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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Betrayal of the Beloved Disciple
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
There is no telling what a man may do, when he is beset by anger, grief, guilt, fear, doubt, disappointment or jealousy - or any combination of these.
I believe that in the fourth gospel there is evidence of an ancient wrong, instigated by one or more of the leaders of the early church; that one of the disciples - not one of The Twelve but a favourite of Jesus - was accused of treachery or apostasy or both, or some such unforgiveable crime; that he was anathematized and "disremembered" by the community; that some of his friends, at least one of whom could write, at great risk to themselves, secretly treasured and preserved his memory until it was safe (long after the resurrection) to present the editor of the fourth gospel written accounts of the disciple's life among the apostles, each account ending with the author's colophon "this is the disciple who saw these things..." along with signatures - or, more likely, identifying marks in the margin - by at least two other disciples ; "and we know that his testimony is true".
I think I had better pause there - I have CHD (which concentrates the mind wonderfully!) and have been told to pace myself.
But I cannot go without a sincere apology to Lamb Chopped, to whom I was rude on another thread just before I went into hospital. That was both unnecessary and inexcusable, but I hope she will forgive me. I am truly sorry.
[ 21. September 2016, 13:32: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
That seems to be a considerable extrapolation from a few comments in the Fourth Gospel.
Could you manage to expand on your belief, and provide some more detail and support?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I'm not following. How do we know that the beloved disciple wasn't one of the 12?
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arse
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I am wary, simply because it is so easy, fantastically easy, to generate unending conspiracy theory. (Don't believe me? Put the phrase "Obama Birth Certificate" into a search window, and stand back.)
It is clearly a temptation that we are wonderfully prone to -- it's so fun! And in fact my complaint with your scenario is that it is not anywhere near fun enough. There is tons more you can do with the idea; look at what Dan Brown did with a minor plot about Mary Magdalene.
But if you aren't thinking about best-seller thrillers, unless you can pony up real data from more than one source -- an unimpeachable historical artifact would be ideal -- you are going to have problems.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Well that sort-of works both ways around, Brenda, if we are to take some things from John that are not in the other gospels as factual etc and so on.
I might have read a suggestion once that the beloved one was Mary or one of the other women. I've no idea where I saw it.
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arse
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Well of course you have to take some things as true, and de-emphasize others or explain them away. Furthermore, to ensure a movie deal, there ought to be a good deal of action, chase scenes, and fights. None of these are in the Bible of course, so we do have to amp it up a bit.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Furthermore, to ensure a movie deal, there ought to be a good deal of action, chase scenes, and fights. None of these are in the Bible of course, so we do have to amp it up a bit.
Samson seems to have had a few fights and chases, and quite a bit of action with Delilah.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Inventing new characters or plots from loose words in the Bible is a cottage industry. It especially thrived in the 19th century, at which time hundreds of little religious splinter groups flowered, each based on some such re-reading of some part of Scripture. Mary Baker Eddy comes first to mind. Joseph Smith took it to the ultimate level. Unlike these two movements, most of these little flowers perished for their roots were too shallow.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Thank you all for your help - a perfect antidote to taking myself too seriously! I hope this turns out to be nearer to Robert Harris than Dan Brown.
Well, on with the motley! Some twenty-odd years ago I was sitting in a country garden praying with the bible (specifically, with John 21) during a guided weekend retreat on Ignatian spirituality.
Time and time again my attention was drawn to the conversation between Jesus and Peter after the picnic. We had been invited to imagine ourselves as present at the actual time and place of the incident we had chosen to meditate on. The fishing expedition and the picnic were no problem in this respect; but that dialogue afterwards? It just wasn't real! What was I missing?
Here's the scene, as John describes it, set out like a drama script:
(Scene: a beach. The risen Jesus has just shared a meal of fish - part of a miraculous catch of 153 fish - with seven of his disciples.
Jesus: Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
Peter: Yes, Lord. you know that I love you.
Jesus: Feed my lambs. Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Peter: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
Jesus: Tend my sheep. Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Peter ( hurt ): Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you!
Jesus: Feed my sheep...
Does it ring true? Complete? Just as it is? It might work as the lyrics for an operatic aria, but IRL nobody begins a conversation with "Do you love me more than these?" And how do the other disciples feel, hearing this? Jesus acting like a proto-Lear?
Of course we soon find out that the other disciples don't hear it, because they are not there- or rather, Jesus and Peter aren't - they've move on.
So has Jesus taken Peter by the sleeve to speak to him privately, to give him an opportunity to redeem his triple denial? It's possible. If so, what's the import of "more than these?" I think it's far more likely that Peter has drawn his master aside to bad-mouth one or more of his colleagues.
On this reading "Do you love me more than these?" is not an opening question but a riposte to Peter's complaint. "What about you then, Peter - are you any better than them? Do you love me more than these?" Only he doesn't call him Peter, or Cephas, but the far more formal "Simon, son of John. Which I've already suggested elsewhere is probably to emphasise the master/servant relationship, as well as providing a space for Peter to cool down.
The fact that we come upon the conversation part way through is corroborated by the recorded fact that Peter suddenly notices the Beloved Disciple following them.
Must stop. The light in this library is atrocious and I have to keep hanging my head on one side to see the the keys. Yeah yeah, I know 0 I ought to have taken the trouble to learn to touch type. Maybe next year,,,
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
On what grounds do you quote:
think it's far more likely that Peter has drawn his master aside to bad-mouth one or more of his colleagues.
It seems to me that none of the Gospels are afraid to say bad things about Peter, so that they wouldn't be reluctant in this case either. There do not seem to me to be any textual (or contextual) grounds for your suspicion about how and why the conversation began.
My own thoughts about it (FWIW) are that (a) it won't be a full report of the conversation, but only the elements felt to have continuing relevance (so no "And how is your mother-in-law now?"); and (b) the "more than these" looks back to the 'last supper' where Peter was so confident that he at least would not betray Jesus.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
It seems to me that none of the Gospels are afraid to say bad things about Peter, so that they wouldn't be reluctant in this case either.
This is of course due to the fact that they were written by Orthodoxen, and Peter was Catholic.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
OK, point taken. I'll try to join up all the dots in time, but for the moment I wan to fast track to the arrival of the Beloved Disciple on the scene: quote:
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?"
(John 21:20)
When I read this in the garden I was perplexed. The chapter had begun as a resurrection account, gone on to look like an attempt by Jesus at reconciliation with Peter, and now what - we're being reminded of the (?last) supper and the betrayal. (Not directly of the betrayal itself, I grant you, but by implication.) Why is our attention being drawn to something like this in this context? Why, in fact is it in the mind of the evangelist, or in the mind of the mas who produced thw written evidence?
Bro. James might well have been a help, had he been there in the garden. What's the problem, he would probably have said. A response not far from that of the tall young Jesuit who was directing the retreat.
But it prompted me to think that perhaps there was a point to this that we had missed before. That the betrayal was in fact in the mind of Peter - who goes on not only to curse Judas for it, but blames the whole unconverted Jewish population of the time in his sermons.
In any case, it's a very clunky way to describe the disciple's identity - we already know who he is. Although the evangelist forbears to mention him by name at the beginning of the chapter, he is the one who first recognises the risen Jesus on the shore. He had also been first at the empty tomb. So why hark back to the supper?
That question has already been half answered by Bro. James, who made the same connection in his post above, so perhaps I am making too much of a meal of this. At the time, I did not think so. I
sought out the Director in the garden and told him straight out:
"Father this passage isn't about the re-establishment of Peter, or even the death of the Beloved Disciple. It's about the betrayal . It's about Judas! When the Beloved Disciple hears Jesus telling Peter that he wants the disciple alive next time he comes, he assumes that they are talking about him. But they're not. They're talking about Judas. Peter wants him punished, Jesus says 'leave him be!' and the Beloved Disciple thinks 'Help! Peter's after my blood!'"
Even more of a tragicomedy of errors than the the traditional version.!
The kind director was restrained in his comments - probably heard all sorts of weird ideas from people high on bible study. He smiles and said "Well, that's not a possibility I've ever considered myself..." and went on to recommend R.E.Brown's
The Community of the Beloved Disciple -
a clever and compassionate way to deflect my unbridled and misguided enthusiasm, don't you think?
Over the years the suspicion became a theory, which was ditched for another, and another, and another (e.g. the Beloved Disciple himself was Judas - but lots of other crazies had got there before me). At the moment, the "spoiler" outlined in the OP is - or rather was - the latest working hypothesis; I've moved on, but I still think that much of it is sustainable.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
This could take some time. I've just deleted about 500 words in answer to Alan Cresswell. And my time is running out again.
Cut and paste is not the answer - I've tried that. tried that
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
When Raymond E. Brown wrote The Community of the Beloved Disciple , it was the culmination of over 25 years' scholarship devoted to the Johannine gospel and epistles. He quotes many other writers, some of whom he agrees with, others he doesn't.
My starting point is where he left off in 1979. Since then, of course, much more has been written on the subject and, sadly, Brown is no longer with us.
I have accepted most of Brown's conclusions as they stood then - he himself said he'd be happy if sixty percent of them found favour with his readers. Where my own strange views are concerned, I'd settle for six.
There is one very big point I wish to make at the outset, and this concerns not only Brown's studies, but everything that has so far been written about the Beloved Disciple. So far as I am aware, every single word that has been written on the subject is based on the evidence of half-a-dozen short extracts of the Fourth Gospel.
Correct me if I am wrong. Millions and millions of words have been written, hundreds of theses presented to universities and theological colleges and learned societies throughout the world; and at the heart of them all are these few verses.
If I am accused of extrapolating something new or surprising or counter-cultural from this evidence, I put my hand up and plead guilty. It's all any of us have to go on. But I believe, and I hope that I'm at least partially right, that what I've discovered is remarkably simple in comparison to some of the orthodox theories expounded in the past.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm not following. How do we know that the beloved disciple wasn't one of the 12?
We don't. But I agree with R.E.Brown that it's unlikely. Although he is in the company of Peter quite often (Brown points out the apparent "one-upmanship" of the B.D. in the gospel), he also seems to be set apart from them at significant times. He is the only one of the disciples at the foot of the cross, the only one not to abandon his master - and he's given the privilege of looking after the mother of Jesus at the crucifixion. At the resurrection picnic he is the only one to openly recognise the man on the shore. Later, we're told that the other disciples were afraid to ask who he was (because they knew who he was!) but clearly they thought he was a ghost who had come to punish them for running away at the arrest of Jesus.
There might also be a doctrinal point being made here - that the disciples were afraid because they were looking at something more awesome than a human being. There were a substantial number of people who played down the humanity of Jesus after the resurrection.
Something similar happened to the reputation of the Beloved Disciple in modern times - he was thought not to have physically existed. Brown denies this and so do I - the Beloved Disciple is no mere cypher, an ideal model of loving, humble, discipleship. His physical humanity, his human physicality, is as evident as that of Jesus himself. But the "ideal" belief points out the difficulty many people have with such an important person not being named.
Brown calls him, on several occasions, a hero of the community, and on one occasion "obviously" so. It's only that word "obviously" that I have trouble with. When a famous scholar finds something obvious, it soon becomes obvious to anybody else, and anyone who sees an obvious alternative comes up against a barrage of uncorroborated certainty. That's not Brown's usual style.
I would describe the community of the Beloved Disciple as a mythical cult. I mean neither word to be taken negatively or pejoratively, but rather in the way we speak of the Roman Catholic cult of Mary - a long-established traditional reverence for a real historical figure.
But in one sense the Beloved Disciple never was.
Why is he so called? The evangelist never uses this convenient and evocative title, but always the rather clunky "disciple whom Jesus loved".
On every occasion. I expect it's as clumsy in Greek as it is in English. So why doesn't use the term we know so well? I believe it is because he is reproducing faithfully the written evidence before him, signed, sealed and delivered after the disciple's death.
Why is he not named? In the gospel, because the redactor doesn't know it. In the written evidence, what are the possibilities? I know this wasn't anything like the celebrity culture of the modern world, but was there nobody around at the time itching to boast that he had known the personal friend of Jesus Christ? A man of high renown, a hero of the community, and nobody knows his name? Or everybody does, and is too shy to mention it? Come on!
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
What are the reasons for believing it to be unlikely that the beloved disciple was John, and indeed [one of] the source[s]/author[s] of the Gospel of John?
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
I don't think there is any doubt that he was one of the sources. Please forgive me for taking so long to reply. Your question deserves a clear, succinct, coherent answer and, to be frank, I am struggling to find one that would satisfy either or both of us!
The traditional avatar of John the evangelist is the golden eagle which supports the lectern in so many of our churches. R.E.BROWN, in his introduction to The Community of The Beloved Disciple (which I shall abbreviate to CBD in future) describes that community as a sky full of eagles with talons drawn, battling for mastery of the moral and theological high ground beneath them.
He plays down the violence later, because he reckons that the internecine strife in the early Church, with its ecclesiological and Christological divisions, anathemas, resolutions and accommodations has been over-emphasised in some commentaries, but he doesn't attempt to brush them under the carpet. He explains why the gospel took so long to gain acceptance into the (Roman Catholic) canon, and charts gnostic and other heterodox influences on the tradition, eventually leading to schism and the peeling off of the secesssionists - who tried in effect to take the gospel with them - without success.
He believed that there were at least two major authors of the Fourth Gospel, referred to as "the evangelist" and "the redactor" - neither of which he sees as the Beloved Disciple (whose death is mourned in John 21:20-23, but whoseinspirational influence which had informed much of the gospel's development through the mediation of the Paraclete, continues to be seen in the Johanine epistles, written about 80-100 AD.
This emphasis on the work of The Paraclete leads to a rather disturbing footnote later in CBD, in which Brown declares that the Beloved Disciple may have been a witness to the ministry of Jesus. (My italics. I don't get this)
Looking for simple, straightforward points in his reasoning, I find there is much reference to earlier and later works which I have not read; and other passages, though convincing (to me) are too long to quote without breaching the copyright rules. I hope that doesn't sound too much like a cop-out.
Brown's work is full of caveats, such as the danger of giving too much importance to sectarian issues, or of looking for too much historical evidence in the texts. Nevertheless, his credentials are impeccable, and I am attracted by his willingness to give space to the views of other writers - even ones he doesn't agree with, and by is bold and sometimes challenging attitude towards magisterial authority.
It might help us to have a more balanced discussion if you could remind us (I have genuinely forgotten) what reasoning lays behind the still widely-held beliefs that the Beloved Disciple was (a)John, son of Zebedee and (b) the author of the fourth gospel. I think you have already suggested somewhere that John 21:20-23 might not necessarily indicate that the disciple, as well as Peter, was already dead when the final redaction of the gospel was completed.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
TBH, pimple, I don't think I can give the time to this that it needs for an in depth discussion. I could spend half an hour addressing the issues raised in your post without getting to a level that would satisfy you or indeed me, and I just don't have the time for a conversation at that level. Hopefully, someone else may chime in.
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
I’ve been keeping an eye on this thread because I am interested in seeing how the interaction with Brown’s thesis develops. I have not read his The Community of The Beloved Disciple so am grateful to pimple for summarising and interacting with it. I did read Brown’s An Introduction to the Gospel of John, a work he had begun but not completed before he died. I’ve been meaning to follow up on that for some time, but other things intervened and so this thread is a good opportunity for me, at any rate, to see how Brown’s ideas might run.
If I understand Brown right, he argued for a three-stage development to the Fourth Gospel (actually I think originally he went for 5, but decided to condense matters later). Let’s see if I do have this right:
[1] The original teachings of Jesus – or at least some of them – as preserved in the memories of his followers. These form the raw material for the Gospel.
[2] That material as it was used in the Christian community associated with the Gospel. This was the material as it was proclaimed and reflected on. Still mostly an oral stage, this one.
[3] The writing of the Gospel itself. Here Brown sees two figures at work: the Evangelist and a Redactor.
That Redactor was someone who made some additions after the Evangelist had completed his work. The main additions (which could also have been based on memories from Jesus’ time) were the Prologue and chapter 21. Brown judges that both Evangelist and Redactor were disciples of the Beloved Disciple who probably was dead by the time the Gospel was written. The BD was himself a witness from Stage [1] above and who was instrumental in developing Stage [2]. It could be said that he was also the authority behind the written Gospel, even if not the actual writer. So in a sense, the BD was the ‘author’, but only by way of being an authority.
I think that brings us to the “So, who is he?” question. I don’t know that Brown identified a named individual in answer to this?
Then the “Why write this Gospel?” question. That’s where I look on in anticipation!!!
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Yes, the "WHO" has exercised a great many minds. I'm surprised it hasn't exercised a great many more. I vaguely remember an early church father attributing the literal authorship to the Beloved Disciple and equating him with John, son of Zebedee.
I can't remember how or why, but I came to regard this as a comfortable myth provided by a man who didn't want his flock to waste time on imponderables. Certainties are safer - from the magisterium's point of view, anyway.
Personally I can live with the probability of never knowing who he (or she!) was, but what currently intrigues me is not the WHO, but the WHAT. Brown repeats what everybody knows - that the Beloved Disciple was obviously a hero of the community.
I think this comes from the impossibility of always describing him as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" without becoming too boring. "The Beloved Disciple" is an obvious alternative, but it begs a question nobody has thought to ask. Could the disciple whom Jesus loved have been the disciple - or one of the disciples - whom a significant number of the apostles hated? Brown points up the "one-upmanship" of the Disciple (and that's how I'll continue to identify him) and he also describes a church riven with strife. It's apparent in the petty bickering of The Twelve in more than one gospel, in the complaints by Paul of rival gospel-makers, in the anathemas of the synagogues after the diaspora, in the executions carried out by several faction for sexual immorality or apostasy or simply for mildly heterodox statements.
I try not to get too worked up about all of this, but it has seemed to me at times that it is obvious that the Disciple was not a hero, but an outcast - whose followers managed surreptitiously to reinstate him in the fourth gospel - and even then it was still not safe to name him. Dan Brown, eat your heart out!.
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Oh, dear - I'm too old for this, too clumsy (cueing there there never mind pimple). Yesterday I hit the wrong key or failed to hit a right one, and was treated to a bizarre automated error message from one of Admin's pathetic little robots (think fake clowns peering through classroom windows).
It really freaked me out and I didn't have my GTN spray with me (I did type GTN and not GIN, didn't I?). I cannot be doing with this, life's too short - well mine is, anyway, and I have to look after Mrs. P.
I haven't got the energy to flounce so I'll just crawl away and cry. Good luck with my crazy secular ideas - or just lie back and think of Jesus, I always found that far less stressful!
P.S. I'm seriously considering copying Spike Milligan and asking for this to be put on my headstone: THAT WAS A JOKE?
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
...and I was just thinking of asking: What was Peter’s role in all this?!
I know you have an affinity for the man renamed Rocky, but perhaps he’s the one in the clown’s mask in John’s Gospel. Don’t give up now!
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
With such encouragement, it would be churlish to refuse. And the hosts and admins have a difficult, time-consuming, thankless task - something this old curmudgeon forgets, sometimes.
You asked earlier "why write this gospel?" The obvious reply from the horse's mouth, so to speak:
quote:
...these are written so that you may come to believe (or continue to believe) that Jesus is the Christ/Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name
[John 20:30]
John majors on 'belief' through miracle rather than divine acceptance through compassion and good works. It's post-Jewish revolt and apocalyptic, after all, so that is hardly surprising. But here is what he says just prior to the quote above (v.30): 'Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples [including other resurrection appearances?] which are not written in this book...] and right at the end of the gospel (21:25): but there are also many other things Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.'
In other words the evangelist's task is to close down unnecessary discussion, rumour, argument or speculation over the various descriptions of Jesus life and ministry: here you have all that's necessary for salvation. Enough already!
He's under siege with too much information, much of it, I suspect, unverifiable - but who knows? Meanwhile there is one source he cannot ignore - the written and oral witness of the Disciple's interaction with Jesus and the other disciples, including the apostles (though John avoids this term) at particularly important times, possibly including the marriage at Cana and the story of Lazarus's rescue, both absent from the synoptics.
Where's Peter in all this? Brown sees the early Christians as comprising three distinct, though interconnected sets of people. Two of them are included in the "Johanine community" and the third is an apostolic group, headed by Peter:
quote:
How do we know that John wishes to symbolize a special group of Christians by the figures of Peter and The Twelve? A prime indicator is found in 6:60-69 where two groups among Jesus' disciples are sharply contrasted...
And here's the passsae in question:
quote:
When many of his disciples heard it they said, "this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" But Jesusm being aware that his diciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is thespirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father." Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked The Twelve,"Do you also wish to go away?" "Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God/"
That's all I can manage for now.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
You asked earlier "why write this gospel?" The obvious reply from the horse's mouth, so to speak...
Yes, in hindsight that was a silly question!
I was intrigued by the reference to the “ancient wrong” in your OP as a possible cause for writing the gospel. So the theory would be that something happened to this unnamed disciple-loved-by-Jesus that led to him being rejected by other leaders in the fledgling Christian community. Brown’s suggestion that there was a degree of in-fighting among the first followers is also interesting. There is the counter question, though, how the four gospels eventually came together if the sects were too much at odds?
Having said that, I have wondered for some time about the similarities between John’s Gospel and Paul’s letters when it comes to theology (and christology). There is so much overlap, it seems to me. There could also then be that other overlap – Paul had to confront Peter (a.k.a. Cephas) over the very nature of being declared just / right(eous). This is the bit from Gal. 2:11-16 (NET Version)
quote:
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he had clearly done wrong. Until certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he stopped doing this and separated himself because he was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also joined with him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray with them by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not behaving consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “If you, although you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you try to force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
Paul’s theology – his understanding of how God expects his people to behave – clashed with Peter’s at this point. Is this an indication of a stress line in early Christianity that affected the community, including those that were affiliated with the unknown BD?
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
Oh, dear - I'm too old for this, too clumsy (cueing there there never mind pimple). Yesterday I hit the wrong key or failed to hit a right one, and was treated to a bizarre automated error message from one of Admin's pathetic little robots (think fake clowns peering through classroom windows).
It really freaked me out and I didn't have my GTN spray with me (I did type GTN and not GIN, didn't I?). I cannot be doing with this, life's too short - well mine is, anyway, and I have to look after Mrs. P.
I haven't got the energy to flounce so I'll just crawl away and cry. Good luck with my crazy secular ideas - or just lie back and think of Jesus, I always found that far less stressful!
P.S. I'm seriously considering copying Spike Milligan and asking for this to be put on my headstone: THAT WAS A JOKE?
... it's okay, sweetheart, I've deleted the duplicate post
K.A.
Admin.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Thanks Kelly. Nigel - how did the four sects come together? With great difficulty! Brown describes the process of accepting the fourth gospel into the canon in the 2nd century at some length, and it couldn't happen until the "secessionists (a gnostic offshoot which left the main body of the church and tried to take the gospel with it) had finally cut themselves off, and their "orthodox" former colleagues reclaimed the gospel for mainstream Christianity - at some loss.
I'm trying hard to catch up again now because once again I hit the de
lete button a few minutes ago and my carefully contrived reasoning has a shelf-life of about 30 seconds!
Looking for Brown's comments on 6:60-69 (above) just now I came across this on page 161 (of CBD):
"We must presuppose a theological and dogmatic struggle within the Johanine community in which the redactor championed a particular stance under the name and with the adherence of the Beloved Disciple" (citing Langbrandtner. My italics).
Under the name...what name? "The Beloved Disciple" isn't a name, it's an assumptive soubriquet!
I want to come back to that pivotal passage from Chapter 6 later because I've learned stuff from it that opened my eyes to the possibility of a more nuanced approach to what I have in the past naively thought of as the "circus Jesus who can appear and disappear at will, see round corners and knows what sauce you're going to have on tomorrow's sardines.
But I have an old man's waterworks. Must run!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
It’s interesting what happens when a text is prodded and poked.
We have all the makings of a classic inter-war ‘Who Dunnit?’ here. There’s a body, as yet unidentified (labelled John Doe to distinguish him from John Baptist). There are quite a few suspects: the northerner Sir Peter, who owns much of the estate; the arch-sceptic Thomas, who doubts there’s a body at all; Mary Magda, a servant who alleged that there was another body that had been moved; the cleric Nicky Demus, who had tried to hide that second body; and Nicky’s associate Jo (who is hiding quite a few secrets of his own). Clearly the authorities hadn’t a clue and so they called in Father Brown.
Brown had quite a few suspicions. Sir Peter appeared to have had a grudge against John Doe and had cut him out of his will, possibly because John Doe was a southerner and had been befriended by an influential political leader who had gone missing. Was the servant Mary to be believed that this leader had also been killed and the body moved? Mary apparently had witnessed the killing. Had John Doe also been a witness? Apparently not. He had only Sir Peter’s word that there had been a second body and that it had been moved. Had John Doe suspected there was a conspiracy to hide the truth and had been done away with to prevent the truth from coming out? John had managed to write a Dead Man’s Testimony in the event of his death, this had come to light and was circulating under the working title, “True Light”.
There was a belief among some of the suspects that there was no second body – the owner of that body had merely gone away for a while and would return one day. Thomas doubted that even John Doe was really dead. Anything he said, though, was doubtful, because he had a twin and therefore any alibi he put forward could be countered by having his double on the spot.
Father Brown also suspected that there was a conspiracy among an inner circle of the authorities, too. The missing leader had been rubbing them up the wrong way and might have been bumped off to avoid political fall-out. Brown had this from a whistle-blower on the inside, Jo. Also, if John Doe had been close to the missing leader and was indeed telling the truth, then Sir Peter stood to lose quite a bit of influence.
All in all, a puzzle that would take quite a bit of untangling to sort out.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Hmmm...let me check. Yep - apparently this particular Father Brown was "one of the best-known Johanine scholars in the world. In the period of 1972-1978 he served as the only American member of the Roman Pontifical Biblical Commission, a papal appointment. At the same time he has been the only American Catholic on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches..." (CBD jacket blurb)
Pity about the name though. Nevertheless I'll bet his tumbling body is tickled pink right now!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That seems to be a considerable extrapolation from a few comments in the Fourth Gospel.
Could you manage to expand on your belief, and provide some more detail and support?
I would have tried. I'm not so sure now. Wrong place, wrong time, perhaps. And people have been very patient with me.
I do not see in the fourth gospel either Father Brown's semi-smoked hornets' nest, nor Nigel M's
can of worms (his witty fantasy, not mine). But poking around in the text has led me to see it as flawed. To the millions who clutch it like a comfort blanket in a world where reality is always scarier than myth, I wish no harm; if it works for them, fine. And if I suggest the blanket looks a bit moth-eaten in places, I am not deriding the believers.
As a general rule (to which, of course, there are always exceptions), heroes have names (If they didn't, how could their adherents go around dropping them?), while those who have their names removed and their deeds written out of history tend to be those whom the authorities regard as evil and/or dangerous.
So what might the Disciple's crime be? Perhaps he was too close to his beloved Master to be taken in by the inflationary claims about his divinity going around at the time. The forerunners of the Docetists, perhaps, were already refusing to accept that Jesus was real flesh and blood at all - something Jesus was always at pains to emphasise, even after his crucifixion. We know - if we believe the evangelist, that the Disciple who lay with his head on the breast of Jesus at the last supper was not a believer. He only believed, John tells us, when he saw the empty tomb.
But believed in what? We are meant to know, that is, to guess. It's not spelt out. But the New Testament is full of diatribes against those who do not accept the writer's version of the gospel,
and I suggest that for the man who said, later, "look. the feet of those who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out", any belief that fell short of Peter's own would constitute an offence against the Holy Spirit.
At the picnic (here cometh the fiction), the disciples were afraid of Jesus because they thought he must be a vengeful ghost - in spite of the fact that his true friend had already recognised his master from the boat. After the meal Jesus and Peter moved away from the others (recorded fact) and had a reconciliation (gospel)
that is, a loud argument (fiction) which prompted the Disciple (probably accompanied by his amanuensis, the unnamed seventh disciple) to go to the aid (if need be) of his master.
This gospel, like Mark's, ends too soon like Mark's - and perhaps for the same reason ("they were all afraid, you see"). What happens next? What answer does Jesus read in the face of Peter after he asks "If it be my will that he should remain until I come again, what is that to you?"
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
I think I've got it. My hand shakes a bit. I probably double clicked on the add reply button and the machine was responding to my "empty" second post. Bloody computers, I hate them! Of course, just because I've solved that one little problem (I think) doesn't mean the heavenly hosts aren't out to get me!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Good of y'all to stay with me so far, but I think it's time for a tactical withdrawal! I've done some more reading, unearthed further evidence - not all of it supporting my case. I don't think this is an argument (largely with myself, it seems!) that I can win. It's not so much a matter of nailing the truth as choosing between plausible alternatives to the mishmash of fact and fable in the text - which, with all its faults, has to be respected.
But the war (against Plainandsimpletruthopolis)
goes on, and for those of my lovely friends who have issues with conspiracy theories, I beg to point out that there are more conspiracies in the Holy Bible's stories, Horatio, than are dreamt of in Dan Brown's! WS forgive me.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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