The New Man, the New World
The following is not from my brain, but I thought it was worth posting and discussing. I'm hoping y'all will find it thought-provoking, and perhaps want to comment on it. If not, then post something provocative yourself (that means you, Paul, Aaron, Steve, Vijay, and Bill)! Anyway, here it is:
The Gospel of John is the Gospel about the new man, and the book of Revelation is the book about the new world created by the new man, culminating in the Great City.
It seems to me that John is the intensly Jewish book that is an answer to Hellenistic culture. Friendship is not a particularly Jewish or Hebrew theme (only being raised in the context of David) but is the great Hellenistic theme. It seems to me that... what accounts for the great difference in this Gospel from the others is that it is written by Jesus best friend, and therefore it is the book that knows Jesus not so much even from his actions, as from the inside.
The book begins by telling us that Jesus is in the bosom of the Father, and therefore He is competent to "declare Him" (exegete Him). Likewise, John is in the bosom of Jesus at the Last Supper, the implication being that as the Jesus is competent to exegete the Father, John is competent to Exegete Jesus and make Him known. The book is a kind of Hebrew Symposium, a book of love, minus homosexuality that defaces all of Greek humanism. It is the true humanism about the true man who makes the new world.
So, John is relevant to our humanistic world that makes "man the measure of all things." It corrects humanism by agreeing with this maxim, but pointing out that it is the True Man in Jesus who is the measure of all things, and then his "friends" who are the makers and builders and inheritors of the new world.
Any thoughts?
posted by DrewDog | 2:35 PM
10 Comments:
Great quote...have you heard the theory put forth by Ben witherington speculating that the beloved disciple was Lazurus and not John? Interesting but not in my mind convincing. Follow the link below:
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-lazarus-beloved-disciple.html
PS. Did you hear Bruce Metzger died on Tuesday? Another saints who from his labors rests.
Yeah, I just heard about Witherington's theory last week. I as well remain skeptical of this, since in order for Lazarus to be the beloved disciple, he would have had to be in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. And I don't buy the idea that John here is not referring to the Last Supper. Interesting nonetheless.
Amen re: Metzger. I read John Piper's thoughts on the man; good stuff.
Steve, BTW, did you notice that Mark T. commented on your idol post?
My objection with the Lazarus theory is that the author has no problem naming Lazarus when he raises him from the dead...so why manufacture a second, anonymous way to refer to him. If the beloved disciple is Lazarus, the author has unnecessarily complicated his narrative.
Aaron,
I dont think that verse defeats my objection. The reference in 21.2 is to the brothers as a group. It would be more difficult to say the beloved disciple and his brother. Either way, John remains unnamed whereas Lazarus is named explicitly preceding any reference to the beloved disciple.
Besides, the renaming of a character is usually explicit or obvious....like Saul/Paul or Cephas/Peter. The bestowal of a nickname to a previously named person is in my view, unnecessary and perhaps misleading....and therefore constitutes a major weakness to the argument.
There is a third option as well, guys (not that it's necessary or popular). It could be another John...
I think it is possible that the author is some other John (like the John the Elder who is argued at times to be the author of the Rev) but I just dont see anything that would cause me to doubt that the beloved disciple was John son of Zebedee.
Aaron,
By "why 12 may be a symbolic number..." do you mean:
1. Why Jesus chose 12 for obvious symbolic reasons. or
2. Why the authors symbolically mention 12 eventhough there were probably more
PS. Aaron, glad you are better.
All this is interesting, but at the end of the day, there is nothing that I have read which compels me to reject the traditional view of Johanine authorship.
So in comment #13, you would pick #1 which is NT's position. I cant remember where he said it but NT talks about the selection of 12 as Jesus' "symbolic reconstitution of Israel around himself."
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