Excellent guest. Thank you!

What a well-developed, concise summary. Does Dr. Chilton have an essay or book on this subject for reference?

My sense is that the author(s) of John used *everything* that was available - earlier Gospels (including a lost 'Signs' Gospel), plus Philo, and tales from Buddhism, and so much more.

@decades5643

4 ай бұрын

I agree (although I'm not familiar with the Buddhist connections). Some scholars seem to want to be able to pinpoint the exact sources that were used by these authors, but you have to remember that they were also being creative writers that were influenced by their surroundings. The influence doesn't even need to be direct. Scholars have pointed out the possible influence of stories about Dionysus (like The Bacchae) and Plato's Symposium on the author of John.

Thank you for a very sophisticated analysis of the Gospel of John, a book which is decidedly more Platonic and mystical than the other gospels. I especially liked the comparison and contrast made between the hymn in Philippians.

Thank you Dr Chilton, thank you Jacob. There certainly are a number of different theories on the composition of John and it's relation to the synoptics. While I agree with Dr Chilton for the most part, I still maintain that the beloved discipline was an actual follower of Jesus.

@failyourwaytothetop

4 ай бұрын

You're taking the historical perspective. Many academics hold the position that the BD was a literary creation to produce within the reader the desire to become the BD. The path to becoming a BD of Jesus lay in part as stated by Dr. Chilton the extent to which is near to and forgiven by Jesus. Thus, the reason for which he/she is unnamed.

16:47 Paul did not think Jesus preexistent. That passage is best explained by Dr. James Tabor in that Jesus being the new Adam, was in the form (image) of God, did not do what Adam did (grasping for power) and instead submmited himself to be a servant of the will of God and was rewarded for it 😩

Many of the intellectually nuanced points of these conversations with academics can mostly be picked up upon repeated viewings. I see myself playing back and writing down certain sections to come to a full appreciation of particular points which contain greater depth than others. I wonder if Jacob and the viewers do the same. Points of depth are lost upon a superficial casual passive viewing of these videos.

@SAVANNAHEVENTS

3 ай бұрын

Absolutely. Repeated listening really works with this material.

Excellent as always ❤

John 1:1-3 does not say that Jesus the person pre-existed, just as it does not say Jesus as a body pre-existed. The Prologue states that the logos ( word, reasoning) pre-existed and was turned into a man, a unique man. We can call a person a walking dictionary without implying the man was printed in 1856! Jesus presents himself as the perfect representative of his father because he speaks, thinks and acts as God wants him to. Philippians says Jesus did NOT seek to grasp at an equality with God. It does not say Jesus already had an equality.

@garlandjones7709

29 күн бұрын

Misinterpreting John 1, brother

Careful reading of John will indicate that his believer communities did not have ‘sacramentals’ in the sense of rituals with power to change people’s status, but they did have a few customs that they paired with instruction: in the sayings, actions and significance of Jesus. They relied on the ‘words of eternal life’ the teachings of Jesus, to effect change in a person’s thinking. They did not rely on any magic-like function of sacraments. The ‘begetting of the spirit’ wrongly translated ‘birth’ from above, happens through education, John repeatedly claims, from prior to immersion and onwards as a disciple, a ‘student’: ‘the words that I say to you THEY are spirit and they are life.’

John has ‘assumed knowledge’ of details in Mark such as the baptism of Jesus and imprisonment of the Baptist; most likely because his congregations already had their own loved copies of ‘ Mark’ for the previous 15 years. Mark is Galilee-centred and John is Jerusalem-centred. They can be complementary and the author may deliberately be trying to give his new material, that is not in Mark. John sometimes clarifies Mark e.g. making explicit that the Last Supper was not THE Passover meal, only a new version for the new people of God. The crucifixion happening on 14th Nisan. Also giving a more heroic twist to several sayings and events that could be construed as a weakness in the image of Jesus in Mark (the cup of suffering, being taken by soldiers).

@garlandjones7709

29 күн бұрын

If there are historical elements to the story, then thousands of people would've known of the baptism before r imprisonment. It wouldn't require one person writing it for everyone else t remember it. The idea behind John with the Passover isn't clarifying Mark, either, unless that is to say that Mark is correct. Those in Judah were celebrating Passover on the 15th as they do today. Not the 14th as the scriptures say. Even Mark acknowledged that the temple was celebrating Passover a day later. John is showing the Jewish stance on it, of which he does and renounces many times on many subjects. It could only correct Mark if Mark hadnt acknowledged the 15th for the Jews, and if John actually took that stance.

Great presentation, except for the last 5 minutes! Just please explain to me why modern scholars pretend to know more than the Early Church by denying the tradition of apostolic authorship, i.e. that John was indeed the apostle/elder, son of Zebedee. If the author is portrayed semi-anonymously, it is just because the amanuensis did not want him to be sent back to Patmos, or persecuted in other ways, for in those days (end of first century CE), the Church was not officially approved, and had to keep a low profile.

Does Dr. Chilton believe in the resurrection of Jesus?

It's not John's gospel. It's the gospel according to John, huge difference.

@Theslavedrivers

4 ай бұрын

That's understood in short-hand.

Dionysus, platonism, stoicism, Judaism, and mysticism. John has it all.

Did John not recount, by way of inference, that Jesus, from the cross, directed his mother to take someone as her new son? The implication seems direct as it is understood that the 'beloved' MUST have been John. John is clever. The entire incident is very unlikely to have happened, for reasons I have commented upon in previous rantings. No speculations this evening for me.

Uhmmm, no, For all intents and purposes Paul, in private, was calling Jacov the Pious the Anti-christ.

Dr. Chilton mentions that the Apostle John has literary skill due, in part, to his weaving the importance of sacramental practices as a tenet in the pursuit of Christian faith. I never saw that aspect of John, but I know that Dr. Chilton is on point. However, owing in no small part to my distrust of John, I trust that this encouragement to ritual is a departure from Christ in so much as the emphasis is on a mundane demonstration. I think John is deliberately reducing Christian life to something akin to pagan religious rights. Everything I notice in Christ is calling for the exercise of soul, its' disciple and direction of search. Christ is a denial of the worldly rituals. As I have said: I hold John in extreme contempt.

how do you know what was written down at the time is true and not just made up

@glarris1

4 ай бұрын

Like the synoptic Gospels, John isn’t a history book.