John’s Independence

August 17, 2009, 8:10 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 2

In reading this chapter two of Jesus’ most endearing moments are described.  At the beginning of the chapter Jesus helps wedding guest get even more drunk by one of his “miracles”.  The end of the chapter describes how he was already in Jerusalem!  The wedding scene is only recorded by John, yet the Temple explosion is recorded by all four Gospels.  Yet the Synoptic Gospels put it at a much later time in Jesus’ ministry. 

The Wedding scene occurs only a couple of days after Jesus’ baptism.  And we do know that the Baptism of Jesus was near Jerusalem (Matt 3:1).  It happens near the Sea of Galilee, and because Jesus’ mother encourages her son to perform the “miracle”…yet we know that from the Synoptic Gospels that Mary was not fully on board until much later in Jesus’ ministry.  In fact:

Mark 3:21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

Further in Mark we read that his mother is one of those that came to “take charge of him”.  Why on the third day of Jesus ministry would Mary support him and then after Jesus has appointed his twelve Apostles call him crazy?  As I have said before some temporal errors are to be expected from “eyewitness”, but this one seems to be erroneously out of place.  One of my commenters has ask the question “why not (allow these to be different accounts)”?  If you know my previous posts you would know that “Why not” is not an acceptable answer to any question that I ask.  It is similar to “why”, and leaves nothing answered.  It also requires that I just “believe” you to be accurate, which I have no reason to assume.  Further, it leaves no room to investigate the root of the question.  Finally, it assumes that I cannot understand even if you told me…basically insulting my intelligence.  When I ask a legitimate question I request an honest answer.  “I don’t know” is much more honest than “why not” or “just believe”. 

In the second part of this chapter I have already covered this story in my posts on the Gospel of Mark.  Throughout the Synoptic Gospel Jesus did not enter Jerusalem until his final phase of his ministry, but for John he rapidly moves from Jerusalem (his baptism) to the Sea of Galilee and back to Jerusalem in just days.  My same commenter has requested that I assume that this trip can be done in one day (65 miles [104 km] minimum – at 4 miles/hour [6.4km/hour]).  This is at least a two day walk.  This time John does not give exact dates, he only says that a few days later Jesus heads to Jerusalem.  Unless Jesus clears the temple in Jerusalem twice, one at the beginning of his ministry and one near his death, one of the Gospel stories is out of place.  Human error can be used to explain this, but when you add the “Holy Ghost’s inspiration” should not the stories be more accurate?  Why would two men (or more) working in the same ministry (Jerusalem) not be able to collaborate their stories?  This is a unique opportunity to see the development of the NT doctrine.  The Gospel of John was written in a vacuum that did not include the Synoptic Gospels, or otherwise they would have been similar.

The ending of the Temple scene is expanded in the Gospel of John beyond what the Synoptic Gospels describe.  This is interesting in itself, because it shows John’s preferences for Jesus’ more radical teachings.  This closing of the Temple scene is only described by John.  In it Jesus uses a form of double speak which leaves his listeners believing that he is describing the physical Temple.  Yet hindsight is 20/20 and we know that he was describing his own body.  During this time in Jerusalem Jesus began doing miracles and we are told that many people believed in him.  Is it not odd that the other Gospel leaves this story until much later in Jesus’ ministry and leave out two important details (his promise to rebuild and that he made many converts)?  Each of the Synoptic Gospels does record his miracles in the Jerusalem Temple, but instead of converting the people in Jerusalem Jesus only amazed the masses and made the leaders of the Jews angry.

From an Atheist perspective both these stories indicate that the Gospel of John was not written by the same group of Christians as the Synoptic Gospels.  Both stories contradict the Synoptic Gospels both temporal and in physical locations.  If the Gospel of John was written after the Synoptic Gospels, would he not have had them as source materials?  Why did he feel the need to describe things in a different order and different attitudes towards Jesus?  If, on the other hand, the Gospel of John was written before the Synoptic Gospels, then the same questions apply to these gospels.  Only if we are already seeing two different churches do these dissimilarities begin to make sense.  The believers that remained in Jerusalem (the Gospel of John) and those that moved to Rome (the Synoptic Gospels) did have differences.  It is obvious that those in Rome won the struggle for supremacy and have influenced Christian doctrine ever since.  Yet it was the eyewitnesses that stayed in Jerusalem (the Apostles), the group that moved to Rome were lead by Paul.  True near the end of his life Peter moved to Rome but that was after the power shift had occurred.  Could it be possible that Paul took over the religion and changed it from what Jesus taught to what he thought Jesus taught?  He had never met Jesus and only knew of his teachings by word of mouth (from the leaders of Judaism).  Could it be possible that Paul created the schism in Christianity that we see today as 40,000 denominations (most claiming that they are the only ones that are right)?

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