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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Prof. Bart D. Ehrman

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we find a Jesus who teaches little about himself and repeatedly refuses to perform miracles as evidence of his status and mission. The focus of his teaching is God and the kingdom which God is to bring in the future. In John, however, the focus of Jesus’ teaching is himself and the eternal life he brings in the here and now; further, his miracles are called “signs” and are performed explicitly to provide proof of who he is. While these two views could be profitably harmonized, this is more difficult in John as its writer is frequently caught in lies and political dirty tricks.

 

 

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Editor's prefatory comment:

Dr. Ehrman explains that the 5700 early copies of the New Testament – copies of copies of copies – contain hundreds of thousands of discrepancies.

Many of these are inconsequential but a significant number alter the meaning of the text in important ways. Most of these constituted mere human error in copying but some of them, it appears, were purposefully injected into the text by editorial judgment of scribes.

This entire area of scholarship is far more complex than most realize, leading the objective reviewer to understand that, in many cases, we have no knowledge of the original text of the New Testament.

In addition to Dr. Ehrman’s books, his lectures are available on youtube; for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE&t=12s

 

 

Dr. Ehrman speaks of this in his lectures on "The New Testament," in the section, "John - Jesus the Man from Heaven", published by The Great Courses.

Earlier in this series, we have discussed how John constitutes a polemic, a political hit-piece designed to denigrate the “Gospel Of Thomas” and the apostle associated therewith.

We've seen that John is not above purveying outright lies concerning the apostle Thomas. We know this because the earlier gospels clearly offer contrary statements; these were written, in some cases, decades before John, and so there will be no excuse of ignorance – especially, as many of the verses in John directly reference statements made in Thomas.

We need to keep all of this in mind when we hear Prof. Erhman speak of the two different teaching foci in the Synoptics and John. The difference is more than variation of literary style.

The gospels of M,M,L present Jesus as the “Son of Man,” an advanced human being, not God. But John cloaks himself in language and concepts which foreshadow the coming of Big Religion’s disingenuous and politically-motivated teachings concerning the purported divinity of Jesus.

The Jesus of M,M,L does not like drawing attention to himself, and will not perform miracles to create a sensation. He often says "Don't tell anybody that I just healed this person." He doesn’t want that kind of rah-rah publicity.

But it’s all different in John with his budding proclivity toward ecclesiastical power-and-control. He’s a totalitarian at heart, and that’s why he feels perfectly justified to spew fake-news. His Jesus loves focus on himself, which egocentric attitude is merely an extension of the glory which all totalitarians dream of for themselves.

 

 

Editor's last word: