by Dave Roberts » Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:27 am
The Synoptics are pretty easy to harmonize or at least see parallels since all three follow Mark's outline and Matthew and Luke add their own sources plus a common source. The Fourth Gospel is much harder since it does not parallel the other three and indeed offers a much more Judean emphasis than Galileean effort. Also, the presentation of Jesus' sayings is much different, though I think very valid. My suspicion is that the source is not John, the disciple, but a hint given in the text that the "beloved disciple" is not John but Lazarus, the one described with the term we would translate as "beloved"--"He whom thou lovest i dead." Of course, the Fourth Gospel also has an internal authorship statement of "the he, the we, and the I." In John 21;24-25 we have, "This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them (the he), and we know that his testimony is true (the we). But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose (the I) that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." (NRSV). Here we have testimony to the witness, the community, and the final compiler who were part of the recording of the gospel--not the way perhaps we were taught in Sunday School, but the clear witness of the scripture.