John as the Fourth Synoptic Gospel? w/Scholar Mark Goodacre

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Mark Goodacre, it's a pleasure to have you here today. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. [00:00:05] Speaker A: Let's talk a little bit about your background. So, from England, studied at Oxford there for 10 years and then went on to Birmingham and taught for 10 and then arrived at Duke 20 years ago yesterday. Is that correct? [00:00:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it is, yeah. I got an email from one of my former teachers, E.P. sanders, and he said, are you interested? There's no way you're interested in moving to America, is there? Because we've got a job going at Duke and we'd like you to apply. So I did and I thought nothing adventured, nothing gained, and I'm still here 20 years later. Yeah, you must have done something right. Hopefully. Yeah, I hope so. [00:00:40] Speaker A: No, you're a, you're a first rate scholar for sure. So professor of religious studies and Christian origins and typically you're teaching, if I'm not mistaken, Greek exegesis for the most part. [00:00:51] Speaker B: I do, yes. I mean, I suppose some of my favorite teaching is doing like kind of graduate classes. You know, you just dig into some text. At the moment I'm doing a course on John's Gospel, surprise, surprise. And we'll just spend a couple of hours digging into say John chapter nine and you know, kind of looking at that. But I also do quite a bit of undergraduate teaching as well. I'm teaching a course on Jesus and the Gospels at the moment, which is a lot of fun. I do Paul, teach Paul sometimes I do Jesus in film, which is one of the kind of. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Little bit of variety. And I do non canonical gospels as well, which I love. That's really good fun. Especially people that know the canonical gospel as well, they. Nobody knows the non canonicals. That's always fun. [00:01:32] Speaker A: And you do have the book, the Gospel of Thomas is one of your books. [00:01:34] Speaker B: I do, yeah. [00:01:35] Speaker A: And then you have the case against Q and then this book cut off the press. Yeah, hot off the press. So the fourth synoptic gospel, John's knowledge of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And that's a lot of what I want to talk about today. So let's just dive in. So synoptic, synonymous. For many years, I guess the consensus up until the mid 20th century was that John was very familiar and utilized the synoptics. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Right. [00:02:03] Speaker A: But then it changed, all changed. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Second half of the 20th century, you get a very influential scholar called Ch. Dodd. I think Ch Dodd is the person who's most responsible for seeing John as independent of the synoptics. And it really really stuck his view of things, which is basically that John drew heavily from oral tradition. There was these oceans of oral tradition around, and John is just drawing from this. And that, for him, precluded any sense that there was a literary agreement. And so many of the great works on John's gospel in the second half of the 20th century were from people that thought John was independent. And it's the same time as you've got the idea of a Johannine community, it's kind of separate from the rest of early Christianity, almost like a sectarian community isolated from the wider world. So just as you've got an isolated Johannine community, you've got an isolated John's Gospel. I think kind of both of those models were wrong. I think the isolated community model is wrong and the isolated John's Gospel is wrong as well. [00:03:03] Speaker A: So what about the person that would say, well, John was written much later, decades, would you say, in the general consensus is at least 20 to 30 years after the synoptics. [00:03:12] Speaker B: So I think it probably isn't that long after. I think that Luke, for me, Luke has to be written the latest of the three synoptics. I think he used Matthew and Mark. And for me, that pushes Luke to the end, end of the first century, even possibly beginning of the second. And if John, as I argue here, is using Luke as well as the others, that means that I'm kind of early second century for John, certainly not decades after them. I'd say possibly quite recently after they've been written. But who knows? [00:03:42] Speaker A: I mean. [00:03:42] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes people think that you have to have two or three decades for someone to get to know something. I mean, I can get to know a book in six weeks. [00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:49] Speaker B: You know, get it to know really well. So, I mean, who knows? [00:03:52] Speaker A: Well, and he lived that experience. Right. I mean, John is being, you know, one of the 12. So let's talk about just the synoptics as well as some of the similarities and differences with. With John. So of, of These, of these four, we had John clearly one of the 12, as was Matthew the tax collector. But then we have Mark or John, Mark who really is the scribe for Peter. And you often are usually referred to that gospel as the Gospel of Peter, correct or not. Are you? Are you? [00:04:22] Speaker B: No, no, I do. I do think that it's possible that Mark's Gospel has a link with Peter. I mean, that is. I mean, Papias was already saying that in the early to mid second century. So that goes early 1 Peter 5, 13 as well. My son Mark, you know, so you've got these links between Peter and Mark. And then when you look at the text of Mark's gospel, Peter is really prominent. You know, he's. He's the guy. He's first on the scene. One of the very first miracles that Jesus performs is healing Peter's mother in law. So I think there is a link there somewhere. I doubt myself that it's direct in the sense. I don't think it's Peter himself with John Mark, you know, kind of dictating or anything like that. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:00] Speaker B: I think it's a bit more indirect than that, but I think we can trace the origins of Mark to Peter. Yes, I do. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:06] Speaker A: And so with Peter's letters then, and he. You mentioned he. He does refer to John Mark, but he also refers to Sylvanus. Would you say that Silas. [00:05:13] Speaker B: Yes, I think so. [00:05:14] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. And do you think Silas was his scribe? [00:05:17] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, it's one of those things where there are certain questions which I'm happy to leave in the unknown area. So I think it's partly an occupational hazard because I like to make bold claims when I'm confident. Yeah, I was confident that Q didn't exist. I still. I'm still confident that I do not believe in the existence of Q. And therefore I was willing to be bold and say I think Luke had a copy of Matthew's gospel. I'm absolutely convinced that John knew the Synoptic gospel. So I'm willing to make that bold claim with other things, I'm happy to say, maybe. Right. [00:05:52] Speaker A: Well, just with the lived experience of being one of the 12, he's the only one still alive at the time when he writes this gospel. So, I mean, why not just simplify and say, well, he was there. Everything they discuss, he was an eyewitness to for the most part. Or is that oversimplification? [00:06:08] Speaker B: Well, for me, I think it's unlikely that the author of the fourth gospel was an eyewitness. I mean, I think there is that claim that's founded on the idea that the beloved disciple, the author of the text, is somehow a witness to the events. That claim is there. And it has a historical root, I think, insofar as Jesus did have these three close disciples, Peter, James and John. And I argue in this book that the beloved disciple is supposed to be Johnson of Zebedee. It is like it's an idealized version of him. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker B: But it's still supposed to be him. So I think there's a historical root there. But I Think a lot of what's going on is the author of John's gospel is trying to depict for us the ideal witness, the ideal disciple, Someone who is right there at Jesus's. Right there at Jesus's side. He's there at the cross. He's followed Jesus faithfully to the cross. He's at the tomb. He's at the resurrection. So this is like a model disciple and a model witness, seeing all these key events. [00:07:09] Speaker A: And I think it's John 19, when Jesus is pierced. And he says, and the one who saw this bears witness to this. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:17] Speaker A: And with. Yeah, go ahead. [00:07:19] Speaker B: That whole theme of witness is absolutely key in John. Right from chapter one, the first. One of the first things you see is the idea of witness. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:27] Speaker B: This has been witnessed. Even John the Baptist is a witness. So, yes, that theme goes all the way through. And the beloved disciple is the key character in making that witness real. [00:07:38] Speaker A: And so when Jesus appears for the baptism for John the Baptist and he's, you know, behold this, the Lamb of God, do you think the author of this gospel, whether it be John, was there, or do you think they just learned that through oral tradition or the synoptics? [00:07:53] Speaker B: I think he gets it from the synoptics. And I think there's an interesting wrinkle here. In the synoptic gospels, John the Baptist is preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In John's gospel, when it comes to forgiveness of sins, all the stress is on Jesus. Jesus is the one who forgives sins. So John the Baptist in John doesn't say that he's baptizing for repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but he points to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So the sin element is still there, but in John, he's pushing this towards Jesus, which the author of the fourth gospel thinks is the right place to put it. And you can see the synoptic authors struggling a little bit with the baptism of John because, you know, there must have been early Christians who said, hold on a minute. A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And now Jesus is being baptized. So you can see the synoptic author saying, no, but this was just something that was done to fulfill all righteousness. Reader, don't worry about this. So I think you've got that. But then in John's Gospel, he doesn't actually narrate the baptism. He just narrates the aftermath. This dove descending on Jesus and this amazing saying that you write to pick up that the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. Very Johannine things. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So with the Synoptics, they're essentially starting in Bethlehem, John starting its eternity past. And go back to Genesis, the triune God, you know, hovering over the waters, the darkness, let there be light. He creates the spoken word. He creates humans in his image, his likeness and all that. And for John, then these themes of water. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:30] Speaker A: And light. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:31] Speaker A: Are everywhere. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:09:32] Speaker A: And he starts off in chapter one and beginning. Was the word, the Logos. [00:09:35] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:09:36] Speaker A: And so it's like he's going back to that creation count. And it's interesting just. Just throughout, like, when you see, you know, the story, I think. I think it's John 6 with Peter, you know, with walking on Jesus walking on water. [00:09:51] Speaker B: Right, yeah. [00:09:51] Speaker A: So Peter is not present in John's Gospel. [00:09:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Nor in Mark 6. [00:09:57] Speaker B: That's right. [00:09:57] Speaker A: But in Matthew, I think. 14. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Matthew 14. [00:10:00] Speaker A: He's there. [00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Which is interesting. So it's almost like there's a play among these authors of, you know, do we outdo one another in a sense? Like, I'll never forget when, you know, when John's describing, you know, the empty tomb, when the women come, they tell and they. And they run there. And he makes. He wants to point out, but essentially he. [00:10:19] Speaker B: He outran the beloved disciple. Outruns Peter. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Yeah, he outran him. [00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:10:23] Speaker A: And so. And so with the synoptics, and I know I'm all over the place, but I love this because my mind is racing. I have so many questions for you. So, you know, they're mentioning John. [00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:32] Speaker A: By name. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:10:34] Speaker A: And then, of course, he never refers to John. It's just the beloved disciple or the ones whom Jesus loves. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Right. Which is suspicious, I think. I mean, like, you know, because there are some people, like. Like Ben Witherington iii, he thinks that the beloved disciple is Lazarus, and he makes a strong case that it's Lazarus. Other people have said, is it Nathaniel? Is it Thomas? James Charlesworth says it's Thomas. James Tabor thinks it's James, the brother of Jesus. So you have all of these different options. But one of the things that's so striking about this character of the beloved disciple is that you never have him standing alongside John, the son of Zebedee. In other words, the very fact that John son of Zebedee is not named in the body of the gospel is conspicuous. I think. I think that's important. I mean, the sons of Zebedee are Finally mentioned at the beginning of John 21. So it turns out the reader does know who they are after all. He doesn't have to introduce them fresh. The reader knows who they are. So I think he is there hiding in plain sight. Absolutely. [00:11:33] Speaker A: So, but is that Choney one where many scholars say was they added on? Because in 20 he says, the reason why I wrote this is to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, and so that you. And you may believe and have eternal life. And it's as if it ends there. He doesn't know what to do with, you know, the post resurrection. And so then there's. There's 21 and then Mark. Essentially you see the same thing in the ending of Mark, which we. Maybe we were. Maybe we will or not get into that later. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Well, I do think. I mean, I'm with. I'm with Richard Baucum, who argues, I think quite convincingly that John 21 is part of what was the earlier circulating version. Lots of people disagree. The main reason why. Well, the only reason why people think 21 is added later is because it looks like the book's finished at the end of chapter 20 because of that declaration of the declaration. It looks like we're done and dusted. These were written in order that you may know he's the Messiah, the Son of God. And it looks like an ending. But 21, this style's the same as the rest of the Gospel. And plenty of books in antiquity, and not just in antiquity, have epilogues. They have an epilogue. I mean, we even do it today in our films. Sometimes it looks like the story's finished and then we have a little epilogue. If you've watched the Fellowship of the Rings, the Peter Jackson films, it's like there's about five endings. You know, I mean, and the thing is, one of my teachers, John Ashton, pointed out once that it's not just John 21 that's like a fresh ending. If you read John 20, each passage would be a perfect end to the gospel. So even just before we've had the passage we were just talking about, about the Messiah, the son of God, we've had doubting Thomas, and it ends with Thomas saying, my Lord and my God. That'd be a fantastic ending to the gospel as well. Yeah. So you've got. And you can go even further back at the tomb, Mary Magdalene, who recognizes the risen Jesus, first apostle to the apostles, you know, and so I. So I actually am very happy with 21 as part of the. Lots of people disagree with me. But there's no textual evidence that, you know, this was added later. It's unlike the ending of Mark. The thing about the ending of Mark is our oldest two Greek witnesses lack the longer ending of Mark or the shorter ending. And they cut off at mark 16. 8. There's no equivalent for that with John. You go back to those same Greek texts like codex Sinaiticus, early fourth century. John 21 is there. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Mark 16:9 to 20 isn't. Okay. [00:13:58] Speaker A: So let's talk about the parents for a moment. So, Zebedee. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:01] Speaker A: Salome. [00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:03] Speaker A: And so they had. Would you say it was a lucrative fishing business? [00:14:06] Speaker B: Well, it's a great question. First of all, I'm not entirely convinced that the mum was called Salome. A lot of early Christians did make that identification. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:16] Speaker B: In Matthew 27, she's just called the mother of the sons of Zebedee, which is quite a mouthful. And in John's gospel, there is a. Sorry. In Mark's gospel, there is a Salome, and there's no mother of the sons of Zebedee. So lots of early harmonists did put those two characters together, but we don't know what she was called. And many, many women in 1st century Galilee were called Salome. There's a reasonable chance, anyway, that's what her name was. [00:14:40] Speaker A: But that particular one, that was at the cross as well as at the empty tomb as well. [00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's strange. In Matthew, she's there at the cross, but not at the tomb for some reason. But Mark does have Salome at the tomb too, so that's there. Was it a lucrative fishing business? It's really difficult to know. There's a very good new article by John Kloppenborg which actually explores the economics of the fishing business and the tax business in the first century. So you can actually really dig down and find out how the economics of this worked a lot of the time. So some people have said, well, in Mark's gospel, they appear to own their own boat. So they're not kind of. They're not necessarily being kind of farmed out by somebody else. And it's not that somebody else owns the business and they're just working for them. So maybe they do own the business, in which case maybe it's a reasonably lucrative business. It seems like a big deal when James and John leaves dad in. In the boat with the hired people. So it could be. It could be that they were reasonably lucrative. Yeah. [00:15:43] Speaker A: And so with Peter, also a fisherman. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:46] Speaker A: And his brother Andrew. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:47] Speaker A: And what was the relation between their parents potentially, and either Mary or Zebedee. [00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. I mean, it's fantastic to. To reflect on these things because obviously there's so much more we want to know. I mean, we don't even know the name of Peter's mother or mother in law. We don't even know the name of Peter's wife, sadly. I mean, I. I always call her Deborah just because that's a popular century name and she could have been. [00:16:15] Speaker A: You've labeled her. [00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah, she's in. In the Chosen, Peter's wife is called Eden. [00:16:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Now, one thing we know for certain is she was not called Eden because the name Eden only became popular in relatively recent years. There's not a single example in antiquity of a woman being called Eden. So she wasn't called that. Okay. Yeah, I. That speculation about historical origins. And one interesting contrast here is it looks from the synoptics like Peter and Andrew and James and John are from Capernaum. At least that's where we see them. [00:16:49] Speaker A: In action and therefore related, would you say? [00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, possibly. Possibly. Or at least just, you know, kind of close friends. But when you get to John's Gospel, Peter and Andrew come from Bethsaida, which is really interesting. I mean, of course, not impossible. John does have these fascinating natty little details like, you know, where does that come from? Is. Is the idea that that's where they were from, but then they moved to Capernaum and so on. If so, then you've got a parallel with Jesus because, you know, most scholars do see Jesus coming from Nazareth. It's already there in Mark, Chapter one. And he moves from Nazareth to Capernaum. So did they do the same thing? It'd be a fun bit of speculation if so. [00:17:27] Speaker A: And so. And I've heard it said somewhere along the way that it was maybe Zebedee, his wife Salome, whoever it was. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:34] Speaker A: That they funded that for their sons as well as maybe potentially cousins or whoever, at least the brothers Andrew and Peter, who paid for them to drop the nets to become the fishers of men. [00:17:45] Speaker B: Right. It is one of the interesting questions about Christian origins and about specifically the Jesus story is how was it financed? I mean, we get that interesting hint in Luke 8 where we get Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna, and these three are said to have actually helped in the kind of ministering to Jesus. It looks like there's a financial element to that. But already in Mark 15, we have a mention of Mary Magdalene and two other women who also have followed Jesus from Galilee and ministered to him. So some of the funding clearly comes from there. I mean, it's a big question because, I mean, it's going out on the road, you know, I mean, it's a good thing. I mean, Jesus says in the, in the mission discourses, he'll say, you know, go and eat whatever's put in front of you. You know, it's like when you're out on mission, you know, just, you know, any house that welcomes you, go in, bless them, share their food. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Well, and I could see how the Roman authorities, who tax the businesses somewhat heavily, I would assume they were paying, I'm sure would pay attention to. You have these two sets of brothers, I guess, you know, successful fishing businesses, and now you're, you know, your top two in each or four walk away. So now that's. The burden is left to, to other workers or other siblings or family or whomever and to just think, well, what are you guys doing? Like, like what are you up to? Which then makes. Where my thoughts go now are. So with authorship. Okay, so just. And we're simply talking about, about John. Yeah, so, you know, we see. And I think it's. I think it's Acts. Is it, is it 4, 13, where, where John and Peter are basically called fools or illiterate. [00:19:27] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:19:28] Speaker B: Grammatos in Greek. Yeah. Without letters. Yeah. [00:19:31] Speaker A: Okay. So if that's the case, and I mean, if, if the business was successful, I mean, what are the odds of, of these brothers, whether it be Peter and Andrew or James and John, sons of Zebedee, to actually have a rabbi, formal training to be literate? Because if I'm not mistaken, isn't it somewhere between 5 and 10% of the, the people from that area were literate? I mean, 90% couldn't read or write. [00:19:54] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's unlikely that Jesus's disciples were literate. I mean, one of the fascinating things, you get this more in the synoptics than in John, but you notice there's a, frequently a contrast between Jesus's group and the scribes and the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees thing is interesting in its own right because that is a known party from antiquity. Josephus talks about them so that, you know, they're a reality. But that bit scribes. Why do we keep hearing about the scribes? And it's almost as if there's a contrast going on between the literate elite, these scribes and Pharisees, and Jesus's homespun, heavenly kind of wisdom. I mean, Jesus is depicted as literate in Luke's Gospel. He has a scroll of Isaiah and reads from it. But none of the other disciples are ever depicted as being literate in those contexts. And Peter and John, like you say in Acts, are without letters. So that's kind of interesting. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Well, something else is fascinating to me. So from the cross, Jesus says to John, this is your mother, referring to Mary, his mother. And he says to Mary, this is your son. And tradition tells us that he did care for her and that John takes Mary to Ephesus. Correct. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. That's what tradition. Well, that's what tradition says. Yeah. And of course, lots of people would dispute, I mean, I think that John is basing the beloved disciple character on John. But we have to be. We have to be clear that some people think that that's not the case. I mean, John's always very careful to say the author. I should say the author's always very careful to say the one whom Jesus loved doesn't ever, you know, identify him specifically with John. But tradition quickly did make that identification, and I think correctly, the one of the chapters in this book I've called the Beloved Disciple for readers of the Synoptics and saying, if you knew Matthew, Mark and Luke, which I think all the earliest readers of John did, if you knew Matthew, Mark and Luke, how does that character of the beloved disciple appear? You know, you would just start asking that question. And there's a reason why tradition landed on John. Yeah, because they were readers of the Synoptics as well. They, you know, they, they. I think the author of the Fourth Gospel is inviting you to make that identification. But he's being a little bit coy about it as well, because I think one of the things he wants to do is make the reader think, I want to be that kind of disciple. I want to be that faithful. I want to be there leaning on Jesus's chest. I want to be there at the cross. I want to be there at the resurrection. So I think that is. That there's definitely a depiction of an ideal disciple there that the reader is supposed to aspire to. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Well, because with the other disciples, they're just more or less, it's the narration. Whereas with John, he takes it a step further. Whereas the narration narrator actually, actually enters into the story. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:45] Speaker A: And he's more bold, too. [00:22:46] Speaker B: So. Yeah, absolutely. So 114. I mean, people always focus on the word became flesh, which obviously is the real bombshell, which, you know, in the John's prologue. But then later in the same verse. And we beheld his glory. We saw his glory. So he is in the first person plural there. And one of the things that I like to draw attention to, a lot of people have missed it, is that in Luke's story of the transfiguration, in Luke 9, they saw his glory. Peter, James and John. So this is like taking that synoptic narration and putting it on the lips of the author of the gospel and he comes back and uses the first person plural again Right at the end of the gospel in the passage that we were talking about, you know, where Jesus is seen to be the Messiah, the Son of God. [00:23:33] Speaker A: So with this author of this fourth gospel, let's call it John, the Beloved disciple. How. I mean, so the audience. So if he's writing, writing from Ephesus, Correct. I mean, would you say that's the consensus or not? [00:23:43] Speaker B: I mean, what do you think? Okay, well, all I say is I don't know. You know, there's, you know, I've got some don't knows. [00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:49] Speaker B: Ephesus is as good an option as any and in some ways better because it does have that tradition. There is a tradition, it's as early as the late second century, that John is connected with Ephesus. But it could have been a guess. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:01] Speaker B: And the thing is, when you get a good guess at an early point, it will stick. So John could have been from Ephesus? Yeah, definitely. But I wouldn't say for certain. [00:24:11] Speaker A: So if he wasn't writing from Ephesus, where might he have been writing? [00:24:15] Speaker B: I have no idea. I mean, it could be Rome, it could be Corinth. I mean, the one thing that is probably one of the most fascinating mysteries about John is that even if he's writing from Ephesus, how does he know Galilee and Judea so well? Because he does say things like the pool of Beth Zapha, where you've got twin pools and you've got five portico, and you've got five porticos, you know, and then, you know, we talked about Beth Seder already. Cana comes up for the first time in John 2. And then it comes back again in John chapter 4. We have the pool of Siloam in chapter 9. So we have all these interesting geographical details, you know, and there's a contrast there with a lot of second century gospels which can often. So Gospel of Thomas, for example, way less precise. You'll get a mention of Judea, a Samaritan, and that's almost it. Israel gets mentioned, I think only once in Thomas but there's no Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethsaida, let alone Pool of Siloam or Pool of Beth's Atha or any of these things. So geography is really difficult because people quite early on forgot where things came from or they didn't know. So. [00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's interesting you mentioned Cana. And so that's one of the, one of the wayne at Cana, the first miracle. Why do you think John is the only one to bring that up? Because the synoptics don't have it. He does. And this goes back to origin or maybe potentially where he's writing from. Because I know in many of the major cities, you know, the paganism, the pagan temples, Dionysius, you know, the God of wine, chapter two. So by essentially by Jesus turning the water into wine, it's power over nature as the God, man God in the flesh. But it's also, I guess to the pagan audience is he's doing, he just did what Dionysius could not. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's, I think that's highly likely that, you know, that's one of the reasons why it's there up front and center at the beginning of John's Gospel. It's interesting though that these synoptics also have talk about wine early on. So you have this question of new wine in old wineskins. You also have the idea of Jesus as the bridegroom early on in Mark's Gospel, you know, they say, why do you, why do the disciples of the Pharisees and disciples of John fast? And your disciples don't fast? And Jesus has this great answer about, well, you know, the bridegroom's with them. Why do you say, and then the next thing we know, Jesus is at a wedding in John's Gospel, you know, and we don't find out who the bridegroom is in that. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Let's, let's back up. So the anonymity of, of the gospels in the earliest days in terms of not having the Gospel of Matthew of Mark and so forth. But we do have with the church fathers pretty early on, I would say, what, second century where. So talk about that a little. [00:27:05] Speaker B: The thing is, I go different ways on this. I mean, for years I taught that the gospels are all anonymous, which in a certain sense, formally they obviously are, because you don't get Luke saying, dear Theophilus, I Luke, da da da, da. It just doesn't, that he doesn't ever say. He doesn't even use the first person except right at the beginning in the prologue. Matthew never Says I, Matthew is doing this, that, and the other Mark never says I, Mark was doing that. So in that sense, they are formally anonymous. But the other reality is that we never ever have them. We have no single text of Matthew, Martin, Luke or John that has a different name. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Yeah. No alternatives? No. [00:27:45] Speaker B: There's no Gospel according to Kevin. [00:27:46] Speaker A: Never been questioned. [00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't look at it. Oh, oh, this person thought he was called Kevin. You just, just don't have that. It's always John is always John. Mark's always Mark. And the thing is, if you had more than one gospel, I mean, I think that, you know, John knew all three of the Synoptics. How did he conceptualize them? He didn't think of them as Gospel one, Gospel two, Gospel three must have. They must have had a name attached to them. And our best bet is that they were those names. I mean, Simon Gathercole has a really interesting article about this, thinking about how were they categorized? And just because within the body of the text they're anonymous doesn't mean that there wasn't a tag on your scroll that identified it as Mark's Gospel. [00:28:29] Speaker A: And so would a scribe at some point added that, or did these church fathers or papias or whomever say, it's a great question. [00:28:36] Speaker B: I think you have to call them something as soon as there's more than one. If you've got just Mark's Gospel in your church, then you can call it the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can call it. That's what Paul, Mark seems to call itself. But as soon as you've got Matthew's Gospel as well, what do you call Mark? You can't call it the gospel, so you have to call it the Gospel according to. And so you know, you, you basically have. And then you get Luke come along. You've got to call it something. You can't just call it Gospel number. No, it makes perfect sense to Theophilus. What kind of title is that? So since they circulate so early with those names, I'm beginning to think that Simon Gathercole might be right. Okay. And that even though they're anonymous in terms of the body of the text, they had to have early identifiers. [00:29:26] Speaker A: So what about. So what about Jesus's brother James that has that Epistle? And of course there's also Jesus, but James does mention, you know, this is James a Doulos, a servant of Christ. He doesn't have to say, I'm the brother of Jesus, but he wouldn't have had to. Because everyone would have known he was. As a leader of the church in Jerusalem. [00:29:43] Speaker B: Yeah. That's one of the things that Richard Baucom argues. He says that the fact that he doesn't make a kind of big deal about who he is. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Means that people. Oh, it's James that, you know, who. Who was so important in early Christianity. I mean, many readers of the New Testament miss. Miss him, because he's not prominent in the Gospels. He's there, but he's not prominent in the Gospels. He's not even that prominent in Acts of the Apostles. He pops up in, seems to be running the show. When you get to Acts 15, and it's almost a surprise. You read Paul's Epistles and you realize that James was very important. You know, when Paul first goes to Jerusalem in Galatians 1, three years after his call, he says, I didn't meet any other apostle because he's spent a couple of weeks with Peter. I didn't meet anybody. Oh, I met James, the Lord's brother. And you're like, wow. So when he goes to Jerusalem, they're the two guys he meets, Peter and James. [00:30:34] Speaker A: Well, in thinking about it, if. I mean, if I was there, that you'd be the one I'd want to speak with. [00:30:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:37] Speaker A: I mean, you knew him better and longer than the others. [00:30:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:30:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. If I could get in a time machine, I would absolutely love to meet James, the brother of Jesus. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And so with these. These other siblings, because there's four brothers mentioned by name, and it says sisters plural. And we know from Paul and that, you know, they didn't believe, you know, he was the Messiah supposedly until after the resurrection. [00:30:59] Speaker B: Well, it's. It's. It's a curious one, because in Paul, you wouldn't know. If you were just reading Paul's letters, you would never know that James, the brother of Jesus had a rocky start. Like, you know, because he mentions a resurrection appearance to James in 1 Corinthians 15, but he doesn't say anything about. Prior to that. But then when we get to the Gospels, we do see them as being not entirely sympathetic characters. Even in John's gospel. In John 7, although James is not mentioned by name, we do get mention of the brothers of Jesus. And they're encouraging Jesus to come out publicly. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:31:32] Speaker B: And Jesus is like, no, it's not my time. [00:31:34] Speaker A: Do you think they're resentful or they're doubting he's really the Messiah at that point? [00:31:37] Speaker B: If you. If you correlate it with Mark 3, where you get some, you get this, you know, Jesus says, you know, who are my mother, who are my brothers? That those who, you know, do the will of God. You, when you, when you look at that, you think, well, there's definitely a tradition there that the blood relations were not as close to Jesus as some of the new, you know, people in the movement. So, but clearly whatever the history was that came around, I mean, 1 Corinthians 9, the brothers of the Lord, Paul says, were out on mission, you know. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:11] Speaker B: So, you know, they were, they were going around evangelizing and, and it's so taken for granted, he doesn't even have to explain who they are. The Corinthians know, you know, so it was well known in the, and I put 1 Corinthians in the 50s, early 50s. So it was well known within 20 years of Jesus's death that these disciples were out brothers of the Lord alongside them. Fascinating. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Well, and you in with First Corinthians 15. So you put that in the, you put it in the 50s. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I put, well, I put the writings in the 50s. What is fascinating about 1 Corinthians 15, I think is that Paul says, he, he says basically he's going to remind them of basically what they'd already received. You know, I received, but I also handed on to you. He says, and then he goes that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried. And then the first person he mentioned in that list is Peter. And you're thinking that stuff goes back early, that stuff goes. [00:33:07] Speaker A: It had to have been within a few years. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Right, exactly. So, so Paul has gone down to Jerusalem and has spent time, spent his two weeks with Peter and then takes it three years. Yeah. And that, that basically means that Paul had got this, you know, kind of gospel message, you know, pretty early on in the 30s. And, and then he's, and he's clearly told the Corinthians the outline of that story before he's. Because he's reminding them, he's not telling them this for the first time. It's a reminder, you know, and when. [00:33:36] Speaker A: He'S writing First Corinthians 15, he, he attests that the eyewitnesses are these people. The, during the 40 day period of the resurrection appearances to over 500 people. He is saying in these, many of these people are still alive. And, and it's interesting how he's, you know, he claims to be an apostle, but he's not on par with the original 12. Correct. [00:33:58] Speaker B: Last of all, as to one untimely born. Yeah. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Now, was that because it wasn't a physical manifestation or appearance of the risen Lord, but it was more or less a vision, would you say? [00:34:08] Speaker B: It's a fun question because Paul is so insistent that, you know, he has seen the risen Jesus there in 1 Corinthians 15, but earlier on in 1 Corinthians 9, have I not. Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? You know, so Paul aligns his experience with others, even though he acknowledges he was last of all, you know, and this was almost out of time as to one untimely born. But Paul connects his apostleship to having seen the risen Jesus. Absolutely. Acts of the Apostles does something a little bit different, because in Acts of the Apostle. Sorry, in Acts of the Apostles, it looks more like a vision. The way that Luke tells the story, you know, I mean, he's on the road to Damascus and, you know, Jesus Christ appears to him. It seems to be a little different from the earlier appearances that the disciples have had in. At the end of Luke's Gospel. But Paul is absolutely insistent that his resurrection experience is only different from the others in that it happened out of time. [00:35:12] Speaker A: Okay, so with the women, we referred to them earlier. And I know, like in Mark's Gospel, you see the disciples in their blunders or like buffoons in a sense, of all the. The mistakes they make and all of that. And yet with John now, what we're seeing is it seems there'd be a more prominent role or reverence for the women, almost as if being the faithful ones from the beginning to the cross with Mary and Salome and then at the tomb as well. Talk about that a little bit. And the fact that they're the first witnesses of the Gospel. [00:35:48] Speaker B: Right. I mean. I mean, it's one of these fascinating things. Already in Mark's Gospel, you have the idea of several women being those who were present when the male disciples had fled. So you do have Mary Magdalene and Salome and the other Mary and Mark. And then John has something very similar. So, I mean, in John 19:25, you have Mary Magdalene, you have Mary of Clopas, and you have the mother of Jesus. So you have three women, all called Mary. John never names the mother of Jesus, but he certainly knew her name because he talks about Jesus, the son of Joseph. So he clearly knew what her name was. But like the beloved disciple, he doesn't tell you her name. But Anyway, so John 19:25, at the cross, you've got these three Marys and then at the tomb, we only get Mary Magdalene named in John's gospel. But we know that John sees the others as being there. He's presupposing the synoptic narrative because Mary says, we do not know where they have laid him, where they. They're assuming at this point that someone's taken Jesus's body away and we do not know where they've laid him. So. So John is presupposing that there were more than just Mary Magdalene there, but he's focusing his narrative specifically on. On Mary. John often does that. He likes to pick out one person to focus the story on. If you think of the anointing story in Mark 14, it's just some people there that complain in John's gospel, in John 12, Judas that complains. Or you think of the arrest scene, the person that chops off the slave, the high priest slave here is anonymous in the song. [00:37:27] Speaker A: Oh, it is anonymous. [00:37:28] Speaker B: And then in John, it's Peter. [00:37:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:30] Speaker B: And the high priest slave, anonymous in the synoptics. But in John, he's called Malchus. So John will do that. He brings this real life and specificity to his characters. [00:37:39] Speaker A: And you think he's maybe giving more detail where they just had left out for whatever reason. [00:37:44] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah. So I talk about John's dramatic transformation of the synoptics, by which I mean, not that he. Not dramatic in the sense of big time, but in the sense of drama, more color, dramatic mode. Exactly. So he likes character speech. So where you have things in narration in the synoptics, like, you know, they'll say that John is a voice crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. That's in the narrator's voice in Matthew, Mark and in Luke. In John, it's in John's voice. John the Baptist voice. I am a voice crying in the wilderness. And so John likes that. John likes the author John. So it's very different. You got John the Baptist and John's Gospel. But anyway, the fourth Gospels author likes to bring forward elements of the dramatic. And I think that's part of it. The color. I mean, there's a reason why when you get Jesus films, they frequently go to John's Gospel for some of the more entertaining dialogue because it's rich. Look at the conversation between. Between Pilate and Jesus. You know, where you end up where pilot says, what is truth? Every passion narrative includes that amazing line, you know, so. So yeah, John, excellent. Bringing out the drama. The story of the blind man in chapter nine. And you've got the parents in the drama as well, and this person comes to life as a real character. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You really feel like you can see it. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Well, and I see it explicitly with the new names introduced as well as the extra details that we've been talking about. But going back, so we talked about Canaan, we talked about the, you know, Dionysius and the water into wine, doing what Jesus could not. And then you get to chapter three. Now, growing up, you know, sports fans, you watch, you know, typically at a Super bowl or some, you see the guy holding up the sign, the John 3:16, the most. Arguably the most famous passage, you know, in history, certainly from the Bible. [00:39:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:35] Speaker A: And yet what preceded that in 1415, when John says, with the detail going back to, you know, in the wilderness, the disobedient Israelites, they're being bitten by the snakes and harmed and. And God, I think it was numbers where he says, you know, to Moses, you know, hold up that. That staff, the snake, you know, and they will look and live or be. Or be healed. Correct. So with this God, Eclipsius, the God of healing, if I'm not mistaken, at the entrance to that pagan temple was a staff with a snake. And today you go to the hospitals, you'll see the symbol of the serpent with, you know, representing, you know, the. [00:40:14] Speaker B: Healing on the ambulances and so on. [00:40:16] Speaker A: You do see it. It's there all the time. And so for this author, for John, I don't think it's coincidental back to the. The audience, whether he's writing this from Ephesus or wherever, but he is for the pagan readers. Our. [00:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you think. [00:40:31] Speaker A: Is that a stretch or do you think that potentially. [00:40:33] Speaker B: No, I think is. I think he's. One of the. One of the reasons why John's Gospel, I think, got traction so early is that it makes sense to both a gentile readership and a Jewish readership. So if you knew nothing about Judaism, say, you know, you are. You are a gentile who has been, you know, worshiping your local God. And then. And then, you know, you start reading or hearing John's Gospel, John explains all the little things that he thinks that the gentile reader might not know. So, you know, when he introduces, you know, things like, you know, the Jewish feasts. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:09] Speaker B: He'll say, oh, by the way, this was a festival. Yeah. Described Judeans. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he. So you get these little notes, even first chapter, you know, you know, and they. And they. They. They said Messiah, which means Christ. He says, you know, so, you know, he does that. So the gentile reader has a way in. It's like you. They're not alienated. But equally, if you're a Jewish reader, there is so much richness in John where, if you knew about the feast of Tabernacles, for example, and knew that, you know, this is a great feast of lights. And then Jesus gets up and says, I'm the light of the world. And so there is. It rewards the Gospel, rewards the reader that understands Judaism, but also it rewards the reader who knows nothing about it. And then, of course, we've got the really natty problem, you know, when I say it rewards the Jewish reader, there's also many Jewish readers will be alienated by John because of the way that he talks about. And it's usually translated the Jews, but I'm one of those that thinks it's better translated the Judeans, because I think often there is a geographical element there. So, you know, we have to acknowledge that that's there as well. That that kind of. That will make a lot of Jewish readers uncomfortable. [00:42:20] Speaker A: Friend of mine that's really into the pagan and the mythology, and that is. He's as he's reading this, his comment to me, and he. And he's agnostic, okay? And he says, whoever wrote this piece of literature, this Gospel of John, because he just read it in the last years, he said, it's probably the most brilliant and fascinating work of literature that I've ever encountered. And I said, why? And he said, because, you know, me understanding Dionysius and Eclipsius, and. And I'm sitting here reading him, like, how in the world. Yeah, could this disciple Jesus, this fisherman or whatever, how could he know that? Like, how did he weave that in? Because in my mind, as I'm reading what happens in two with the water into wine, and I'm reading in three, and the foreshadowing, I guess, of Christ must be lifted up as the serpent, you know, as the God of healing, the ultimate healing. He's like, I'm just. I'm baffled. Like, how could this author have known all of this? [00:43:11] Speaker B: Well, and of course, that's why lots of people, including me, think that it wasn't that John. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Yeah, okay, sure. [00:43:17] Speaker B: I mean, so, I mean, like I say, I think that the author of the Fourth Gospel is trying to. Trying to link the beloved stuff with Johnson of Zebedee. I think, you know, that's definitely there, but I don't think it's the historical Johnson of Zebedee. That's. That's Writing all that stuff. Okay, but, you know, opinions differ on these things. [00:43:35] Speaker A: Well, they do. And then you go back just to the Resurrection itself. I mean, I think for Christians in the world, 3 billion maybe, that's inexplicable. I mean, how in the world could. If this ragtag group of disciples following the cult leader, an obscure area. There had been, you know, even in Acts, it talks about when Gamaliel does his thing about we've seen others claim to be the Messiah and then, you know, they die and they scatter. And yet here, these early disciples, that, I mean, it's irrefutable. Would you say that the. The early generations of believers, starting with the disciples, the women, that there's no doubt in their mind that they saw the risen Jesus? [00:44:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I think never flies as a theory is the idea that Christians later on projected this, or, you know, sometimes people in apologetics will say, yeah, how could they possibly have. You know, would this message have spread if they'd all been liars? They knew. [00:44:40] Speaker A: Sure. [00:44:40] Speaker B: They. There's no. I would say. I mean, obviously we're dealing with ancient history, so we always have to say, sure, you know, but Clearly, Peter, James XII, the 500, they clearly believed that they had seen the risen Jesus and. [00:44:53] Speaker A: To the point of being willing to die as martyrs. [00:44:55] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they did, most of them. Yeah. Yeah. There's no. Yeah, there's no question that they believe that very strongly. And if you look at the passion with which Paul believes he's seen the risen Jesus, there really is no doubt in his mind. I mean, when he says, if Christ is not raised from the dead, then I'm the most foolish people, you know, he really believes that. Yeah, absolutely. [00:45:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And then in the subsequent generations, you know, with, I guess, Ignatius and Polycarp, having known John or Clement of Rome with Peter, and maybe you would say Paul as well. And you watch these, you know, the subsequent generations carry the message forward. I mean, what did they have to gain? [00:45:33] Speaker B: Right, well. Right. I mean. Oh, yeah. I mean, the. The passion of the early Christian movement is pretty. Pretty striking. No question about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:45:42] Speaker A: So when you've in at the highest level of scholarship, I mean, I put you up there with the tops. I mean, I really do. I tell people, I'm like, this guy Mark, get a care his top three. If. I mean, I really believe that. And yet I know some of your colleagues, they're, you know, they know obviously the Greeks backwards and forwards and their. Their scholarship is. And you you guys are congenial and you get along and respect one another, and yet some believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the risen Lord, and some don't. [00:46:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:46:11] Speaker A: And in your own journey, you know, I guess thinking about that and you. What. You know, I mean, the things. It's like, wow. [00:46:17] Speaker B: Well, I suppose one of the ways that I tackle this is there is a difference between teaching in a department of religious studies and teaching in, say, a divinity school, in that my colleagues in the divinity school will pray at the beginning of class, and it's taken for granted that they're on some point in their Christian journey. In the religious studies department, I probably get the sack. If I prayed in class, I'm not sure I would, But. But, I mean. But. But the point being that when you're looking at it from a religious studies standpoint, there is this real joy that you can actually say, I'm going to treat this material the same way that my colleagues in classical studies treat their material. We're going to have critical distance. We're going to be absolutely fair, you know, in the way we study, but we will still look at it. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:59] Speaker B: As a historian looks at ancient te. Texts. And there's a. There's a real value in that, because then people see. I mean, there's a couple of sides to doing a kind of religious studies approach, as it were. And that is you have the critical distance, but you also, on some level, have to have empathy for the materials. You know, if. If sometimes people think that scholars of religion are all there to, you know, tear it up, you know, and set it on fire. And. And I think that that's. That's generally wrong, because I think even colleagues who have no personal faith stance, they frequently need to be empathetic with the materials they're studying or at least have an understanding for the people behind them, because if you don't, you won't be a very good scholar. You have to have both the critical distance and that kind of sense of empathy. Yeah. [00:47:48] Speaker A: So what about the ones out there? I won't mention names, but. And I had one of these professors as an undergrad, and the guy, it's. It's as if he was so determined to shape me into his way of thinking. [00:48:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:02] Speaker A: Had denounced the faith. He was Catholic, and something went awry, whether it was the Odyssey or. And he knew the Scriptures well, but he no longer attributed them to being somehow divinely inspired or still is important for his life. And yet it's as if he. He wanted me to think critically, which I Appreciated. And I think many do need to be challenged and, you know, because of just how naive and the blinders that of many evangelicals go into the world in their respective colleges with. So I guess. I guess my, My question is, what about the ones that seem to be so determined for them to think the way they think? [00:48:38] Speaker B: Well, it's. I. [00:48:40] Speaker A: We all do it. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I suppose the thing is, I think it cuts both ways. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:44] Speaker B: I think, you know, you have people who are evangelistic for, you know, their biblical scholarship is all about trying to persuade people and they're doing the same thing and. And then we have others on the other side. I think the way that I like to think of doing scholarship, though, is I like to think of it as a communal enterprise. So anything that I say in the classroom has to be intelligible to the atheist, the agnostic, the evangelical, the Catholic, as well as the Muslim and the. And the Jew. And if I say something that is not based on evidence and good argument, then I shouldn't be saying it. And so talk that way to my students as well. Say, imagine when you're giving your paper, you're giving it to a mixed audience. [00:49:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:27] Speaker B: And it helps. I think that helps you to be a better student, a better scholar, if that's fair. But I know obviously the kind of thing you're talking about, and we all are, you know, loaded up with our own biases and prejudices and so on, and. And some of the time we're actually even aware of them. [00:49:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:49:42] Speaker B: But we should still aspire to be good scholars that speak to everyone in the room, not just the militant atheist. [00:49:50] Speaker A: Sure. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Or the, you know, zealous evangelical or whatever. [00:49:54] Speaker A: No, I agree. Well, and I think the difficulty of the Resurrection, because I know many scholars, Historians. [00:50:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:01] Speaker A: Kind of refuse to talk about it. And I think for a while you didn't either. And then something changed. [00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I actually, when I used to teach historical Jesus, I always stopped before the resurrection because. Well, one of my teachers, Ed Sanders, was like that when he taught it. He would say, well, you know, this isn't something that a historian can properly approach. What changed my mind about it was that it occurred to me that in many biographies we have a last chapter which is all about that person's reputation after their death. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Your legacy. [00:50:34] Speaker B: The legacy. Yeah, exactly. So not to talk about the Resurrection means that you're missing out a key part of the Jesus story. There's a reason why we're still talking about him, and it's. Is because of belief in the resurrection. So I decided that had to be part of the conversation. And actually, I think it's the bit that the students enjoy most. I would think so, because it's. Because it is just utter. It's just utterly fascinating. And it's worth pointing out the way that Mark's Gospel depicts the resurrection story. With no stories of the appearances, at least in the earliest versions of Mark's Gospel, he does depict it as a mystery. I mean, we know how Mark solves the mystery. He thinks that Jesus has been raised from the dead. We know that. I'm not denying that. I'm not saying that Mark doesn't believe in resurrection from the dead, but he presents it as a mystery. He basically. He doesn't say that the stone rolled back and Jesus came walking out of the tomb. What he does is he goes. He fasts forward from what we would call Good Friday to Easter Sunday, and then he just tells you the story about something's happened while the camera switched off. The women arrive at the tomb and these stones already rolled away. It's a brilliant piece of exciting literary, the way you frame the story. You draw the reader in. And then, of course, Matthew, Luke, and John make that same choice. They don't need to tell the story there. There are other ways of telling the story of the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 gives you an example of another way to tell the story. But they all begin it by saying, this is a mystery. Yeah, that's happened at. [00:52:09] Speaker A: The camera was off. [00:52:10] Speaker B: Cameras off. And then we're going to unravel what's happened for you. So, I mean, it's depicting it as a mystery is already there in the. [00:52:17] Speaker A: Ancient text, you know, and it's interesting because what leaves room for the imagination. So I know in the one encounter when the woman I think was one of the Marys thought it was the gardener. [00:52:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:52:29] Speaker A: And then Mary Magdalene. And in my mind, I'm thinking, you know, back to the garden. [00:52:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always evoking that. Yeah. I mean, because John's gospel is the one that places the tomb in the garden. [00:52:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. [00:52:39] Speaker B: And. And of course, it's. I think it. It. It also, in a fun way, alludes all the way back to, you know, the Jesus being the true vine in 15. You know, I'm the true vine, and my father's the gardener, you know, evokes that. [00:52:52] Speaker A: That fascinating. [00:52:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:52:53] Speaker A: And I love that because it does leave room for the imagination. But, yeah, that's tied to scripture in the stories that we encountered to go, wow. As we're wrapping up, one question I asked of most of my guests, regardless of their discipline or expertise, is how they think they'll be remembered and how they would like to be remembered. [00:53:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good. I know. It's okay. So insofar as I have a reputation for anything, it's. It's as being a bit of a contrarian. In other words, if I was actually. I was actually at a dinner once where there were 11 people around the table and the person that was hosting the dinner said, okay, who wants white wine? And most people put their hand up and they said, who wants red wine? And I was the only person to put my hand up. And a colleague of mine said, it's typical of you, Mark, being a contrarian. Now, I. And I resist that a bit because the reason why people say that is because when I wrote my book, the case against Q, Q really was absolutely consensus in the field. And there's still tons of people believe in Q. I'm not saying. But the needles moved. [00:54:07] Speaker A: But many do not. [00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah, they need a bit. Yeah, yeah. And other, you know, people have done the same thing. But so, but so, so I see why people see me as a contrarian. And then people with the new book, you know, they go, well, there was, if not a consensus, certainly a majority view that John's independent. You know, so Gooding has to come in and say, well, he knows the others. So there is that. I agree that I have got a slight spoil sport tendency. You know, I want to question consensus. I want to, you know, kind of ask the difficult questions about, you know, if something is just accepted as a norm. But I like to think that it's not just about saying no, it's actually about saying yes to something. So I don't see my work on Q, for example, so much as destroying Q as opening up a fresh way of looking at Luke's gospel. You read Luke differently if you see Luke as someone who's used Matthew and Mark. You read Matthew differently if Matthew's not using Q. And I think the same thing with John's use of the synoptics. I'm not trying, I don't think, to be negative and say, oh, John is. I'm not talking about what John isn't, which is independent. More time with what John is, which is something that you can read profitably alongside the Synoptic Gospels. But I don't know. I think I'm quite happy with the idea of people thinking of me as being a bit of a Maverick. Yeah, I think I don't really. I suppose I don't want to be, you know, a kind of boring scholar. [00:55:31] Speaker A: Just says, you really think about that. [00:55:33] Speaker B: Thank you. I don't really want to just. I'm not the kind of person that says, today I'm going to research X. What's your view on that? Oh, I haven't got one. Usually when I go in to research something, it's because I've got something I want to say. Because it's something you're interested in. It's why I think I probably could never write a biblical commentary, because I don't think I've got something interesting to say about every single verse in whatever book I chose. [00:55:57] Speaker A: I bet you could do it. [00:55:58] Speaker B: I could try, but I don't think. I don't think I could pull it off. And so I would rather write about the things that I'm interested in. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Well, I'm glad you've written this new book, the Fourth Synoptic Gospel. I think it's outstanding for our viewers, for our listeners. Be sure to pick it up. Also in the description, be sure to look at the links to the NT pod, which is Mark's outstanding podcast. Well, it has truly been a pleasure. I will look forward to doing it again. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Thank you so much. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Take care.