The Late Great Debate on the Disciple John

Sorry Jaywill, I totally forgot about this thread.Anyway, well, I'm not averse to it being the Apostle John, however, have you considered the timeline? If it is the Apostle John, then he wrote those epistles when he was over 100 years old.Now, that isn't an impossibility-- especially since with God, all things are possible.But I guess it makes more sense when considered that someone could have been transcribing for him, which was a common occurance back then.One question: Is it a matter of contention for you, or are you just being inquisitive?

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"The problem of Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it is difficult and left untried" -G.K. Chesterton

Jaywill and Equinox,This is a Bible study forum, please stick to discussing the Bible and the evidence that supports your position.Refrain from questioning your opponents personal beliefs.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.

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Any response in this thread will receive a 24 hour timeout.Thank you

If there was some way of accepting Equinox's theory without sliding down the slippery slope that there is deception or positive error written into First John or the Gospel of John, I might be more willing to entertain his theory.But I sense a destructive Trojan Horse outside the gate. His thesis asks me to believe that the Gospel of John was not written by an eyewitness to the things which the writer claims he was eyewitness to.So now I must accept that there is a lie in the Gospel of John.But it doesn't seem to stop here. He also requires, I believe, that I count the Epistle of First John to have not been written by one of the original twelve disciples. This is in direct contradiction to the first few passages of the letter of First John.Or if the writer wasn't one of the twelve, he was one who handled with his hands the Logos. Sounds like one of the original apostles.It matters little to Equinox if the Trojan Horse of destructive higher criticism implants itself into his understanding of "4g" because he finds its essential central message poppycock to begin with. He lumps the resurrection of Jesus into the same class of any number of legends as mythology.Whenever an unbelievers glare down their scholarly spectacles accusing me of coming to the gospel with wishful thinking and preconceived prejudices, I tend to point out that their own imagined "objectivity" does not exist either.I think this thread may be misplaced as textural critical arguments about the authorship of the New Testament, I think, are debated in another room.There must be a hundred of similar utterances and phraseologies between Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John. I am interested in the spiritual progression of these. And if they were not written by the same author I marvel at how close in thinking the two writers appeared to be.I did learn something and was prompted to beef up on my familiarity with the history of the NT canon.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

People become wild in their imagining conspiracy theories as opposed to accepting that Christ's disciples faithfully recording what actually happened, even though they themselves were possibly puzzled about them. I wonder about skeptics who feel that they themselves alone are the only people in the world concerned to pass on an accurate account of events of great significance.In presupposing that ancient Christians are all out to pull the wool over the eyes of future generations, conspiracies of latter additions and what not sometimes require more "faith" to believe than just the plain account in the New Testament.So if all of this editing was going on why did they leave in accounts that they knew would be the cause of problems?The account of Jesus doing physically unusual things like appearing out of nowhere in a locked room would not be peculiar to (4g), John's Gospel alone. In Luke's gospel we see Jesus walking some distance with disheartened disciples on the road and they are kept from recognizing Him. Only after He broke bread did God allow them to realize that it was the resurrected Jesus who was giving them a thrilling Bible study to lift up their hearts. Both Luke and John indicate something unusual about the abilities of Jesus in His resurrected body. Are you now going to say that this was a latter addition to 4G to make it harmonize with Luke? So where's the thesis that the Gospel of Luke is also laden with Gnostic influence, at least in chapter 24?How about both evangelists faithfully recorded the facts as they either witnessed them or received from witnesses? Perish the thought?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Wishful thinking on my part?Well while we're on the subject let me ask you. You are eager to
understand the writer of Acts when he says Peter and John were unlettered to bolster your belief that John couldn't write a gospel. Are you equally convinced when the author of Acts says this: Do you accept with equal credibility Acts 1:1-3? Or do we have from you the assumption that John's inability to write is assured but Jesus presenting Himself alive after resurrection with "many infallible proofs" is not?You were speaking of selectivity?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

First - mods, help me understand the rules. Can we post on this thread? PD’s admin post says no further posts, but I see more posts and no timeout for the posters, and am being directly asked questions on this thread, and the thread isn’t closed. If the thread is truly closed, I’ll delete my post and apologize. Thanks.JW wrote: I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the dislike of the consequences of a claim have no bearing on the truth of that claim. For example, if I’m going to take my daughter to the ball game one night, and my wife comes in and says that a tree just fell on my car in the driveway, I can’t say “oh, that must be false because I’d rather my car were in good shape to take my daughter to the ball game”. The real, adult world doesn’t cater to our whims - though a lot of people pretend it does, in various areas of their life (I don’t mean just religion).Also, the idea of a slippery slope is a common fallacy. Many Christians accept that 4g probably wasn’t written by John nor by a disciple, and have a strong, healthy, informed, mature faith. You are right, it doesn’t. There are tons of clear cases where there are lies or forgeries in the Bible. The evidence is irrefutable, and we can get into it. We already discussed the many reasons why chapt 21 in 4g appears to have been added (which you haven’t provided a reason to reject), and other cases are even more clear - such as the addition of the end of Mark’s Gospel, 4g chap. 8, and on and on. If you want dozens of examples, read Ehrman’s “the orthodox corruption of scripture” or the more recent “misquoting Jesus”.The good news is that none of that need upset the applecart of Christian faith. You know that the process of putting the Bible together was done centuries after Jesus, by the Catholic church. You have already rejected much of what they’ve done in other areas, and even in the area of the Bible canon by saying the Bible has 66 instead of the Catholic 73 books. By realizing that this was a human process, you can strengthen your faith in Jesus by focusing on him instead of on human works. And we already know that can’t be the case because they recorded direct contradictions (not just “different versions”) as compared to one another. For instance - did Jesus clear the temple at the start of his ministry, or in the last week of his life? Did Peter deny Jesus before or after the cock crowed? Which day did Jesus die on? Did Jesus make a lengthy speech at his trial, or just say two words? We could go on all day with these, but as before, the question is already answered by anyone who uses their god-given brain, and that answer need not disturb their Christianity. And as I’ve said twice and now a third time, that’s all true - they are probably either the same author or the second one was profoundly influenced by the first.I can agree with you again on that point if you like, just ask and I’ll cut, paste, and repost it. Could be. It’s probably not a coincidence that the latest of our gospels are the two in which Gnostic influence is found. It’s also in the Gospel of Peter, which was probably written shortly after 4g. LOL! Come on, you have to be aware that in any work, some things might be true while others are false. For instance, in Dicken’s “A Tale of Two Cities”, it could well be true that the French were discontent in the late 1780’s, that both London and Paris existed in the 18th century, and yet be false that Sydney had a drinking problem or even that Sydney existed. Simply because two thing are in the same work - even by the same author - and even if the work is historical in nature (which the NT isn’t - it’s written to convince you to believe) - even with all that parts can be true and others false. Another example is many of our posts on this thread - even in the same post parts can be true and other false. Another example is the writing that tells us about Pythagoras. It says he existed, discovered mathematical things, and could walk on not just water but on air. Should I automatically accept all of that?So how to know which parts are true and which are false? (1) We have to look at other evidence, and to also (2) compare it to the historical context. This is what historians do with any historical claim, from any source. Applying it to the Bible only means that the Bible is being treated fairly, the same as any other source of information, and not molly coddled or presumed to be true from the start.For instance, Luke mentions Quirinius as a governor of Syria. Was there ever a Quirinius, and was he a governor in Syria? Historical data also mentions him, and as a governor in Syria. It is consistent with that place and time to have governors, and the name Quirinius is a Roman name, which is also plausible - it’s not like Luke is saying that Montezuma was a Czar in Syria. Thus, that passes the tests of historical credibility, outside attestation, and is (3) neutral on the test of dissimiliarity (which asks whether it would have been intentionally made up to serve the interests of the writer). Conclusion - Luke is probably right that Quirinius existed and was a governor in Syria.Now apply those to the illiterate question -
Criteria 1: Is there outside attestation that they were illiterate? No, though it is said that they were peasant fishermen in several places in the NT, and many outside sources historically record that there were peasant fishermen around in that place and time.
Criteria 2: Is it likely in that time and place that a couple of peasant fishermen were illiterate? Sure it is - that’s like saying if I picked a random person in china, would he or she be Asian. There are exceptions, but even over the whole society then, only 5% or so could read and write, and those were the elite upper classes, not peasant fishermen.
Ciriteria 3: Would whoever wrote Luke/acts have wanted to make this up? Maybe - it does fit with that passage, but doesn’t make the apostles look really good, so it looks neutral on this criteria.See how it works? Now apply it to Criteria 1: Is there outside attestation of this? There are plenty of Christian gospels both in and outside of the NT claiming Jesus did miracles (I don’t think there are any that describe this 40 day period), but no outside sources from within a century of Jesus’ life that even say he existed, much less did miracles for people.Criteria 2: is it historically plausible that Jesus presented himself alive and all that for 40 days? It’s hard to answer this because people generally don’t (in any time or place) do this after being executed. Being that this is a central claim of the whole gospel, we’ll have to leave this one unresolved at best.Criteria 3: is this something the author (who is trying to convince you to believe) would have made up? Sure. It’s exactly the kind of thing needed to get people to believe. This is bolstered by the fact that it says “many irrefutable proofs”, but doesn’t seem to know what those might have been. Would someone faithfully recording events like this have stopped without so much as a “such as, on Tuesday he did.. and then on Thursday he did . .”?So it is by criteria that I tentatively accept 4:13 and reject 1:3. You are welcome to reject these criteria, but if you do reject the criteria historians use, you must come up with other criteria by which we can judge all ancient documents, both those some call the Bible and those outside of that set - which is a different set depending on who you listen to. Or, one could have no basis on which to decide what to believe other than going along with what you’ve been told by some group to believe, or raised to believe or want to believe.Have a fun day-Equinox

I didn't notice if we were timed out. I was being too political. Actually, I don't really think the claim has merit. There is growth and maturity of the natural life and there is growth and maturity of the spiritual life. In the spiritual growth it is naive to not realize that there is a spiritual battle over the truth.If accepting that there is a lie in John's Gospel seems to you to be not adult and subject to whims, I'll accept that criticism from you. I am reluctant to take my trust off of the veracity of Scripture which you seemed to concede was "divine" (or maybe that was some ploy), and putting my trust idea that we have an untrue account.If that is childish to you, I'll bear that charge. We've been called worst things. It requires a bit of unnecessary mental gymnastics for me. At least to be so positively sure that your interpretation requires that
John is not identifying himself there, I think, is a forced suspicion. I don't see "tons" if forgeries. I see a small percentage of probably copyists errors. The impact of most of them have no effect on
the major tenets of the central message of Christ's incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and Lordship.But if you would like to take issue with the Gospel under discussion - take chapters 14 through 17 and list for me the verses which you charge with forgery as distinct from the ones you think are authentic. A key word here is "appears". Maybe what "appears" to you has other causes. Why should forgery be the likely cause? Somewhat off the subject and cause for a whole different discussion. Perhaps someday will get into Mark. I'm a little skeptical. I mean the serpent in the garden could also said "You will not surely die. God is lying. But none of this need be of concern."Tons of forgeries in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but "none" need be of concern ?I've got a used car I'd like to interest you in. LOL. I think this would call for a discussion of the history of the Catholic church. I'm not prepared to stretch the word Catholic church backward in time without any limit whatsoever.Anyway, I'm not prepared for that discussion right now. I know that in your higher criticism you wish to score points along two subtle lines:1.) Saying "Hey, aren't you suppose to be not changing the divine word?2.) Saying "Hey, aren't you suppose to be rejecting what Catholics teach?"For some reason I found your distress that I, an evangelical, was tampering with the "divine" word a bit like crocodile tears. I mean was the goal really to make me look hypocritical? Was that the idea?That little dispute was over how we interpret "unlettered" in Acts four. I think your argument was that an "unlettered" John seals the case that John had nothing to do with the writing of "4g".And Catholicism is characterized by mixture. That is some truthful things mixed with some untruthful things. Catholicism is the mixture of leaven with the fine meal. The Lord Jesus did say that the whole lump would be leavened (Matt. 13:33-35)But realizing this is different from saying that no fine flour exists at all. It is a case by case matter to examine. Catholicism rightly holds to the divinity of Jesus. But when they exalt Mary to worship status, they err.My point is just because Catholics say it does not mean it has to be rejected by me. No, I don't accept as part of the inspired canon all of the books which they accept. I have been trying to focus on Him and His works from the start of this discussion. Especially I was eager to discuss the spiritual progression and parallels in the revelation of Him in the Epistle of First John and compared to that in the Gospel of John.But I may agree with you to some extent if you mean something like this:"Whatever increases your faith, dependency, experience, and enjoyment of the living Jesus is safe. But whatever decreases your taste, faith, desire for the living Jesus cannot be good."For me a good rule is does the interpretation tend to make Christ more precious to me? Or does it cool down and cool off my love for Christ?If your faith in the resurrected and living Christ is made to burn brighter because you think forgery had it appear that John wrote 4G when he really didn't, then maybe that's OK.But receiving the thought that there is a forgery or a lie intrinsically built into the Gospel of John causes my love for the living Jesus to be suspicioned and cooled off in favor of trust in human intellect, that's not OK with me. I don't know what contradictions you are speaking of. I think the apparent contradictions also could argue that there was not a conpiracy or collusion to fabricate a hoax. In important events that go to trial attorneys often will find contraditions in testimony. These contradictions might only appear to be so because we do not have all of the facts at hand.Take for example the resurrection of Christ.There are many coincidental facts surrounding the testimony of this event which add to its credibility. For one that He first appeared alive to women.Since women were often excluded from legal testimony in ancient times, the inclusion of this fact that women first so the resurrected Jesus, is an embarressing admission which argues for the credibility of the account.If the resurrection was a fabricated hoax it is much more likely that they would have made sure that male witnesses were the first to see the risen Jesus.He first appeared alive again to women. For that period of history, that admission of that has the ring of authenticity. Why would they purposely include that problematic scenario had they wanted to propogate a hoax on the world? I don't know. I'll look into that. But upon reading the New Testament, I think I notice that the arrangement of certain sayings and possibly events too, were not always chronologically arranged.As I research that issue I will ask: "If John historically places the cleansing of the temple early when it actually happened late, what does that do to the central message."I know it furnishes some people will the ground to argue against some views of errancy. "Aha! Errors in your divine word."I think at this point I recognize and allow the four gospel writers to take some license to arrange sayings and possibly events with the priorities which they are trying to convey about Jesus. Did Jesus give the "Beatitudes" on a mountain top as Matthew says? Or did He deliver them on a plain as Luke says? Or did He speak these things more than once?I do have some questions. But none of these issues effect my core faith in the resurrected and living Christ. I don't think we should allow them to be distractions. And I don't think discrepancies should be used to make a case that the evangelists were lying to deceive and concoct a hoax which was untrue.I mean after the initial fun of giving "fundies" a hard time about these discrepencies, what do you have? If you have more Christ that's good. If it cools you down towards Christ, something must be wrong. What do you think of the phrase "Straining out a gnat to swallow a camel"? What do you think Jesus meant by that? Okay. I got it. I understand your view. Not necessary.But we haven't scratched the surface of this matter. I confess that that is why I really wanted to talk about First John. I got distracted. I think your whole idea of Gnostic influence on the Gospels is a problematic notion.To me this is somewhat like an apologist against "New Age" philosophy defending the New Testament being read years latter with an attitude that "New Age" philosophy somehow influenced the writing.John was defending against the Gnostics. Or we might say he may have been trying to reach people who had been wrongly effected in their Christian faith by Gnostic ideas.As for the Gospel of Peter? It may be interesting like the book of Enoch. But it is not discovered as inspirational in the sense of the authoritative canon of inspired books.When God delivered His oracles to man OF COURSE there were a lot of human copycat religious documents. And many of them may have been good, "inspirational" on a personal level, and interesting.The Holy Spirit directed the ancient brothers to discover the books which were truly inspired. God led men in this action. Otherwise I have to account God as not being too competent. I mean He spoke, but a thousand other people also spoke and it all got lost.I have more faith that God can preserve His revelation to man than the theory of a not too smart God who got drowned out by the simultaneous copycat speakings of religious folks.I have never read the "Gospel of Peter" as they would call it.
I think I have read Peter's Gospel though in the book of Acts and in the book of Mark.And the case for sophisticated writing by fishermen, I think, is even stronger in the case of Peter's epistles. I have been told that the Greek of those epistles is very high indeed.But the brothers could have coordinated together to write a letter at Peter's direction with his name upon it. The apostles labored in teams. We just have a difference of view about these writings which we call the Bible. I don't compare its existence with the fiction of Dickens. Perhaps Dickens himself would not agree with you.Better ask H.G. Wells. He might be more sympathetic. Then again even Wells was very impressed with the character of Jesus Christ. He said something like - when Jesus opened His lips His mouth encompassed the whole world. I think we've run the course and come to a conclusion of this discussion. Most of these futher issues are really not on "What does the bible really mean?" But on issues of errancy and things assigned to anther room in the forum.Thanks for an interesting exchange. See? You even get the last word today.That's all the time I have. That's all I can write today!Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

As before, simply stating that you think something is meaningless. WHY do you think the claim doesn’t have merit? Let me guess, between the devil and Jesus? OK, it’s clear that we have very little common ground on which to start, being that I don’t draw a distinction between the Devil and the Boogeyman. [/qs]It was to point out what you were doing. I wasn’t distressed, I’ve seen it too many other times. Others do not make oneself look hypocritical - one must do that oneself. But do you see how that can lead to a hateful or bigoted view of other religions? Hindu scripture, for instance, does not increase ones faith in Jesus - does that mean it is bad? And then by extension, what does that say about the people who follow it? That they are deluded, or incorrect in some way? Many a human’s life is improved by various religions, and people of all stripes - Buddhists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Shintos and even Atheists have transcendent religious experiences, some of which move them toward Jesus, some of which move them away from Jesus, but all of which move them closer to the focus of their own religion. To state a criteria that all, most or even some of these are inherently evil isn’t going to help this world or even our individual lives become more peaceful.It’s like when, in talking with a Christian co-worker, he stated that “because all good things come only from Jesus/God, and only Christians have a connection to Jesus, only Christians can actually do good deeds - any non-Christian who appears to be doing a good deed is therefore actually just doing it to selfishly look good or to get something in return.”If I said the same thing about men vs women I’d be pilloried, and rightly so - yet when this kind of stuff comes up with religion, somehow people still defend it. But how did your trust get there in the first place? Do you have any reason to trust the veracity of your parent’s scripture more than other scripture, like say the Gita, Suttas or the Qu’ran? If you have no reason, then why are you doing it? Now you’ve moved the goalposts again. First you claim the holy spirit has preserved the text, then you say that there are copying errors (in which case how do you know other parts aren’t errors?), and then you go even farther, saying that changes are OK as long as they don’t affect “the central message of Christ's incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and Lordship.”.That’s a pretty far cry from having much respect for this as God’s word. After all, I could cut out and throw away nearly all of the Bible without affecting that. For instance, if I just simply cut out all of the Gospel of Mark, and then presented the Bible with three gospels and claimed this was the Bible, would that not be a terrible travesty, if one really did respect this as “God’s word”? And yet, that seems to be fine with you, since that wouldn’t change “the central message of Christ's incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and Lordship.”. Hearing that line from someone who claims to think this is God’s word always makes me wince from the sheer hypocrisy. There is a lot of clear evidence that I went through, and no rational reason to doubt that forgery was the cause.I use the word “appears” when talking about history because we can’t repeat the event. It’s just like if I said “Napoleon appears to have been born in 1769”. I say that because we have solid evidence to suggest it, and no good reason to doubt it, yet because its not repeatable, I’ll often (not always) use the word “appears” or some such. I’m also more likely to use it when talking with someone who is skeptical of it, simply because I want to have a civil discussion instead of offending them (the use is partly out of respect) - as is the case in our discussion. We don’t have a Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a couple dozen gospels that have varying levels of credibility, some of which claim to be by disciples/eyewitnesses, some of which do not - some of these have been named the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Phillip, etc. You thoughtlessly (though usually correctly) reject most of them out of hand as forgeries, and then uncritically accept a few others, similarly without thought. You seem to be ready to accept the scholarly reasons for rejecting most of the noncanonical gospels, but then turn a blind eye to these same reasons when they are applied to the canonical gospels. If I didn’t see it nearly every day, I would find it hard to believe a person could do this. OK, then why dogmatically hold onto their new testament canon, if you are willing to dispense with their old testament canon? Early Christians at various points before the Catholic NT canon was set voiced concerns over many books, such as II Peter, Jud, Heb, 1&2 Tm, Titus, and others. You said you have to examine these on a case by case basis, yet that’s exactly what you won’t do when it comes to the books of the NT - you claim the holy spirit has preserved and directed them. Wouldn’t that same ghostly argument apply to the old testament as well?Why is it not possible that the names assigned by the Catholic church to the gospels are leaven? Or that perhaps chapter 21 in 4g is levan? Or that II Peter is leaven? If Jesus was telling the truth in saying that the leaven works it’s way through the whole lump, then why would you think that no leaven is in any part of the Bible? Aren’t you disregarding what Jesus said? OK, so now if one thing is listed before another in a Gospel, it’s not chronologically first? So, say, the raising of Lazarus may have been after Jesus was raised? It sounds like you are saying that the stories in the Gospels are out of order, just tossed in wherever - that doesn’t sound very complimentary to the holy spirit - and sounds more like an excuse for when things don’t fit. As before, simply stating an opinion means nothing. Do you have reason for rejecting the idea of Gnostic influences, or is this just another thing that you are thinking because you like it? Ah, but I’ve never said I suspected a conspiracy. Things would much more effectively if the different people are not trying to conspire, but things grow out of human interactions. It’s much more plausible that Catholicism grew out of many little steps, incorporating this here or that there, changing this doctrine here as needed, etc, as opposed to a grand conspiracy. That’s a nice story, but why do you accept that story? If God led men in that action, why do you reject the Catholic canon of 73 books? Isn’t that inspired by the holy spirit? There are plenty of other problems with that idea too, such as why so many different canons have existed and still exist today, not to mention the likely possibility that the Gospel of Peter was initially as widely used as the Gospel of Mark, so if we go by the most ancient Christian brothers, we should accept the Gospel of Peter. The NT appears to have both forgeries in the name of Paul (which Paul himself says were being written even in his day - see 2 Thes), as well as it’s missing letters that Paul wrote and referenced in his letters. You only have say God is incompetent if you say he guided the formation of the NT. Just as with the formation of the Catholic mass, if you don’t say he guided it, he can’t be blamed for problems in it. By saying that God guided the NT, you are saying that God is incompetent.It’s like if I went to Minneapolis today and said that God holds up all bridges. When someone points to the fallen bridge, I can simply deny that the bridge has actually fallen. That’s like denying that contradictions, forgeries, and mistakes are in our NT - the evidence is obvious, it’s only the act of blaming it on God that says that God is incompetent. I know many a deeply inspired Christian who says that Biblical inerrantists say worse things about God than atheists say. That could indeed be true. Thanks also for the interesting exchange, and I’m sorry if things are coming across to strong now. It could just be the repetition of several points by now. Maybe we should wind down through a few posts or start a thread on one of those topics. You wrote a really long post, including asking me questions on it, and then said that we were done. That would be a hard place to stop at, and looking back it’s clear that I’ve done the same thing with this post.Well, have a good weekend, I’ll be out until Monday-Equinox

I had written: That was not true. It was not truthful for me to write that.Sorry. I can never bid god speed or encourage someone who seems to deny the truth of the Gospel.My God is the man Jesus Christ. And I think underneath all of your problems there is no such similiar faith.I don't fit in in this forum very well. But that's life.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.