You could be right. John Presbyter has got to be a candidate for the redactor of the primitive John gospel, I think he wrote 1/2/3 John but not that the redactor wrote the whole gospel. Its the easiest NT book to play 'spot the redactor'?mlinssen wrote: ↑Tue May 10, 2022 8:10 am John Presbyter is absolutely fixing the Synoptics by having John B only testify to Jesus - he is purely a witness and not an enabler, Jesus is fully independent and self-serving in John P.
There's no tension in the Synoptics between John and Jesus AFAIK, but in *Ev there certainly is.
And it's fun that indeed Luke adds the birth narrative yet lets the checking up on Jesus by John's disciples remain intact - with puzzling results
In John P John B just moved entirely to the background - and so much so that the question arises what the value of his testimony is other than his own that he's been told by Gawd about Jesus - and if John P were to precede the other NT gospels I doubt whether John B did any heavy lifting.
So I can only surmise that John P comes last and *really* fixes Mark by having John B do no baptism of Jesus at all, and just sit there and point at Jesus, frequently, saying "he da man!"
True what you say about JTB being a witness not enabler. It's never clear he actually baptises Jesus but he says a lot more than the synoptics. I think his role is he is the leader, maybe founder of the sect which the J man is a member of, thus the gospel emerged from that sect decades later still giving John a starring role, maybe its name. It's them that had all the prologue theology which is scarce in the synoptics, and other bits of theology that's only found in John. This John the Baptist is not the same one as the synoptics. I think that's what the gospel of John is hinting at
Call me a heretic but it might be a bit battered I recon it's closer than the synoptics or Paul to the source of this thing. If Mark's narrative style is telling a story from an outsiders perspective from various sources and Paul was never a follower, that leaves the gospel of John as the only potential connected NT text to the origins. The lack of Thomas-like sayings has to be explained though