Summary John Chapter 5 Part 2: Content

The next major theme of the commentary dealt with Jesus’ “persecution” by “The Jews” and with the reasons for his execution. We have discussed the word ἐδίωκον numerous times in the past, most notably with Paul. All of my crib translations chose to render this as “persecute”, which is also the case in many other instances where the word is used. The standard meaning in pagan Greek is something more like “to pursue”, “to chase”, and so “to hunt”. Given this, one could plausibly maintain that I am splitting hairs here to justify my variant reading. To support my variance, I offer the REB (which is my paper copy) chose to render as “began to take action against Jesus”. To ignore other times the word is used, in this particular instance I believe my translation is especially appropriate. The gist of the story is that when the crowd found out that it was Jesus who had performed the healing on the Sabbath, they went after him. That is, they pursued him or chased him down in order to confront him. I’m not sure how one can read that as “they persecuted him” unless one takes “persecute” in a very broad sense; however, “began to take action” does work here, even if it’s not what could be considered as the plain meaning of the text. Since I persecuted this topic at some length in the commentary to the passage, we can let it rest there. Did I say persecuted? I think “pursued” would be more accurate.

Just a final point on this. The verb tense of “pursued” is the imperfect. This suggests either continuing action or past progressive. They were persecuting Jesus over time, or at that moment they were in the act of chasing Jesus. Of the two choices, the second makes more sense, but just barely, so it’s worth further consideration. Since this is the first time John used this word, it would seem that he may have the continuation of this action in mind. As such, the NRSVC may be on the right track when they render this as “they started to persecute” Jesus; however, I would prefer “the started their pursuit of Jesus”. The REB follows a similar line that I believe is more accurate, reading “they started to take action against Jesus”. The meaning would be that this was the beginning of the time when Temple authorities and/or certain segments of the mainstream Judaism felt that Jesus was no longer in the arc of mainstream belief. This is an enormously complex question, or topic. Ultimately it pulls us back to the reason(s) for Jesus being executed, and who the motive force behind the execution might be. Was it some aspect or coterie of “The Jews,” or was it the Romans?

For the moment, I believe we can sidestep the question of agency as being only tangentially relevant to the gospel narrative. Or, it might be more accurate to say that the gospel–and in particular, this chapter–and the cause or agent of Jesus’ execution are only thematically related. Or that this chapter is an explanation of where and how Jesus and Judaism parted ways. The main theme of the chapter began as a discussion of Jesus’ relationship with Jewish tradition of the Sabbath, but also in a broader sense of his relation with God, or to God. The discussion in the commentaries on each post grew long and fairly involved in most case, and I don’t want to recapitulate that here. John specifically states that the issue that set off the contention was Jesus referring to God as “my father”; in so doing, the opinion of the Jewish thinkers was that Jesus was making himself the equal of God. That is, Jesus was committing blasphemy.

As we conceded in the commentary, by the standards and definitions of the times, Jesus arguably was committing blasphemy. I think the key here, though, is that Jesus’ life and ministry represented a change in those standards; his followers understood this, but Jews didn’t, which led to their rejection of Jesus as the anointed one. Part of the reason for the rejection is was that the anointed one was never prophesied to be the equal of God, or to be divine in any sense of the word that we would accept. The messiah would be divine inasmuch as he was sent by God, but he was not to be related to God, as Jesus claims here. The “son of (a) god” is a thoroughly pagan concept, and Greek and Roman lore is replete with individuals–always men–who were the son of a god in the literal sense of the meaning, the offspring of a god (or goddess) and a mortal. These individuals were called “heroes” in a sense that the description was something of a technical term. Ordinary persons could not be considered a “hero” by performing a signal act of bravery; the term a priori implied that the individual had actual divine blood in his veins, the product of being the literal descendent of a god or goddess, even if their immediate parents were not gods. Achilles had a goddess for a mother, whereas Herakles had a divine father. Odysseus was the great-grandson of Hermes, so he qualifies for the designation. These men were heroes in that technical sense. But divine parentage did not make them divine, nor even immortal. In an awe-inspiring scene in the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus journeys down into Hades and there sees the shade of the glorious Achilles, carrying out his fate of eternal (?) existence in that gloomy lad of eternal shadow. Some heroes were eventually granted post-mortem immortality, like Herakles, but most did not attain this honor.

Now, in one sense, all humans were sons or daughters of God, but it was not considered polite to refer to YHWH as “father”. That was presumptuous; nay, that was blasphemous*, but that is what Jesus did. By thus point in the development of the Jesus movement, the idea of Jesus being a divine individual was widespread, if not quite universal. The group that produced the Didache may not have been convinced that Jesus was divine, but such aberrations were becoming ever more rare. Of course, at least several centuries would yet be required to work out the specific nature and implications of this divinity–if it has been settled. These sorts of debates on nature and implications becomes a subset of theology known as Christology. But I suspect that most of those coming to John’s gospel brought the accepted at least the possibility that Jesus was divine, even if they were not fully convinced. When considering the predisposition of those interested in exploring the idea of becoming a member of the nascent church, we need to bear in mind that the vast majority of new converts came from paganism rather than Judaism. In support of that statement is simple statistics: there were many, many more pagans than Jews in the Empire. Google just told me that 2.2% of the population of the US is Jewish, however defined. Given the number of thriving Jewish enclaves in major cities throughout the Empire, I would accept without much cavil that the percent in the Empire may have been, but probably wasn’t, twice that. Yes, there were enclaves in major cities, but there were huge stretches of hinterland where there the percentage was approaching zero. Recall that both “pagan” and “heathen” could be translated into English as “country bumpkin”. While of course there would be individual Jews, or even Jewish families that chose to turn to Christianity; there still are such individuals just as there are Christians who turn to Judaism. But statistically, the vast majority of converts, probably since the time of Matthew, if not Mark, had been pagans. This, I believe, is part of the reason why the idea of writing the teachings down seemed like a good idea to Mark, and why Matthew and Luke added a layer of pagan thought to their gospels: that was the intended audience, and they sought to use terms that pagans would understand. [This is a bold statement that requires substantiation; however, much of my argument for this can be found scattered throughout my commentaries on the Synoptics. At some point I hope to collect these scattered pieces and work them into a proper argument.]

At some point in the commentary I have put forth my “definitions” of each evangelist, the noun that describes the point of view of the author. Mark was a journalist, short and pithy. Matthew was a rabbi, attempting to tie Jesus to the Hebrew Scriptures. Luke was a novelist, who wanted to tell an entertaining story in the manner of Hellenistic “novels” current at the time; the idea that Acts in particular reads like such a “novel” is not original with me. John, finally, was a theologian. This last has a peculiar quirk to it: theology had not been invented in the First or early Second Centuries CE. It was created by several generations of Christian thinkers who sought to explain Jesus in terms that would be familiar to pagan philosophers. Of course, this attempt was not novel with Christians; Philo of Alexandria sought to do the same with Judaism, attempting to  re-case Judaism in terms of Plato. Thinkers such as Tertullian, Cyprian, and most famously Augustine tried to do the same with Christianity. The rules were still evolving, with the result that a number of these proto-theologians ended up crossing into heresy towards the end of their lives.

The gospel we are reading was a seminal work for the later thinkers. And this chapter is, I believe, a key part of John’s thinking. The commentaries I created for the sections of the chapter were long, involved, and rather detailed. Many of them were commentaries on three or four verses at a time. That happened because the amount of theology contained in those short passages far exceeded the brevity of the text covered. Trying to recapitulate that discussion point-by-point would require a monumental duplication of effort; re-inventing the wheel, as it were. But there are two main topics, or perhaps themes that stand out. The first is John’s attempt to reconcile both the absolute and the relative roles of Jesus and the father; the second is to tie Jesus firmly to the HS. In a very real sense, what John is doing here is inventing Christian theology, or at least he is laying the foundations for at least two of the major subjects that would engage Christian theologians and thinkers for the next, oh, let’s say two thousand+ years.

Of course, the relative positions of Jesus relative to the Father is a deeply fraught theological question. How does one posit a father and a son while remaining in the bounds of monotheism? How does one explain how the father and the son are simultaneously co-equal, co-aeval, and yet the father somehow has priority? It is a very fine line to walk, especially at a time when the concept of the Trinity was still a few centuries in the future. Yet this is exactly what John attempted to do here in Chapter 5. As we discussed, the result was something very close to Arianism if it did not cross the line. To be honest, I’m not sure it didn’t; the subtleties of the argument are not entirely clear to me. I have a tendency to come to a point where one is faced with a binary decision, but that is likely an intellectual failing on my part. OTOH, there is the analogy how I am both a son AND a father. Obviously, I had an earthly father and mother, so I am their son. Then I offsprang** my own children, so I became a father while still being a son. This actually works to some degree, but closer consideration reveals essentially that “the child is the father of the man” (William Wordsworth).

In the final analysis, I’m not sure John was successful here. While the logos was there in the beginning with the father, in this chapter the son is ultimately subordinate to the father. This is not meant as a slight to John or his talent; he recognized and understood the problem, that the existence of the son was either a lessening of the father who was no longer the sole deity, or that the son was not the equal of the father. This thorny topic has spawned debate for centuries, and, truth be told, it has never been truly solved on philosophical grounds. The Catholic teaching is that it’s a mystery, something that is beyond the human capacity for reason and logic. That is certainly a reasonable, if unsatisfying, answer. The later addition of the Holy Spirit, the reification and/or personification of the emanation of God, neither helps nor hinders the discussion. If there can be two separate persons in one God (which is the Catholic formulation, which is the only one I am familiar with), there is no reason there cannot be three. Since John was not successful, he left the door open for the later development of Arianism, which was the most dangerous threat to what became orthodox Christianity.

It’s interesting to note that Arianism did not crop up until after Constantine legalized Christianity as a religion after the Edict of Milan in 313, a year after his victory at the Milvian Bridge. Arius set forth his position in 319, and all hell broke loose after that. Many of the Germanic invaders in the later Fourth and then the Fifth Centuries converted to Arian Christianity. It has been suggested that it was more sensible from a pagan perspective that was accustomed to divine hierarchies, but that is another discussion. The most serious and sustained threat came from the Visigothic kingdom of Spain, which comprised the entire Iberian Peninsula. The Visigoths (the West Goths) had moved into the peninsula in the Fourth Century and then established an independent kingdom which came to be one of the stronger successor-states after the Empire collapsed in the west. Gregory of Tours was an Orthodox bishop in Gaul, which was beginning its transition to becoming France about this time. While the Visigoths passed through to Spain, the Franks settled down in what became France and bequeathed their name to the nascent country. In contrast to the Visigoths, the Franks under their King Clovis (which is the origin of the name “Louis”) converted to orthodox Christianity. Gregory wrote History of the Franks in the 7th Century. The work is an invaluable piece of historical writing that sheds light on what would otherwise have been a “dark age” in Western historiography. It is also something of a propaganda piece for orthodox Christianity as led by the Bishop of Rome who had, more or less, become the Pope, at least in name. In his work Gregory excoriates the heretics in Spain pretty much every time he has cause to mention them. Given its seat among the powerful Visigoths, the final vestiges of Arianism were not dispelled until the Moorish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century; IOW, it was Islam that finally put an ed to the heresy. Arianism had a very long and successful run, and it was a legitimate threat to orthodoxy for those several centuries. It is important to realize that, as the Adoptionist heresy had its roots in Mark, Arianism had roots in John. In both cases the heretics could present a case for their teaching based on Scripture.

The other part of this chapter concerns Jesus’ teachings about his relationship to the Hebrew Scriptures. The argument as presented by John is a bit convoluted, involving both the Baptist and Moses. The more recent of the had attested to Jesus; John repeats the standard assertion found in the Synoptics that John came as Jesus’ forerunner and messenger, his herald. In Greek, the both the last two words would be rendered as aggelos, transliterated into Latin as angelos. This idea, of course, is a commonplace in Christianity, resting on the famous passage from Isaiah. The problem, of course, is that the text really doesn’t support this in any meaningful way. Yes, we have the conversations between the Baptist and those coming to be baptized, but even most of those don’t have much to do with Jesus if you think about it. We are told the Baptist preached repentance of sins, and Josephus corroborates this; however, this is the standard message of all the prophets in the HS, so this is not exactly something unique to the Baptist. The “brood of vipers” (my favorite rendering) accusation is of a piece with any prophet preaching repentance. Yes, as reported in the NT, there are aspects of John’s preaching that do refer to Jesus, but these aspects are attested nowhere else. Most of them are a bit vague: another is coming, I am not fit to loosen his sandals, and he asked the brood of vipers who had warned them of the coming wrath? In this gospel the Evangelist takes it one step further and has the Baptist proclaim Jesus as the Lamb of God in front of countless witnesses.

Reading through this, I got the distinct impression that the Evangelist was trying to settle the question of the Baptist in some sort of conclusive manner, to put it to rest once and for all. I found it extremely curious that Jesus said that those questioning him had once found John appealing, but later turned on him. This made me wonder if the lines of the Baptist incident had grown a tad hazy, to the point that the Evangelist could mould the issue to suit his needs. Luke and the kinship between Jesus and John was perhaps a decade old by now; had it become imbedded in the Jesus story? Or had it been largely overlooked? One thing that needs to be pointed out when trying to answer such a question is that, while the Evangelist may have been fully conscious of his predecessors, this does not mean that the general populace would have been aware of them. In fact, there is a good chance that John was writing for people unfamiliar with the Synoptics; after all, converts come from those unaware rather from those who already know the story. The Didache indicates that preachers did travel between communities, but that’s not to say the members of the community visited traveled very much. Yes, some travel occurred; that is one of the remarkable things about the Pax Romana: it allowed and fostered trade and travel over even large distances. This is not to say that everyone traveled, but we cannot assume that people didn’t. The point here is that such wandering preachers could easily have carried a copy of one of the gospels with them, a copy which then would be available to someone literate, a necessary condition if one wished to write a gospel. This is all by way of saying that someone like John the Evangelist would have conceived the idea of writing a new gospel to suit the needs and background of an audience in the Jerusalem area. As with Luke “correcting” the imbalances Matthew created between his gospel and that of Mark, so it may be that John wanted to settle some of the issues and questions that faced the early Church. The relation between the Baptist and Jesus was one of these. The Evangelist went out of his way to “demonstrate” conclusively that the Baptist was subordinate to, and a function of the mission of Jesus; that is, without Jesus, there would have been no John the Baptist.

The rest of the chapter is Jesus taking his audience to task for both their lack of understanding which leads to a lack of faith. It more or less connects to the Baptist, in the sense that they didn’t believe John, so it’s perhaps not surprising that they don’t believe Moses, either. Trust me, I’m aware that the preceding sentences don’t entirely make sense. The final result is that Jesus feels that “the Jews” have not accepted him, which is certainly true enough, or, it would have been by the time the Evangelist wrote this gospel; however, these words were supposedly spoken in the 30s, in Jesus’ lifetime. Was it entirely appropriate for Jesus to say that he had been rejected, when, according to the story thus far, Jesus had only begun his ministry? Not really. Jesus’ had only begun teaching, so it would not have been entirely clear what the eventual outcome was going to be. This is a great example of how to identify an anachronism in the narrative: does it make sense in the time it was supposed to take place? This is the criterion I used to argue that the stories about Jews no longer being in the front of the line for salvation probably don’t date to Jesus’ lifetime; rather, these are stories created later to explain why there were more pagans than Jews in the various ekklesiai scattered about. And so here: the Evangelist is writing in the 2nd Century that “the Jews” had rejected Jesus almost a century before the Evangelist had set these words to paper.

This is part of the discourse Jesus provides on Moses. Calling it a discussion would not be an accurate description, since Jesus does all of the talking. As for the topic, it is another commonplace in Christian doctrine that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecies made in the HS. We are all familiar with the quote first found in Mark alluded to above about the Baptist being the Voice in the Wilderness, and the is the aggelos sent to clear the path for “you”. Mark cites this as Isaiah, but a little closer checking show that the first line of the quote, “I send my aggelos” is actually from Malichi 3:1; however, this is often read as a quote or paraphrase of Isaiah in the Book of Malachi. The other familiar quote is the prophecy of the “young girl/maiden/virgin” who will give birth, which is also from Isaiah. The status of the person predicted depends rather on the language in which one reads the passage. But there are others. My hard-copy of the Greek NT very conveniently provides marginal cites for all passages that refer to, or correlate with, passages elsewhere throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Christian NT. Most of the cites are from the latter. What is interesting is that the quote in Mark 1:2 is one of the very few that identifies the source of the quote. We talked about the way that none of the evangelists cite each other, or any of the other authors in the NT; as a result, the degree to which they quote each other is a complete mystery. The whole Q thing would have been avoided if Luke had prefaced a few passages with, “as the evangelist Matthew said…” But he didn’t, nor did the other two; Mark can be excused as being the first. Anyway, as it turns out, the authors of the NT do quote or paraphrase passages in the HS, but they generally neglect to inform us that they are doing so, this reference being an exception; there may be others, but not many.

As a case in point, we have the rest of the discussion in this chapter. Jesus accuses the audience of disbelieving Moses; this is interesting, and it potentially undercuts my contention that John was writing his gospel for pagans rather than Jews. Of course we understand the point without difficulty: Jesus is referring to the passages in the Pentateuch, which tradition says was written by Moses, to the coming messiah. But would new members of the community who had recently been pagans grasp that without further clarification? It seems unlikely, but then if the gospel was read aloud there was probably opportunity for the reader to elaborate and answer questions. This was more or less the process in Jewish synagogues as described in Luke 4:16 ff. Is that what would have happened here? There just doesn’t seem to be enough information for a new convert, so I’m not entirely comfortable with the motivation for this. It’s perhaps not unreasonable that the Evangelist was perhaps closer to his Jewish roots than we might have suspected. This might also explain some of the bitterness he seems to express towards “The Jews”: he was disappointed that they had not come to understand the significance of Jesus the way he had.

Or is there another explanation? Let’s recall that in the ancient world, novelty was not a good thing; people respected a tradition of long standing, a pedigree of antiquity. Judaism professed such a pedigree, even if it did not stretch back so far as we have long believe. However, we are only now beginning to come to grips with a Judaism that perhaps does not predate the Babylonian captivity, so it would be a bit much to expect people at the time to have understood this. Judaism could boast a large body of scripture that stretched back to a time before Egypt, to the very beginning of the world. These oldest parts of Jewish history, recorded in the Pentateuch, had been written by Moses. So by bringing Moses into the discussion as John does here, he is presenting this pedigree of antiquity to the audience, John is reminding–if not informing them for the first time–his audience that Jesus is the culmination of that very long stretch of history and tradition. Jesus had been predicted by Moses, and now he had appeared; the majority of Jews, however, did not see, or did not accept this heritage of Jesus. John, however, did. So perhaps he was somewhat bitter about this lack of perception on their part.

*As an aside, it occurs to me that the Jewish conception of blasphemy is not altogether different from the Greek concept of ubris. Both stem from the idea of a human forgetting his/her place by overstepping the boundaries of what is human ad crossing over into the milieu that is reserved for the divine. 

**To coin a phrase?

Summary John Chapter 5, Part 1: Sources

This first part is dedicated to a discussion source material. The topic is especially pertinent to John because he introduces a number of new elements, and new wrinkles such as location, into his gospel.

The subject here is Jesus.

Early in the chapter we have indications that Jesus was native to Jerusalem rather than Galilee. Late in the chapter we have indications of how late this gospel was written.

The chapter opened with a healing story, a story that included several noteworthy and interesting bits for consideration. First and least is the location, inside or beside the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. In and of itself, this is a “nice to know” sort of detail, but it tied in with something back in Chapter 4 that makes this even more significant. In 4:43, John implies that Jesus homeland was not Galilee, but Judea–the Greater Jerusalem Metropolitan Area. So far in this gospel Jesus has spent the majority of his time in Judea, most specifically Jerusalem, and now we get this very specific reference to the location where the healing miracle occurred. Anyone with any background in ancient history will be quick to point out that this shift in locational focus implies–at the very least–that the source was from that location. That is, the author of The Gospel of John was probably from Jerusalem.

Now there are implications here. Of course, the other three gospels told us that John was from Galilee, from Caphernaum to be precise so this posits an either/or situation in which either the three Synoptics or John is wrong about the provenance of the author. Were I on the other side of my statement, the first thing I would point out is that, well, by 100 CE, the author had possibly been living in Jerusalem for some 60 years or more. After all, Paul situations “John” as a pillar of the Jerusalem Ekkelsia back in the 50s. We can reasonably infer that by the time Paul had met John, the latter had been there for some time, so 60 years is hardly out of the question. This is true, and John’s familiarity with Jerusalem could readily and plausibly be explained by the length of residence there, which could have easily been two or three times as long as he had lived in Galilee. Of course, there is a “but”. The healing is of a paralytic, and perhaps the most significant detail of the story matches the healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof back in Mark Chapter 2. I refer to Jesus’ command to “pick up your bed and walk”. The rest of the story is different, but that detail remains.

During the commentary on this section, we discussed how John sort of breaks pericopes in the Synoptics in to component parts and then reassembles the components into stories that are recognizably derived from, or based upon stories we encountered in the Synoptics. We also noted that elements taken from different stories in the Synoptics were here combined into this one story. From Mark 2 we have Jesus telling the paralytic to pick up his bed/litter and walk combined with consternation amongst the onlookers that Jesus did this on the Sabbath. In Mark, that element is found in the story of Jesus healing the man with the withered hand. That John chose to combine elements from different stories can be described as a redactional tendency in John; such tendencies are very important among biblical scholars. Offhand, I don’t know whether this is a topic given consideration when arguments are put forth for John’s in/dependence from or on the Synoptics. From what I can tell, the majority of scholars grant John’s dependence, but there are those who would have it otherwise. But many scholars also hedge; they grant John’s knowledge of the Synoptics but posit special “J” material. Again, of course there is material in John that is absent from the  others, but is it material, or is it a source, or sources?

There is a difference. “Material” can mean any snippet of information, which by definition either came from a source or John invented it himself. Few, I suspect, would accept the latter, so it had to come from somewhere, which is to say, from a source. Now here is where we run into problems. There is a tendency to play a bit fast and loose with what qualifies as a “source”. In its broadest terms, a source is anything that John did not invent himself. That has to be granted. But the sleight of hand occurs from  the attempt to stretch the term “source” to mean a tradition that actually dates back to Jesus. This, as we have seen from the “arguments” for Q; from a doctrinal point of view, it is imperative that we be able to trace material back to Jesus, at least to some degree. Of course, this is precisely where we run into problems.

We have to start with the following givens: Paul doesn’t cite Jesus; he makes allusions to things Jesus said, like the words consecrating the bread and wine, but not much beyond that. Paul seems either unaware or unconcerned (although the two are not mutually exclusive) with any of Jesus’ words. And yet, some twenty or thirty years after Paul, Mark writes a gospel that includes some things that Jesus supposedly said. The words, like the rest of the account, are sparse and short. And then, another generation after Mark comes Matthew; the latter has long, very long passages of the things Jesus said including such integral texts and concepts as the Sermon on the Mount. Luke comes along maybe ten years after that; he has stuff Matthew said, but he also has new stuff, like the Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son. Then, ten or fifteen years after Luke, John comes along and adds a whole bunch of even newer stuff. Why didn’t Mark know about any of this? Paul we can explain by saying that he wasn’t concerned; all that mattered to him was the Resurrection. But what about Mark, who was supposedly one of Peter’s followers. Surely, Peter would have been aware of what Jesus said, no?

With all that in mind, let’s consider what John has provided here with his version of the paralytic. What it appears John has done is taken elements from two (more?) different synoptic stories and fitted them together, along with some local color, and presented them as a hybrid new/old story. And only five chapters in, we’ve seen John do much the same thing: takes pieces of old stuff and wrap it in a new box and Shazam! a new story.

Or not.

What we are witnessing here with John is the inclusion of new stuff, new material that was unknown to the Synoptic writers. Why were they unaware of this material? Why did they have the paralytic haunting the Sheep Pool by the gate, rather than lowered through the roof of Jesus’ house as Mark says in 2:1? The answer is surprisingly simple. It’s because what John is reporting is the story of Jesus as people in Jerusalem told the story. Or stories. The different ekklesiai were still, well, different to some degree. So they had their own special stories, like the Widow of Nan or Zaccheus in Jericho. Oral traditions are very plastic things. Yes, we have all been told about the Balkan bards who told very long stories word-for-word on different occasions. Except that’s not quite accurate. Each time a story is told, it necessarily changes. It simply has to do so. No one can reproduce verbatim over time. If you’ve ever memorized say 10-20 lines of…Shakespeare (Guilty!) or The Canterbury Tales (guilty again!), over time if you go back to the original you will most likely notice that a few words have slipped here and there. The longer the piece, the more slippage you get. Or, if you’ve ever been in a play and performed it three or four times, you will become well aware that each performance is own unique; it never comes out exactly the same each time. And then remember that everyone started from exactly the same definitive text.

What we witness here, and elsewhere in John, is the result of four or more generations of Jesus tales that were told over and over again, and that spread to different locales and were heard by different people and interpreted in different ways. As the Good News spread, it became absorbed by and adapted to different ethnic groups with different perspectives on and different backgrounds in religion. The tales changed, if ever so slightly, each time they were told. Then something novel happened. One person noticed that the stories were perhaps no longer pristine, were not the way he remembered them from the first time. In order to arrest this drift, this someone had the novel idea of writing the story down as he remembered it. Homer forever fixed The Iliad into, more or less, what we have today. At some point, more or less, it stopped changing. So Mark told the story that he knew. After that, the legend continued to be told, and arguably, it was told more often in the ten years after Mark than it had changed in the ten years before Mark. Of course, we don’t–can’t–know that, but when we look at the story Matthew told, rapid change seems likely. In the ten or fifteen years between the first two gospels, a lot of new material was added. So much so that Matthew decided he’d better write this stuff down.

Riddle me this: Why does someone write a gospel? Because they believe they have something to add to the story. And so Matthew and then Luke both felt this way, that they had new things to add to the story. Doubtless each incorporated things that were peculiar to the areas where they lived, hence the M and L material. Some of what each wrote may have been things they heard, some of what they wrote they may easily have created on their own. Remember: verbatim repetition of someone’s words wasn’t necessarily the goal; it was good enough to set down the sort of thing that the person would have said. This standard was good enough for Thucydides, after all, and he was very concerned with getting it correct.

Then, perhaps another generation after Luke we have John, whom I would argue spent most of his life in Jerusalem. He knew about the other gospels, and here we have pretty good proof of this. We have pieces from two separate pericopes that John reassembled and situated in Jerusalem rather than Caphernaum. Now we need to ask ourselves whether John had heard the story the way he wrote it here, or whether he took the old stories and updated them for a Jerusalem audience? Again, we will never have a real answer. Of course, one can suggest that John is telling a unique story, one that he witnessed himself. That has been suggested by some commentators as an explanation for the material unique to John: as one of Jesus’ innermost circle, he was privy to events the others weren’t. Even a moment’s further reflection, however, should make us aware that Peter was also part of this circle; and since Peter was Mark’s source, Mark should have several such episodes wherein Mark took advantage of Peter’s insider status. If we notice, it appears that none of the disciples are with Jesus during the events described. Are we to infer that maybe this was just Jesus and John? Perhaps. So the upshot is that we still have no explanation for why the material is unique to John; where were the other disciples that they did not repeat this?

In fact, have we even heard mention of the names of any of the so-called apostles, aside from their calling? A quick look shows that Simon Peter appears in Chapter 1, at his calling, when he was recruited not by Jesus, but as an afterthought, brought in by Andrew. Peter then disappears until Chapter 6, once early in Verse 8, and once late, in Verse 68. He then disappears again until Chapter 13, the beginning of the Passion Narrative. This is even more interesting: in the Gospel of John, the Apostle John is never mentioned. All uses of “John” in the fourth gospel refer to the Baptist. There are a few places where the form Jona(h) appears, which is a variant spelling of John. But these refer mostly to the father of Simon Peter, who is referred to as Simon bar Jonah, Simon the son of Jonah. But wait,, there’s more: The name of James (Iakob in Greek) does not appear at all in John’s gospel. So the brothers James and John, the Sons of Thunder, have been written out of the story completely. Doesn’t this imply that the author of John was not the “Apostle” John, brother of James? Is there any way to get around that? I can see the author John not mentioning Apostle John out of modesty, not wanting to put himself in the story. But the other Son of Thunder became known as James the Greater; that is, he came to be seen as more important than James the Just. St James the Greater is a significant figure in Christian/Catholic hagiography, his name attached to dozens of churches. It appears there at least three in Rhode Island, Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran. So how is it that he has completely vanished from the Gospel of John?

While this does not help answer our initial question of whether the author recorded what came to him, or whether he made it up out of pieces, it does provide some insight into the development of the early Church. In some ways, this Jerusalem-centric attitude points to a group that had moved off onto it’s own tangent. In so doing, it developed its own stories. I have been operating under the assumption that this gospel was written ca. 100 CE; however, even a minimal amount of research has shown that this date is far from set. The earliest references from Christian writers to what might be this gospel date to the middle of the 2nd Century, and the certain references date to the end of the 2nd Century. It appears that the earliest possible reference comes from the Naassenoi, the first group that Hippolytus Romanus says called themselves Gnostics. This reference can be no earlier than ca 120 CE. This is all by way of saying that the author of this gospel was almost certainly not John the Apostle. Any date after 100 puts this authorship into the realm of physical impossibility, and there is nothing (as far as I know) that suggests a date earlier than 120.

IOW, we have been completely unmoored from any anchorage to the time of the NT. These words were not written by a participant; even the testimony of an eyewitness as cited during the Passion is highly suspect. After all, how much younger was this eyewitness than one of the immediate circle of disciples? Ten years may be possible, but then we get to the testimony of a child, or perhaps an adolescent; ergo, we would have to start questioning the reliability of such a witness. The math works for a child, or grandchild of a witness, but then we’re getting hearsay and not direct testimony, as if the latter can be trusted after 70 years. Regardless, at least a generation, if not two, must be interposed between Matthew/Luke and John. IOW, this is plenty of time for the Jerusalem group to have developed its own set of stories. As it happens, I’ve started reading Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths. By happenstance, this turns out to be highly relevant and informative. The Greeks did not have a sacred text, a canonical work that told The Correct Story of a given myth. There was Homer and Hesiod, but even they were not sacrosanct in the way the Bible is to the Judeo-Christian tradition. So the value of Graves’ book is that it gives you the cites for different versions, or different details regarding a particular story about a particular god, goddess, etc. And some of these versions, or wrinkles, are from sources that are a thousand years distant from each other. The result is that you can see how the myths evolve and change to meet different times and places. It’s also interesting to note that many of the goddesses, in particular, have “functions” that overlap with other goddesses. There are several patrons of childbirth, or of vegetation, or fertility. Yes, particular deities came to dominate in certain roles such as Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of “love”, which is a bowdlerization for fertility, which of course refers to procreation. And yet Atemis/Diana, the supposedly chaste and virginal Goddess of the Hunt became Diana of the Ephesians, a fertility goddess with a hundred breasts and also known as Magna Mater, the Great Mother. I bring this up because, in reality, we are dealing with not-dissimilar circumstances. Stories get told, then retold. But here’s an even better example: I happened to read about the recent “discovery” of a text written in the 1480s that records a comedy routine performed at an alehouse by a traveling minstrel. The author of the text happened to be literate. He heard the performance and then went home and wrote it down and it has survived. How many people heard Jesus preach who then went home and wrote down what Jesus had said? The answer is non-zero, but it’s pretty darn small.

So these were oral traditions, but the words of Jesus were decidedly not recorded by professional bards or storytellers who work diligently to fix the tale in memory. They were heard by quite ordinary people, and ordinary people back then couldn’t write. Barring the very occasional exception, the evangelists had very little to work with other than what they had been told by other people who had been told. As the stories spread local color was added to make the stories more relatable for a local audience. This is particularly true of John’s gospel. We have not yet addressed my question of whether John recorded or created his own material. The most probably answer is “yes”, he did both. A welter of oral tales require pruning and shaping in order to be made workable, so all of the evangelists had to do both to some degree or another. We should not hold the notion that John somehow preserved information that was faithfully transmitted by word of mouth for over 60 or 70 or even 80 years. This should be especially obvious in this gospel.

John Chapter 5:37-47

We continue with Jesus’ discourse. It is a very long set-piece of Jesus teaching his audience (and us), the direct speech having begun back in Verse 19. If you recall, the audience are “the Jews” who pursued him after he healed the paralytic. “The Jews” were upset/incensed that Jesus had done this on the Sabbath. This is a great example of the standard criticism of Judaism that I heard repeatedly in my Catholic school: more concerned about the letter of the law–that the healing occurred on the Sabbath–rather than being happy that the paralytic was able to rejoin the community and become a productive member of society.

Text

37 καὶ ὁ πέμψας με πατὴρ ἐκεῖνος μεμαρτύρηκεν περὶ ἐμοῦ. οὔτε φωνὴν αὐτοῦ πώποτε ἀκηκόατε οὔτε εἶδος αὐτοῦ ἑωράκατε,

38 καὶ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔχετε ἐν ὑμῖν μένοντα, ὅτι ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ἐκεῖνος τούτῳ ὑμεῖς οὐ πιστεύετε.

39 ἐραυνᾶτε τὰς γραφάς, ὅτι ὑμεῖς δοκεῖτε ἐν αὐταῖς ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἔχειν: καὶ ἐκεῖναί εἰσιν αἱ μαρτυροῦσαι περὶ ἐμοῦ:

40 καὶ οὐ θέλετε ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχητε.

(Jesus continues to speak:) “And my father who sent me has provided evidence about me. Neither his voice has anyone heard, nor seen his image, (38) and his logos*/word you do not have remaining amongst you, (so) that the one he sent you do not believe. (39) You search the scriptures so that you seem to have eternal life in them; but they are the evidences about me; (40) and you do not wish to come to me in order that you may have eternal life.

The logic is a bit convoluted here. The father, Jesus said, has provided evidence for Jesus, but the audience has never heard the father’s voice, etc, and do not believe the one who was sent because they had never heard the father’s voice. Rather, the audience scours scripture looking for eternal life but they won’t come to Jesus to find the life even though the scriptures are the witness for Jesus that the father provided. I guess that makes sense, despite the certain level of circularity in the reasoning. Essentially, Jesus is putting the blame on “the Jews” for missing the boat. The evidence is directly before their eyes, exactly where they were looking, but their blindness prevents them seeing because the blindness is willful to a large extent. There is none so blind as one who will not see. Interesting to note how that aphorism was internalized and then brought forth as the understood basis for what Jesus is saying. Here is where the interconnection between the gospels, and John’s dependence on the Synoptics becomes most obvious. There is too much focus on the individual words, the verb tenses, the kai/de decisions, and the redactional choices that are impossible to discern, and not nearly enough on the contents, and intent, of the words themselves. What was the message of the words? What did they convey? What was the sense of the words and was that sense carried through in subsequent gospels? Here I think they were. Now, let’s be honest: there are probably two centuries of commentary of which I’m not aware which may indeed address a point such as this, or this very point; however, given the sorry state of the Q debate, somehow I doubt that. As with the chimera of
“NT Greek”, so NT scholarship has become a bit too closed and self-referential. Or not. Change my mind. 

It should be pointed out that, in Verse 40, Jesus has set up some sort of either/or circumstance, even if it’s only rhetorical: They are willing to search scriptures which are about Jesus, but they are not willing to come to Jesus. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, but my gut reaction is that this is John’s way of telling us that “the Jews” have written off Jesus; that is, they are not willing to consider him as a legitimate messenger from God. That’s not quite the nuance that I want, but it gets some of it across. They are not interested in hearing what Jesus says because they don’t believe that Jesus offers a real hope of eternal life. Whether this life comes about because Jesus is the Messiah who has come to return Israel to past political glory thereby ushering in Heaven on earth, or whether it was a spiritual afterlife as Christians came to understand the concept. Actually, I would consider this latter to be anachronistic, because I don’t believe Christians at this time believed in the sort of spiritual afterlife that became the standard of Christian doctrine as we know it. As proof of this I offer the Apocalypse of John; in the end, the desired result is that Heaven occurs here on earth as the New Jerusalem descends from the sky. [ Give or take; now is neither the time nor the place to have that discussion of the End of Time. ]     

37 et, qui misit me, Pater, ipse testimonium perhibuit de me. Neque vocem eius umquam audistis neque speciem eius vidistis;
38 et verbum eius non habetis in vobis manens, quia, quem misit ille, huic vos non creditis.
39 Scrutamini Scripturas, quia vos putatis in ipsis vitam aeternam habere; et illae sunt, quae testimonium perhibent de me.
40 Et non vultis venire ad me, ut vitam habeatis.

41 Δόξαν παρὰ ἀνθρώπων οὐ λαμβάνω,

42 ἀλλὰ ἔγνωκα ὑμᾶς ὅτι τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔχετε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς.

43 ἐγὼ ἐλήλυθα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ πατρός μου καὶ οὐ λαμβάνετέ με: ἐὰν ἄλλος ἔλθῃ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τῷ ἰδίῳ, ἐκεῖνον λήμψεσθε.

44 πῶς δύνασθε ὑμεῖς πιστεῦσαι, δόξαν παρὰ ἀλλήλων λαμβάνοντες καὶ τὴν δόξαν τὴν παρὰ τοῦ μόνου θεοῦ οὐ ζητεῖτε;

45 μὴ δοκεῖτε ὅτι ἐγὼ κατηγορήσω ὑμῶν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα: ἔστιν ὁ κατηγορῶν ὑμῶν Μωϋσῆς, εἰς ὃν ὑμεῖς ἠλπίκατε.

46 εἰ γὰρ ἐπιστεύετε Μωϋσεῖ, ἐπιστεύετε ἂν ἐμοί, περὶ γὰρ ἐμοῦ ἐκεῖνος ἔγραψεν.

47 εἰ δὲ τοῖς ἐκείνου γράμμασιν οὐ πιστεύετε, πῶς τοῖς ἐμοῖς ῥήμασιν πιστεύσετε;

“Glory from men I do not accept, (42) but I have known you that the love of God you do not have amongst yourselves. (43) I have come in the name of my father and you do not accept me; if another should come in his own name, him you will accept. (43) How are you able to have believed, accepting the glory from men and you do not seek the glory from the only God? (45) For do not expect that I will redeem you before the father; for your redeemer was Moses, towards whom you have hoped. (46) For if you have believed in Moses, you have believed in me, for I am he about whim Moses wrote. (47) And if by his writing you do not believe, how will you believe my words?”

The phrase “glory from men” is straight out of Paul. This is not to say its use proves that John was familiar with Paul; the only real proof of that would be for John to cite Paul by name. This never happens. It occurs to me that it never happens in any of the gospels; the gospel authors quote the HS but never one of the other gospels or epistles. Please, let me know if I’m wrong about this. Why is that? Greek historians dating back to Herodotus cited the works of predecessors, if only to disparage them. In a more contemporary setting, Livy, who was an older contemporary of Jesus, cites numerous older sources and also conducts a degree of source criticism, weighing which of the variant stories is more likely to be correct. But each gospel is written as if in a vacuum, which has allowed the rank speculation about Q to roll merrily along, virtually unchecked, for a century and more. Seriously, though, why did the gospel authors choose to write as if in vacuum-like conditions? The simplest answer, of course, is that they were completely unaware of each other; and while some will argue that Matthew wrote first and Mark wrote and abridged version of the “First Gospel”, to the best of my knowledge no one suggests that Mark and Matthew–and Luke–were utterly unaware of each other. Even so, despite the wholesale appropriation–which truly comes close to plagiarism–neither Matthew nor Luke acknowledge Mark. This is a point that should be raised and addressed by those who claim Luke was not aware of Matthew: Matthew does not mention Mark, so why is it significant that Luke does not credit Matthew, or Mark? I’m not sure I’ve encountered anyone actually suggesting Luke’s independence because he doesn’t specifically cite Matthew, but it’s another of those questions that should be asked so that some kind of explanation can be debated. Assuming that at least some of the evangelists were aware of previous gospels, not making reference has to be a stylistic choice, or at least a deliberate choice on some level, but why?

I do believe this may be an important, or at least significant, question.

The comment about the audience accepting others, someone other than Jesus, is interesting. Supposedly, this gospel was written around the turn of the century, so this is likely not a reference to the bar Kochba rebellion of the early 130s. Of course, we have to remember that NT scholars are desperate to push all the relevant texts back as far as possible; for example, trying to date the Gospel of Thomas to the 50s, which is flat-out ludicrous. This need is aspirational, and one text is pushed back in time to allow others–e.g. the Didache?–to be pushed back as well. This removes what it otherwise a very uncomfortable lapse of time between Jesus’ life and the writings purporting to record his life. There is a pretty solid consensus that Paul’s genuine letters date to the 50s, the later 50s, and there is no good reason to doubt that chronology. Frankly, I’m not aware of the arguments pro-and-con for the dates of the other books of the NT. The lion’s share of such arguments in support of most dates derive from references to the books in the writings of the early Christian writers who can be more or less firmly dated, with maybe a decade’s leeway. But then, I am unaware of the reliability of the date for Clement, Bishop of Rome, whom Tertullian and Ireneaeus date to the very end of the First Century. IOW, the earliest evidence comes from a century or more after he supposedly died. Hmmm. But, this date makes it–just–possible to state that he was consecrated by no less than Peter. Yes, that Peter. Color me skeptical. I have read chunks of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and much of what I read raised all sorts of red flags about its accuracy. So, once again, to no one’s surprise (I’m sure) at this point, I am very leery about any dates put forward in support of any document dealing with the early church. 

Regardless, my impulse is to doubt that John here refers to bar Kochba. That doubt, however, may be the result of passively accepting a date for the gospel of circa 100. That date may just be a convenience derived from simple arithmetic: what is the latest date that can be sustained that allows us to accept the author as John the Apostle? If John the Apostle was , say 20 when Jesus died in 33, he would, have been 87 years old in 100 CE. It’s not impossible. Regardless, IMO this most likely refers to incidents described by Josephus, who catalogues a series of Messiah-Wannabes who appeared in the First Century. These various leaders appeared, gathered a certain following, disrupted the affairs of Judea to varying degrees (depending on the particular leader), were crushed by the authorities, possibly Jewish, more probably Roman, and were executed in horrible fashion as was the Roman custom. Barabbas of Passion Narrative fame was a participant in one of these “rebellions”. Thus John can say that members of the audience would turn to these pretenders for salvation because some Jews had followed these wannabe Messiahs. The important thing to be taken from this is that the salvation was of this world; it was to be a political restoration of the historic Kingdom of Israel, the maximalist territorial claims of the ancient Israelite state, from Dan to Beersheeba or something such. It was an article of (Catholic) faith that Jesus was rejected by his co-religionists because he did not come as a political figure. (Crikey, I would love, no LOVE to delve into the pre-history of Christianity, into the time between Jesus’ death and Paul to get some sense of what the Jerusalem Ekklesia, under the leadership of James, brother of Jesus, believed and taught about their famous founder, but that would be largely an exercise in futility given the pretty-much absolute lack of any source material for the period. We have Galatians and a brief mention in Josephus and not much else.) However, given the number of rebellions that did occur from the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE to bar Kochba in ca 130 CE, John’s assessment here is not unreasonable. Collections of Jews did believe in and follow self-proclaimed anointed ones.

At the end of the segment Jesus begins to argue a bit like Socrates. The audience revers Moses, who was credited with writing the Pentateuch, which Jesus says was about him. But they don’t believe Moses as is proven by their rejection of him, so why should/would they believe him? Rather a thorny question. Of course, it turns on the two premises that 1) taken as given that the HS is about Jesus; and 2) that it’s apparent, or easily deduced that this is the message of the HS. Of course, the message of the coming anointed one is hardly controversial, so I suppose Premise #2 rests on how obvious it is that Jesus is that anointed one. Naturally the author of this gospel believes it’s blindingly obvious and, I think, is rather askance that not all Jews, or even perhaps most Jews did not make the connexion and accept Jesus as the Messiah. Incidentally, in this attitude is the sort of clue that betrays the age of the document. This is not the “Messianic secret” of Mark, wherein Jesus hid his identity so it’s understandable, to some extent, why more Jews did not discover Jesus’ identity. I would argue that the author here sees no excuse. He is writing at a time when the identity of Jesus has been an “established fact” in the Christian community for several decades, a couple of generations have been born, raised, and died in the Christian faith. Of course this is an interpretation of the words on my part, one subject to debate; however, once again, these are the sorts of discussions that I find missing from the debates on the dating of the various books. The Gospel of Thomas is the most egregious example of this: the content portrays a developed Gnostic attitude that is anachronistic for the mid-First Century. OTOH, I would accept an earlier date for the Didache, at least until I considered the matter more diligently. It is hardly a revelation that John was written later; after all, the traditional date is 100 CE, so if that is pushed back to 110 or 120, there is no great adjustment required. As we have stated, the date of 100 has been argued backwards: how late can we push it and still claim authorship by one of Jesus’s immediate disciples? That, rather than any external links or references are the basis for the date; yes, this is oversimplifying but the general argument holds. And yes, there are the references from people like Clement the Bishop of Rome, but how well fixed are his dates? The sad truth is that our sources for Jesus are at least a couple of generations after Jesus died; giving authorship to this gospel as John the disciple is yet another attempt to establish source material that is contemporary to Jesus, or at least to those who walked with Jesus. This is why Q is so necessary; without it, how can we be sure that Jesus actually delivered the Sermon on the Mount? The answer is: not very.

41 Gloriam ab hominibus non accipio,

42 sed cognovi vos, quia dilectionem Dei non habetis in vobis.

43 Ego veni in nomine Patris mei, et non accipitis me; si alius venerit in nomine suo, illum accipietis.

44 Quomodo potestis vos credere, qui gloriam ab invicem accipitis, et gloriam, quae a solo est Deo, non quaeritis?
45 Nolite putare quia ego accusaturus sim vos apud Patrem; est qui accuset vos: Moyses, in quo vos speratis.
46 Si enim crederetis Moysi, crederetis forsitan et mihi; de me enim ille scripsit.
47 Si autem illius litteris non creditis, quomodo meis verbis credetis?”.

John Chapter 5:23-35

We are talking, more or less, about end-of-the-world things.

 Text

25 ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἔρχεται ὥρα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν ὅτε οἱ νεκροὶ ἀκούσουσιν τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ οἱ ἀκούσαντες ζήσουσιν.

26 ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ἔχει ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, οὕτως καὶ τῷ υἱῷ ἔδωκεν ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ:

27 καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ κρίσιν ποιεῖν, ὅτι υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, that the hour comes and is now that the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those hearing will live. (26) For as the father has life in himself, and gave to the son of man to have in himself; (27) and he (father) gave him (son) the authority to make judgement, since/because/lit = that he is the son of man.

The first part of Verse 25 catches one’s attention. “The hour comes and is now…” The temporal anomaly continues since we hear the dead “will hear” and “will live”. So we have present and future more or less conflated into…what? An eternal now? When all that is to be already is? And, by extension, can we throw in the past, since we often run across the present tense used to describe something that has already happened? And just for consistency, the Latin maintains the tenses. I point this out because we should realize that these are the sorts of questions that centuries of monk and theologians (often the same thing until the Franciscans and Dominicans came along) debated about and sometimes excommunicated each other over the implications. Obviously, the true problem with this arises in “the hour comes and is now”; presumably, this hasn’t happened, the dead, indeed, will hear at some undetermined time to come. So how are we to understand “comes/is now”? I suspect that the current state, the “is now” is due to Jesus having incarnated in the “present” moment. His coming has initiated the events that will create the conditions where the Dead will hear, and will live. A thousand pardons if this was obvious or elementary; it’s news to me so I have to treat it as such.

Verse 26 provides another Christological problem. It would seem that the son has life in himself (only?) because the father gave it to the son. That is pretty clearly Arianism; the (lesser) son depends on the gift of the (greater) father. Of course everyone is free to put their own interpretation on these words; I point this out in order to explain why these heresies developed. Arius did not make stuff up from whole cloth. One can argue, and The Church subsequently did, that Arius’ interpretation was wrong, but I think it matters to see where these ideas originated. Arianism was probably the most dire threat to what-became-orthodoxy. It may be suggested that the Muslim conquest of Spain was a significant factor in the eventual triumph of orthodoxy. If one reads Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks (the Penguin Classics translation of the title) one reads a lot about the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain. The Visigoths were one branch of the Goth people who conquered Spain in the 5th Century and settled in as rulers. They were Christian, but Arian Christian, and Gregory has many bitter words to say about them because of this. The Visigothic Kingdom was a powerful political entity, so it posed a very real threat to the orthodox Frankish Kingdom that took hold in what is not France at the straddle point between 5th & 6th Centuries CE.  While John was hyper-conscious about positing Jesus as the co-equal of God the Father in 1:1 ff, things like Verse 26 pop up throughout the narrative. I doubt he was purposely trying to undercut his theological position he took in 1:1, so we have to look elsewhere to explain why statements like Verse 26 occur.

Personally, my suspicion is that the ideas behind Verse 26, of tiered deities was simply ingrained in the thought of the time. The ideas were just there, existing as buried assumptions that were never consciously challenged and so were never exorcised from the thought of the age. These have a way of holding on. One such notion in our world is the concept of describing car engines in terms of horsepower. In reading about Neoplatonist and Hermetic philosophers even through the 4th Century CE we run into many, many examples of the idea of a hierarchy of divine entities. On top is God; beneath is the creator-entity called the Demiurge; then entities of various names, like angels or daimons or demons, down to humans, ending with dead matter. So yes, the attitude of hierarchy was very deeply ingrained.

Verse 27 comes very close to slipping into circular thinking, the true meaning of Begging the Question, or at least of being a tautology. The first is using A to prove B, but then when asking how we know A is correct, we use B to prove A. Tautology is simply A = A. The son of man judges because he is the son of man. I am very curious to know how many times John uses the expression “son of man”. Well, ask, and Google will tell you. It occurs 30 times in Matthew, 14 times in Mark, 25 times in Luke., and 12 times in John. So it occurs absolutely the least in John, but if we also account for the brevity of Mark, then the instances per words is much higher in Mark than it is in John by about XXX%. Note that it does not occur in Paul’s letters. Now here is where someone with a more traditional biblical studies background would be a big help, as such a scholar would (presumably) have some insight about why the term held on as long as it did. It was ambiguous (at best) in Mark; it would make sense that it would fade away, as it did to some extent, but it did not disappear.  Presumably, this means that the term meant something to the contemporaries of the evangelists, but the question is what? This has not exactly been settled. Presumably, John used it, albeit sparingly, out of tradition. It was there, it was attached to Jesus, he used it because everyone else did. Now, this, to me, raises questions about the interplay between the gospels: who used whom?  We don’t have a firm sense of what the term actually meant. That this is true, but yet it spans all four gospels would, IMO, indicate that each evangelist was aware of all of his predecessors. Otherwise, we might expect it to occur in, well, Paul, no? Surely, that’s not a ridiculous notion. And yet it doesn’t. So was this a term that was invented in the interim? Or by Mark? And the use was continued because the other guy(s) used it?

 25 Amen, amen dico vobis: Venit hora, et nunc est, quando mortui audient vocem Filii Dei et, qui audierint, vivent.

26 Sicut enim Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic dedit et Filio vitam habere in semetipso;

27 et potestatem dedit ei iudicium facere, quia Filius hominis est.

 28 μὴ θαυμάζετε τοῦτο, ὅτι ἔρχεται ὥρα ἐν ἧ πάντες οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις ἀκούσουσιν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ

29 καὶ ἐκπορεύσονται, οἱ τὰ ἀγαθὰ ποιήσαντες εἰς ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς, οἱ δὲ τὰ φαῦλα πράξαντες εἰς ἀνάστασιν κρίσεως.

“Do not marvel at this, because the hour comes in which all those in the memories will hear his voice, (29) and they will go out, those doing good things (moving) towards the resurrection of life, but those doing bad things (moving) towards the resurrection of judgement.

“In the memories” is a literal translation. The meaning is pretty obvious, so it doesn’t really suffer from a more fluent and fluid translation.

What this means is that all those who remain in our memories despite having shuffled off this mortal coil will soon be hearing the voice telling them to rise and face one’s destiny. Actually, “destiny” is a bad word, implying that the result was fixed from the start; this will not become an issue until the late 4th/early 5th Century when St Augustine used God’s preordained choice to determine who was saved. Rather than facing a destiny, it’s perhaps more accurate–if a tad silly–to think of it as being given your itinerary. Do you board the platform taking you to life, or to judgement, which equals condemnation. Note that we are still not told what the effect of judgement is; does it involve a lake of fire, as it does in Apocalypse? One almost gets the sense that it’s simply a matter of not-life. This is usually called “death”, and that is precisely what it was called a few verses ago. The inference to be drawn is that the guilty are not punished with hell-fire and brimstone (another name for sulphur, BTW), but rather with non-existence. Again, this would make sense if we are working within a framework of a resurrection of the body and an eternal existence of an earthly paradise. Because remember, always remember, that the Pharisees–among them Paul–believed in a resurrection of the body. This makes most sense in the milieu of a heaven-on-earth. Even in Apocalypse, the New Jerusalem comes down from the sky; we’ll discuss it more thoroughly when we get there, but this seems to refer to the coming of Heaven to the physical world. After all, our idea of an immortal soul in a mortal body is a Greek idea, not a Jewish/Hebrew one.

We touched on the idea of reward/punishment above. These are meted out based on merits. Now, what is significant here is that the reward/punishment seems to be based on individual merit. While this is certainly not a foreign concept to us, it was again not entirely within the confines of mainstream Judaism. Indeed, the idea that Jesus was not going to reconstitute the Kingdom of Israel, or even the Kingdom of Judah is part of the reason why Jesus was not accepted by most Jews. They were expecting a different kind of Messiah, and they were going to wait for that Messiah rather than accept the innovation represented by Jesus. Once again, the idea of individual salvation moves us into the realm of non-Jewish thought. Was it Greek? Yes, but the real origin was Egypt, where the idea of facing judgement after death dates back a very long time. One’s heart was put on a scale with a feather, and woe to the one whose heart weighed more.

28 Nolite mirari hoc, quia venit hora, in qua omnes, qui in monumentis sunt, audient vocem eius;

29 et procedent, qui bona fecerunt, in resurrectionem vitae, qui vero mala egerunt, in resurrectionem iudicii.

30 Οὐ δύναμαι ἐγὼ ποιεῖν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐδέν: καθὼς ἀκούω κρίνω, καὶ ἡ κρίσις ἡ ἐμὴ δικαία ἐστίν, ὅτι οὐ ζητῶ τὸ θέλημα τὸ ἐμὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με.

31 ἐὰν ἐγὼ μαρτυρῶ περὶ ἐμαυτοῦ, ἡ μαρτυρία μου οὐκ ἔστιν ἀληθής:

32 ἄλλος ἐστὶν ὁ μαρτυρῶν περὶ ἐμοῦ, καὶ οἶδα ὅτι ἀληθής ἐστιν ἡ μαρτυρία ἣν μαρτυρεῖ περὶ ἐμοῦ.

“I am not able to do nothing (double negative = emphasis) upon/on my own. I judge according (to what) I hear, and the judgement which is my justice that I seek not the will of mine but the will of the one sending me. (31) For if I witness regarding my own (consideration/behalf), I do not judge truly; (32) but the one witnessing about me, and I know that the/this judgement is true rather than the judgement made on my own.

Once again Jesus casts himself in a subordinate position. We have to read this in the conditions it was written, and not at the tail-end of 2000 years of exegesis and argument and after the distillation of the concept of the Trinity. I am most familiar with Mediaeval Theology which of course stems from, but also diverges from that of the Patristic thinkers. The Middle Ages are when a lot of the brute, heavy lifting was done, where the basic principles of deity and Christology and Salvation Theory were worked out. There was a constant progression towards the elevation of God as Power and Authority and the mystical union that was the Trinity. Those ideas did not exist when John was writing. He was writing in a pagan world, where pagan ideas of deity predominated. The Platonists and some of the other philosophical schools were moving towards a unitary deity, whether in parallel to, or perhaps were leading the way towards where Christian thought would move as the Empire collapsed in the West; this was where Philo of Alexandria was headed, towards the merging of Jewish and Platonic thought. However the bulk of pagan thinking, among the vast majority of the population was still thinking in terms of hierarchical gods. This concept was evident in Gnostic thinkers more or less contemporary with John, for whom the description of the multiple emanations from the Supreme God was extremely was a significant aspect of their writing (at least, according to their Christian detractors), and which was still prevalent in the thought of Iamblichus in the 3rd Century, two hundred years after John. There is a very high probability that the average person hearing the words written here would understand them in terms of such a hierarchy of deities, and would understand Jesus to be in some sense, but some very real sense, to be subordinate to God the Father. Now it can be argued, or at least suggested, that Jews would not see Jesus as a subordinate god, but as a blasphemer since there was only one God. But then we have to ask if John or any of the Christian writers at the turn of the century were even writing for Jews any longer. I would suggest they, John included, were writing for a pagan audience. The disdain John seems to have for “the Jews” seems proof enough. Now John was certainly writing from his Jewish background and perspective, but he was writing for pagans. We can legitimately ask whether John could remove himself from his Jewish background to write for pagans as a pagan would, but I think the answer has to be “no”. But at the same time we have to ask whether John had no idea of how pagan theology worked, whether he failed to grasp the pagan viewpoint of a divine hierarchy, but again the answer would have to be “no”. The pagan world was all around, it was inescapable with its myriad temples to all sorts of ranked gods that even included semi-human Heroes; based on 1:1, John was an intelligent and perceptive person who understood theology and the need to make sure that the audience understood that Jesus was actually co-equal (more or less) to God the Father. This is, IMO, pretty good evidence that he must have known how paganism worked. And yet, we get this near-contradiction of this segment with 1:1. How is that possible?   

The answer to this last question is to be found in the statement that the pagan world was all around. It was ubiquitous and pervasive, pervading all aspects of life outside the Jewish Temple or a synagogue. It was inescapable. It was the buried assumption that could not be put aside because it was buried so deep that no one thought about it; it was just there. And let’s also remember that even Jews at this time were dabbling in the realm of lesser divinities–demons, in a word, but also angels–so the concept of different tiers of divine entities was, truly, everywhere. It colored and affected one’s view of the entire kosmos. John simply could not escape it, and this perspective led to the sentiments we have been dealing with in the past few segments. From here we have to understand that the question then becomes: Did John mean it? Did he intend to write about Jesus as if he were a subordinate deity? Or is this just an artifact laid down by the language and ambient thought-world? I would suspect it’s the latter. It’s pretty much what happens; but then how should we take it? In a case like this, I would suggest that more weight should be given to the considered statements, such as the opening verses of Chapter 1. He thought about those, he deliberated on those words, on that logos about the Logos, whereas descriptions such as we have here don’t reflect his innermost thoughts. So to the question, “Was John an Arian?” The answer is “No”. He just sounded like one when he wasn’t completely focused. And on this topic we have to remember the people Jesus was addressing, and the reason he was speaking to them. He was attempting to cut off their accusations of blasphemy. Unfortunately, that took him into the dangerous ground of what would become Arianism. Thus it is in Verse 32 that he gives the credit for veracity to the one who sent him, rather than taking it onto his own authority.

30 Non possum ego a meipso facere quidquam; sicut audio, iudico, et iudicium meum iustum est, quia non quaero voluntatem meam, sed voluntatem eius, qui misit me.

31 Si ego testimonium perhibeo de meipso, testimonium meum non est verum;

32 alius est, qui testimonium perhibet de me, et scio quia verum est testimonium, quod perhibet de me.

John Chapter 5:4-17

We left with the lame, the ill, the blind and others who gathered in the portico around the Sheep Pool, or perhaps the Sheep Gate.

We left with Jesus with the lame, the ill, the blind, and others afflicted who gathered in the portico around the Sheep Pool, or perhaps the Sheep Gate.

4 ἦν

5 δέ τις ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖ τριάκοντα [καὶ] ὀκτὼ ἔτη ἔχων ἐν τῇ ἀσθενείᾳ αὐτοῦ:

6 τοῦτον ἰδὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς κατακείμενον, καὶ γνοὺς ὅτι πολὺν ἤδη χρόνον ἔχει, λέγει αὐτῷ, Θέλεις ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι;

7 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ ὁ ἀσθενῶν, Κύριε, ἄνθρωπον οὐκ ἔχω ἵνα ὅταν ταραχθῇ τὸ ὕδωρ βάλῃ με εἰς τὴν κολυμβήθραν: ἐν ᾧ δὲ ἔρχομαι ἐγὼ ἄλλος πρὸ ἐμοῦ καταβαίνει.

8 λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἔγειρε ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ περιπάτει.

9 καὶ εὐθέως ἐγένετο ὑγιὴς ὁ ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ἦρεν τὸν κράβαττον αὐτοῦ καὶ περιεπάτει. *)=ην δὲ σάββατον ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ.

There was (5) a certain man having 38 years in his infirmity (he had been sick 38 years). (6) Jesus seeing this man, and having known that the time (that he had been sick) had indeed been long, he (Jesus) said to him (the man), “Do you wish to become well?” (7) The sick one answered to him (Jesus), “Lord, I do not have a man in order that he might have stirred the water that he may have cast me into the pool; in which I came for another to lower me into the pool.”  (8) Jesus said to him, “Take up your litter and walk about”. (9) And immediately he became healthy, and he took up his litter and walked about. And it was the Sabbath on that day. 

Editor’s note: some mss traditions do not have a Verse 4 in Chapter 5.

Let’s stop to make sure we’re all on the same page here. The process described is a bit strange to us. Basically, the Sheep Pool was considered therapeutic; the goal was to put the infirm person into the water so that it may effect a cure, or at least an amelioration, of the condition. Frankly, I do not quite get the part about the “stirred water”; from what I can gather we should think of something akin to a whirlpool bath, or a jacuzzi. What I am unclear about is whether the water bubbled naturally, or if some action were required to induce the bubbling water. In any case, the analogy to the whirlpool bath is clear; this sort of aqueous immersion has definite therapeutic properties, so the scenario is within the realm of natural healing. 

The point of these lines is otherwise. First, Jesus knows the man has been afflicted for a very long time. He knows this because he is Jesus; that’s to be expected. However, compare this to the Bleeding Woman as told in Mark. In that case, not only did Jesus not know how long she had been plagued, he was not even aware that she was in the crowd and seeking the aid of a healer: read, “wonder-worker”. Now, since the pool was a gathering point for the ill, and since there were presumably others taking the waters, it took no great feat of deduction to grasp that the man was ill. Also, if the man had been afflicted for 38 years, he was not a young man, so deducting that he had been ill for a long time was also not all that difficult. The crux of the matter is that the man was alone, as he tells Jesus. This means he has neither family nor a friend who is willing or able to help him. As such, he becomes a Tantalus-figure, a person for whom what is desired is there before them, but they are unable to reach out and take it. Tantalus was a figure of Greek myth whose punishment in Hades was to be plagued by ravenous hunger and parching thirst. He stoop up to his waist in water, and laden fruit trees hung above his head. But when he reached for the fruit, they were raised up out of his grasp. When he stooped to get a drink, the water receded, on into eternity. BTW, a lockable liquor cabinet with glass doors is called a tantalus; the desired object can be seen, but not touched.

BTW, the fact that these individuals gathered for immersion therapy kind of shoots down Sheep Gate. Or so it would seem at first glance. After further review, this is perhaps not necessarily so. A pool next to the Sheep Gate could, or would become known as the “pool by Sheep Gate” which would inevitably be shortened to “sheep pool”. This sort of detail may be interesting, but how does it effect the likelihood of the historicity here? Does it enhance the chance? Or, is this one of those “convincing” details that accrue to stories that make them sound more factual, when in fact they are essentially fabricated? Whoever the author of this gospel was, we have already seen plenty of indication that he was from the Jerusalem area. On the one hand, this more or less precluded him from being the brother of James the Greater, one of the Sons of Thunder, from Galilee. Yes, it’s possible that he became familiar with Jerusalem later in life, but a fellow Galilean who had been with Jesus from the outset would not slip up and refer to Jerusalem as Jesus’ home town. I grew up in the midwest, and have now lived in NE more than half my life, but I am not, and never will be a New Englander. On the other hand, the author being a resident of the Greater Jerusalem Metropolitan Area probably knew whether or not the Sheep Pool was still there, and so he could use this inside information to throw out bits of authentic local color to lend credence to the story. Basically, I am saying that the author likely made up the detail about the Sheep Pool.

Fictional or not, as we shall see, this is a rather clever adaptation of the story from Mark & c of the paralyzed man who had been lowered through the roof. We’ll get to that after the next section.

9 καὶ εὐθέως ἐγένετο ὑγιὴς ὁ ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ἦρεν τὸν κράβαττον αὐτοῦ καὶ περιεπάτει. *)=ην δὲ σάββατον ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ.

10 ἔλεγον οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι τῷ τεθεραπευμένῳ, Σάββατόν ἐστιν, καὶ οὐκ ἔξεστίν σοι ἆραι τὸν κράβαττόν σου.

11 ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς, Ὁ ποιήσας με ὑγιῆ ἐκεῖνός μοι εἶπεν, *)=αρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ περιπάτει.

12 ἠρώτησαν αὐτόν, Τίς ἐστιν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ εἰπών σοι, *)=αρον καὶ περιπάτει;

13 ὁ δὲ ἰαθεὶς οὐκ ᾔδει τίς ἐστιν, ὁ γὰρ Ἰησοῦς ἐξένευσεν ὄχλου ὄντος ἐν τῷ τόπῳ.

14 μετὰ ταῦτα εὑρίσκει αὐτὸν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ἴδε ὑγιὴς γέγονας: μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε, ἵνα μὴ χεῖρόν σοί τι γένηται.

15 ἀπῆλθεν ὁ ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἀνήγγειλεν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ ποιήσας αὐτὸν ὑγιῆ.

16 καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐδίωκον οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι τὸν Ἰησοῦν, ὅτι ταῦτα ἐποίει ἐν σαββάτῳ.

17 ὁ δὲ [Ἰησοῦς] ἀπεκρίνατο αὐτοῖς, Ὁ πατήρ μου ἕως ἄρτι ἐργάζεται, κἀγὼ ἐργάζομαι.

(9) And immediately he became healthy, and he took up his litter and walked about. And it was the Sabbath on that day. (10) So the Jews around the one who had been healed said, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not allowed to you to lift up your litter. (11) But he answered to them, “The one having made me well told me to ‘pick up my litter and walk about’.” (12) They asked him, “Who is this man who said to you, ‘Pick up your litter and walk about’?” (13) The one healed did not see who it was, for Jesus left the crowd being in that place. (14) After this Jesus found him in the Temple and said to him, “I see you are healed. Do not sin any longer, in order that you do not become worse (i.e., relapse). (15) The man went away and announced to the Jews that Jesus was the one who made him well. (16) And because of this the Jews pursued Jesus, that (because) he had done this on the Sabbath. (17) But Jesus answered them, “My father has labored until now, and I (now) labor”. 

Let’s work from the bottom up. Once again we encounter the word diōkō (ἐδίωκον). We have run across this a few times, mostly in Paul. The word is unfailingly rendered as “persecute” by NT translators. And pretty much only by NT translators. The word means “to chase”, or “to follow”, or “to hunt”. Way down at the bottom of the Liddell & Scott definition is “to persecute”, citing Ev. Jo. & Ev Matt, but nary a pagan author. Then, if you peek down at the Latin, you will see persequebantur. Surely, you might think, this means “to persecute”. Except it doesn’t. It means pretty much what the Greek word means. And BTW, both include “to prosecute”. Here we have a terrific example of “NT Greek”. What that appears to mean is that biblical scholars have decided that a word has a certain meaning even if there are no examples of a pagan author using it in that manner. You see, the definition of a word is determined by how it is used. Different citations are collected and then compared, and common ground is found. All of the uses of diōkō have in common the idea of pursuit in some way, shape, or form. To hunt, to chase (militarily, a big deal in ancient warfare), to pursue, to prosecute, but not to persecute. This is why I rendered that “the Jews” pursued–as in followed–Jesus whereas all the translations chose to render it as “persecuted”. However, note the context. The way that I see this happening is that “the Jews” take umbrage and go looking for Jesus. That is, they followed after him. And when they caught up to him, Jesus responded. It makes much less sense for Jesus to answer them when they were persecuting him. So, once again, beware lexica of “NT Greek”.

Now from the top down, the words after the *) symbol in Verses 11 & 12 indicate some confusion among mss traditions. Most editions include the words provided.

I think I have decided to put John’s phrase “The Jews” in quotations as a matter of course. The term is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is vagueness. The Jews? The Jews? THE Jews? All of the Jews? (Obviously not, but that is not outright wrong, at least in the sense that John perhaps is trying to imply it was all “the Jews”.) Some of the Jews? Most likely, but that is not what the text says.

And let’s note what John has done with this story. As he did in the previous chapter with the royal official, John combines a couple of stories from the Synoptics into a single event. This story has elements of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof, and the man with the withered hand in Mark, whom Jesus healed on the Sabbath, thereby causing consternation among onlookers who happened to be Jewish. They were in the synagogue after all. There may be others, but I want to leave the full discussion on that for the next section, when we complete the story. But for the moment I’d like to ask whether John’s compression of several Synoptic pericopes makes it more–or less–likely that John was familiar with the Synoptics, and to what degree. Again, I raise the question because numerous scholars–or at least JD Crossan–try to convince that John was largely, if perhaps not entirely–independent of the Synoptics. His reasons for suggesting this escape me, to no small degree because I found them much less than convincing. As with Q, the grounds on which the “debate” is held are extremely favorable to one side of the argument, pro-independence in the case of John. Considerations such as I’m raising never seem to make it into the debate, just as similar circumstances in Luke never arise during the debate on Q. Now, I must admit that the idea of John’s independence is what amounts to a minority opinion and one of fairly late date; that is, John’s dependence on the Synoptics has been the general consensus that was not really challenged until the last few decades, dating back perhaps no more than twenty years. My point in bringing this up is to help ensure that John’s independence remains a minority, or even a fringe, opinion. The desire is to make the gospels more reliable as historical sources thereby increasing the odds that more, if not most, of the events in the NT are actually factual. For the most part this assumption is made in any case, but I think that most scholars have a nagging suspicion that a lot of the events related in the NT are not factual in any meaningful sense of the word. As a result, intelligent people like JD Crossan buy into ideas that they shouldn’t, and if the ideas were related to another field he would not accept.

We will deal with the Jews following Jesus in the next post.

9 Et statim sanus factus est homo et sustulit grabatum suum et ambulabat. Erat autem sabbatum in illo die.
10 Dicebant ergo Iudaei illi, qui sanatus fuerat: “Sabbatum est, et non licet tibi tollere grabatum tuum”.
11 Ille autem respondit eis: “Qui me fecit sanum, ille mihi dixit: “Tolle grabatum tuum et ambula” ”.
12 Interrogaverunt eum: “Quis est ille homo, qui dixit tibi: “Tolle et ambula”?”.
13 Is autem, qui sanus fuerat effectus, nesciebat quis esset; Iesus enim declinavit a turba constituta in loco.
14 Postea invenit eum Iesus in templo et dixit illi: “Ecce sanus factus es; iam noli peccare, ne deterius tibi aliquid contingat”.
15 Abiit ille homo et nuntiavit Iudaeis quia Iesus esset, qui fecit eum sanum.
16 Et propterea persequebantur Iudaei Iesum, quia haec faciebat in sabbato.

17 Iesus autem respondit eis: “Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor”.

Summary Luke Chapter 5

This chapter was a bit of a catch-all, with no central theme. We had the calling of the first disciples, a couple of miraculous healings together with some grumbling, and we ended up with some fasting and parables. The parables were of the new wine in old skins, and the patch of new cloth on an old garment. I really haven’t go into the very obvious symbolism of the new/old distinction, largely because it was so obvious I’ve missed it until now. Or, because I’m just not attuned to nuance like this. Whichever. The point being that all three gospels set this aphorism into more or less the same context: the comparison of Jesus’ disciples to those of John. In the latter case, John stood squarely and solidly within the context of Jewish tradition; Jesus, OTOH, was something new. He was the new wine that will burst the skins, or the new cloth that will tear away from the old garment. Or, at least, he is those things in the first two gospels. I just noticed something else here: the implication of the new wine bursting the old skins is that Jesus brings a new message, one that is not, and cannot be contained–or constrained–by the old way of doing things.

Luke, however, adds a new little quip onto the end of this that actually contradicts the implication left by 2M. Here, Luke adds that, after having the old, no one wants the new. This volte-face is puzzling on the face of it. Most of the commentaries that I skimmed through agree that it is a reference, of course, to the old/new dichotomy represented by John and Jesus. The preference for the old supposedly is a reflexion or commentary on the inherent conservatism of people in general, and perhaps the Jews–or, at least, the Jewish followers of John–in particular. And, since no better, or even other explanation or interpretation presents itself, this may be a reasonable way to take this, even if it does feel a bit strained. But then, one has to realize that, while Luke is a good writer and thinker in general, that’s not to say he nails every single point he makes; every once in a while he’ll throw up a brick (basketball analogy = take a bad shot). So it is a bit of an awkward addition, but OTOH, it can be said that it does provide a new take on the theme of the Messianic Secret as we’re seeing in Luke. The Jews tasted the old, and they tasted the new, and preferred the old, so they did not convert to become followers of Jesus, but remained in their old ways. I will, however, continue to suggest as I did in the commentary that this did work to connect Jesus to that old tradition; at least, I believe that it was meant to do that. The level of effectiveness is debatable, of course, but a bad shot is still a shot.

That was actually to start at the end. The beginning of the chapter has us calling the first disciples. Luke adds a whole additional piece of narrative with Jesus convincing the fishermen to follow him by a “miraculous” catch of fish. I put that in quotes because it’s really not a true miracle in the sense that the laws of nature are contravened, but it does demonstrate a level of divinity that Jesus could effect this event the way he did. Was this addition necessary? Not really, but that is not the question that should be asked. Rather, we should ask what the addition accomplished. Back when we had the first iteration of this story in Mark, we pointed out that it was a very remarkable thing that these men left their occupation, their home, and their family to follow Jesus. My contribution was that, if Jesus had lived in Caphernaum, then he was likely known to these men, so perhaps their action was not quite the dramatic break that it may have seemed at first glance. Did Luke sense this, too, which caused him to add the new bit? And which caused him to insist that Jesus was from Nazareth, to the point that he moved the “a prophet is without honor in his own land” story to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, rather than holding it for numerous chapters as 2M did? That is certainly possible. But then we have to stop and realize that, per Luke’s own narrative, this was not the first encounter between Jesus and Peter. In Luke, by the time we get to the calling of the disciples, Jesus has already been to Peter’s house and healed Peter’s mother-in-law. So there is a temporal anomaly here. We don’t have to see any real significance to this muddling of time; Luke simply wasn’t concerned about keeping the order intact. He kept the stories in their larger context: the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law came after the synagogue, as it did in the other gospels, but the sequence of that story and the calling of Peter is scrambled.

However, it is worth pointing this out for one very big reason. Much of the “argument” for Q rests upon the Luke’s arrangement of the so-called Q-material vs the “masterful” arrangement of Matthew. In fact, this is most of the argument for Q. So to demonstrate that Luke had absolutely no qualms about rearranging Mark’s material would, or at least should, indicate that Luke put stuff wherever he chose without being unduly constrained by where his predecessors put things. Luke moved the episode of the Peter’s mother-in-law to a location that, really, doesn’t make sense vis-à-vis the story of the calling of Peter. Given this, why should he be reluctant to mess up the Q material? Especially if Q did not exist? If Q did not exist–and there is absolutely no evidence that it did–then Luke is not changing the order or arrangement of the Q material. He’s changing the order and arrangement of Matthew’s material. But, since he does the same with Mark’s material, this re-arrangement of Matthew’s material is not particularly noteworthy, is it?

The middle section of the chapter involves two healings, the first of a leper, the second of the paralytic on the litter. The latter includes the discussion about blasphemy because Jesus forgave the man’s sins. In both the scenes, Luke incorporates elements from different episodes in Mark, merging them into a composite that I have so charmingly been calling a “mash-up”. Setting out on this summary, I was not aware of how many miracles Mark reported vs the number reported by Luke. I went through both gospels and listed what I found in each. The end was that both had reasonably equal amounts, about 22 each. The lists may vary, depending on whether preaching apocalypse should be considered a miracle, or whether I missed the feeding of the 4,000 in Luke. Regardless, the point is the same. While Luke may reconstruct some of the stories of Mark, the former adds his own variations and his own different stories, such as the healing of a group of ten lepers which is unique to him. Given that, I’m not sure what inferences, let alone conclusions, we can draw from the places where Luke diverges from Mark, with the one possible exception. Luke is, apparently, not interested in simply retelling Mark; Luke sets out to tell a new version of the story, with a lot of new material. To make room for this new stuff, perhaps he felts it best to compress some of the older stuff. And even then, though, my characterization of these scenes as “mash-ups” is probably a bit irreverent, and needlessly so; in fact, perhaps it crosses into inaccurate. Luke may have filled in one story with details from another, but these borrowings–which assumes I’m even accurately describing what Luke does–really do not change the overall picture, or the overall sense of the story. There’s no new theological insights to be gleaned, no real indications of a development of the beliefs of the community or communities. We should look for those in the completely original material.

So far, the completely original material has dealt with what we would call a prequel–the story that happened before the story. What did that tell us? As I see it, this material wasn’t completely original, at least in conception. The stories of the Zecharias and Elisabeth and the pre-natal Baptist and the Annunciation, the census and no room at the inn are not entirely novel in outlook. With these sections, Luke is not adding new thoughts per se; rather, he is extending the trend begun by Matthew, who set out to demonstrate the cosmic significance of the birth of Jesus. Matthew did this largely through the star and the magoi; Luke took this a step–many steps, actually–further, extending it to Mary and her kin, by including the Baptist in the family tree, by substituting Simeon and Anna for the magoi.  Of course this reflects on the Q “argument”, but we’re not going there at the moment. We will; just not immediately. There wasn’t much to say about this chapter as a whole. I don’t know if that will continue, or if additional reading will open up new vistas.

That is the problem with the approach I’ve taken; it’s not scholarly. I have not read ahead, taken copious notes, and carefully plotted Luke against what has come before. Rather, it’s been more of a Wild-West show, shoot from the hip and ask questions later. The former approach, of course, is, well, scholarly and considered, taking what is said in the context of what else has been or will be said. That approach is useful for certain things. But the go-into-it-blind approach is better for capturing spontaneity. How does what we read stand on its own? What does it–and it alone–tell us? What is the stark message and implications of just this particular passage? What does it say before we water it down by putting it into the context of everything else? Those, too, are important questions, and ones that don’t get asked often enough. It’s time–long past time, actually–to shake things up a little bit, to shake the tree and see what may fall out that we did not expect.

Luke Chapter 5:27-39

This will conclude Chapter 5. We change gears a bit, moving from miraculous healings to more human teaching and human interaction. There’s a bit of a kick at the end, though.

Text

27 Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐξῆλθεν καὶ ἐθεάσατο τελώνην ὀνόματι Λευὶν καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ἀκολούθει μοι.

28 καὶ καταλιπὼν πάντα ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθει αὐτῷ.

29 Καὶ ἐποίησεν δοχὴν μεγάλην Λευὶς αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτοῦ: καὶ ἦν ὄχλος πολὺς τελωνῶν καὶ ἄλλων οἳ ἦσαν μετ’ αὐτῶν κατακείμενοι.

30 καὶ ἐγόγγυζον οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγοντες, Διὰ τί μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίετε καὶ πίνετε;

31 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, Οὐ χρείαν ἔχουσιν οἱ ὑγιαίνοντες ἰατροῦ ἀλλὰ οἱκακῶς ἔχοντες:

32 οὐκ ἐλήλυθα καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλὰ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν.

And after these things he came and he beheld a tax collector named Levi seated among the tax collectors and he (Jesus) said to him, “Follow me”. (28) And leaving all of them behind, standing he (Levi) followed him (Jesus). (29) And he made a great reception/feast (root of the word is “spectacle”) in his house. And there was a many crowd of tax collectors and others who were with him reclining (i.e., reclining to eat). (30) And murmured the Pharisees and the scribes of them (the general crowd) towards the disciples of him (Jesus) saying, “On what account with the tax collectors and of the sinners does he eat and drink?” (31) And answering Jesus said to them, “The healthy do not need having a healer, but those having diseases. (32) I have not come to call the just, but the sinners towards repentance.”

Directly out of the gate we run into a situation where Luke once again agrees with Mark and ignores the change made by Matthew. Of the three, Matthew alone says that Levi’s was also called Matthew, while Luke & Mark neglect to add this. It is based on this slender reed that the first gospel was ascribed to Matthew, the thinking being that the Matthew named here was the same man as the evangelist. Of course, if we accept the later date (ca. 85) for the composition of that gospel, the equation of the two is well-nigh, but not completely, impossible. Either way, the agreement of #2 and #3, of course, is evidence for Q. Then, at the very end, Luke adds something that is not in either of the first two: calling the sinner to repent. Here again, Luke follows Mark, where Jesus utters this aphorism in this same context, while eating with tax collectors. In Matthew, this comes later, in Chapter 9, when the disciples of John come to question Jesus if he is the one.

As I’ve been working my way through these books of the NT, one thing that has consistently surprised me is the extent to which so much of the “Christian” morality code was taken over directly from Judaism. One aspect in particular that has stood out is the concept of social justice, of caring for those less fortunate. Of course, this surprise is the result of a good Christian (Roman Rite) upbringing, in which Christians were all-good, and Jews were, well, something less than that. Here’s another reason why having people actually read the Bible was not necessarily desirable for about a thousand years. As for my education on the matter, better late than never, I suppose. The point, however, is that I have the sense that what we are witnessing here is novel. Jesus is consorting with tax collectors. These are not lepers, or the poor, but the rich, and the despised rich. “Collaborate” has been a buzz-word in the corporate world for the past handful of years, but where I come from “collaborator” was not a term of praise. Quite the opposite. A collaborator was a quisling, or in America a Benedict Arnold. I’m reading a book about Vichy France, where the government collaborated with the Nazis after 1940, and some of these collaborators were executed for their pains. Just so, tax collectors were collaborators, working with the Romans to collect taxes from the subject population. It made them wealthy, yes, but it also made them outcast, to some extent anyway, among the Jewish population. So Jesus is not consorting with the poor, those who have no means, but with those who have an excess of means, mostly extorted from fellow compatriots. This, I believe, is new, a new proscription for behaviour. That the sick, not the healthy need a doctor, just so it’s the sinners who need to repent.

I don’t mean to say that the idea of repenting is Christian; far from it. The idea of the Chosen People repenting their sins and turning back to YHWH is one of the most constant themes found in the HS. Rather, it’s the idea of who is doing, or should be doing the repentance. Sinners, yes, but mainly to the extent that respectable persons are sinners, and it’s the respectable who should repent. Or have I picked that up from observing too much American Christianity? With it’s claims to love Jesus while kicking the poor when they’re down? I think the distinction comes with the transition from the idea of a corporate repentance, that of the Chosen People as a body, to the idea of individual repentance, where the individual sinner changes his way of thinking (metanoeite in Greek) and thereby changes the way he or she behaves. That, I think, is the novelty–and the ultimate appeal–of Christianity, the reason it, rather than Mithraism, became the dominant religion in the later Roman Empire: the individual salvation. Even then, Christians did not invent the concept; this is something that many Hellenistic religions practiced. As some of the more collective cults were swallowed up, cults of Isis, for example, filled in the void for the individual seeking some sort of religious experience. Christianity was the heir and successor of these “Eastern Mystery Religions” as they’ve been called. And here we see the marriage of this idea to that of the universal siblinghood professed by the Stoics. We are all siblings, we can all find…some sort of ultimate religious experience. My inclination is to say “redemption”, but this has a very specific origin and etymology. It’s the redeeming of a pawn pledge, the buying back of an item from the pawn broker. That is what “redemption” means. But a more generic term escapes me at the moment.

27 Et post haec exiit et vidit publicanum nomine Levi sedentem ad teloneum et ait illi: “Sequere me”.

28 Et relictis omnibus, surgens secutus est eum.

29 Et fecit ei convivium magnum Levi in domo sua; et erat turba multa publicanorum et aliorum, qui cum illis erant discumbentes.

30 Et murmurabant pharisaei et scribae eorum adversus discipulos eius dicentes: “Quare cum publicanis et peccatoribus manducatis et bibitis?”.

31 Et respondens Iesus dixit ad illos: “Non egent, qui sani sunt, medico, sed qui male habent.

32 Non veni vocare iustos sed peccatores in paenitentiam”.

33 Οἱ δὲ εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτόν, Οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάννου νηστεύουσιν πυκνὰκαὶ δεήσεις ποιοῦνται, ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ τῶν Φαρισαίων, οἱ δὲ σοὶ ἐσθίουσιν καὶ πίνουσιν.

They said to him, “The disciples of John fast frequently (and) they make prayers, just as the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.”

Here I think is where we come upon one of the fundamental reasons why Jesus stands at the beginning of a novel tradition, while John stands in the midst of an older one that continued. This goes back to the so-called Synod of Jerusalem, when Paul and James the Just duked it out over the Jewish dietary (and other such) practices; the most notable, of course, was circumcision. And here we have what is essentially a dispute, or at least a bit of a contention, or something like an uneasiness about this. But make no mistake–this is completely an ex-post-facto insertion from a time long after Jesus was dead. We’ve discussed this; there are points in 2M where Jesus declares positively that no animal is unclean, and Peter has a dream in Acts to confirm this. Nonsense. The questions raised by the “Synod of Jerusalem” would never have been an issue if Jesus, or even Peter, had said this. That Paul admits having a disagreement with James on this topic is all the evidence that we need to know that Jesus made no such proclamation. And this question about the difference between Jesus and John’s disciples is more of the same debate, or the debate put in another format. John’s disciples stood firmly in the ancient Jewish traditions; they are just like the Pharisees, after all. The disciples of Jesus, OTOH, had started down a different path. So we get this little exchange to give pre-emptive sanction to the change of behaviour of Jesus’ later followers. Yes, they were Jews, or at least claiming the ancient heritage of Judaism, but they did not practice the whole of the Law. Galatians explained why.

33 At illi dixerunt ad eum: “Discipuli Ioannis ieiunant frequenter et obsecrationes faciunt, similiter et pharisaeorum; tui autem edunt et bibunt”.

34 ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, Μὴ δύνασθε τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ νυμφῶνος ἐν ᾧ ὁ νυμφίος μετ’ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ποιῆσαι νηστεῦσαι;

35 ἐλεύσονται δὲ ἡμέραι, καὶ ὅταν ἀπαρθῇ ἀπ’ αὐτῶν ὁ νυμφίος τότε νηστεύσουσιν ἐνἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις.

36 Ἔλεγεν δὲ καὶ παραβολὴν πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὅτι Οὐδεὶς ἐπίβλημα ἀπὸ ἱματίου καινοῦ σχίσας ἐπιβάλλει ἐπὶ ἱμάτιον παλαιόν: εἰ δὲ μή γε, καὶ τὸ καινὸν σχίσει καὶ τῷ παλαιῷ οὐ συμφωνήσει τὸ ἐπίβλημα τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦ καινοῦ.

Jesus said to them, “Are the sons of the bridegroom able in which (time) them the bridegroom is with them to make a fast? (35) The days will come, and when taken away from them is the bridegroom, then they will fast in those days. (36) They say the analogy towards them that ‘No one coverings of new cloth puts upon tears in an old garment; if so, will not the new tear and from the old the new covering will not agree the with the new.”

That’s some pretty gnarly grammar there. For whatever reason, I’m back on the hyper-literal kick; but this passage is so well known that there’s likely to be no harm. The word I’ve rendered as “tear”, as in “rip/rend” transliterates to “schizo”. Added to the word for mind, “phrenia”, we get a modern psychological diagnosis. And the concept of the “sons of the bridegroom” is really interesting. Not really sure what that might mean, or can mean. And the word used is “son”; it’s not “pais”, which could be “boy”, as in the sense of “servant”. It is almost always and exclusively used as “son”, as in biological progeny. So, at best, this seems to be something of a mixed metaphor. Finally, the word rendered as “analogy” transliterates to “parabolē”. It’s the root of both “parabola” and “parable”. To this point, I’ve usually given it as parable, but every once in a while it’s good to mix it up and remind everyone that “parable” is another of those words that have come to us from the Greek with a very specific, very religious meaning attached to it. That was not the case back then. And here is the danger of “New Testament Greek”; it’s too much of a closed, self-referential, and even circular set of definitions. This really, very much distorts the way we read the text if we think that “baptizo” has the special meaning that has for us. The same is true for “parable”. This was not a special word.

More interesting is that the prediction of the day to come when those sons will fast seems to contradict what went before it. We just had our bit about Jesus standing outside the Jewish tradition, but now his later followers will step back into it? I don’t think we need to read too much into this. Fasting was a fairly common religious practice. It still is, for that matter. This seems to imply that Jesus and his followers are not so far off the beaten path after all. (*See comment to next verse.)

34 Quibus Iesus ait: “ Numquid potestis convivas nuptiarum, dum cum illis est sponsus, facere ieiunare?

35 Venient autem dies; et cum ablatus fuerit ab illis sponsus, tunc ieiunabunt in illis diebus ”.

36 Dicebat autem et similitudinem ad illos: “ Nemo abscindit commissuram a vestimento novo et immittit in vestimentum vetus; alioquin et novum rumpet, et veteri non conveniet commissura a novo.

37 καὶ οὐδεὶς βάλλει οἶνον νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς παλαιούς: εἰ δὲ μή γε, ῥήξει ὁ οἶνος ὁ νέος τοὺς ἀσκούς, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκχυθήσεται καὶ οἱ ἀσκοὶ ἀπολοῦνται:

38 ἀλλὰ οἶνον νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς καινοὺς βλητέον.

39 [καὶ] οὐδεὶς πιὼν παλαιὸν θέλει νέον: λέγει γάρ, Ὁ παλαιὸς χρηστός ἐστιν.

“And no one throws new wine into old skins. Indeed if it were not, the new wine would burst the old (skins), and they would spill out and the skins will be destroyed. (38) But new wine is put in new skins. (39) [And] no one drinking old wishes new. For it is said, ‘the old is good’.”

The last sentence of the last verse is unique to Luke. He added this to the text that was available to him in Mark (and Matthew, if you believe me about Q). Not sure if you can see it, but there’s also a bit of a pun involved. The word “good” is “chrestos”, which is obviously darn close to “christos”. In fact, in the Life of Nero by Suetonius, the followers of “chrestos” are blamed by the emperor for the fire of Rome in 64. I’m not sure where the misunderstanding came from; whether it was Suetonius specifically who didn’t get it, or if the upper (as in literate) classes in Rome as a whole were unclear on what Jesus’ followers called him. Was Luke possibly aware of this lack of understanding and tossed this in here as sort of a barb directed at those ignorant Romans?

The other aspect to this is that ‘the old is good’ is the reason why the followers of Jesus insisted on maintaining that connexion to Judaism. As such, perhaps this explains why the sons of the bridegroom* will fast again one day, as we heard in the previous passage above. Luke, as well as Mark and Matthew before him, understood that being old meant being venerated, while being new meant being scorned. After all, the Latin term for political revolution is “res novae”; literally, “new things”. It was not a term of endearment. So Luke took the message of 2M before him and amplified it by adding this little tag line at the end of the section, to let us know that the connexion existed, and that the christos was chrestos, and was chrestos, to some degree, because he was old. Or, his teachings were old. That gave him stature.

So Luke is very clever in the way that he did this. This style is very not-Mark, the terse journalist. And it’s not Matthew, either who was…whatever. Not sure how to summarize him. Luke is easy; he’s eloquent. 

37 Et nemo mittit vinum novum in utres veteres; alioquin rumpet vinum novum utres et ipsum effundetur, et utres peribunt;

38 sed vinum novum in utres novos mittendum est.

39 Et nemo bibens vetus vult novum; dicit enim: “Vetus melius est!” ”.

Luke Chapter 5:12-26

This section deals with healings; first of a leper, then of a paralytic. The action left off with Simon and the sons of Zebedee are now following Jesus. But when we left off, it didn’t tell us where they were headed. Let’s find out.

Text

12 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν μιᾷ τῶν πόλεων καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ πλήρης λέπρας: ἰδὼν δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν πεσὼν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον ἐδεήθη αὐτοῦ λέγων, Κύριε, ἐὰν θέλῃς δύνασαί με καθαρίσαι.

13 καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα ἥψατο αὐτοῦ λέγων,Θέλω, καθαρίσθητι: καὶ εὐθέως ἡ λέπρα ἀπῆλθεν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ.

14 καὶ αὐτὸς παρήγγειλεν αὐτῷ μηδενὶ εἰπεῖν, ἀλλὰ ἀπελθὼν δεῖξον σεαυτὸν τῷ ἱερεῖ, καὶ προσένεγκε περὶ τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ σου καθὼς προσέταξεν Μωϋσῆς, εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς.

15 διήρχετο δὲ μᾶλλον ὁ λόγος περὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ συνήρχοντο ὄχλοι πολλοὶ ἀκούειν καὶ θεραπεύεσθαι ἀπὸ τῶν ἀσθενειῶν αὐτῶν:

16 αὐτὸς δὲ ἦν ὑποχωρῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐρήμοις καὶ προσευχόμενος.

And it became he to be in one of the cities and saw a man full of leprosy. Seeing Jesus, falling on his face he begged of him saying, “Lord, if you should wish, you are able to cleanse me”. (13) And stretching out his hand he touched him, saying, “I wish, be cleansed”. And immediately the leprosy went away from him. (14) And he ordered him to speak to no one, “But going away to show yourself to the priest, and give over to him about your cleansing according to the arrangement of Moses, as a witness for them”. (15) But went out more the word of him, and came together a many crowd to hear and to be healed from their diseases. (16) He was having gone away in the desert places and praying. 

I have no idea what to say about this passage. It’s sort of another mash-up of several different pieces of Mark; sort of blended together and homogenized. This appears to be something of a pattern for Luke; it’s perhaps the third time he’s done it already. The result is an episode that is very familiar, and yet does not correspond exactly with a specific passage in Mark. And it is Mark he’s emulating, rather than Matthew. It has the journalistic, almost staccato style, short and to the point. And Luke includes the contradiction of Jesus admonishing the man to say nothing, but the word only spreads further. The bit about going into the desert place occurs in Mark after a spate of miracles, but there Jesus was said to be in his house, and the whole town came to his door.

That’s actually interesting. That bit of detail was the sort of thing that really gave the impression that Jesus had a house in Caphernaum, which would support the idea that he was not from Nazareth. For Luke, Jesus is from Nazareth, and that shall not be gainsaid. So here Luke deftly excises the part of the story that casts doubt on Nazareth and does not pin down the scene even in the vaguest generality. Now, if he’s willing to do that to Mark, would he not do the same for Matthew? Yes, this is about Q, and the supposed hack-job Luke does on the masterful Sermon on the Mount. We can see that Luke is very consciously following Mark, but not really. The point is, Luke is not the least bit reluctant to change anything. So to suggest that he wouldn’t mess with Matthew is, I think, rather…incorrect. 

12 Et factum est, cum esset in una civitatum, et ecce vir plenus lepra; et videns Iesum et procidens in faciem rogavit eum dicens: “ Domine, si vis, potes me mundare ”.

13 Et extendens manum tetigit illum dicens: “Volo, mundare!”; et confestim lepra discessit ab illo.

14 Et ipse praecepit illi, ut nemini diceret, sed: “Vade, ostende te sacerdoti et offer pro emundatione tua, sicut praecepit Moyses, in testimonium illis”.

15 Perambulabat autem magis sermo de illo, et conveniebant turbae multae, ut audirent et curarentur ab infirmitatibus suis;

16 ipse autem secedebat in desertis et orabat.

17 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν μιᾷ τῶν ἡμερῶν καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν διδάσκων, καὶ ἦσαν καθήμενοι Φαρισαῖοι καὶ νομοδιδάσκαλοι οἳ ἦσαν ἐληλυθότες ἐκ πάσης κώμης τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ Ἰουδαίας καὶ Ἰερουσαλήμ: καὶ δύναμις κυρίου ἦν εἰς τὸ ἰᾶσθαι αὐτόν.

18 καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες φέροντες ἐπὶ κλίνης ἄνθρωπον ὃς ἦν παραλελυμένος, καὶ ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν εἰσενεγκεῖν καὶ θεῖναι [αὐτὸν] ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ.

19 καὶ μὴ εὑρόντες ποίας εἰσενέγκωσιν αὐτὸν διὰ τὸν ὄχλον ἀναβάντες ἐπὶ τὸ δῶμα διὰ τῶν κεράμων καθῆκαν αὐτὸν σὺν τῷ κλινιδίῳ εἰς τὸ μέσον ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ.

And it was on one of the days and he was teaching, and there were sitting Pharisees and teachers of the law and they were come from all the villages of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the lord was (there) towards the healing him. (18) And, look, men carrying upon a litter a man who was paralyzed, and they sought him (Jesus) and they brought the man in and placed him in front of him (Jesus). (19) And not finding what they carried him through the crowd going up upon the house and through the ceramic (roof tiles) they lowered him with his litter to the middle in front of Jesus. 

Note how vaguely Luke sets the scene. When I first read this, I thought it was taking place in a synagogue, which would explain why all the Pharisees & c. are there. But then they go up on top of the house, so obviously my impression was incorrect. In Mark this specifically took place in a house, presumably Jesus’ house if you read the story carefully. Matthew, OTOH, changed the setting completely; the venue of a house and the lowering through the roof was omitted and the man was simply brought up to Jesus. Here, we retain the part about the roof, think about this for a moment. Pharisees and teachers of the law from all parts of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem are present, seated and listening. How big is this house? Aside from palaces, or the homes of wealthy, or official residences, houses were not that large. 

OK, I’ve done some down-and-dirty research on house construction in First Century Galilee. Roofs were generally open to the sky, and basically flat, with a slight pitch to allow rainwater to drain and collect in a cistern. The roof generally consisted of a sort of thatch overlaid on timbers that ran the width of the house/room. Over this was laid a layer of what is essentially thatch, but made from the local plant life. On top of this was laid a floor of something sort of like a dirt-based concrete. It became, effectively, a floor of dried mud, just as adobe is dried mud. Apparently the construction was such as it allowed the roof to be used as an open second or upper floor. There is no mention of tiles. Tiles were used further west in the Mediterranean; many Roman houses had tile roofs, especially for the more affluent. So I suspect that Luke has his roofing materials muddled. As for the size of the houses, most would not have been large enough to accommodate a crowd of any size. Some were built around a courtyard, which was a time-honored tradition in the eastern Mediterranean. The problem is that these courtyards were, well, open. That is, there was no roof, so there would be no roofing material to remove.   

The point of all this is pretty straightforward. Luke is not terribly concerned with factual accuracy. If he was not from Judea or Galilee, people where he lived had tiled roofs, so of course the house Jesus was in had a tiled roof. Mark’s description of the roof material is vague to the point that it’s impossible to tell what it actually is. Mark supposedly was from somewhere other than Judea/Galilee, so he may not have known what was used, so maybe he was smart enough to fudge the details into incomprehensibility. These are the sorts of places where we see that factual accuracy was not a primary goal of the evangelists. Now, this is a small example, and it shouldn’t be overstretched, but it’s there nonetheless.

And BTW, this is one of those cases where Luke agrees with Mark rather than Matthew. As such, this provides “proof” that Luke had not read Matthew. Or, it could be that Luke felt the original setting of the story provided a more compelling setting for the tale. After all, the men carrying the litter went to a whole lot of trouble to present the paralytic to Jesus. As such, their faith was demonstrated much more effectively, IMO. So Luke could be said to be restoring that “lost” element of faith. So is Luke agreeing with Mark? Or is he correcting the story of Matthew? Given that Luke is not terribly concerned with real-world facts, such as how all these people gathered in a house, and doesn’t mind exaggerating that Pharisees and teachers of the law came from all parts of the Jewish world, and that he doesn’t seem to mind changing details of setting and story in any context, we should perhaps pay particular attention to those bits that Luke does retain.

It may be significant that this is the first time that Luke refers to the faith of the followers. It won’t be the last. This is one element of Mark that Luke does retain; how significant is it? Since it’s basically one of two such elements, I’d say it has to be significant. At this point, however, I can’t quite fathom what the significance may be. Perhaps time will tell. Remember: faith.

17 Et factum est, in una dierum, et ipse erat docens, et erant pharisaei sedentes et legis doctores, qui venerant ex omni castello Galilaeae et Iudaeae et Ierusalem; et virtus Domini erat ei ad sanandum.

18 Et ecce viri portantes in lecto hominem, qui erat paralyticus, et quaerebant eum inferre et ponere ante eum.

19 Et non invenientes qua parte illum inferrent prae turba, ascenderunt supra tectum et per tegulas summiserunt illum cum lectulo in medium ante Iesum.

20 καὶ ἰδὼν τὴν πίστιν αὐτῶν εἶπεν, Ἄνθρωπε, ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱἁμαρτίαι σου.

21 καὶ ἤρξαντο διαλογίζεσθαι οἱ γραμματεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι λέγοντες, Τίς ἐστιν οὗτος ὃς λαλεῖ βλασφημίας; τίς δύναται ἁμαρτίας ἀφεῖναι εἰ μὴ μόνος ὁ θεός;

22 ἐπιγνοὺς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς τοὺς διαλογισμοὺς αὐτῶν ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, Τί διαλογίζεσθε ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν;

23 τί ἐστιν εὐκοπώτερον, εἰπεῖν, Ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι σου, ἢ εἰπεῖν, Ἔγειρε καὶ περιπάτει;

24 ἵνα δὲ εἰδῆτε ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας εἶπεν τῷ παραλελυμένῳ, Σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε καὶ ἄρας τὸ κλινίδιόν σου πορεύου εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου.

25 καὶ παραχρῆμα ἀναστὰς ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν, ἄρας ἐφ’ ὃ κατέκειτο, ἀπῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ δοξάζων τὸν θεόν.

26 καὶ ἔκστασις ἔλαβεν ἅπαντας καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν θεόν, καὶ ἐπλήσθησαν φόβου λέγοντες ὅτι Εἴδομεν παράδοξα σήμερον.

And seeing the faith of them he said, “Dude, have been taken away from you your sins”.  (21) And they began to dialogue among themselves the scribes and the Pharisees, saying, “Who is he who says blasphemy? Who can take away sins if not only God?” (22) Jesus having recognised the discussion of them (and) answering said towards them, “What do you say in your hearts? (23) What is easier, to say “‘Taken away from your your sins have been’, or to say, ‘Get up and walk around’? (24) In order that you might know that the son of man has authority upon earth to take away sins,” he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, ‘get up and take up your bed and go to your house'”. (25) And immediately standing up in front of them, having taken up that on which he had been reclining, went away towards his house glorifying God. (26) And ecstasy took hold of all and they glorified God, and they were filled of fear, saying, “We have seen a wonder!” (transliterated = ‘paradox’).

I rather jumped the gun on the “faith” business. It wasn’t explicitly mentioned until this section. But running into it for the first time has rather caught me up short. Faith was a very persistent theme in Mark, mentioned early and often and here we are five chapters in (four and a half, would be technically correct) and only now do we encounter it. What has Luke been talking about? He’s been telling us, over and over, about Jesus’ divinity, going back to a time even before Jesus himself was actually conceived. We got the story of John, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Temple, the Temptation, a few miracles and the calling of the first disciples by impressing them with his fishing skills. All of these emphasize and re-emphasize and repeatedly drive home that Jesus is a divine being. The first overt miracles only occur in this chapter. Perhaps they are meant to underscore this divinity. Honestly, they should be called “wonders”, since “miracle” is a completely loaded word in English, just as baptize and holy spirit are loaded. 

This is a bit of an aside, but one thing just occurred to me about this section. At the beginning I noted that Jesus had called his first (and, IMO, likely his only) disciples, so we should see where they were going. As it turns out, the disciples more or less disappear from the story. And it also occurs to me that they tend to do this for long stretches, at least in Luke. We have not actually encountered the word “disciple” (Greek = learner, same with the Latin) yet, and the first time we hear it is very off-hand; the second time will be regarding the disciples of John. In fact, Mark uses the word in his shorter gospel probably as many times as Luke in his longer one. Matthew uses it dozens of times. This reticence in Luke is interesting given that Luke supposedly wrote Acts, as in Acts of the Apostles. But then, I’ve suggested that the disciples called by Jesus were not actually apostles; that the latter word is appropriate to the time after Jesus, but not during Jesus’ lifetime. Here is another way in which Luke charts his own course, independent of the other gospels.

In sum, this is another sort of mash-up of several scenes in Mark. It’s difficult to pick them apart exactly, but the pieces are there. Why does Luke do this? Because he can, I suspect. Really, it’s a matter of brevity, I think. He adds a great lot of material; he can’t repeat every little episode in full. I’ve put that out there before. Here’s something that’s just occurred to me: Does he believe that many of these individual stories  do not need to be retold since they’ve already been told not once, but twice? Once by Mark and again by Matthew? Is this another bit of anti-Q evidence? It’s said that, to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Am I a hammer, and Q has become my nail? Perhaps. The problem is, as far as I can tell, none of these aspects of the problem have ever been discussed, let alone discussed properly. This grates on me no end; what kind of a scholarly arena do we have here, where not only is the dominant position one that believes in the existence of a document for which there is absolutely no evidence, but the entire debate is predicated on the naysayers being required to prove the negative, that the document did not exist. More, the proponents have established the terms of the debate in such a way that the “substance” of the argument is based on highly subjective value judgements. Other terms of argument have not been, and seemingly cannot be considered or debated.

So this will be something to look at as we proceed.

20 Quorum fidem ut vidit, dixit: “Homo, remittuntur tibi peccata tua”.

21 Et coeperunt cogitare scribae et pharisaei dicentes: “Quis est hic, qui loquitur blasphemias? Quis potest dimittere peccata nisi solus Deus? ”.

22 Ut cognovit autem Iesus cogitationes eorum, respondens dixit ad illos: “ Quid cogitatis in cordibus vestris?

23 Quid est facilius, dicere: “Dimittuntur tibi peccata tua”, an dicere: “Surge et ambula”?

24 Ut autem sciatis quia Filius hominis potestatem habet in terra dimittere peccata — ait paralytico – : Tibi dico: Surge, tolle lectulum tuum et vade in domum tuam ”.

25 Et confestim surgens coram illis tulit, in quo iacebat, et abiit in domum suam magnificans Deum.

26 Et stupor apprehendit omnes, et magnificabant Deum; et repleti sunt timore dicentes: “Vidimus mirabilia hodie”.

Luke Chapter 5:1-11

Here starts Chapter 5. Perhaps this time we can talk about the text that’s here, and not about Q. While hopeful, I’m not optimistic.

Text

1 Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ τὸν ὄχλον ἐπικεῖσθαι αὐτῷ καὶ ἀκούειν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν ἑστὼς παρὰ τὴν λίμνην Γεννησαρέτ,

2 καὶ εἶδεν δύο πλοῖα ἑστῶτα παρὰ τὴν λίμνην: οἱ δὲ ἁλιεῖς ἀπ’ αὐτῶν ἀποβάντες ἔπλυνον τὰ δίκτυα.

There was pressing (lit = lying on top) him and to hear the word of God, and he was on the harbour (of) Gennesaret, (2) and he saw to boats standing beside the harbour. The fishermen disembarked from them washing the nets.

One of the commentaries I found noted that the body of water in question has four biblical names. We are most familiar with it as the Sea of Galilee. Lake Genneseret is another, as is Lake Tiberias, and the Sea of Chinneroth, which means “heart-shaped”, which the lake is, more or less. Genneseret is also a town on the shore of the lake, and there is an inlet forming something of a peninsula on which this town is situated. Chorazin is at the head of this inlet. Gennesaret is perhaps three miles south and west of Caphernaum along the shore of the lake. Nazareth, OTOH, is a good twenty miles (or more; not sure how accurate the scale on the map is) inland. This separation of Nazareth and the fact that most of the action in Galilee takes place in or near Capheranaum, and none of it takes place in Nazareth is a big part of the reason I think Jesus was actually from Caphernaum. As I said, Mark only mentions Nazareth once, in 1:9. Matthew mentions it thrice. Nazareth scarely plays any role in any of the narrative. The only action that is set there is Jesus return to his home town that we just read in Chapter 4.

I have translated the word as “harbour” in reference to the inlet. Based on no local topographical knowledge, but understanding the principles of geography, it would make sense that fishermen would put their boats in this inlet. Apparently, the lake is prone to sudden and violent storms, so seeking safe harbour would be something a prudent boat owner would do. Also, in this way, I don’t think Luke is actually saying that the lake is named Genneseret. It is not at all necessary, or even a good idea, to read the Greek that way. The Greek word does not naturally mean “lake”, and I tend to suspect that our biblically-trained biblical scholars rather just get this wrong. Rather, I believe that Luke is referring to this inlet that formed something of a natural harbour; and recall that boats were simply drawn up onto the beach, Such a shallow draught and corresponding lack of keel would explain why boats were particularly at risk of capsizing in a storm. There was little to nothing to hold it upright.

1 Factum est autem, cum turba urgeret illum et audiret verbum Dei, et ipse stabat secus stagnum Genesareth

2 et vidit duas naves stantes secus stagnum; piscatores autem descenderant de illis et lavabant retia.

3 ἐμβὰς δὲ εἰς ἓν τῶν πλοίων, ὃ ἦν Σίμωνος, ἠρώτησεν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἐπαναγαγεῖν ὀλίγον, καθίσας δὲ ἐκ τοῦ πλοίου ἐδίδασκεν τοὺς ὄχλους.

Getting onto one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him from the land to put out (into the water) a little way, sitting in the boat he taught the crowd.

A bit of a bizarre scenario. A stranger, followed by a crowd, comes down the shore and commandeers your boat. Then, he uses it was a lecture platform while you do not very much that’s useful, he having taken you away from a necessary chore of washing your nets. This is all very fanciful, and I’m not sure Luke entirely meant us to take this seriously. As with the passing through the midst of the angry mob in the synagogue, this scene feels a bit whimsical, as if Luke is deliberately playing “once upon a time”. There is a decided lack of a sense of reality in this set-up and description. IMO, at least.

3 Ascendens autem in unam navem, quae erat Simonis, rogavit eum a terra reducere pusillum; et sedens docebat de navicula turbas.

4 ὡς δὲ ἐπαύσατολαλῶν, εἶπεν πρὸς τὸν Σίμωνα, Ἐπανάγαγε εἰς τὸ βάθος καὶ χαλάσατε τὰ δίκτυα ὑμῶν εἰς ἄγραν.

5 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς Σίμων εἶπεν,Ἐπιστάτα, δι’ ὅλης νυκτὸς κοπιάσαντες οὐδὲν ἐλάβομεν, ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ ῥήματί σου χαλάσω τὰ δίκτυα.

As he paused speaking, he (Jesus) said to Simon, “Put out into the deep (water) and let down your nets into the fish”. (5) And answering, Simon said, “Overseer (lit = one standing near), through the whole night labouring we took up nothing, but on your word I will let down the nets.”

There are several things worth pointing out in this relatively short passage. First, the whole scenario just gets weirder. Now this stranger is telling you to go out into the water and fish. Um, sure. Get right on that, guv’nah. Another is the use of the term I have rendered as “overseer”. This word is used by Luke alone in the NT; and, he only uses it in the gospel and not in Acts. Which immediately sets me off wondering if, indeed, Luke & Acts were written by the same person. Finally, Simon does what the stranger told him, on the stranger’s word alone.

Of course, we really don’t have to marvel at this whole bizarre situation. The meaning, or the intent is clear enough: Luke is demonstrating for us just how compelling a  personality Jesus was, to the point that he can convince some total stranger to do what he asks. If anyone has watched any of  Jessica Jones on Netflix, this all sounds a lot like the villain played by David Tenant, of Dr Who fame. But of course Jesus is not evil, but compelling  in a very good way.

4 Ut cessavit autem loqui, dixit ad Simonem: “Duc in altum et laxate retia vestra in capturam”.

5 Et respondens Simon dixit: “ Praeceptor, per totam noctem laborantes nihil cepimus; in verbo autem tuo laxabo retia”.

6 καὶ τοῦτο ποιήσαντες συνέκλεισαν πλῆθος ἰχθύων πολύ, διερρήσσετο δὲ τὰ δίκτυα αὐτῶν.

7 καὶ κατένευσαν τοῖς μετόχοις ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ πλοίῳ τοῦ ἐλθόντας συλλαβέσθαι αὐτοῖς: καὶ ἦλθον, καὶ ἔπλησαν ἀμφότερα τὰ πλοῖα ὥστε βυθίζεσθαι αὐτά.

8 ἰδὼν δὲ Σίμων Πέτρος προσέπεσεν τοῖς γόνασιν Ἰησοῦ λέγων, Ἔξελθε ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι ἀνὴρ ἁμαρτωλός εἰμι, κύριε:

And doing this (i.e. letting out the nets), they enclosed a plethora of fish, breaking through their nets. (7) And they made a sign by nodding their heads to their partners in the other boat of coming to receive with them. And they came, and they filled both the boats so that to sink them.  (8) Seeing this Simon Peter fell to his knees of Jesus, saying, “Go away from me, that I am a sinful man, lord”. 

Here, of course, is the payoff to this story. Jesus knows. If you listen to Jesus, you prosper. I would like to say this is a particularly pagan attitude: do ut des. I give so that you give. The you being God. The idea is that we give something in sacrifice so that God gives us (one hopes) more in return. But this is not a pagan attitude. It’s the rationale behind the story of Job as well. The adversary taunts God by saying, “of course Job is faithful to you. Look at how richly you’ve rewarded him”. And this became a particularly Calvinist, if not Protestant, attitude: all God’s friends are rich. This attitude was carried to the shores of America by the Puritans, who prospered enormously. Remember: we are either saved, or we’re damned, and we can’t know which. But, by their fruits ye shall know them, so monetary wealth was considered the sign of God’s favour, so the wealthy were respected and considered Elect, while the poor despised as Foreknown and damned. This attitude still pervades a lot of religious thinking in 21st Century America: the poor can be disregarded because, what the hell, they’re damned anyway. But–and this is a big but–this attitude was very common among Greeks and Romans, too. The aristoi, the optimates, the best in Greek and Latin respectively were often considered so because of their wealth. Their wealth was an outward sign. This is because hereditary wealth, eventually, bought respectability. The Best Money, after all, was Old Money. Nouveau riche and arriviste are terms of scorn.

So it’s as such, as one who gave, Simon Peter recognised Jesus as “lord”. Jesus could bestow wealth, so he could bestow favour, and Simon immediately understands that he is in the presence of something More. But why does Luke add all these details to the story? This tale is unique to Luke. Looking at this, and at some of the other stories that only Luke has, I’m starting to see a pattern. These stories are what I will call, for want of a better term, amplifiers. That is, they are designed to amplify the impact of some aspect of Jesus’ life and divine status. I suppose magnify would also work, but whatever. Others stories that would fall into this would be the stories of the birth of the Baptist, which amplifies the nativity of Jesus narrative by elevating the status of the herald of Jesus to come. Another would be the way he passed through the midst of the angry crowd in Nazareth*, which demonstrated that Jesus’ power, his ability to perform miracles was certainly not dependent on the faith of those around him. And now here; it’s not enough to call Peter; he has to demonstrate his ability. Thinking about it, this in some ways diminishes Jesus: in the other two gospels, Peter follows without question. Here, he does so only after a huge demonstration of power. But, one can certainly look at that in a couple of different ways. 

So is that what Luke is doing? Amplifying?  Is that his overall intention, or goal? To say ‘yes’ is to be fairly obvious. After all, that’s a lot of what Matthew did, starting with the Nativity story. He amplified Jesus’ divinity, starting with the virgin birth and the Star of Bethlehem. Luke is really doing the same, here and in the other episodes mentioned. Now, I would love to tie this into the Q argument, and I think it would be a legitimate thing to do, but the bottom line is that it’s not necessary. Either way, we’re witnessing the process by which legends grow. Luke was doing this, either on his own or following the example of Matthew. I suspect the latter, of course, but let’s wait a bit to see if this is borne out by the subsequent narrative, whether it seems that Luke is building specifically on Matthew. If so, the pattern has not fully emerged.

*Nazareth: it only just occurs to me that this amplifier was designed to banish the idea that Jesus was unable to perform many miracles in Nazareth, due to the lack of faith of the townspeople. No miracles? Nonsense! Jesus’ power is not dependent on the faith of those around him.

6 Et cum hoc fecissent, concluserunt piscium multitudinem copiosam; rumpebantur autem retia eorum.

7 Et annuerunt sociis, qui erant in alia navi, ut venirent et adiuvarent eos; et venerunt et impleverunt ambas naviculas, ita ut mergerentur.

8 Quod cum videret Simon Petrus, procidit ad genua Iesu dicens: “Exi a me, quia homo peccator sum, Domine”.

9 θάμβος γὰρ περιέσχεν αὐτὸν καὶ πάντας τοὺς σὺν αὐτῷ ἐπὶ τῇ ἄγρᾳ τῶν ἰχθύων ὧν συνέλαβον,

10 ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ Ἰάκωβον καὶ Ἰωάννην υἱοὺς Ζεβεδαίου, οἳ ἦσαν κοινωνοὶ τῷ Σίμωνι. καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς τὸν Σίμωνα ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Μὴ φοβοῦ: ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἀνθρώπους ἔσῃ ζωγρῶν.

11 καὶ καταγαγόντες τὰ πλοῖα ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἀφέντες πάντα ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ.

Amazement encompassed him and all those with him regarding the catch of fish which they had taken, (and) (10) in the same way also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were with Simon, and Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now you will be one catching men”. (11) And driving the ship down upon the land, all having gotten off they followed him.

In the commentary to this on Mark, I suggested that, if Jesus had grown up on Caphernaum as I suspect, the way Peter & c left to follow Jesus would make much more sense. We know Peter was a follower; Paul verified that before any of these gospels were written. Notice that there is no mention of Andrew, Peter’s brother. He will come in later, probably when the Twelve are being named. In 2M, Andrew is mentioned exactly twice; at the initial calling, and when Jesus sends them out. Luke skips the first one. Interesting to note that as the legend of Jesus grew, the legend of Andrew had faded a bit. Now, this would be recovered since Andrew had a great career in front of him, ending up as the patron saint of Scotland. But it is worth noting that he is not here. The point being, that if Jesus had grown up in Caphernaum, then he and Peter would likely have known each other all their lives. This, in turn, would explain Peter’s eventual devotion and dedication to Jesus.

Something just occurred to me. Back in Chapter 4, after Jesus left the synagogue, he went to the house of Simon, where Jesus cured Simon’s mother-in-law so she could wait on them. I didn’t realize it then, but we had not yet been introduced to Simon when that happened. Good gracious boy howdy, would I ever like to spin some really interesting theories on how this “proves” that Jesus had grown up in Caphernaum, and had known Simon before the point when Jesus called him. However, it’s much more likely that Luke just sort of muddled the chronology a bit. He kept the story of going to Simon’s house in more or less its original context per Mark, without really noticing that he hadn’t actually introduced Simon yet. It’s similar to the way that the Baptist was arrested before he baptized Jesus. Oops. So, as deliberate as Luke was, he was more concerned with the overall story than he was with stuff like chronological consistency. This is important to note, because it plays a big role in how Luke treats the material he inherited, which would include Mark, either Q or Matthew, and probably other traditions. 

I have believe that I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s worth repeating. At some point I read it suggested that James the son of Zebedee is no other than James the Just, the brother of the lord. I have a nagging sense that I brought this up before but dismissed it for whatever reason(s). If so, this is a good time to revisit that. This is pure speculation, but it would really make a lot of sense. The two people that Paul corroborates as members of the Jerusalem community are James, brother of the lord, and Peter. Here we have Peter and James. Being the son of  Zebedee really doesn’t pose any problem, since the name of Jesus’ father is problematic. Had Jesus’ father died some time ago, and had Mary then married Zebedee and had sons named James and John, then this would be a very tidy explanation. James, brother of Jesus, is only mentioned by Paul, and yet James son of Zebedee plays a consistent part in all four gospels. A brother named James is mentioned in Mark 6, when Jesus’ siblings are named. It would then make that Jesus was called “son of Mary” since his own father was dead, and his mother married to someone else. The fly in the ointment is that Mark 6 does not mention a John, but you can’t always have everything, And really, this feels like one of those theories that is too clever by half. Yes, it ties up a lot of loose ends, but that is part of the problem. It’s a little too neat. Real life usually isn’t quite so tidy, and this general slovenliness is what gives credence to conspiracy theories. Someone opening an umbrella on a sunny day in Dallas may be odd, but that does not mean it’s significant. Maybe he opened the umbrella to use as a parasol against the sun, but the people behind objected to having their view blocked. Same here. It would explain a lot of things, but…But I am leaning towards it, tidiness be damned. It fits, and nicely. Too nicely? Perhaps. It requires more pondering, but in the end, it’s one of those things on which one can change one’s mind every six months for the rest of one’s life and still never be able to make up one’s mind. 

This is an update. It occurred to me that I hadn’t addressed the idea of Simon & the brothers leaving everything behind to follow him. In fact, I haven’t addressed this at all, in any of the gospels. However, I don’t think tacking this on to the very end of a post is the proper time & place to consider the topic; rather, I’ll save it for the Summary.

9 Stupor enim circumdederat eum et omnes, qui cum illo erant, in captura piscium, quos ceperant;

10 similiter autem et Iacobum et Ioannem, filios Zebedaei, qui erant socii Simonis. Et ait ad Simonem Iesus: “ Noli timere; ex hoc iam homines eris capiens ”.

11 Et subductis ad terram navibus, relictis omnibus, secuti sunt illum.

Summary Matthew Chapter 5

This is probably the fourth or fifth draft of this. I lost track. This is an enormously important chapter, and I wanted to do it as much justice as possible. I’m still not completely happy, but this addresses the issues raised in the chapter, if not all of their greater ramifications.

The sentiments of the Beatitudes are revolutionary, representing a radical shift in what will become Western thought. In fact, the sentiments expressed here are perhaps one of the foundation stones of Western Civilisation. Of course, many cultures have a code of social justice; such a code is enshrined in the Hebrew Scriptures, and such prescriptions date back (at least) to the Code of Hammurabi. But what we have here is something different. Here we have not so much exhortations to help the needy, but flat-out statements that those in need will receive their recompense. This is to say that their suffering per se is worthy of reward. To the best of my knowledge, this had never been promised before. It certainly was never part of Greek or Roman thought, and even Marcus Aurelius, two hundred years later, had nothing comparable.

In one of his books that I read, JD Crossan said that apocalyptic prophecy was the last refuge of the politically oppressed. As pitiless as the conqueror was, apocalyptic prophecy let the subject peoples think, “Oh yeah? Well, you’re gonna get yours when our G/god comes and straightens things out.” And there is no doubting the appeal. Revenge fantasies against, say, a horrible boss are nearly universal, I suspect. (Or is that just saying something about me?) But this, the idea of those who mourn finding comfort is a different sort of prediction, both in outlook and in those it addresses. This is no longer a promise just to a political or cultural underclass. The poor, the mourning, those hungering for justice were universal classes in the ancient world; and, unfortunately, in the modern world as well. These categories encompass people of all nations, all races, all religions. As such, it’s not addressed to a specific audience in terms of ethnic composition in the way that Jewish apocalyptic writing was addressed to Jews, and couched in Jewish religion and culture the way the Book of Daniel was. Rather, this is the practical application of Paul’s “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free”, etc.

So it is not an ‘us vs. them’ sort of thing the way apocalyptic writing tends to be. And the other aspect—perhaps the more interesting aspect—is that we are not told when this recompense will be received, or when it will occur, Are we to presume that this part of the kingdom? We were told in 4:23 that Jesus was teaching the good news of the kingdom. Of course, we know when all this will happen. It will occur in the afterlife, which is to say the kingdom of God, or capital-h Heaven, when we have died and been judged worthy of eternal life. But where has Matthew said this? Indeed, where did Mark or Paul say this? What right have we to make this inference? And by ‘right”, I mean, where’s our textual support for this conclusion? Even later in this chapter, when Matthew talks about Gehenna, he does not provide an alternative. So what is our proof? From what I recall, the only support for this comes in Mark 9, and again in Mark 10:30. In Mark 9, he talks about “entering the life” rather than being thrown into Gehenna. I found it curious that Matthew omitted the part about the life here, although he will repeat most of this when he recapitulates the content of Mark 9 in this next chapter.

Now, we are told that the poor in spirit and the persecuted will be rewarded with the kingdom of heaven, and the meek shall inherit the earth. Is there a contradiction, or at least an inconsistency here?  If kingdom of the heavens can be understood as Heaven, what happens to the meek? When do they get the earth? In this life? Or in the next?

This is where we have to stop and ask what Matthew and his community believed at this point. Mark spoke briefly and vaguely about “the kingdom” and “the life”, the latter being opposed to being thrown into Gehenna. Because to this point, we have encountered exactly two references to anything resembling the concept of eternal life. Both were in Mark. One was when Jesus spoke of a sin against the sacred breath as the only sin that would lead to “eternal judgement”, the presumption that the judgement would not be positive. The other is in Mark 10:30, where Jesus says that one of the rewards for following Jesus faithfully will be eternal life. That’s it, More, the idea of eternity is not big in Matthew; he uses the word sparingly.

So are we justified to infer that we’re talking about eternal life? On the one hand, it sure seems like it; OTOH, maybe not so much. But if not eternal life, then what does it mean to be given entry into the kingdom of the heavens, or to inherit the earth? I certainly don’t have the answer, and I’m not sure I even an answer for this. But I don’t know that anyone else does, either; at least, no one has an answer that doesn’t presuppose the way that later generations–ourselves included–came to understand this.

In a nutshell, what I am saying is that the text is rather falling between two stools here. The idea of eternal life exists–perhaps. For the record, we are assuming that the use of the term in Mark 10:30 is not a later interpolation. This is always a possibility, but since the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate this, and I simply cannot, we will work under the assumption that the words date to the author of Mark. So the idea does exist, but I have to suggest that it’s still in a very attenuated form. There is the possibility that by the time Matthew wrote this, the idea of eternal life, and that eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens were synonymous, were so commonplace that it could be taken for granted, However, the burden of proof is to show that this is true, and I do not think any sort of reasonable case can be made to demonstrate this. Use of the term is still too sketchy. Yes, the truth could be somewhere in the middle, but saying that does not solve anything. The exact middle? Because if it’s closer to one side than the other, we’ve gained nothing with the attempt to compromise.

So now what? While I believe we cannot say with any certainty what Matthew meant by “kingdom of the heavens”, or if he believed in eternal life, we have to admit that the idea was around. Its seed had been planted. What I’m saying is this idea–and probably many others, are still developing.

If you agree with that statement, there is a host of very powerful implications that go with that.

In How Jesus Became God, Ehrman suggested that the main theme of Mark was the establishment of Jesus’ identity. That being accomplished, Matthew was free to focus on Jesus’ teaching. Note that what Ehrman is saying, perhaps without being aware of it, and certainly without being aware of the implications, is that the message of Jesus was still developing. Mark had to do part; Matthew did the next part. That means that Mark’s message was incomplete. More needed to be added because the message was still developing. So Ehrman agrees with me on that.

By starting with the birth narrative and adding that Jesus was attended by angels after the temptations have removed all doubt about Jesus’ identity. More, Matthew has established that Jesus was a divine entity, in some meaning of the word. Given this, Matthew then brushes over Mark’s initial exorcisms and healings in summary fashion. As a result, he truly begins Jesus’ ministry with Chapter 5 makes it very clear that Matthew will focus on Jesus’ teaching.

By making this the focus of his gospel, Matthew, for the moment, is not addressing the ways that Jesus’ teaching interacted with his divinity. Matthew has gone back to a human Jesus, a wise man, a wise teacher. Yes, we know that Jesus was divine, but this divinity has become latent, rather than explicit. In fact, the Jesus in Mark is perhaps more explicitly divine than the Jesus of Matthew. The one found in Mark is always casting out demons, healing people, and performing wonders. Since Matthew “goes back” to the teaching of Jesus, this could be adduced as further proof–as if any were needed–for the existence of Q. Matthew “went back” to the human Jesus and his teachings precisely because of Q. Matthew had access to this trove of information on what Jesus said that was not available to Mark, for reason or reasons unspecified.

But we’ll get back to that. How and why Mark missed Q is an elephant in the room that no one is addressing.

In the chapter, we go from the Beatitudes to the….what? Analogies? Comparisons? Wisdom sayings? How exactly do we classify the statements that Jesus makes about the salt of the earth and the city on the hill? I find it interesting that Matthew inserts the analogies about the salt of the earth, and the city on the hill in here. Contextually, they don’t really fit. They are sort of stuck in here, not relating either to the Beatitudes or to what comes next. Also, this is a case where Matthew did not successfully integrate Triple Tradition material–stuff common to Matthew, Mark, and Luke–into the place where Mark locates it. This is supposed to be a hallmark of Matthew, but he didn’t get it right here. Mark has Jesus saying this to the disciples, in a more intimate setting, rather than to a great crowd. And, honestly, I believe that Mark’s context is more appropriate. This sounds like a pep-talk for his close followers, convincing them that they are worthy of the charge Jesus is entrusting to them. But, that’s an opinion, and worth just about that much. More important is that, perhaps counterintuitively, I think this clumsy context does a lot to establish them as authentic sayings of Jesus. Why do I say this? Because it makes almost no sense to include them otherwise. Why is he telling members of the crowd, as a whole, that they are the salt of the earth, and the city on the hill? As they exist here, they really feel like something culled from a list of out-of-context sayings. Something like Q, IOW.

Then there is the famous bit about how Jesus claims he will not drop a single iota from the Law. This passage is often cited to demonstrate Matthew’s bona fides as a Jew. What is not said, is that, having made this proclamation, Jesus proceeds to do exactly what he said he wouldn’t: he starts editng the Law. No divorce; lust in the heart = adultery; hating your brother = murder; no more eye for an eye. Here we reflect back to what I said about the Beatitudes: these explications of the law feel like Jesus is expanding the scope of those who are subject to the Law. Yes, he’s talking about the lessons of the Law, talking about “our forefathers”, but he is showing how they apply now, and how they are no longer the exclusive prerogative, purview, of Jews. Jesus here, I think, is speaking to ex-pagans. My pet theory is that the author of this gospel was a god-fearer, a pagan who was deeply interested in Jewish traditions and Law, in particular in the Jewish moral code. Even though he says “our forefathers said…” this is an allegorical use of the term. But, this is a pet theory; I don’t have much in the way of concrete proof. Yet. But look at how this all works together, how Jesus is creating a universal message, one whose scope goes beyond the tight constraints of a Jews-only milieu.

Note that I said “Jesus is creating a universal message”. Of course, that is probably incorrect. More properly, Matthew is putting these words into Jesus’ mouth.Why? Because an expanded message, one that is directed as much–or more–to pagans than to Jews is not appropriate for the historical Jesus who lived in the 20s/30s of the Common Era. But such a message to pagans is wholely appropriate for an evangelist writing in the mid-80s CE. And here is where the idea of a developing message is crucial: if the Beatitudes were fixed in the 30s and transmitted via Q, then the message was set and did not change. Matthew simply went back to this older material and merged it with Mark to create a new gospel.

But is that what Matthew did? Is Jesus preaching to primarily pagans? or primarily to Jews here? That is the heart of the matter, If he’s preaching to Jews, then this message most likely dates back to the 30s and was transmitted via Q. If he’s preaching to pagans here, then the message was, likely, created after that, most likely starting some time after the destruction of the Temple. What I believe we have here is a scenario in which Jesus is ostensibly preaching to Jews, but Matthew is in fact writing for pagans.

So, if I’m correct in this, then Q becomes a casualty. That is what is at stake here. Well, it’s one thing. Now I have no illusions that I have constructed a convincing case that Jesus/Matthew is addressing pagans. I have done no such thing. What I hope, however, is that I’ve started. I hope I’ve put the seed in your mind. Now, whether it grows will depend on how well I tend to it from here. But I’ve put my stake in the ground. As always, I reserve the right to eat my words at a later point. I’m hoping I won’t have to do that, but time will tell.