Johns of early Christianity

[Huon]

The reader can find some correlation with the Gospels only in two verses of the Revelation to Saint John.

The first one (I,5) says : "and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood; ".

The second verse (XI,8) says : "their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. ".

But these mentions are considered by Alfred Loisy (1857-1940) to be late interpolations. I don’t feel I am able to conclude, but it seems to me that these mentions could be easily cut off the rest of the text.

Another point is that these verses seem strange to me. In Rev I,5, the phrase "the firstborn of the dead" is not frequent in the Gospels, when applied to Jesus. Clearly (?), the author makes an allusion to the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion, and he also means that the ordinary dead will be reborn later. Another qualification, " the ruler of the kings of the earth " could bear a particular meaning.

There is a belief, millenarianism or chiliasm, according which Christ would reign as a king of the world, and all the just, including the saints recalled to life, would participate in this kingdom, during one thousand years, before the final end of the world. This belief is developed in the Revelation. From the third century on, this millenarianism has been felt embarrassing and awkward by many Christians. The temporary future reign of Christ as king of the world can be seen as a contradiction with the immediate present reign of Christ in heaven proclaimed by the Gospels.

From this viewpoint, the Apocalypse of John develops a rather primitive version of christianity.

[DCHindley]

Rubbish!

The "johns" used by the early Christians were excavated by Joe Zias, who concluded that they were full of sh*t.

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061113/ ... 113-5.html

DCH

[Adam]

SOMEBODY had to say it. I never expected it would be DC.
People may start calling you "WC".

[DCHindley]

SOMEBODY had to say it. I never expected it would be DC.
People may start calling you "WC".

I couldn't waste that Zias thing.

WCH

[Bernard Muller]

I have a webpage on Revelation: http://historical-jesus.info/rjohn.html
And here I discuss the authorship of 1 John, John's gospel and Revelation: http://historical-jesus.info/jnorig.html#author

Cordially, Bernard

[DCHindley]

To those who took offense at my "john" joke, I extend my sincere apologies.

I was alluding to the place where one performs necessary bodily functions, variously called the "john", "water closet", "toilet(te), "porcelain receptacle", etc. In the first few centuries CE they would have latrines in the countryside and group toilets in the cities. It was just supposed to be, well, "ha ha" funny, but in a weird-funny way, not some sort of serious contribution towards the discussion.

It is just the fact that archeologist Joe Zias is one of those archeologists who wears his convictions in his sleeve, and his critiques of the Qumran occupants has been extremely polemical against Essenes. He bases this on the parasites he found in the excavated soil of their latrine areas, and also expresses his opinion about the practice of ritual bathing in a mikvah.

He negatively (and in a personal manner) criticizes the Qumran occupants' religious practices related to toilets and mikva bathing, by implying that those who observe such practices must be idiots and misguided fanatics. This is despite the fact that these kinds of toilet rules and that ritual bathing in the mikva were almost universally practiced by Judeans resident in the Judean homeland, despite their not being required by the Law.

It was, admittedly, a derail. But if one really stretches things, it was also a critique of the practice of looking for what you expect, which is what I thought was going on in this thread.

DCH

[Ulan]

To those who took offense at my "john" joke, I extend my sincere apologies.

No harm done. To tell the truth, I had the same connotation when I read the thread title. I didn't know there was a fitting article at hand though.

He negatively (and in a personal manner) criticizes the Qumran occupants' religious practices related to toilets and mikva bathing, by implying that those who observe such practices must be idiots and misguided fanatics. This is despite the fact that these kinds of toilet rules and that ritual bathing in the mikva were almost universally practiced by Judeans resident in the Judean homeland, despite their not being required by the Law.

If I understood that correctly, the problem wasn't the toilet practices, which were pretty much in line with the situation in other places, but the stagnant mikva that was used directly after defecating. The text says the same practices would have been fine in an area like Jericho, where you had springs. In Qumran, people died at an average age of 34 though.

It was, admittedly, a derail.

Sorry for adding to it

[MrMacSon]

.
April DeConick (2013) Who is Hiding in the Gospel of John? Reconceptualizing Johannine Theology and the Roots of Gnosticism

• Chap. 1 in Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions
  April DeConick & Grant Adamson; eds. Gnostica Series. Durham: Acumen. pp.13-29.

April DeConick (2013)"Why are the Heavens Closed? The Johannine Revelation of the Father in the Catholic-Gnostic Debate."

• in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic. Edited by Catrin H. Williams & Christopher Rowland. London: T&T Clark; pp. 147-179

[MrMacSon]

The reader can find some correlation with the Gospels only in two verses of the Revelation to Saint John.

The first one (I,5) says : "and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood; ".

The second verse (XI,8) says : "their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. ".

But these mentions are considered by Alfred Loisy (1857-1940) to be late interpolations. I don’t feel I am able to conclude, but it seems to me that these mentions could be easily cut off the rest of the text.

Another point is that these verses seem strange to me. In Rev I,5, the phrase "the firstborn of the dead" is not frequent in the Gospels, when applied to Jesus. Clearly (?), the author makes an allusion to the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion, and he also means that the ordinary dead will be reborn later. Another qualification, " the ruler of the kings of the earth " could bear a particular meaning.

There is a belief, millenarianism or chiliasm, according which Christ would reign as a king of the world, and all the just, including the saints recalled to life, would participate in this kingdom, during one thousand years, before the final end of the world. This belief is developed in the Revelation. From the third century on, this millenarianism has been felt embarrassing and awkward by many Christians. The temporary future reign of Christ as king of the world can be seen as a contradiction with the immediate present reign of Christ in heaven proclaimed by the Gospels.

From this viewpoint, the Apocalypse of John develops a rather primitive version of christianity.

Cheers. The identification of the author of John's Gospel with the John of 'the Apocalypse'/Revelation was common in the 2nd century: Irenaeus assumed they were the same authors. The 3rd century's Dionysius of Alexandria was unusual in rejecting the identification of the two writers. Many modern critical scholars agree with Dionysius: the author of the Apocalypse/Revelation, John of Patmos, is different from the author (or authors) of the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John.

It's interesting that the author of the Muratorian Fragment thought or assumed that the author of the Gospel of John was the same as the author of the First Epistle of John: in the middle of discussing the Gospel of John he says

• 'what marvel then is it that John brings forward these several things so constantly in his epistles also, saying in his own person, "What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands have handled that have we written".' (1 John 1:1)

It is not clear whether the other epistle in question is 2 John or 3 John. Another indication that the author identified the Gospel writer John with two epistles bearing John's name is that, when he specifically addresses the epistles of John, he writes

• "the Epistle of Jude indeed, and the two belonging to the above mentioned John."

In other words, he thinks that these letters were written by the John whom he has already discussed, namely John the gospel writer.

The author of the Muratorian Fragment also refers to the author of the 'Apocalypse of John' (Revelation) as "the predecessor" of Paul, who, he assumes, wrote to seven churches (Rev 2–3) before Paul wrote to seven churches.

[Ben C. Smith]

It's interesting that the author of the Muratorian Fragment thought or assumed that the author of the Gospel of John was the same as the author of the First Epistle of John: in the middle of discussing the Gospel of John he says

• 'what marvel then is it that John brings forward these several things so constantly in his epistles also, saying in his own person, "What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands have handled that have we written".' (1 John 1:1)

It is not clear whether the other epistle in question is 2 John or 3 John.

I floated a little theory about that a while back: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1847. There is no real confirmation yet, but it would at least make sense.