As we established in Parts 1-3, Mark's gospel was far from being an eyewitness account of remembered history. It was in fact, a fictional drama set in a pseudo-historical landscape, by a Greek author who had probably never set foot in the region. From there we determined that Matthew's gospel too was not an eyewitness account, but had simply taken Mark's drama, blatantly plagiarized from it, and attempted to historicize Mark's work, in an effort to create a new religion. Finally, Luke openly admitted to having copied from other sources (namely Mark and either from Matthew or an unknown source) supposedly in an effort to create a definitive account of the life of Jesus. Unfortunately for Luke, his Gospel is only as definitive as the fictional sources used to compile it.
Now that we have had a brief refresher, we can examine the the third canonical gospel to have been written - and see if he holds up as an eyewitness of Jesus.
John, A Jesus for the Long-Haul.
1. "The Fourth Gospel" is Anonymous. Just Like The Other Three.
Before we really get into the details of John's Gospel, it's important to realize that the gospel was not written by the Apostle John. This can be established in a variety of ways. The simplest way is to note that Acts 4:13 tells us that John was illiterate. This makes sense if you stop and think about it. Why would an Aramaic-speaking son of a fisherman know how to read and write at all, much less be able to write in polished Greek? A second and related point is that the other three gospels list numerous, highly important points of Jesus' ministry, which John was supposedly a privileged witness to, yet which find no place in the gospel bearing his name. These include the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus' daughter, and Jesus ascension to Heaven, among others. None of these events can be considered trivial - in fact, the Transfiguration would probably be considered "life changing" to witness - and yet none of them are anywhere present in John's Gospel. Of course, it seems a bit strange for me to have spent three posts knocking the synoptic gospels as being a fictional drama and two plagiarisms, only to go back and cite them as evidence against John; but I think that it is worthwhile to note these problems, if for no other reason than to call them to the attention of anyone who may still wish to make the "multiple independent authors" argument for Jesus' existence.
For a final piece of evidence against the supposed Apostle being the author of "John" (and one that does not rely on the older gospels for support), consider how the timeline would've worked. As I mentioned in Part 1, John was written between 90 and 110 CE. That is some 30-50 years after Mark was written, and some 60-80 years after the events supposedly took place. Now, consider life expectancies in the first century. At birth, there was an average life expectancy of about 20 years; however, if you survived childhood and made it to about age ten, your life expectancy was somewhere between 40 and 47 years. The gospel of Luke holds that Jesus was 30 at the time of his baptism, so let's be generous and assume that John was only 20 at that time. That means that John would've been between 80 and 100 years old (somewhere between his deathbed and the grave) when the gospel bearing his name was starting to be written. Clearly, this is not the work of any Apostle, but the work of someone (or, more likely, multiple religious figures) who wants to lend credibility to his gospel by claiming that it was penned by an important theological figure.
As with parts 1-3, I'll continue to refer to "John" as the author just for simplicity's sake, but we should dispense with the naive view that it was written by an illiterate, Aramaic-speaking, son of a fisherman, who managed to learn to read and write in polished Greek and wrote his masterpiece while on his deathbed.
2. Jesus the God
In John's gospel we are presented with a Jesus wholly unfamiliar from the other gospels. In Mark and Luke's gospels, Jesus is presented as having considerable access to divine power, and yet in Mark 10:18, and Luke 18:19 Jesus explicitly denies his own divinity. In retelling the story in Matthew 19:17, the possibility of Jesus' divinity is kept intact by changing Jesus' question from "Why do you call me good?" to "Why do you ask me about what is good?", and yet even in Matthew, Jesus never explicitly claims to be divine. Contrast this with the words spoken by the Jesus character presented in the gospel of John: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!" "...For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins." (two fairly obvious references to the "burning bush" in Exodus 3:14), "I and the Father are one" (no further explanation necessary). In one fell swoop the authors of the gospel of John have changed Jesus from a man who openly denied being a deity - or in Matthew's case a demigod who neither confirmed nor denied his own divinity - to a fully-fledged deity, who had existed since before the dawn of time.
In John's gospel we are presented with a Jesus wholly unfamiliar from the other gospels. In Mark and Luke's gospels, Jesus is presented as having considerable access to divine power, and yet in Mark 10:18, and Luke 18:19 Jesus explicitly denies his own divinity. In retelling the story in Matthew 19:17, the possibility of Jesus' divinity is kept intact by changing Jesus' question from "Why do you call me good?" to "Why do you ask me about what is good?", and yet even in Matthew, Jesus never explicitly claims to be divine. Contrast this with the words spoken by the Jesus character presented in the gospel of John: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!" "...For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins." (two fairly obvious references to the "burning bush" in Exodus 3:14), "I and the Father are one" (no further explanation necessary). In one fell swoop the authors of the gospel of John have changed Jesus from a man who openly denied being a deity - or in Matthew's case a demigod who neither confirmed nor denied his own divinity - to a fully-fledged deity, who had existed since before the dawn of time.
In each of the synoptic gospels, Jesus is baptized, and then is led out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This is all well and good for a Jesus who is a man, but in John's gospel Jesus is a god, he is above temptation! So the authors of John's gospel excised the temptation of Jesus, and substituted the heretofore unknown story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana. Similarly, while Matthew and Luke have concocted elaborate virgin birth stories, these stories have no place in John's gospel. When you're painting a picture of an almighty god, the last thing you need is an image of a helpless infant - a mere mortal of human descent - to anchor you down. No, in John's gospel, there is no virgin birth, no forgetting Jesus at the temple as a young boy, Mary is never once spoken of by name, and the authors mention Jesus' mother only eight times in 879 verses (by comparison, even Joseph - Jesus' supposed father - is mentioned twice by name).
Similarly, Jesus no longer has any concern for the poor and needy. While Matthew's Jesus proclaims that, in order to be perfect a man should "sell his possessions and give the money to the poor" (of course, it's worth noting that Jesus makes an exception to this command for those instances when it benefits him personally), or Luke's Jesus who instructs the wealthy to invite the poor to banquets even though the poor cannot repay the kindness, John's Jesus has no concern for the poor whatsoever, and only mentions them once to simply say "the poor will always be with you". In place of the concern for the poor or downtrodden that is at least present to some extent in the synoptic gospels, we instead find countless parables about "The true vine", the "shepherd and his sheep", etc. that stress Jesus' importance beyond all else.
In short, in John's gospel we are presented with "Jesus the God". This Jesus is an all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal deity who is not a human like the Jesus of the synoptic gospels, but is a divinity who has merely adopted a human form to make it known that only he is to be worshipped. Along that same note, John's Jesus is rather self-important. While it's true that John's Jesus supposedly came to "save humanity from sin" he expects quite a bit of recognition for his role that he has selected for himself. John's Jesus clearly didn't learn much from Matthew's Jesus who advocated doing good deeds quietly and without fanfare, and craves recognition as being "the way, the truth, and the light".
In short, in John's gospel we are presented with "Jesus the God". This Jesus is an all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal deity who is not a human like the Jesus of the synoptic gospels, but is a divinity who has merely adopted a human form to make it known that only he is to be worshipped. Along that same note, John's Jesus is rather self-important. While it's true that John's Jesus supposedly came to "save humanity from sin" he expects quite a bit of recognition for his role that he has selected for himself. John's Jesus clearly didn't learn much from Matthew's Jesus who advocated doing good deeds quietly and without fanfare, and craves recognition as being "the way, the truth, and the light".
3. A New Story
While not wholly unrecognizable, John's gospel vastly reworks the Jesus story in numerous ways. For instance, in each of the "synoptic" gospels, the drama steadily builds until the cleansing of the temple, at which point the Pharisees begin plotting a way to kill Jesus. In John's gospel, however, the cleansing of the temple is only the second miracle of Jesus' entire ministry and is nowhere near the climax. Since the authors moved the temple cleansing of the temple to the beginning of Jesus ministry, they needed a new climax to explain what caused the Pharisees to move from merely being very angry with Jesus, to outright plotting his death. They found this excuse by reworking the parable of "The Rich Man and Lazarus" found in Luke 16:19-31. Let's go through and compare these accounts just to illustrate the plagiarism.
In Luke's version of events a beggar named Lazarus has died and gone off to Heaven. In John's version Lazarus - the heretofore unknown brother of Martha and Mary (who are mentioned without their brother in all three synoptic gospels) - has fallen ill and eventually dies. Lazarus - we are told - was loved by Jesus (so much that, when Jesus heard he was sick, Jesus essentially said "eh, why don't we put off going to see him for a couple of days...") and so we might be safe in assuming that John's Lazarus also went to heaven.
In Luke's telling, the rich man begs Abraham to resurrect Lazarus so that Lazarus could go warn the rich man's five brothers about what will happen to them if they don't change their ways (sort of like an ancient version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"). Abraham responds "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.” In John's version, the authors decided to prove that claim. Jesus comes to Lazarus' tomb and raises him from the dead. Some of those who saw this event ran off and told the Pharisees, but - as we might expect - the Pharisees are not persuaded even though Lazarus rose from the dead, and in fact the Pharisees begin plotting to kill Jesus (and even plot to kill Lazarus for having the misfortune to have been used to demonstrate Jesus' power.).
The "historicization" of the parable is now complete, and the authors top it off by having the "Anointing at Bethany" - in which a womon either anoints Jesus' head with oil, or anoints his feet with oil and with her tears and then dries his feet with her hair - take place in the house of the newly-resurrected Lazarus, instead of in the house of "Simon the Leper/Pharisee" as it did in Mark 14:3-9, Matthew 26:6-13, and Luke 7:36-50. Of course, even this anointing is not without difficulty, as John 11:1-2, tells us that Mary (sister of Martha) is the womon who had anointed Jesus' feet with oil and with her tears, and dried his feet with her hair. Yet a full chapter later in John 12:1-3, Mary apparently felt the need to do this same ritual a second time. ("Oh what a tangled web we weave", and all that jazz.)
[As an aside, some Christians try to get out of this by claiming that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not a parable, but ah historical account, of a man named Lazarus, who is not the same man mentioned in John's gospel. The sole piece of evidence for this claim is that Lazarus is named in Luke's gospel, and Jesus never names any other character in any parable that he tells. While this is true, it's ridiculously weak as evidence. From a textual standpoint we need only look at the way Jesus begins these parables to see that they all are parables. Look at the first words of Luke 16:19 "There was a certain rich man..." compare this with the opening words of the parable of the man who held a banquet "A certain man was preparing a great banquet...", or the parable of the prodigal son "A certain man had two sons", or the parable of the shrewd manager "There was a certain rich man...". Over and over again Jesus leads off his parables with "a certain man" just like he does in the case of Lazarus.
On top of that, the latter three examples are both almost universally recognized as being parables, and it is only the Lazarus parable that is claimed to be an historical account. Think about that for a moment, a story of a young man who squanders his inheritance (a completely plausible event) is a parable, but a story of two men who die and who may speak to each other despite one being in Heaven and the other in Hell, is supposedly an historically accurate telling. To say that Luke's story of Lazarus is anything other than a parable is an attempt to lie one's way out of a difficult spot, and nothing more.]
Although there are so many differences between John and the synoptic gospels, that I could go on at length about all of them, I doubt that I would ever complete this post if I were to list and explain them all. So in the interest of completing this post, suffice it to say that John has blatantly taken numerous elements and stories from the synoptic gospels but has also changed them, and twisted them around to support vastly different theological ideas than what the authors of the synoptic gospels may have had in mind.
4. The Motive: A Jesus for the Long-Haul
So far, I've explained the ways in which the Jesus, and the story, found in John's gospel borrows extensively from the synoptic gospels, while also heavily revamping their stories. I think the only question that really needs to be answered right now, is "why"? When there were already the three synoptic gospels out there, all telling (at least to some extent) more or less the same story, why would they authors of Johns gospel gone all-out not only to write their own gospel, but also to turn the synoptic gospels on their heads?
I think the most obvious reason (and in my opinion, the most correct reason) is that the Jesus of the synoptic gospels had quite simply failed. Consider the following verses:
And [Jesus] said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” ~ Mark 9:1
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” ~ Matthew 16:28
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.” ~ Luke 9:27
In all three synoptic gospels, Jesus clearly states his "second coming" and the establishment of Yhwh's kingdom on Earth, would occur within the lifetime of at least one person who was in his presence at the time. Now, let's do the math. According to the virgin birth story of Matthew 2, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. We know that Herod died in 4 BCE, so Jesus would've been born no later than 4 BCE. On the other hand, the census mentioned in conjunction with Jesus' birth in Luke 2:1-3 took place in the year 6 CE. If we average those dates, we can estimate that Jesus would've been born in the year 1 CE (which probably tells us quite a bit about how a 6th century monk decided where to place the "BC" vs "AD" distinction). If we accept Luke's claim that Jesus was 30 years old, and John's claim that the ministry lasted three years (as evidenced by the three different passovers mentioned in John's gospel), that would place Jesus' death in the year 34 CE.
To be generous, lets assume that Jesus spoke the above-mentioned verses in the same year as his death, and let us also assume that there was a newborn child present at the time. As mentioned above, if this newborn survives childhood, it will have a life expectancy of between 40 and 47 years (lets take 47 just to continue being generous). That means that this newborn would've been expected to be dead by the year 81 CE, and therefore Jesus should've been back by then.
Meanwhile, John's gospel is largely held to have been written in stages between the years 90 CE and 110 CE. By this time, everyone who would've been an adult contemporary of Jesus was dead, and those who were mere infants at the time were either dead or dying. Jesus' prophecy of an impending apocalypse had failed. If I may quote C.S. Lewis:
“Say what you like," we shall be told, "the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, 'This generation shall not pass till all these things be done.' And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else." It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. ~ "The World's Last Night" (1960)
First of all, I must express my embarrassment for Mr. Lewis' grievous scriptural (or perhaps merely "grammatical") errors. He begins by citing Mark 9:1, Matthew 16:28, and Luke 9:27, each of which states that Jesus would be coming back in the lifetime of his followers. However, he then confounds that prophecy with Jesus' "this generation shall not pass" prophecy found in Mark 13:1-31, Matthew 24:1-35, and Luke 21:5-33, thereby giving the false impression that Jesus' error concerning his own return, is somehow closely related to his admission of ignorance in Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:36. The fact is, Jesus "exhibition of error" and his "confession of ignorance" do not "grow side by side" as C.S. Lewis would have us believe. They are in fact separated by more than four chapters in Mark, and more than eight chapters in Matthew. Whether C.S. Lewis did this simply by mistake, or was intentionally trying to conjure some weak justification for Jesus' mistakes is unclear and, frankly, unimportant.
Now, returning to topic, Lewis has (perhaps unintentionally) captured the essence of why John's gospel was written: Jesus prophecy of an impending apocalypse had clearly failed. Presumably, some people had started to notice Jesus' failure and were suspecting that they'd been duped by the clergy, and so the clergy needed to rework the story to preserve their own power, and to ensure that their Jesus wouldn't be seen as a false prophet at best or a fiction at worst. Look at the way the authors of John's gospel handled Jesus' prophecy regarding his own return:
You see, according to John, Jesus never made any sort of prophecy regarding his return, or an imminent apocalypse! In John's gospel, Jesus merely used a very roundabout way of saying "it's none of your business" which could easily be mistaken for a prophecy about Jesus' return. I'll admit that it's actually pretty clever, but that doesn't make it any less of any falsehood.
Of course, once the clergy started reworking the Jesus character, they had plenty of reason to keep going and keep reworking the character until he was a more or less perfect reflection of what they wanted to see in a deity, and what they thought would do a good job of keeping their followers in line. Hence the vastly reworked nature of Jesus' character, and his story. So you see the gospel of John is not the eyewitness of the life of Jesus. Instead, John's gospel is a reworking of the synoptic gospels to suit secure the power of the clergy after the fear of the apocalypse had abated.
In Closing.
We've come a long way over the past few weeks (much farther than I envisioned coming when I started writing this), so I think we should wrap this up with a brief response to the "Multiple Independent Witnesses" argument. To refresh, the claim is that the gospels are four, independent, historically reliable, eyewitness accounts of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that all agree with each other in the relevant ways, and only differ insofar as might be expected from different eyewitnesses to the same events in a court of law.
To one who has never read the Gospels, or who has read them, but hasn't studied them in detail, is a plausible claim. All four gospels do talk about Jesus, they all mention a crucifixion and a death, all of them except Mark mention that people saw him alive after his execution, so yes, there is a basic framework. However - if we may put the gospel authors on the witness stand - we would note that, in many instances, when Matthew and Luke agree with each other, and/or agree with Mark, their wording is so exactly the same, in so many instances, that we could only conclude that their testimony was rehearsed to ensure that they would say the same thing as Mark (in the world of academic writing, we call that "plagiarism"). This is made even worse by Luke's openly admitting that he was not an eyewitness, but was compiling testimony from others, in the very first few verses of his book. On the other hand, we would notice that John mentions many events that are superficially similar to the other three witnesses, but the important details of the events and the order of the events are so radically at odds with the other three witnesses, that we must either throw him out as a witness who has an ax to grind, or throw out the other three who clearly have rehearsed their testimony.
At the end of the day, the only Gospel that has a hope of serving as any sort of testimony for the life and ministry of Jesus, is Mark. We are left with a gospel that was written by an omniscient narrator, who was privy to the innermost thoughts and feelings of everyone around him as in Mark 2:6-8, wrote of events that he could not have attended or otherwise witnessed such Herod's birthday party in Mark 6:21-29, and was even privy to knowledge regarding the state of a womon's menstrual flow in Mark 5:27-29. The only possible witness that Christians have, is a person who claims to have witnessed things that he could not have witnessed, from the vantage point of an omniscient narrator. To the rational person this is a hallmark of fictional writing, and anyone wishing to argue that the gospel of mark proves the existence of the Christian god Jesus, must beg the question assume that this deity exists, and that he dictated the gospels. If one does not start with this unfounded assumption already in place, no operation of logic can get one there.
Now, returning to topic, Lewis has (perhaps unintentionally) captured the essence of why John's gospel was written: Jesus prophecy of an impending apocalypse had clearly failed. Presumably, some people had started to notice Jesus' failure and were suspecting that they'd been duped by the clergy, and so the clergy needed to rework the story to preserve their own power, and to ensure that their Jesus wouldn't be seen as a false prophet at best or a fiction at worst. Look at the way the authors of John's gospel handled Jesus' prophecy regarding his own return:
Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them... When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” ~ John 21:20-23
You see, according to John, Jesus never made any sort of prophecy regarding his return, or an imminent apocalypse! In John's gospel, Jesus merely used a very roundabout way of saying "it's none of your business" which could easily be mistaken for a prophecy about Jesus' return. I'll admit that it's actually pretty clever, but that doesn't make it any less of any falsehood.
Of course, once the clergy started reworking the Jesus character, they had plenty of reason to keep going and keep reworking the character until he was a more or less perfect reflection of what they wanted to see in a deity, and what they thought would do a good job of keeping their followers in line. Hence the vastly reworked nature of Jesus' character, and his story. So you see the gospel of John is not the eyewitness of the life of Jesus. Instead, John's gospel is a reworking of the synoptic gospels to suit secure the power of the clergy after the fear of the apocalypse had abated.
In Closing.
We've come a long way over the past few weeks (much farther than I envisioned coming when I started writing this), so I think we should wrap this up with a brief response to the "Multiple Independent Witnesses" argument. To refresh, the claim is that the gospels are four, independent, historically reliable, eyewitness accounts of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that all agree with each other in the relevant ways, and only differ insofar as might be expected from different eyewitnesses to the same events in a court of law.
To one who has never read the Gospels, or who has read them, but hasn't studied them in detail, is a plausible claim. All four gospels do talk about Jesus, they all mention a crucifixion and a death, all of them except Mark mention that people saw him alive after his execution, so yes, there is a basic framework. However - if we may put the gospel authors on the witness stand - we would note that, in many instances, when Matthew and Luke agree with each other, and/or agree with Mark, their wording is so exactly the same, in so many instances, that we could only conclude that their testimony was rehearsed to ensure that they would say the same thing as Mark (in the world of academic writing, we call that "plagiarism"). This is made even worse by Luke's openly admitting that he was not an eyewitness, but was compiling testimony from others, in the very first few verses of his book. On the other hand, we would notice that John mentions many events that are superficially similar to the other three witnesses, but the important details of the events and the order of the events are so radically at odds with the other three witnesses, that we must either throw him out as a witness who has an ax to grind, or throw out the other three who clearly have rehearsed their testimony.
At the end of the day, the only Gospel that has a hope of serving as any sort of testimony for the life and ministry of Jesus, is Mark. We are left with a gospel that was written by an omniscient narrator, who was privy to the innermost thoughts and feelings of everyone around him as in Mark 2:6-8, wrote of events that he could not have attended or otherwise witnessed such Herod's birthday party in Mark 6:21-29, and was even privy to knowledge regarding the state of a womon's menstrual flow in Mark 5:27-29. The only possible witness that Christians have, is a person who claims to have witnessed things that he could not have witnessed, from the vantage point of an omniscient narrator. To the rational person this is a hallmark of fictional writing, and anyone wishing to argue that the gospel of mark proves the existence of the Christian god Jesus, must beg the question assume that this deity exists, and that he dictated the gospels. If one does not start with this unfounded assumption already in place, no operation of logic can get one there.
“How can you say, 'We are wise because we have the word of the Lord,' when your teachers have twisted it by writing lies?" ~ Jeremiah 8:8
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