JESUS: According to __

"According to...." : or, "Jesus, according to ......". The noun that follows can be problematic! Large implications in the answer. It is a big question and I aim to do it some justice, albeit briefly. 

For now, here, I take “John”. The thoughtful reader does not have to read far in the Gospel of John before noting it is remarkably different to the other Gospels. Even the opening of John is quite distinctive. As the pages are turned we encounter lengthy discourses ascribed to Jesus; passages not much like the parables, disputes and multiple healings we find in the other records. John reports unique statements like: “You must be born again” (3:3, 7). You (all) must be changed from above and start anew - was said to highly religious leader of the day.

 

Many books, large and small, have been published about John. (I found a current “academic” list of 137.) This old book is probably the smallest:

We do not have a text signed by John - even if we did, how would it be certified? From introductions like the one pictured we learn that the expression “according to John” has been placed at the top of the text for a very long time.  From about the time when all four Gospels began to circulate together, ie, in the second century. (What did they look like originally, I wonder?)

In Greek all four Gospels have ΚΑΤΑ (modern font), followed by the (anarthrous) author name, accusative form. Looks like a simple standard format, with the name (I suppose), then readily recognisable. (No "saint" of course. That is a later honorific and more recently has been dropped.)

Much discussion has been offered on “who was John”? That connects to: “How did ‘John’ know”? 

 

Why does John have the heaviest emphasis on "life" or "eternal life"? John alone clearly tells us in this way: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13, NRSV). People could be born again as children of God. But there is more!

Reading further in the New Testament (NT) volume, it soon becomes evident that the first three NT documents ("Synoptics") are actually quite different to the rest of the content of the entire NT collection. That is less so for John's Gospel.

Can this be true? How can it be so? Is not the New Testament the result of Jesus coming and teaching his disciples?

I find an answer. It follows below. (However, to some people, this answer adds to the problem.)

The records insist Jesus was raised from the dead and then for a period continued his instruction of his disciples. His action falls outside those earlier pericopes.

If Jesus’ post-resurrection teaching was only similar to the earlier corpus, this “Synoptic discrepancy problem” would remain. But what do we read of that unique period? What happened after the first week? Were the disciples’ minds radically changed and their world-views given new shape?

How does the record (we actually have) read?

In John (21:1-3, then 21:25)
Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus ), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing (John 21:1-3 NIV).
Obviously time had passed since that first week. What else happened? (The rest of that periscope you may read for yourself - I am hurrying on with my focus here.) At the end of John the writer perhaps gives just a hint: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. John 21:25 (NIV). Lots said and not reported? Surely.

I find other indications of the time between the resurrection and Jesus’ ascension to the Father.
Jesus' eleven disciples went to a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus had told them to meet him. They saw him and worshiped him, but some of them doubted. Jesus came to them and said: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world (Matthew 28:16-20, CEV). So here the eleven receive what seems like a final instruction. They were (back) in Galilee. They must have talked a lot in those days. Does that Galilee report fit with Luke (- see further, below)?  Is Matthew’s account compressed? Was there a lot Jesus told them?

In Mark we find different data. On that first Sunday this was addressed to the shocked women at the empty tomb: “Don’t be alarmed,” he told them. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there just as he told you.’” They went out and ran from the tomb, because trembling and astonishment overwhelmed them. And they said nothing to anyone, since they were afraid. Mark 16:6-8 (CSB). There are problems with trying to match this with the next but the direction has “the disciples” to go to Galilee… Back to Galilee. (Nothing about the time spent in Jerusalem post-resurrection.)

Luke reports an encounter later in the day between the risen Jesus and two disciples walking away from Jerusalem (to home?). They were instructed by Jesus, and they returned to tell the others. Next we read of him speaking to the “whole” group: Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah[a] is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses[b] of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.[c] And they worshiped him, and[d] returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.[e] (Luke 24:44-53, NRSV). They had been (re) told stuff they had not previously grasped. Minds needed opening. Understanding could grow. After the resurrection there was work yet to be done, ...

The minds of the disciples had to be re-shaped. Whilst that may have been a lifelong work of God’s Spirit, here was an abrupt turning point. They could call to mind what Jesus had said to them. They could hear of the extraordinary transfiguration experience. The old view of their culture, that the ancient kingdom of David was to be restored, could be finally set aside (though that was probably gradual). There were still things needing clarification, as we see in the document (to Theophilus) we call Acts. (The first chapter of Acts throws light on the question of Jesus continuing to teach and with no mention of him using parables…)

John’s Gospel anticipates and explains in some brief words of Jesus.
“I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith. For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. This is because they have never known the Father or me. Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer.
“But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate[a] won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged.
“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’ John 16:1-15, (NLT). When those words were spoken the truth was beyond them. What we have now is the result of the Spirit’s work. God was able, and is able, to communicate. When the reader looks at the text of John 14-17 they may wonder, if all that was said in those fraught final hours, how ever did the disciples recapture it later? See above!

Now, someone may discount these aspects of John. They may say the document is the work of the “Church”. (That may be said of the entire NT). It is puzzling to me that anyone can seriously propound such views. Stated or not, such a one implies the existence, from very early days, of a highly centralised and disciplined organisation. That "body" (The Church), the assertion is, could create and circulate, as authoritative, fanciful or wishful documents claiming to be about Jesus. That supposed “authority” could circulate and impose the “lost original”! Really?

In this vein, I note although there are apparently traces of set-formula statements (creeds) in the NT,  the man-made “Nicene Creed” did not come into increasingly widespread prominence until after 325! I gather its creation and acceptance was not an easy time and the final document probably is based on earlier efforts. This can be studied in “Church History”; eg, see Britannica. Emergence of the Nicene Creed is long, long after the “Jesus Event”. It is also after severe persecution episodes and in an era when nothing could still be hidden, if ever it was.

How, seriously, could the NT documents, with all their “warts and all” style, and with such wide, unharmonised, variety, have been invented and quietly, or loudly, foisted, in toto, by "the Church", on “the church”? This supposedly done to deliberately turn the original carpenter from Nazareth into the putative Son of God? Imagination required to accept such a scam would be remotely possible.

"But.."  I imagine I hear someone say, that "how" information is lost in the mists of antiquity, with sparse reliable records from 2,000 years ago (2,000 years!). All we have to do, the argument runs, is read the Gospels we have and see the divergence! A "re-imagined Jesus" obviously must have become prevalent. No explanation required on how. Yes - with that I am essentially comfortable. Just read indeed! That means no dependence on speculation or esoteric knowledge. Well, we do depend on the translators - however, they are many, and are in commercial competition, with no single "axe to grind". 

We "people in the street" are blessed by God with rich resources. Experts can, and do, beaver away and may throw useful light on the text here and there. There are many experts - in a non-pandemic year, the Biblical studies people may well have an international conference with 6,000 professional women and men sharing their work. (For myself, I am interested in the archaeological findings; they do apparently support different reconstructions or speculations.)

Returning to John, we find in the second-last chapter: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20: 30-31, ESV). Perhaps that seems an untidy place for these lines (see above for the John's following chapter and the end  of the book)? That is where they come and they point to things we may never know. The words also point to the purpose. The author again nods to other information (such as that we find in the Synoptics!) and gives the lasting theme of the work. God intended us, today, to be able to know Jesus.

Almost 2,000 years ago, God lovingly made it possible for you to know Jesus the Christ as Lord and Saviour, and to learn his ways.

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