Bernard Muller wrote:Neither "John" or "Matthew" claimed to have an orderly account of Jesus' sayings or deeds, but "Luke" did.
Oh, I think John is claiming a
lot about the order of things:
2.11; 4.54: 11 This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. .... 54 This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. [Translation: the synoptics do not have the correct order of miracles.]
2.13; 5.1; 6.4; 18.28: 2.13 And the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. .... 5.1 After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. .... 6.4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. .... 18.28 They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium in order that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover. [Translation: the length of Jesus' ministry in the synoptics is too short, and Jesus made more than one climactic trip to Jerusalem.]
3.24: 24 For John had not yet been thrown into prison. [Translation: all the stuff before this, including Jesus' first miracle and the cleansing of the temple (!), occurred before John was thrown into prison, not afterward as the synoptics would have it.]
13.1-2a: 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2a During supper.... [Translation: the synoptics were wrong to treat the Last Supper as if it had been the Passover meal; this was still before the Passover meal. Confer 19.31.]
20.24, 26: 24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. .... 26 After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. [Translation: the first appearance was to ten disciples, not to eleven as the synoptics say.]
21.14: 14 This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead. [Translation: the synoptics got their order wrong even for the resurrection appearances.]
Consider the miracle sequence, and recall Papias' words about Mark:
Eusebius, History of the Church 3.39.15a: 15a And the elder would say this: Mark, who had become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately, yet not in order [Rufinus: non tamen per ordinem], as many things as he remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord.
Now compare the Muratorian Canon about John:
Muratorian Canon, lines 26-34a: What marvel, therefore, is it if John so constantly also in his epistles offers single points, saying about himself: "What we saw with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands handled, these things we wrote to you?" For so he professes to be, not only an eyewitness and earwitness, but also a writer of all the miracles [mirabilium] of the Lord in order [per ordinem].
Mark according to Papias: not in order. John according to the Canon: in order.
Or consider the timing of the Last Supper and the crucifixion, and take note of
what Apollinaris of Hierapolis wrote, a successor to Papias:
There are some, then, who raise disputes about these things through ignorance, thus suffering from a pardonable circumstance, for ignorance does not admit of accusation but rather requires further teaching; and they say that on the fourteenth the Lord ate the lamb with the disciples, and that on the great day of Unleavened Bread he himself suffered, and they report Matthew as speaking thus, just as they opine. Wherefore their opinion is at discord with the law, and the gospels seem to be at variance against them. .... The fourteenth is the true Passover of the Lord, the great sacrifice, the child of God instead of the lamb....
The natural reading of Matthew (and Mark and Luke): incorrect. (The natural reading of John: correct.)
This is just part of why I think that the Johannine "order" of things is what Papias was comparing Matthew and Mark to. It is not
necessarily that Papias (or his elder) knew the gospel of John itself; rather, a body of distinctly Asian tradition was being built up which gave its own spin to how things had gone during Jesus' ministry. This tradition was not arbitrarily remembered just for the sake of being contrary. The date of the Passover, for example, was very important to the Quartodecimans (even though I do not think John itself had anything to do with the origins of that Asian custom; I think the gospel of John simply reflected its time and place and was thus put to good use later in the controversy). Ireneaus mentions some groups which drew symbolism from a 12-month dominical ministry, and it is to John that he turns for a different picture. People opposing Montanism used the contradictions between John and the synoptics to nullify John and thus pull the rug of the Johannine Paraclete out from under the New Prophets' feet. These things
mattered.