so unreasonable to fabricate a link between Jesus and John—just as later Christians invented a link between Paul and Seneca.
In response to RAhmed, Bart says:
“If John really was getting his material directly from Mark, why is it almost entirely different?”
I think the answer is “backward compatibility,” a concept used in IT but very useful for understanding the development of the gospels. John’s community knew Mark, but the author did not like how Jesus was portrayed, so he rewrote the story with roughly the same characters and events but with his own agenda.
In my own country, historians with different political agendas do the same with 19th-century historical figures, they tell the same old story, but from a different perspective.
Each successive Gospel author took his predecessors’ tales and added his own fictional embellishments. These are not independent sources. And where did the first gospel author get his material? It is anyone’s guess. I suggest he invented most of it, including the Empty Rock Tomb tale.
I agree, for the way I see the evidence John wanted his Jesus to be the Lamb of God who died on the same day the Passover lambs were sacrificed, i.e., on Nisan 14 or the Preparation for the Passover. The only problem this author could not solve was that, inasmuch as the historical Jesus was crucified, he expired from the loss of air (and its fatal effects) as opposed to the loss (shedding) of blood as was the case with the Passover lambs. All this author could do was concoct a story of a soldier thrusting a lance into Jesus’ side causing blood to flow but this was after Jesus had already died. We will likely never find a story of a Passover lamb dying from strangulation and then having its throat sliced before being offered. But if we examine the RSV of 1946 we will find a spurious footnote in Matthew’s Gospel which changes the facts and recounts a soldier thrusting a spear into Jesus’ side before he expired on the cross. Even a fifth grader can see how this author is painting his own (and much different) picture of Jesus. Bart, would you please comment?
The RSV footnote is not the editors trying to come up with something; they are reporting the fact that there are ancient manuscripts that have the spear thrust inserted at this place in Matthew. It almost certainly is a scribal corruption, scribes taking the verse from John and sticking it in Matthew as well.
I wish fifth graders *could* see these differences. It’s passing hard to make their parents and grandparents see them!
If you read the editor’s note as I did it refers to these *ancient manuscripts*. So of course I was not referring to the RSV editors as coming up with *something new*. But thanks anyway.
Ah, sorry. Then I’m not sure I understood your question!
“When the scribes and Pharisees approach him and ask him to do a “sign” (Matt. 11:38),”
Nitpick: This is Matthew 12:38, not 11.
Bart – sorry this is off topic but based on what I have gleaned from the podcast regarding the topic of your next book, I am curious to see it juxtaposed with an idea that is gaining currency in some Christian circles. First developed by your former debate opponent, James White, there is a new book coming out titled “The Sin of Empathy“ by Rigney. this seems to be an idea that is particularly rlevant to our current political environment, and would be fascinating to hear how it relates to what actually in the New Testament.
I’mnot familiar with it, but I would not be at all surprised if James White had no time for empathy, since he does strike me that way.
(1) If John is the only gospel mentioning Jesus had a beloved disciple. (2) If John is the only Gospel recounting Jesus raised a disciple (Lazarus) from the dead. (3) If John also tells us Jesus wept over Lazarus. (4) If in two places we find verses saying JESUS LOVED LAZARUS. (5) Then, why all the fuss about identifying the name of this beloved disciple? He name is hiding in plain sight and there is no one else to put in the lineup. John not only created this beloved disciple he also identified him. So, what’s left to discuss?
What’s left to discuss are the potential preoblems here! 🙂
1) Other people are said to be loved by Jesus in John
2. It is not said that he wept over Lazarus (it is famously debated what he was weepoing about.
3. Lazarus is not called a disciple and could not have been one of the disciples. If he was, it would be a little hard to understand why Jesus told him (with the others) that they should go to Judea because Lazarus had died (11:7-16)
While the synoptics are written decades after the supposed events and Jesus’ death, I am wondering if any contemporaneous writings by more objective people include descriptions of any miracles.
A similar theme: Do records exist of Roman or Jewish officials or historians documenting or investigating miraculous tales? I would think that gossip of someone being raised from the dead would be something authorities of the time would investigate. Similar for turning water to wine, or feeding thousands with but a few fish and pieces of bread, of healing lepers, etc.
Yes, miracle stories were prominent in Greek, Roman, and Jewish circles, often involving the same kinds of things Jesus were doing. No one “investigated” in the way we would imagine because virtually on one thought about miracles like we do, that htey are technically “impossible.” They didn’t have “laws of nature” (an Enlightenment development). Miracles were highly unusual things that could indeed happen, and the issue was never if they *could* happen but when and where they did, and through what supernatural power.
Simple enough: by the time the Gospel of John was written, everybody alive when Jesus was alive on earth was dead. For most Christians the Gospel of John confirms their faith, but for me the show off Jesus in John is a lot less appealing than the modest Jesus in the earlier Gospels. As Bart knows better than anybody, the faithful don’t want people to learn the historical Jesus for fear that the knowledge will destroy their faith, but for me it doesn’t. Why? I sometimes describe my faith as a mile deep and an inch wide, whereas with many others their faith is a mile wide and an inch deep.
What is your opinion of Paula Fredrickson’s “Ancient Christianities“ regarding the first 500 years of Christianity?
It’s terrific. I blurbed it: “An evocative account. Ancient Christianities is accessible, compelling, and characteristically brilliant, a boon to student, scholar, and general reader alike.”—Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Mr. Ehrman, I don’t know if you’re aware of the transcendental argument for God (“TAG”), but, what’s important for the issue at hand is that the TAG apologists 99% of the time preface it by emphasizing the laws of logic (identity, contradiction etc). Roughly, their line of thought: logic in an absolute concept, and our finite human minds cannot ground absolute concepts: only a transcendent divine being can provide the grounding for logic.
Maybe I’m not presenting the argument in the most accurate way, but the crucial thing is they appeal to the laws of logic for the validity of their argument for God’s existence. And, here, I should point out that we’re talking about the Christian God.
But isn’t it ridiculous to organize an argument around the validity of the laws of logic in order to prove the existence of the Christian God? Doesn’t the very dogma of the Trinity itself violate the laws of logic? Isn’t it contradictory to say there’s 1 God, and at the same time claim Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God? Or doesn’t the claim that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human collide with the law of excluded middle?
How do they know that our minds cannot ground absolute concepts. I’d say that is presupposing their conclusion — a bit ironic since they, rather than God, are doing it. Apart from that, I’d say that this view is ignorant of the history of ideas, since we can trace where our forms of logic came from, since they have not always been around. And yes, there are “illogical” parts of Christian theology but even more of modern scientific knowledge. Quantum physics is notoriously problemative by the standards of traditional logic. And a very good case can be made (and has been made) that science as we know it (starting with Newton) appeared only when scientists realized they could not apply their logic to their findings. See the brilliant book: The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science
by Michael Strevens
Thank you very much for your comment!
I went a bit back and forth with a presuppositionalist on a comment thread of a pertinent YouTube video the other day, and I stressed what you mentioned about quantum mechanics; namely that, according to the textbook version of it, at least, a particle can be in a superposition, that is in a multiple locations with varying probabilities – until you make a measurement and find it at a particular one with a 100% probability. I mean, a particle behaves like a wave, when you don’t measure/observe it, and as a particle when you do. A wave is spread, a particle is located at a certain location. How much does *that* comport to the laws of logic? I don’t know…
But, yeah, apart from that, I hadn’t thought of the contradiction you pointed out in the beginning – very acute observation. And thanks a lot for the book suggestion!! I’ll certainly check that out!
1. Do you think Jesus’s disciples actually saw [at least what they thought were] miracles, exorcisms, etc. and that is where these stories began? Or invented later? I’m sure you’ve answered this somewhere!
2. Off-topic but is it at all plausible that James commissioned a letter to be written in Greek (dictated it, paid for it with Jerusalem church funds?) for the purpose of sending it out to the Greek-speaking churches he did not have access to in the Gentile ‘world’? I know you think James is later and not written by “the” James, but is this type of scenario reasonable?
In Jesus Before the Gospels I argue they may well have been later traditions, not rooted in his lifetime, and try to explain how it could have happened.
James couldn’t dictate a letter in Greek bcause he would have spoken only Aramaic; but the book of James is a highly rhetorical form of Greek, not just typical low-level stuff that people would speak on the street. And we have no evidence from antiquity of people dictating a letter / treatise in one language and a secretary translating it. So it looks like it’s just someone claiming to be James
Hi Bart I’m a new member and big fan. I recently deconverted from an IFB church. Shame and guilt were big there and everything was a sin.
There are things I want to do like listen to rap or rock or watch a race movie but still have fear. Do you enjoy any of these things and have any anxiety towards them after leaving the church? If so how did you rationalize it. Thank you so much.
Yup, I’m a full participant in human culture, and have been for many, many decades, no whiff of guilt or shame. Most people who come from fundamentalist backgrounds find it takes a while to become a normal person with normal likes/dislikes without guilt (others throw themselves in with reckless abandon, which sometimes creates problems of its own). So enjoy life nad don’t feel bad about it!
I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about your work that motivates me to read it as often as I can. A word just came to mind that might sum it up: honesty.
Now that I’m being presented with the multitude of inconsistencies in the New Testament, I can’t help but feel like I’ve had the wool pulled over my eyes for my whole life. Maybe it’s my fault for not paying more carefully attention.
I just really, really am glad I won’t continue to be blissfully ignorant about all this for the rest of my life.
Thanks, Bart!
Thank you!!
Is it fair to say there were many “faith healers” during this period, and some claimed to be the messiah? Do you believe these were actual healings performed by Jesus, or was it the authors creativity to use figurative language with a touch of hyperbole to create a story and make a point?
In other words we have the teachings of Jesus, and we have the Torah to confirm and validate the ethical and moral content. Then we have what was said “about” Jesus. We have no way to verify the latter, so we are left to infer. Do you think these inferences that are more man’s theology is what contributes to the vast differences in interpretation?
One more question please. Do you believe Jesus said “He” is the only way to God, or that his teachings were the path to God?
No, we don’t know of faith healers at the time claming to be the messiah. We do know of people who could perform miracles of healing, and every now and then a messiah figure would turn up. But since the messiah was not expected to be a miracle worker, the combination doesn’t really occur. And no, I don’t think Jesus actually performed miracles and no I don’t think he ever talked about himself being the way to God. His message was that people needed to repent and turn their lives around in order to enter the comining kingdom, and he thought this message wsa true; but he also thought anyone could do it without ever hearing of him or his own preaching (as in the parable of teh sheep and the goats in Matthew 25)
There is another difference between the miracles in Mark and John that I find interesting. In Mark, a woman with some bleeding problem touches his clothes and is immediately cured. Jesus didn’t know it. It was without his intervention. He just felt a decrease in his power. Looks like his power to do miracles is like an electric charge that he loses when applied. In John, Jesus doesn’t even touch Lazarus. He just orders it. It is the power of the word. I wonder where this difference in the way to do miracles comes from. Is it the culture milieu of their audience? Can you elaborate, Dr. Ehrman?
Hey Bart, what are your thoughts about the recent work to re-historicize John’s Gospel led by Craig Bloomberg and Brant Pitre (among many many others)? Based on some of my own work, there is much more historical in the Fourth Gospel than you have given it credit for in your early 2000s publications. Your more recent work is not entirely connected to historicity (such as your stellar monographs on the Harrowing of Hades that were heavy influences in Chapter 7 of my recent book with Wipf and Stock “Grace Abounds”) so I don’t know if you have evolved on this view.
I don’t think they’re saying much we didn’t already know or have thought of. They stand in a long line of conservative Christiant scholars intent on finding historicity everywhere in the NT. I will say, though, that some outside that camp feel the same way, including Paula Fredriksen. I just don’t find it convincing.
I know John is typically seen as being independent and probably unacquainted with the Synoptics, but there there are two passages that make me wonder if that’s accurate. John 6:1-23 narrates two events in the exact same order as Mark 6:30-50 and even uses the same language in places. That is, the feeding of the five thousand and then walking on water. Although John’s retelling is narrated differently, he does have the same ideas and even some of the exact same words as Mark. For example, “five loaves and two fish” (John 6:9, Mark 6:38). That’s a very precise detail! And in the walking on water episode, both John and Mark say that there was strong wind, the disciples were “terrified”, and Jesus said “It is I. Don’t be afraid” (John 6:20, Mark 6:50). Again, very specific details and the same words here. So it certainly looks like John is lifting this sequence of events from Mark and rephrasing it, but retaining some specific details.
What is your view on why these similarities exist if John didn’t know the gospel of Mark?
My sense is that a lot of stories in wide circulation were told in similar sequence, e.g., the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple, so it may be that kind of thing; and obvioulsy the same story often had the same details in various retellings. But yes, if there were an *abundance* of these kinds of things it would be significant. The main problem is that you have to look really hard to find them. If John really was getting his material directly from Mark, why is it almost entirely different (think his teachings, the sequence of his life, the understandings of virtually everything — himself, his mission, the way of salvation, the significanece of his death) and why when they report the same things they are so massively different as a rule (a rule occsoinally broken); thin, e.g., the Trial before Pilate….