John, chapters seven and eight, is a good place to talk about (for a lack of a better term) the literary style or styles of John. As I have stated throughout the last several posts, the Gospel of John is a theological work designed to promote a particular theological perspective on who Jesus is. It is my contention that John is the work of several writers or editors who worked on it together or separately, adding or editing what others had written. Nothing supports my hypothesis better than these two chapters.
John does not have a particular literary style as it has a theological agenda that drives the way it was written. The writers and editors of John exercised free reign when it come to borrowing, creating or reworking the information they presented. What they stayed clear of in their presentation of Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God was any of the parables of Jesus or the actual teachings of Jesus that are found in the synoptic gospels. Instead they utilized parables or stories about Jesus, some of which were highly stylistic; such as, the story of the Samaritan woman where there was a completion to the story.
Other stories left one hanging; such as, the story of Nicodemus' night time visit or the paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda where ones doesn't find out what happened to these characters as a result of their encounter with Jesus. Then there is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand and walking on water that were clearly borrowed from the synoptic gospels but which show the editorial struggle in how to incorporate those stories to fit John's theological perspective.
Other stories left one hanging; such as, the story of Nicodemus' night time visit or the paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda where ones doesn't find out what happened to these characters as a result of their encounter with Jesus. Then there is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand and walking on water that were clearly borrowed from the synoptic gospels but which show the editorial struggle in how to incorporate those stories to fit John's theological perspective.
The reality is that very few of the stories found in the synoptic gospels fit John's theological perspective which consists of Jesus being the reason the world and creation came to be, that Jesus is the only-begotten so Son of God, that no one can believe this unless chosen by the Father (God) and no one can know the Father except through believing in Jesus as God's only-begotten Son, that only belief in Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God can assure one of eternal life, and, most importantly, Christianity is not Judaism.
What I find ironic is that John's interpretation of Jesus's earthly mission tends to interpret what the synoptic gospels say about Jesus's life. This was by design on the part of those who formulated the New Testament's canon. For example, it would have made immense sense to have the Gospel according to Luke be the last gospel since its author also authored the Book of Acts. Since the Gospel of John talks about the beginning of things, it would have made immense sense to make the Gospel of John the first book in New Testament canon - or would it have? Not if you wanted John's theological perspective to dominate Christian theology. Placing John as the last Gospel gave John the last word on Jesus and it stuck.
The other stylistic motive for how John is written is that it addresses several contemporary issues at the time it was written. In that respect John is very much like the epistles. It was meant to provide a specific interpretation on how salvation works, but with the interesting twist that it is presented as though Jesus said what the authors and editors of John wanted said, which brings us to a discussion of John 7 and 8.
What I find ironic is that John's interpretation of Jesus's earthly mission tends to interpret what the synoptic gospels say about Jesus's life. This was by design on the part of those who formulated the New Testament's canon. For example, it would have made immense sense to have the Gospel according to Luke be the last gospel since its author also authored the Book of Acts. Since the Gospel of John talks about the beginning of things, it would have made immense sense to make the Gospel of John the first book in New Testament canon - or would it have? Not if you wanted John's theological perspective to dominate Christian theology. Placing John as the last Gospel gave John the last word on Jesus and it stuck.
The other stylistic motive for how John is written is that it addresses several contemporary issues at the time it was written. In that respect John is very much like the epistles. It was meant to provide a specific interpretation on how salvation works, but with the interesting twist that it is presented as though Jesus said what the authors and editors of John wanted said, which brings us to a discussion of John 7 and 8.
JOHN 7
John 7 is perhaps one of the most confusing, if not one of the most convoluted pieces of scripture found in the entire Bible. It starts with saying the reason Jesus went to Galilee was to get away from the Jews who were trying to kill him. Then we read that Jesus's brothers asked him to go to Jerusalem with them to celebrate Sukkot, the Feast of the Booths, one of three feasts that required Jews to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Temple period. When Jesus displays his reluctance to go, his brothers tell him that a person who wants notoriety (to encourage his followers) would be eager to show his stuff on the bigger stage of Jerusalem. (Biblical sarcasm?) John makes the editorial comment that even Jesus's brothers did not believe him.
Jesus responds to his younger, earthly siblings, that his time has not yet come; that their time is always present; that the world hates him, but loves their ilk (more sarcasm?) Then John says Jesus's brothers leave and he stays behind in Galilee.
This is a good place to pause for a moment.
What just happened and why make what seemingly appears to be a sibling issue part of this gospel?
As always, there is the overriding agenda in John. Mention of Jesus's brothers is perhaps directly aimed at Jesus's most notable brother, James, the once head of the now extinct Church in Jerusalem. Other brothers of Jesus, might have also had lead roles in establishing churches, but the only one we know of is James. Is this a slam against the remaining followers of James' church, that might have survived the Fall of Jerusalem or who still remained loyal to the teaching of James? Possibly.
The church in Jerusalem, before its destruction in 70 AD, was composed of Pharisaical elements. Pharisees are particularly targeted in John as Jesus's enemies who are out to get him killed when, in fact, it was the Sadducees who played a much more prominent role in going after Jesus as they represented the ruling branch of Judea prior to its destruction, but in John, it becomes the Pharisees. There is absolutely no mention of the Sadducees in John. Their absence is a glaring omission. For the authors and editors of John they were no longer a problem, as they no longer existed. The Pharisees survived and as intimated in the Book of Acts they were also part of the first Christian church. If they remained in the Christian community as urging continued compliance with Judaic law, they would have been perceived as a problem for Johannine Christian community, if not the newly emerging church as a whole.
The only insight one has into this possible controversy is the Letter of James attributed to Jesus's brother James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem during the Temple period. What I have come to appreciate in the Letter of James is its injunction against faith as mere intellectual assent - as belief; that faith sans works (doing something) is pointless and is, in the words of James, dead.
For centuries many theologians and church historians saw the Letter of James as in conflict with Paul's teaching on justification by faith. I propose that it is squarely aimed at the Johannine perspective on faith as belief, as mere intellectual assent to a theology about Jesus. James is also notable for not mentioning Jesus as the only begotten son of God and connecting Christian faith to its Judaic roots. That James survived to be in the New Testament canon is amazing as its presence sheds a great deal of light on the evolution of Christianity as a religion.
We left off with Jesus staying in Galilee. This was stated in verse 9 of John 7. In verse 10, however, Jesus decides to head to Jerusalem "in secret" after his brothers leave. One can't help but question Jesus's motive or why he either lied to his brothers or had a change of mind about going. Neither of these obvious conclusions appear to bother the writers and editors of John. Remember, everything Jesus does in John is intentional - is done in accordance with the will of his heavenly Father, God.
Does one see the danger that the Gospel of John poses in its logic or its theo-logic?
By this logic, the editors and writers of John suggest that if Jesus lies, it's not a lie because it is the will of God. If Jesus appears to change his mind, its not a change of mind because the mind of Jesus and his Father are in sync with each other.
By extension, those "true believers" who are one with Christ in God the Father can claim the same logic to whatever religious, hair-brained, action taken in the name of God.
While this illogic is not specifically spelled out as such anywhere in the New Testament, its implication and application has been evident throughout the history of the Christian church and the world, and we find one of its sources in John 7.
Try as one may to make this have a different meaning, it is what it is - an ill thought means on the part of John's writers to get Jesus to where they want him to be, Jerusalem. What I would suggest is that this is evidence of the pieced together editing that takes place throughout the Gospel of John. It's as if we have two different stories that the writers are trying to piece together as a whole and don't do a very good job of it. It's rather sloppy theology and is why I see John a composite work of several different writing styles, writers, and theological approaches.
SUKKOT AND THE TRANSFIGURATION
Given what I said above, it intrigued me why John mentions the Festival of Sukkot. What is its significance to what John is presenting in chapter seven? I would suggest that its significance lies in its relationship to another story about Jesus that is found in all three synoptic Gospels but is missing in John, the story of Jesus' transfiguration.
That it is missing is, in my opinion, a bit mysterious because it is a story where God, himself, tells Jesus's disciples, Peter, James and John that Jesus is his Son, His beloved or chosen. It would seem that this information would back John's theological purpose of declaring Jesus to be God's son.
Well... perhaps its not so mysterious because it's not what the account of The Transfiguration says that would bother John's writers as much as what it doesn't say, that Jesus is God's only-begotten Son. The idea of Jesus being chosen from amongst us mortals to be God's son is not an option for John. The other thing that writers find untenable is Jesus sharing the stage with others, particularly with "Old Testament" characters such as Moses and Elijah. The transfiguration story, however, has Peter mentioning building three tabernacles or booths for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
What I am suggesting is that John is very aware of other gospel stories; that they are familiar to members of the Johannine Christian community and John's writers are addressing them to suit their own purposes. So instead of talking about the transfiguration of Jesus, John has Jesus talking about Moses during the Feast of Sukkot. Elijah gets little press in John, being only mentioned in John 1 with regard to whether John the Baptist was Elijah, which John the Baptist denies.
There is no mention of Elijah ever being associated with Jesus in John and I believe this is purposeful because Elijah's presence would indicate that Jesus is the Messiah of Judaism and John is claiming Jesus as the Christ, the cosmic Messiah who created and redeems the world. Jesus is God and the Feast of Sukkot is the place, in John, where Jesus is making this declaration in the Temple, the biggest booth of all. What happened with Jesus trying to be secretive?
In the process John has Jesus making a historical error about the origins of circumcision. When talking about how the "Jews" did not understand Moses, apparently Jesus (in John) didn't understand the history of circumcision. It's worth giving that selection from King James Version:
22 Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man.
Jesus states in verse 22 that Moses gave Judaism the rite of circumcision, but then it is followed by parenthetical editing which I highlighted that clarifies that it wasn't Moses, but rather the "fathers" - code for Abraham. What is interesting about this is that the editors didn't edit Jesus's error out as they might have done.
There may be a couple of explanations as to why they didn't. The first is that John has Jesus talking about Moses, not Abraham, and they would have had to change the entire script so they opted for editing in the correction (as if Jesus was thinking this all along). Another possibility is that the editing took place much later when John was already being passed around as a gospel and was not immediately caught until a later scholar caught the mistake and made the addition, but didn't want to change what had by that time become recognized as sacred scripture.
What the editor is also alluding to is working on the Sabbath, as in "ye on Sabbath day circumcise a man." Is the comeback for being accused of healing on the Sabbath or is it confused editing trying to make a point about the Judaic prohibition against working on the Sabbath as part of Mosaic law and tying circumcision to Mosaic law.
John 7 ends with the Temple authorities being inaccurately portrayed as Pharisees ordering the Temple guards to go and kill Jesus which would also have been historically inaccurate since they had no civil authority to do so and who don't because whatever Jesus was saying made so much divine sense to them, which had the Temple authorities (the Pharisees) shaking their unbelieving heads. John 7 is one of several places in the New Testament that erroneously references the Hebrew Scriptures. If anything argues against the inerrancy of scripture, John 7 stands as a case in point.
John 8 actually begins with the last verse of John 7. Don't ask me why, but again this seems to indicate an editorial mistake. John 8 begins with what I consider to be the finest story about Jesus in John - maybe the one of the finest stories in the entire New Testament and most theologians and Bible translators now agree that it wasn't part of John's original script, that it was inserted later by someone different than the original "writer" of John. That story is the story of the Adulterous Woman.
Most modern translations have gone so far as to place the entire story in brackets and it rarely finds its way in any liturgical church's lectionary. I quite agree that it is not original to the original script of John. It's so unlike anything else written in John; so compassionate and forgiving, so inclusive that it couldn't possibly have been in the original script.
My hypothesis is that it was a story added to John to tone the Gospel down a notch or two - to make Jesus appear more human and less divine. I would like to think that it is a truer depiction of who Jesus really was than anything else written in John. The story, John 7:53 through John 8:11, is self explanatory. I have written about this story already in my post on "Forgiveness." If you wish to read my thoughts on it, click here. What I would say here is that it again provides incontrovertible evidence of the composite nature of this gospel and its being subject of several writers and editors.
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD THAT SHEDS SOME LIGHT ON STYLE
By verse 12 where back at Jesus saying things about himself that are understood as his making a direct claim to his own divinity in terms of his being the "Light of the World." What strikes me in this section is how John 8 reflects what is found in John 1 and 3. Stylistically, one can almost trace which writers wrote certain sections of John. The light writer, the water writer, the bread /wine/vine writer and the editors who inserted stories from other gospel sources, much like you can trace the Hebrew scriptures to those of Elohist, Jahwist, Deuteronomist, or Priestly sources. Perhaps at some point there was someone or a group of people who oversaw, finalized these various scripts into the form we have today.
TRANSFIGURATION REVISTED
At the end of John 8, Jesus castigates the "Jews" for not understanding that their own scriptures and makes the claim that everything in the Hebrew Scriptures ultimately points to him, as God's Son; that before Abraham was, he existed which brings us back to the Transfiguration. In both of the these chapters, Jesus claims for himself to be the Voice, the very Word of God. There is no vision of Moses and Elijah, just Jesus talking about the two fundamental witnesses in the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus claims foretold of him, Moses and Abraham. There are no booths, but the rather this all takes place in or near the Temple precinct in the holy city of Jerusalem.
Sukkot is the feast of ingathering, the harvest, and I believe the authors and editors of these stories are making a point that in every harvest there is thrashing, there is division between what is true grain and what is chaff. Clearly John is making of Judaism the chaff that once held the grain, but now that Jesus has come, the chaff is being dispensed with.
John does not use these metaphors directly, but the accounts of John 7 and 8 are within the context of this feast and correlate to the Transfiguration story found in the synoptic gospels as a turning point in how to perceive Jesus. In the synoptic gospels this occurs as revelation. In John this occurs as confrontation between Jesus and his fellow Jews.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Jesus responds to his younger, earthly siblings, that his time has not yet come; that their time is always present; that the world hates him, but loves their ilk (more sarcasm?) Then John says Jesus's brothers leave and he stays behind in Galilee.
This is a good place to pause for a moment.
What just happened and why make what seemingly appears to be a sibling issue part of this gospel?
As always, there is the overriding agenda in John. Mention of Jesus's brothers is perhaps directly aimed at Jesus's most notable brother, James, the once head of the now extinct Church in Jerusalem. Other brothers of Jesus, might have also had lead roles in establishing churches, but the only one we know of is James. Is this a slam against the remaining followers of James' church, that might have survived the Fall of Jerusalem or who still remained loyal to the teaching of James? Possibly.
The church in Jerusalem, before its destruction in 70 AD, was composed of Pharisaical elements. Pharisees are particularly targeted in John as Jesus's enemies who are out to get him killed when, in fact, it was the Sadducees who played a much more prominent role in going after Jesus as they represented the ruling branch of Judea prior to its destruction, but in John, it becomes the Pharisees. There is absolutely no mention of the Sadducees in John. Their absence is a glaring omission. For the authors and editors of John they were no longer a problem, as they no longer existed. The Pharisees survived and as intimated in the Book of Acts they were also part of the first Christian church. If they remained in the Christian community as urging continued compliance with Judaic law, they would have been perceived as a problem for Johannine Christian community, if not the newly emerging church as a whole.
The only insight one has into this possible controversy is the Letter of James attributed to Jesus's brother James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem during the Temple period. What I have come to appreciate in the Letter of James is its injunction against faith as mere intellectual assent - as belief; that faith sans works (doing something) is pointless and is, in the words of James, dead.
For centuries many theologians and church historians saw the Letter of James as in conflict with Paul's teaching on justification by faith. I propose that it is squarely aimed at the Johannine perspective on faith as belief, as mere intellectual assent to a theology about Jesus. James is also notable for not mentioning Jesus as the only begotten son of God and connecting Christian faith to its Judaic roots. That James survived to be in the New Testament canon is amazing as its presence sheds a great deal of light on the evolution of Christianity as a religion.
We left off with Jesus staying in Galilee. This was stated in verse 9 of John 7. In verse 10, however, Jesus decides to head to Jerusalem "in secret" after his brothers leave. One can't help but question Jesus's motive or why he either lied to his brothers or had a change of mind about going. Neither of these obvious conclusions appear to bother the writers and editors of John. Remember, everything Jesus does in John is intentional - is done in accordance with the will of his heavenly Father, God.
Does one see the danger that the Gospel of John poses in its logic or its theo-logic?
By this logic, the editors and writers of John suggest that if Jesus lies, it's not a lie because it is the will of God. If Jesus appears to change his mind, its not a change of mind because the mind of Jesus and his Father are in sync with each other.
By extension, those "true believers" who are one with Christ in God the Father can claim the same logic to whatever religious, hair-brained, action taken in the name of God.
While this illogic is not specifically spelled out as such anywhere in the New Testament, its implication and application has been evident throughout the history of the Christian church and the world, and we find one of its sources in John 7.
Try as one may to make this have a different meaning, it is what it is - an ill thought means on the part of John's writers to get Jesus to where they want him to be, Jerusalem. What I would suggest is that this is evidence of the pieced together editing that takes place throughout the Gospel of John. It's as if we have two different stories that the writers are trying to piece together as a whole and don't do a very good job of it. It's rather sloppy theology and is why I see John a composite work of several different writing styles, writers, and theological approaches.
SUKKOT AND THE TRANSFIGURATION
Given what I said above, it intrigued me why John mentions the Festival of Sukkot. What is its significance to what John is presenting in chapter seven? I would suggest that its significance lies in its relationship to another story about Jesus that is found in all three synoptic Gospels but is missing in John, the story of Jesus' transfiguration.
That it is missing is, in my opinion, a bit mysterious because it is a story where God, himself, tells Jesus's disciples, Peter, James and John that Jesus is his Son, His beloved or chosen. It would seem that this information would back John's theological purpose of declaring Jesus to be God's son.
Well... perhaps its not so mysterious because it's not what the account of The Transfiguration says that would bother John's writers as much as what it doesn't say, that Jesus is God's only-begotten Son. The idea of Jesus being chosen from amongst us mortals to be God's son is not an option for John. The other thing that writers find untenable is Jesus sharing the stage with others, particularly with "Old Testament" characters such as Moses and Elijah. The transfiguration story, however, has Peter mentioning building three tabernacles or booths for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
What I am suggesting is that John is very aware of other gospel stories; that they are familiar to members of the Johannine Christian community and John's writers are addressing them to suit their own purposes. So instead of talking about the transfiguration of Jesus, John has Jesus talking about Moses during the Feast of Sukkot. Elijah gets little press in John, being only mentioned in John 1 with regard to whether John the Baptist was Elijah, which John the Baptist denies.
There is no mention of Elijah ever being associated with Jesus in John and I believe this is purposeful because Elijah's presence would indicate that Jesus is the Messiah of Judaism and John is claiming Jesus as the Christ, the cosmic Messiah who created and redeems the world. Jesus is God and the Feast of Sukkot is the place, in John, where Jesus is making this declaration in the Temple, the biggest booth of all. What happened with Jesus trying to be secretive?
In the process John has Jesus making a historical error about the origins of circumcision. When talking about how the "Jews" did not understand Moses, apparently Jesus (in John) didn't understand the history of circumcision. It's worth giving that selection from King James Version:
22 Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man.
Jesus states in verse 22 that Moses gave Judaism the rite of circumcision, but then it is followed by parenthetical editing which I highlighted that clarifies that it wasn't Moses, but rather the "fathers" - code for Abraham. What is interesting about this is that the editors didn't edit Jesus's error out as they might have done.
There may be a couple of explanations as to why they didn't. The first is that John has Jesus talking about Moses, not Abraham, and they would have had to change the entire script so they opted for editing in the correction (as if Jesus was thinking this all along). Another possibility is that the editing took place much later when John was already being passed around as a gospel and was not immediately caught until a later scholar caught the mistake and made the addition, but didn't want to change what had by that time become recognized as sacred scripture.
What the editor is also alluding to is working on the Sabbath, as in "ye on Sabbath day circumcise a man." Is the comeback for being accused of healing on the Sabbath or is it confused editing trying to make a point about the Judaic prohibition against working on the Sabbath as part of Mosaic law and tying circumcision to Mosaic law.
John 7 ends with the Temple authorities being inaccurately portrayed as Pharisees ordering the Temple guards to go and kill Jesus which would also have been historically inaccurate since they had no civil authority to do so and who don't because whatever Jesus was saying made so much divine sense to them, which had the Temple authorities (the Pharisees) shaking their unbelieving heads. John 7 is one of several places in the New Testament that erroneously references the Hebrew Scriptures. If anything argues against the inerrancy of scripture, John 7 stands as a case in point.
JOHN 8
Most modern translations have gone so far as to place the entire story in brackets and it rarely finds its way in any liturgical church's lectionary. I quite agree that it is not original to the original script of John. It's so unlike anything else written in John; so compassionate and forgiving, so inclusive that it couldn't possibly have been in the original script.
My hypothesis is that it was a story added to John to tone the Gospel down a notch or two - to make Jesus appear more human and less divine. I would like to think that it is a truer depiction of who Jesus really was than anything else written in John. The story, John 7:53 through John 8:11, is self explanatory. I have written about this story already in my post on "Forgiveness." If you wish to read my thoughts on it, click here. What I would say here is that it again provides incontrovertible evidence of the composite nature of this gospel and its being subject of several writers and editors.
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD THAT SHEDS SOME LIGHT ON STYLE
By verse 12 where back at Jesus saying things about himself that are understood as his making a direct claim to his own divinity in terms of his being the "Light of the World." What strikes me in this section is how John 8 reflects what is found in John 1 and 3. Stylistically, one can almost trace which writers wrote certain sections of John. The light writer, the water writer, the bread /wine/vine writer and the editors who inserted stories from other gospel sources, much like you can trace the Hebrew scriptures to those of Elohist, Jahwist, Deuteronomist, or Priestly sources. Perhaps at some point there was someone or a group of people who oversaw, finalized these various scripts into the form we have today.
TRANSFIGURATION REVISTED
At the end of John 8, Jesus castigates the "Jews" for not understanding that their own scriptures and makes the claim that everything in the Hebrew Scriptures ultimately points to him, as God's Son; that before Abraham was, he existed which brings us back to the Transfiguration. In both of the these chapters, Jesus claims for himself to be the Voice, the very Word of God. There is no vision of Moses and Elijah, just Jesus talking about the two fundamental witnesses in the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus claims foretold of him, Moses and Abraham. There are no booths, but the rather this all takes place in or near the Temple precinct in the holy city of Jerusalem.
Sukkot is the feast of ingathering, the harvest, and I believe the authors and editors of these stories are making a point that in every harvest there is thrashing, there is division between what is true grain and what is chaff. Clearly John is making of Judaism the chaff that once held the grain, but now that Jesus has come, the chaff is being dispensed with.
John does not use these metaphors directly, but the accounts of John 7 and 8 are within the context of this feast and correlate to the Transfiguration story found in the synoptic gospels as a turning point in how to perceive Jesus. In the synoptic gospels this occurs as revelation. In John this occurs as confrontation between Jesus and his fellow Jews.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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