Talk:Gospel of John/2016/January

Author/date/origins
I've shortened this section (reason given in the edit summary) and moved some material up from the old section on Judaism and John. Comments?PiCo (talk) 11:15, 4 January 2016 (UTC) @Basileias, @TomHennell, would you like to look at this section and maybe comment? PiCo (talk) 00:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * PiCo, unless I missed them the views of Blomberg, Moo, etc., while a minority view, are gone from the article. The parts dealing with Judaism and anti-Semitism do need reworking. While I think minority views should be represented the article it was “thick” and a good axing is probably best at this time. I may slide in a few edits throughout the week, but they will probably be focused on sentence and paragraph structure. I am not going to alter any major meaning. Nice work and welcome back. Basileias (talk) 04:30, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Note 1 directs readers who want to know more about the conservative position to Blomberg (or should - his book seems to have been dropped from the bibliography). Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to give links from within the Note - tho maybe direct links are possible using square brackets.PiCo (talk) 11:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * As it stands, the section on authorship conflates the proposition that the gospel of John rests substantially on the written testimony of "the beloved disciple", with the traditional ascription of the Gospel to the apostle John - son of Zebedee. There are a great many critical scholars who would accept the first propositon in some degree; while relatively few (though more than none) would go all the way to the second.  maybe it might be an idea to structure the  section around the 'Concentric Proofs' of Brooke Westcott; which are effectively the starting point for all subsequent critical study of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel.  Westcott applied critical methods to establish successively that the author was likely to have been: a Jew; a Palestinian Jew; an eyewitness of the life of Jesus; an apostle; and the apostle John, son of Zebedee.  Few critical scholars today would now dispute the Westcott's first two 'proofs', and probably a majority would accept (with more or less qualification) the third. But it is a significant point that - whereas current critical scholarship is almost unanimous in rejecting apostolic authorship for the Synoptics, there are sound critical grounds for taking a different stance for the Fourth Gospel; albeit that this is still a minority view. TomHennell (talk) 15:32, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Do you have a title for anything by Westcott that can been viewed in Google books? Basileias (talk) 05:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The commmentaries were formally widely accessible on the internet as .pdf files; but the links no longer work - or point to a modern re-issue. There is a good summary treatment in William Baird "History of New Testament Research" 2003

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JBljk6DejBAC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=westcott+%22The+Gospel+According+to+St.+John%22&source=bl&ots=3vltExNvzL&sig=H9RgIbtYJZhgsPT7eZZ6n3eDh2g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_z7LX8pTKAhUCXRoKHXn_DooQ6AEISTAJ#v=onepage&q=westcott%20%22The%20Gospel%20According%20to%20St.%20John%22&f=false


 * Westcott's first proof - that the Author was a Jew - is based on his knowledge and preference for the Hebrew text of the Old Testament against the LXX; the second proof - that the author is Palestinian - is based on his sound geographical knowledge of Jerusalem and its surrounding areas. The third proof - that the author is an eyewitness - is based both on the specific claims in the text (at 1:14, 19:35 and at 21:24), and on vivid incidental details and phrasing of the narrative sections. The classic 20th century critical commentaries (Bultmann, Dodd, Barrett) all take Westcott's analysis of the Greek text on these matters as their starting point, and I am not aware of any subsequent studies that challenge them - although how they are interpreted in detail obviously varies from one scholar to another. TomHennell (talk) 10:11, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Found it! Here: https://archive.org/stream/gospelaccording00westgoog#page/n28/mode/2up TomHennell (talk) 12:08, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Feel free to edit your own version of authorship into the article - but please give the sources so we can look them up.PiCo (talk) 09:06, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Shall do. Just a point of clarification; much of the text is sourced here to Barnabas Lindars - either in his brief 1990 book on John, or in his contribution the joint study of the Johannine literature of 2000.  From what I can tell on Google preview, these look to present essentially the same text - with some updating in 2000 of the bibligraphy and futher reading (Lindars died in 1991).  I shall therefor take sources primarily the 1990 Lindars book, D.A. Carson's 1991 commentary (which Culpepper etc. recommends), plus Stephen Smalley (Lindars's student, and also his recommendation). TomHennell (talk) 12:10, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Expulsion from the synagogues
This is a tricky issue; the article currently states "rabbinical Judaism marginalised the Jewish Christians and eventually excluded them from the Jewish community"; and the scholarly suggestion that antagonism between the Johannine community and rabbinic Jews has been anachronstically read back into the narrative of the Gospel, is alluded to at several other points in the article. Much of this derives from Brown and Martyn; who both propose that the wording of the twelth of the 'Eighteen Benedictions', the Birkat haMinim was drafted by the Rabbis at Jamnia specfically to exclude Jewish Christians sometime around 85 CE. There is no doubt that this supposition was very congenial for many New Testament scholars; as it provided a plausible context for much of the material in John about 'the Jews'; and the date fitted very well into the their presupposed authorship of the Fourth Gospel. But it has never been accepted by authoritative rabbinic scholarship; which is problematic, since the theory is as much a claim about Rabbinic Judaism as about Christianity. Essentially, at any period consistent with the formation of the Fourth Gospel, the rabbis at Jamnia had many more important fish to fry. Nor is there any evidence that they could have enforced such a liturgical change, had they wanted to. The issues are well discussed in http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Bulletin/59=2008/6%20Klink.pdf TomHennell (talk) 12:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)


 * A few lines in that source like "...allows John to portray itself as both Jewish and anti-Jewish..." I am not sure what the author is getting at with the portraying of "anti-Jewish" as well as a few other statements. I think I know, but I'm guessing. Maybe I need to re-read it. The host, Tyndalehouse, caters to the Evangelical layperson. That is not bad. Searching Klink, he does not seem to be as well known, not that it matters. Can we hold of on editing that section? I would like to looks at the sources more closely. Other editors might want to go slow with this too. Thank you. Basileias (talk) 17:12, 23 December 2015 (UTC)


 * There is a counterpart discussion of the same issue from D. Moody Smith in Chapter 3 of "The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions" (especially the postscript from page 40 onwards). Moodty Smith as I read it, is inclined to accept that the supposed link beween the 'Eighteen Bendedictions'and gospel references to expulsion from the synagogue lacks any historical support; but neverless is sympathetic to Martyn's underlying thesis, specifically his proposal that the Fourth Gospel should be read as a two-level drama; both as a discourse on the opposition between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorties, and sumultaneously a discourse on the oppositioin between the community of the Beloved Disciple and its contemporary rabbinic antagonists.  But Moody Smith acknowledges that - although Martyn's basic thesis is widely regarded as one of the key scholarly starting points for late 20th century New Testament scholarship on John; it has never found any support or acceptance in mainstream rabbinic scholarship. 23:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I looked at the sources for the issue of Jewish Christians being marginalized and they looked solid. Is you're concern that there is not more Jewish specific sources? Basileias (talk) 00:17, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The issue is whether the article can say that "rabbinical Judaism marginalised the Jewish Christians and eventually excluded them from the Jewish community". This is not a claim about the actions of early Christians, but about the actions of early Rabbis; and if no rabbinic authority can be quoted in support of it, I cannot see how it can be made unsupported.  If we are to include it; we have to say that it is lacking authortitive support. TomHennell (talk) 01:05, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Whether the statement is right or wrong, for Wikipedia it is whether it has verifiability, a qualifying reliable source. Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form". Unpublished materials are not considered reliable.


 * I am not trying to roadblock you, but just following the guiding principles with my best interpretation. Based on Wikipedia requirements, while I cannot support saying it does not have authoritative support (it does), other viewpoint are definitely welcomed and it is proper to insert them. Basileias (talk) 05:48, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * By the way, I just looked up the person who wrote what is being sourced, The Parting of the Way's from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism by Philip Alexander.
 * Alexander is as follows,


 * *MA, DPhil (Oxford ), FBA
 * *Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Studies
 * *Co-Director, University of Manchester Centre for Jewish Studies


 * I think all along this was a rabbinic source? Basileias (talk) 06:09, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Indeed your are right; but the Alexander article is not directed to the New Testament period. Alexander's 'eventually' refers to the third century, and he specifically rejects the proposition that the 'parting of the ways' took place in the "first or early second century CE"; and suggests that those who propose such an early split "sometimes barely conceal apologetic motives". In respect of the subject of the article, Alexander's opinions are being misapplied TomHennell (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * You might have a good point! I will have to re-read. Maybe some of this is better in another article like, split of early Christianity and Judaism ?? See what you think, and I wish other editors would chime in. Basileias (talk) 05:20, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * If you do not mind, I paged another editor who has worked on the article for their thoughts. This might need more eyes since there is a lot of material to look at and my eyes are tired... Basileias (talk) 05:29, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Found this statement in the book, Rabbinic policy towards Christianity was aimed specifically at Jewish Christians. In attempted to successfully to keep them marginalized and to exclude them, from Kelal Yisrael. The story of the parting of the ways is in essence the story of the triumph of Rabbinism and of the failure of Jewish Christianity to convince a majority of Palestinian Jews.... So is this subject just in the wrong article?

Basileias - thanks for the invitation to comment. The section here is under the general heading Theology. It should deal with the theological differences between Judaism and Johannine Christianity (John, more than any other gospel, treats Jesus as a divine being). But instead it's talking about what looks like the origins of the Johannine community. That's important, but it belongs in Composition and Setting (under authorship/date/setting if that arrangement is kept, or possibly a new subsection). Anyway, I think wer shouldn't be too bound to one source - if something is widely accepted, there will be multiple sources. I'd just ask that the sources be as recent as possible - scholarship seems to change its collective mind quite rapidly. I'd also suggest that this be held over till after New Year - as vital as Wikipedia is to the welfare of humanity, sometimes a break is nice.PiCo (talk) 02:29, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for taking valuable time to look at this. I am not touching that part until next year. (-: Basileias (talk) 05:23, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a useful recent discussion of the issues in 'Rhetoric and Theology, Figural Reading of John 9' by William M Wright IV (2009). In his introductory section, Wright traces the development of the modern narrative of 'expulsion from the synagogue' in Johannine studies, and outlines the various recent critiques of that narrative - both in New Testament and Rabbinic scholarship.  I think he does show that the specific form of the theory, that maintains the 'Eighteen Benedictions' were formulated as a device for expelling Jewish Christians, and hence as a context for the references to 'the Jews' in John, is no longer sustainable on historical and textual grounds; and has been largely repudiated by historians in the fields.  But Martyn's reading of John does not fall with the repudiation of his version of the Benedictions. Many commentators still maintain that the Johannine Community could have been engaged in a conflict with local Rabbinic authorities at the time of the composition of the Gospel, and that much of the text of John reflects this later history, rather than the actual circumstances of early 1st century Palestine. But, as Wright shows, this makes the entire theory circular; in effect, even though Martyn believes he is writing 'history', he is actully composing  a historical 'allegory'. If everything in the original text actually stands for something else - in a one-to-one conversion applied by the historian in retrospect - then there is no way that any such reading of that text can be verified or falsified against counterpart historical witnesses.  And there is nothing otherwise in the historical record to support the theory; all four Gospels and Acts - taken at face value - do present narrtives of conflict between Jesus (and Paul) and specific synagogue authorities.  The reading that all such conflicts are anachronistic, and require another explanation in the life of later Christian communites may be attractive, but does require some evidential support.  Equally, the reading that all references in the Gospels to Pharisess are to be redirected as references to the Rabbis at Jamnia, presupposes an understanding of 1st century Jewish religious authority (post the fall of Jerusalem) that is not supported anywhere in late 1st century classical or rabbinic historical materials.  There certainly were to be conflicts between church and synagogue communities in the following centuries; leading eventually to a definitive rupture (which both sides naturally blamed on the other). But to be maintained as the predominant context for the Fourth Gospel, that rupture has to assumed to have been complete in a particular time (around 90 CE), and in a particular place (wherever the Johannine community was).


 * Of course, if Martyn really had rediscovered the 'lost' original, 1st century, version of the Eighteen Benedictions amongst the texts in the Cairo Genizah, and if that lost text really had been imposed by rabbinc authority in every synagogue across the Roman world, then that would have provided a counterpart piece of 'historical' evidence; but without it, there is no substantial basis for his theory, other than its own internal plausibility in terms of the prior conceptions of New Testament commentators.  TomHennell (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2016 (UTC)