MarkT

"Philosophies of Judaism" & Philo's logos

{ 12:09 PM, 7/8/2009 } { Posted in John's Gospel } { 0 comments } { Link }

From Julius Guttmann's "Philosophies of Judaism" (Doubleday: 1964)
translated from the Hebrew by David W Silverman.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

... the history of Jewish philosophy is a history of the successive
adsorptions of foreign ideas which were then transormed and adapted
according to specific Jewish points of view. p.3

Philo reduces the whole of reality to two factors. The two ultimate
principles in the world are the active cause and matter, which is the object
of divine causality. p.27

The endeavour to bridge the gap between God and the material world gave
birth to Philo's doctrine of intermediate beings, and in particular, to his
doctrine of the logos. God does not act immediately upon the world, but
through mediating powers emanating from him. The first among these is the
logos. ... His concept of divine powers combines the Platonic doctrine of
ideas *[forms], the Stoic logoi spermatikoi which permeate the cosmos, and
Jewish angeology. Accordingly, the logos corresponds to all three: it is
the unity of ideas, the simple source of all cosmic powers, and the highest
of the angels. This combination of Stoic, Platonic, and Jewish notions has
resulted in a complicated mixture riddled with contradictions. These
contradictions concern the relationship of the intermediate beings to God.
Sometimes they are thought of as powers inherent in God, and sometimes as
effects proceeding from him and their mutual relations to each other;
lastly, it is hard to decide whether they are personal or impersonal beings.
p.28

Through his body and the uinferior parts of his soul, man belongs to the
world of the senses; through his reason, however, which is an emanation from
the divine logos, he belongs to the suprasensual world. To the superior
part of his soul, man's body appears to be a prison house. It is the
purpose of man, therefore, to free himself from the chains of corporeality
and to return to huis heavenly source. p.29

The ideal of an ascent of the soul to the suprasensual world, culminating in
a union with God, is alien to the ethical religion of Judaism amnd closer to
the world of mysticism. ... For mysticism, revelation is not tied to any
particular historical event; rather it is part of individual piety and
renews itself therefore in every soul that has entered into true communion
with God. Philo adopts this mystical concept of revelation ... His concept
of God, which is above and beyond all positive ciontent, corresponds to the
mystical. p.30-31

In his doctrine of divine powers ... he attributes two main forces to the
logos - goodness, the creative and merciful force, and power, the ruling and
punishing force ... p.31

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jesus as the logos - a EMANATION from God - an INTERMEDIATORY between God
and humans - is what is spoken about in John 1.

######################################

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

1:1-18

In the beginning there was the divine word and wisdom.

The divine word and wisdom was there with God,
and it was what God was.
It was there with God from the beginning.
Everything came to be by means of it;
nothing exists came to be without its agency.
In it was life,
and this life was the light of humanity.
Light was shining in darkness, and darkness did not master it.

....

The divine word and wisdom became human
and made itself at home among us.

...

From Funk, Hoover and the Jesus Seminar "The Five Gospels" (Macmillan: 1993)
pp. 401 - 402

##############################################

Conflicts between the Gospel of John and the remaining three (Synoptic)

{ 11:38 AM, 1/12/2008 } { Posted in John's Gospel } { 0 comments } { Link }

Conflicts between the Gospel of John and the remaining three (Synoptic)
gospels

Introduction:

Almost all of the biblical information about the earthly ministry of Jesus
is contained in the four gospels Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. ... Many
dozens of gospels were written in the first and second century CE; each was
believed to be accurate by various groups within the early Christian
movement and was extensively used by them. Four of them (Mark, Matthew, Luke
and John) ... were approved for inclusion in the official canon during the
4th century CE ..

All of the original copies of the four gospels in the Christian Scriptures
have been lost. We must rely upon hand-written copies which are an unknown
number of hand-copied replications removed from the originals. The oldest
known surviving part of a gospel dates from about 125 CE. It consists of
about 50 lines from the Egerton gospel -- one of the 40 or so gospels that
never made it into the official canon, and whose author is unknown. Another
portion of an ancient manuscript, containing part of the Gospel of John, is
also dated to about 125 CE. The remaining manuscripts date to the second
half of the second century CE or later.

Differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels:

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often called the "synoptic" gospels. "Synoptic"
is a Greek word meaning "having a common view."

1. John differs significantly from the synoptic gospels in theme, content,
time duration, order of events, and style. "Only ca. 8% of it is parallel to
these other gospels, and even then, no such word-for-word parallelism occurs
as we find among the synoptic gospels."

2.The Gospel of John reflects a Christian tradition that is different from
that of the other gospels. It was rejected as heretical by many individuals
and groups within the early Christian movement. It was used extensively by
the Gnostic Christians. But it was ultimately accepted into the official
canon, over many objections. It is now the favorite gospel of many
conservative Christians, and the gospel least referred to by many liberal
Christians.

...

How the differences are resolved/explained:

Liberal theologians generally accept the books of the Bible as
historical documents, written by authors who were each motivated by a desire
to promote their group's evolving spiritual and theological beliefs. Many
have concluded that these two gospel traditions are so different that they
must largely reject one as a useful source of information about the actual
life and teachings of Jesus. They typically regard John as containing few or
none of Jesus' actual sayings; they concentrate on the synoptic gospels for
meaningful information. Many supplement the canonical Gospels with other
writings which were widely circulated within early Christian movement: the
Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Q, etc.

For example, R.W. Funk and others in the Jesus Seminar comment:

"The two pictures painted by John and the synoptic gospels cannot both be
historically accurate."

"In sum, there is virtually nothing of the synoptic sage in the Fourth
Gospel. That sage has been displaced by Jesus the revealer who has been sent
from God to reveal who the Father is."

"The words attributed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are the
creation of the evangelist for the most part, and reflect the developed
language of John's Christian community."

"The Fellows of the [Jesus] Seminar were unable to find a single
saying they could with certainty trace back to Jesus in the Gospel of John."

They did find one sentence in John that they felt was similar to something
that actually Jesus said. It is John 4:44 where Jesus commented that a
prophet is given no respect in his home territory. This paralleled in Mark
6:4, Matthew 13:57 and Luke 4:24.

They did find two short passages that they felt was not said by
Jesus but which contained ideas close to his own:
John 12:24 where Jesus discusses the kernel of wheat that dies to produce a
great harvest.
John 13:20 where Jesus swears to God that if the public welcome his
apostles, they are welcoming him as well. This is paralleled in Matthew
10:40 and Luke 10:16.

They believe that all of the other hundreds of sentences that the author(s)
of the Gospel of John attributed to Jesus -- including the "I Am"
statements -- were not said by Jesus. They represent "...the perspective or
content of a later or different tradition."

Conservative theologians generally accept the Bible as inerrant in its
original, autograph, form. They believe that its authors were directly
inspired by God to write error-free text. They view both John and the
synoptic gospels as being completely accurate, infallible, true, with every
passages useful for their spiritual development. ....

Religious conservatives frequently concentrate on the Gospel of John,
because:
- It emphasizes Jesus' deity,
- It is the basis of many of the historical, fundamental Christian
beliefs, and
- It bases an individual's salvation on faith rather than works.

from http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_john.htm

John 3:16

{ 10:02 AM, 22/3/2008 } { Posted in John's Gospel } { 0 comments } { Link }

John 3: 16 (Scholars Version) - This is how God loved the world: God gave up an only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not be lost but have real life.

....

The fourth evangelist's style of speech and comment is exemplified by the remarks in 3:31-36. These remarks are the creation of the evangelist. There is no suggestion that they should be attributed to Jesus. John 13:14-21 is written in the same style and with comparable content. Had these verse been included in quotation marks as words allegedly spoken by Jesus, the fellows would have course have labeled them black. *[Meaning "Jesus did not say this, it represents the perspective or content of a later
or different tradition."]

It should be recalled that quotation marks do not appear in the original Greek manuscripts of any of the gospels; most punctuation marks have been provided by modern editors and translators.

John 3:14-21, in the judgement of the fellows, should not be enclosed in quotation marks. The Scholars Version places closing quotation marks at the end of v. 13, although some modern translations incorrectly include vs. 14-21 in Jesus' quoted speech.

From Funk, Hoover and the Jesus Seminar "The Five Gospels" (Macmillan: 1993) pp. 408-409

MarkT

"Philosophies of Judaism" & Philo's logos

Conflicts between the Gospel of John and the remaining three (Synoptic)

John 3:16

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