John: Chapters 1 to 7

Click here for the end of Luke.

CHAPTER 1

OK, here is the different gospel – the very different one.  The opening notes even tell me that this is more of a literary or symbolic story.  It’s more a theological approach rather than a basic narrative one.  Sure, there was theology in the others, but then again there is narrative here.  This should be the last written of the gospels, as the theology of the overall religion is so much more fully formed.

There is no way the apostle John wrote this.  Not only was it written in ancient Greek, but one of those Bart D. Ehrman books noted that one dialogue between Christ and an opponent turns on a bit of word definitions that make sense in ancient Greek, but not Aramaic.  (I forget the exact nature exactly – two words that sound the same in ancient Greek but are different, but they are two clearly different words in Christ’s own language).  At any rate, there is no way that the actual apostle would make a mistake like that.  Only someone whose first language was ancient Greek would do that. 

The gospel begins with a poem that Biblical scholars don’t think was originally part of John.  It’s a nice poem, though, and you can see why it was stapled up front.  More than the other gospels, this one really helps lay out the notion of the trinity.  The others have Christ be the Son of God and he talks of the Holy Spirit, but it never really explains things too well beyond that.  Jesus was a big-picture guy; let someone else handle the details of theological fine points.  This one tries to make sense of how they fit together some – an exploration that will end (well, culminate) with the Nicene Creed in the fourth century.

We meet John the Baptist, too.  There is no birth story here – just onto the main event.  The Baptist’s main goal is simple: prepare the way for Jesus.  He testifies of the bigger man to come.  And that’s the word he uses – testifies.  Get used to that word.  Plenty of that word in this gospel.

John the Baptist denies being the Messiah.   More interestingly, he denies being Elijah.  (Mind you, the other gospels – at least Matthew and Mark – had Christ flatly stating that John was Elijah).  Also, it doesn’t look like the Baptist and Jesus are related, as here John says, “I do not know him.”  Only Luke has them related.

A lot of John’s dialogue doesn’t really work as actual dialogue.  Here the Baptist says, “A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.”  Yeah, I guess I can see a prophet get away with some stylized dialogue, but this begins a pattern in the Gospel of John – the words really don’t sound like something people actually say.

Jesus also shows up, and the Baptist immediately figures out who he is. That said, he doesn’t baptize him.  You’d figure that would be a gimme, given that he’s called John the Baptist, but no.  Here, the Baptist’s job is just to testify to all that Jesus is the messiah, not to baptize him.  So already he have one huge difference between this gospel and the previous ones. 

In fact, the Baptist is not alone in figuring out who Jesus is on sight.  Peter shows up in this chapter and also figures it out right away.  He gets his brother, Andrew, and tells him straight out, ‘We have found the Messiah.”  Jesus hasn’t done anything.  As near as I can tell, he hasn’t even said anything to Peter yet.  But he doesn’t need to – because he’s so incredibly the Messiah like that.  Again, in the other gospels is took quite a while until any apostle figured this out (though it was Peter who figured it out first in them as well). 

Heck, you even get a non-apostle figuring it out.  Some guy named Nathaniel also says, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.”  This is too much.  Our hero is all Christ, no Jesus.  He is so Messiah-esque that there is no room left for any humanity in him at all. 

CHAPTER 2

This book really hits the ground running.  Chapter 2 and Jesus is already performing his first miracle.  At a wedding feast, they run out of water. So, of course, Jesus turns it into wine.  This is famously he first miracle – but I’ll just point out that it appears only in this gospel; and not in any others.  Given how different Jesus comes off in general here in John, that makes the reality of this miracle pretty unlikely.  (And that’s even if you make the leap of faith that “sure, Jesus did miracles!).  The story ends with our hearing that “and his disciples began to believe in him.”  Shouldn’t they already do that?  I mean, half of Israel declared him the Messiah in Chapter 1.

Next, Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem and drives out the moneychangers.  Wait – what?  Already?  The hell?  Yeah, this doesn’t sound right at all.  Not only do the other gospels put this near the end of the story, but it sure makes more sense there at the end, doesn’t it?  After all, that’s the sort of thing that would really anger the powers that be.  Also, he’s crucified in Jerusalem, so yeah – it doesn’t make sense to put it near the start of the story. 

CHAPTER 3

This begins by introducing us to Nicodemus, a Pharisee who rules the Jews.  OK, time out here.  From what I know, the Sadducees were the really powerful ones.  Jesus mostly tangled with the Pharisees, but the Sadducees were the ones with real juice religiously.  And politically, of course, Rome ruled.  Oh, they had their governors, but you wouldn’t rule as a Pharisee.  Well, maybe a Pharisee named Nicodemus was appointed governor.  I don’t have a list of administration officials in front of me.  But this sounds off.

They have a conversation, and one of the first things our Pharisee says is, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”  Hold on a second – they didn’t know that.  The whole dispute was because Christ’s opponents denied that.  You can’t have this guy say something like that. OK, so maybe he doesn’t strictly mean that Jesus is the Messiah, but the Pharisees didn’t think he was a prophet, either. 

At any rate, their debate leads into the narrative itself give us some philosophical/theological ruminations, including the most famous line in the Bible.  If you saw many sporting events in the 1980s, there was also this guy in the background – behind home plate, or in the end zone behind the goal posts – and he had this sign: John 3:16.  It reads: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  You rarely get theology stated so starkly in the other gospels.  But this is John.  When theology does come in the other gospels, it’s usually in Jesus’s own teachings (and often in elliptical parables).  But this is third-person narrative, not Jesus talking. Again, this is a very different type of gospel.

John the Baptist shows up again, and this is apparently his final testimonial.  In fact, he himself states, “He must increase, I must decrease.”  So even he is on board with his declining stature.  And he gives some more big talk about how Jesus is the Son of God.  This dialogue strikes me as entirely artificial.

CHAPTER 4

Christ is on his way back to Galilee when he stops and talks to a Samaritan woman.  Yeah, I really don’t know what the difference is.  It sounds like Samaritans are Jewish offshoots who have different practices.  The Samaritan woman is surprised Jesus will even talk to her, given their differences.  But Christ tells her that a new day is coming – and the old will go by the wayside to make room for the new.

This is definitely the last written of the gospels.  This is the only one that reads like it is intentionally trying to start a new religion.  The others would have bad things to say about the Jesus plenty often enough, sure.  But there the problems were directed at the Jews themselves as people. Jesus was there to fulfill Old Testament prophecies.  This is most explicitly made clear in Matthew.  But with John, it’s like the old theology itself no longer matters much.

The dialogue in the entire conversation once again is all Christ and no Jesus.  When she’s shocked he asks him for a drink, Jesus replies, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you  `Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  The other gospels had Christ rather cagey on any questions of divinity, but here Christ is going out of his way to get into it.  In fact, when she says she knows the Messiah is coming, Jesus replies, “I am he.”  He just met her five minutes ago! 

She tells the people of the town, and they all fall in love with Jesus.  Man, that’s an easy victory if ever I heard of one. 

Oh, we finally get one moment of symmetry between John and the other gospels. Jesus goes to his hometown and is forced to conclude, “A prophet has no honor in his native place.”  But gospel writer doesn’t spend much time on that.  And the details he gives contradicts the quote, as we’re told the people welcome Mr. Without Honor in His Hometown because they’d heard of his deeds. 

Jesus performs his second miracle – signs, they’re called in John.  The son of a royal official is near death, and Jesus heels him just by saying the word.  I guess that’s John’s version of the story of the Roman centurion. 

Oh, and a key theological point comes when he cures the kid.  Jesus tells everyone he commits his acts to prove to them who he is.  The quote: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”  So he is intentionally doing miracles to show them who he is.  PROBLEM: In Matthew, Mark, and Luke he was asked to do miracles to prove who he is – and flatly refused, saying that you don’t make demands like that.  He called this a false generation for even making such a request.  So it’s two completely different views on the miracles, and Christ.  At the very least, this is good evidence that at least one of the gospels assigned to an apostle couldn’t really have been written by an apostle. They are just too different not only in content, but in theology and in the character of Jesus himself.

CHAPTER 5

Now we get this gospel’s take on a familiar problem in the New Testament.  Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath.  We already know some people will have problems with that.  In previous gospels, Jesus wins the debate with the Pharisees or scribes or whoever. But this gospel has a different take on it.

No, Jesus doesn’t lose the debate.  (Wouldn’t that be a shocker!)  But instead of making a solid, logical argument, he tells his enemies, “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.”  He’s openly telling them he’s the Son of God.  This is utterly unlike anything in the other gospels.  He’s talking to his enemies, people!  So now his enemies want to kill him.  That makes this a bit more dramatic.  But ….I really liked Christ’s answers better in the other chapters.  Those appealed to morality and logic.  This one just appeals to family connections.  I prefer the Jesus answer to the Christ answer.

Christ also lays down some proto-trinity doctrines, as he discusses the Father and the Son and it isn’t fully clear where one ends and the other begins.  Like I said – it’s proto-Trinity. 

Christ also comes off like he has a really big ego here.  I guess that makes sense if you think about it.  But …it’s just off-putting.  How are you supposed to relate to this guy?  I’ve said all along that the Bible is at its most compelling when it’s at its most human, and this is the least human of the gospels.  When I say he has an ego, though, I mean lines like this: “For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because wrote about me.”  Even if he really is the Messiah, statements like that might turn people off.  Man – he said Moses wrote about him?  Jerk.

CHAPTER 6

Well, we’re approaching Passover already.  I believe that this gospel has Christ’s ministry last there years.  The others are shaky on the time frame.  According to one of Bart D. Ehrman’s books, one of the gospels is supposed to last a year -  because it constantly has one event take place immediately after the other (and begin and end at different times in the harvest).  At any rate, this is the first time I’ve seen the Passover mentioned and the story not be on the verge of the crucifixion, so it’s a bit jarring.

He does a couple miracles we’ve already seen.  He feeds the many with very little.  Then he walks on water during a stormy sea.  Naturally, people are impressed. 

Next, Christ gives some teachings, and it’s the same as all the rest of John – it’s all Christ, no Jesus.  Among other things, he says, “I am the bread of life,” and “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

Getting way ahead of things, Christ even discusses some Last Supper stuff: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”  Statements like that sure sound funny when they’re not even part of the Last Supper itself, don’t they?  In fact, statements like that sure sound funny – but they sound even funnier in the midst of a sermon given to the general public without any food/wine to serve in place of his body/blood.

Oh, speaking of getting way the hell ahead of things, Jesus openly tells his apostles that one of them is a devil.  Our gospel writer helpfully informs us that this means Judas.  We’re not even a third the way into the book, people.

CHAPTER 7

The first sentence of the chapter says, “the Jews were trying to kill him.”  Jeez, so soon?  In the others there is a build up that takes place.  Here?  Nah.  To be fair, he is rather brazenly telling everyone his secret identity all the time.

Also – my word what a nasty way of putting it: “the Jews were trying to kill him.”  Not the Pharisees or Sadducees or the scribes.  The Jews.  All of them.  I guess they had a big meeting to decide this. 

Christ goes to the temple area (are we back in Jerusalem?  Yeah, a little later that’s made clear.  Oh right – this is still around Passover, of course he’s back in town) and asks why they are trying to kill him.  They deny it.  Jesus tells him he will be with them only a little while longer, and some thing that means he’ll go to the Greeks.  No, that ain’t it.

After some teachings, some more people start wondering if he’s the Messiah.  Then they debate.   Hey, wait – the Messiah is supposed to come from Bethlehem, not Galilee.  This guy is from Galilee.  Apparently, John hasn’t heard either of the stories from Matthew or Luke about how Jesus was born in the other town. 

Much of this chapter is just back-and-forth about how the Jews want to kill him or at least arrest him.  They seem a little obsessed about it.  But we still got 14 more chapters to go.

Click here for the middle of John.