Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

John 8:57 is trivial verse. It means that Jesus is too young to be credited with wisdom. It is nothing at all

Secret Alias wrote:I know you know nothing about ancient languages and consider knowledge of ancient language immaterial or inferior to what is possible with the human imagination (maybe you think your imagination is divine I don't know) but οὔπω is a compound of οὐ + πω and πω acts like the Latin -dum where there clearly a sense of "immediate succession, so that with the commencement of one action the other ceases." The sense is that Jesus is clearly 'in his forties' and close to fifty. There is no possible argument here on your part. I don't have time for more of your bullshit. Why not see if you can perform miracles or levitate for awhile. You can't get out of this box.

Even in English "not yet ____ years old" TENDS TO suggest to me that the person is ALMOST ____ years old.
Example: "You are not yet 21 when you can drink legally". It suggests that the person is at least nearing 21.

I imagine that "not yet" does not necessarily in Greek mean "just about to":
In John 7:

30So they tried to seize Him, but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. 31Many in the crowd, however, believed in Him and said, “When the Christ comes, will He perform more signs than this man?”

I don't think it means that Jesus was "just about to" be killed.

In John 2:
When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to Him, “They have no more wine.” 4“Woman, why does this concern us? Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

I am not sure this means Jesus' hour is "just about to" come.

SECRET ALIAS, I fully understand that "not yet 50" when said of Jesus normally implies that Jesus was 47-49. I am just stuck with carefully reviewing Irenaeus' logic and forced to conclude this phrase super-weirdly means "30-40 years old" in Irenaeus' mind.

I don't think it means that Jesus was "just about to" be killed.

Of course there is the same sense. The fact that someone tampered with the one year ministry of Jesus originally testified by the Alexandrian Fathers does not get around the issue. In the same way that a forty nine year old man is 'not yet' (οὔπω) fifty, someone retelling the story of someone who died in a particular year would use οὔπω to describe another near death event which didn't quite finish him off. Yes they're exactly alike. In the life of a person events that happen within a year of something else can be connected with οὔπω. Exactly. Thanks for the example.

I think it is reasonable to suggest that as Irenaeus is the first person to cite our gospel of John (i.e. one which had a multi-year ministry and which had no connection or little explicit resemblance to the synoptics) that he edited the Gospel of John, a text which could be read to support the idea that Jesus had an 18 year ministry. Why it was so important for Irenaeus to have a forty nine year old Jesus remains unclear. That's fairly debated and I don't have all the answers. We don't know his motives but it is clear that (a) Irenaeus believed Jesus had something like an 18 year ministry and (c) he introduced a passage in John which supported that view, a passage no one ever cited before Irenaeus.

Secret Alias wrote:But these sorts of arguments are unconvincing. Ancient texts are unstable and texts get written and rewritten over and over again. Irenaeus quotes the same passage in Mark 1:1 two different ways which accord with the two different surviving recensions. We can't use 'he must known or believed X' when the text says something else. He clearly believed something that is now at odds with Luke. In the process of arguing against the heretics who say that Jesus only lived/ministered 360 days (Clement, Origen) he argues for something like an 18 year ministry of Jesus. I don't make the texts I just fairly report what they say.

You fairly quoted the texts and I carefully reviewed them. Where does Irenaeus explicitly, clearly state "Eighteen year ministry"?

We can use 'he must known or believed X' when the text does say this. X is that Jesus was 30-40 years old and this is said in Luke and in Irenaeus based on a careful critical logical reading that fully accounts for seeming stupid expressions like "not yet 50" meaning in somebody's mind "30-40".

I totally get where you are coming from and that 95+% of people are not going to think of "not yet 50" as meaning exactly "31-40" like Irenaeus basically says that it does.

something like an 18 year ministry of Jesus

Here's how Grant puts the puzzle together - https://books.google.com/books?id=01BKA ... us&f=false

There is no puzzle in John 8:57

Secret Alias wrote:I think it is reasonable to suggest that as Irenaeus is the first person to cite our gospel of John (i.e. one which had a multi-year ministry and which had no connection or little explicit resemblance to the synoptics) that he edited the Gospel of John, a text which could be read to support the idea that Jesus had an 18 year ministry.

Well, he actually doesn't teach this 18 year ministry, nor does John's gospel.

It's just a big fat but totally understandable misreading of Irenaeus' convoluted logic about how "not yet 50" means "30-40 years old".

You think "not yet 50" means "30-40 years old" would be convoluted?
Try Rashi's math of how he gets from c.605 BC to the 1st century AD for Daniel's 70 Weeks of Years. I have never been able to figure out what Rashi is talking about.

Why it was so important for Irenaeus to have a forty nine year old Jesus remains unclear.

Right, because he didn't have a 49 year old Jesus.
I totally get this issue FROM ALL ANGLES.

That's fairly debated and I don't have all the answers.

There is no answer.

I know, I know, I know.........

We don't know his motives but it is clear that (a) Irenaeus believed Jesus had something like an 18 year ministry and (c) he introduced a passage in John which supported that view, a passage no one ever cited before Irenaeus.

John's gospel says Jesus died under Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod. John doesn't think Jesus died under Claudius' rule after 40 AD.
It's not an 18 year ministry. Pilate ruled from AD 26–36. An 18 year ministry would have started in 18 AD.
John also only narrates three passovers just like the other gospels.

What's happening is that John's gospel has this weird thing about "not yet 50", then Irenaeus repeats it and explains why "not yet 50" means "30-40 years old", and I totally get why this sounds so stupid. That's why most people don't even understand it and just make a big fat assumption based on a prima facie reading of these passage that "not yet 50" = "47-49", which is the OBVIOUS READING.

I think it's detrimental to my mental health to keep arguing this stupidity.
I can only plead with you to put on a super strong supercritical Thinking Cap and read over what I wrote very carefully as well as the text I selected, remembering that he is not ACTUALLY teaching an 18 year ministry or Jesus being 47 before his killing.

Secret Alias wrote:

something like an 18 year ministry of Jesus

Here's how Grant puts the puzzle together - https://books.google.com/books?id=01BKA ... us&f=false

Grant writes: "Since Jesus must have passed through all the stages of human development from infancy to old age, he was forty nine years old at the time, and later reached fifty."
No, Since Jesus must have passed through all the sategs of human development from infancy to old age, he was forty nine years old at SOME time WHEN HE WAS ALIVE, and he reached this age after the resurrection according to the New Testament. All the Gospels agree on this: Jesus got born in c.1 BC, he went through three passovers, then he got killed in c.33, then he reenlivened, ascended and lived forever in the heaven.

John and Irenaeus are not saying that Jesus had a 18 year ministry for some reason that scholars can never guess, AND got killed after Pilate and Herod's and Tiberius Claudius Nero's time, AND ritually celebrated through more than 3 Hebrew Passovers, NOR did Irenaeus reject the text in Luke, " AND edit the Gospel of John", AND have secret gospel(s) that other Christians didn't know about, AND all other nonsensical premises that supporters of the "49 year old Jesus" theory would be forced to believe in.

The simplest explanation in this case is the correct one. John and Irenaeus are saying Jesus had a 3+ year ministry like the other gospels do, they just have this out of context verse in John 8 and then Irenaeus uses convoluted logic - one that practically nobody ever would use in real life - to make "not yet 50" mean "30-40 years old only".

Then educated scholars like Grant, and in fact most people think that one of those two writers was saying Jesus was 47-49, just like I thought. It's just a big fat stupid misreading of convoluted commentary of a hardly self-evident Bible verse, Secret Alias

My brain is going to go to sludge if I just keep repeating this over and over.

Secret Alias wrote:I think it is reasonable to suggest that as Irenaeus is the first person to cite our gospel of John (i.e. one which had a multi-year ministry and which had no connection or little explicit resemblance to the synoptics) that he edited the Gospel of John

Even if he is the first to quote the orthodoxized gospel of John as far as the writings we have which the catholic church deemed worthy to not douse in the ancient equivalent of gasoline, he himself says one of the gnostic sects used only John, an earlier more original and heretical version of John to be sure but still John. I imagine that version also may have had some opponents of Jesus in THEIR 50s say to Jesus something like "You ain't even 50 yet and you think you're smarter than us, you smart-ass punk?" So your argument here gets you nowhere, even if your speculation about Irenaeus editing the orthodox John could in any way be substantiated.