Lent thoughts 27

[mylodon]

Sorry for delay in posting - Uni run yesterday.

Carrying on the maybe controversial thoughts about the bible, I have a few issues with St John's gospel. Not the stories unique to it (wedding at Cana absolutely smacks of what Jesus would do) but the way it quotes His words. The Jesus of the other gospels gets right to the point, teaching in simple words and phrases, such as the classic "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's".

Some of the quotes in John have Jesus talking in long, convulted sentences, such as "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me". To me, the "voice" of Jesus sounds more like the voice or style of John (as seen in his epistles).

Is it me? Or does anybody else think the same?

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Have you read Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels? I had the privilege of taking an early Christian history class from her in college. In that, she talked about how the inclusion of the Gospel of John in the canon was probably a compromise to keep other gnostic gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, out of the canon. John is substantially different from the other gospels, especially in its christology. It represents a different strain of the early Christian church, but not one quite so radical as the gospels that were labeled heretical.

I think it's a little bit of a stretch to make a call about its "truth" based on the phrasing of Jesus's speech--all of the gospels were written at a remove from Jesus's actual life. The earliest, Mark, is believed to have been written about eighty years after his death. So all of the quotes of Jesus speaking are shaped at least somewhat by the gospel's authors and the intervening storytellers who passed on the oral tradition.

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that, or come across the theory. I do know that the supporters of John's gospel point to the very early fragments discovered in support of its authenticity.

I don't think I made myself plain (as usual *g*). I don't doubt the truth of what it tells, just the way it tells it. But all the gospels are touched by their authors' identities. Have you come across Personal Mark, which was a one man show going through Mark's gospel in the style of a news reporter?

[aglarien1.livejournal.com]

Very much so - I had another example of that in this morning's gospel. Two Greeks arrive to see Jesus, and ask Philip. Philip goes to Andrew and the two of them go to Jesus and tell him 2 Greeks and want to see you, is that okay? Jesus never answers them but goes off on a tangent about his hour arriving. Sometimes you have to hunt deep for the message John is trying to teach.

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's the feeling I get. I can imagine maybe Jesus saying that afterwards, but in my mind he's have been right in there, saying to the Greek guys "Come along, this is what it's all about!"