ABSTRACT:

I tried to showcase recent work by Robert Price (2017), Dennis MacDonald (2022), and Adele Reinhartz (2017) on the Gospel of John.  The question for the post is why the temple tantrum is the catalyst for Jesus’s arrest in the synoptics, while in John it is the raising of Lazarus.  I argue that the temple incident never happened, and was Mark’s way of expressing God’s displeasure and judgment against a corrupt temple cult.  Mark was thus written post temple destruction, and this follows the Jewish tradition and apologetic of seeing defeat of the Jews not as the victory of foreign gods over the Jewish God, but the Jewish God punishing the Jews via foreign rulers. John’s solution is that Jesus became too popular as a healer and so became a threat to the establishment.

So I’ll take as my inquiry question why the temple tantrum in the synoptics is the genesis of Jesus’s arrest, while in the Gospel of John it is the raising of Lazarus?  Perhaps in doing this we will also un-cover (“a-letheia”) certain elements of what a gospel is.

• This silence also speaks, ironically, to another Marcan theme: the messianic secret. Numerous times Jesus commands people to keep silent about his miracles or his identity. These commands could be a form of dramatic irony used to increase awe of Jesus (esp. because the audience knows the true meaning of the secret). They may suggest that keeping a low profile is the best policy in a setting where governments distrust charismatic leaders (as seen not only in Jesus’ death by crucifixion but also by the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod Antipas). The motif may be part of Mark’s Christology: the Gospel insists that Jesus’ messianic identity necessarily includes suffering and that Jesus dies “as a ransom” (10.45); his role thus cannot be fully understood until after his crucifixion. The German scholar William Wrede (1901) attributed these commands for secrecy not to Jesus but to the evangelist: Wrede suggested that the author sought to explain why more people did not embrace Jesus as messiah during his lifetime. Although the secrecy motif is adopted by Matthew and Luke, it is almost totally lacking in John. How the motif functions in the narrative, as well as the question of its origin (from Jesus? the oral tradition? Mark?), remain debated issues.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 68). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

With the Gospel of John, we have the initial sign belief causing of the wine miracle in John that held the secret that it never actually happened and is just haggadic midrash / mimesis as much in Mark is.  This idea of well intended deceptions figure centrally in Euripides Bacchae, where we read:

• Cadmus’ advice regarding Dionysus that “Even if this man (Dionysus) be no God, as you think, still say that he is. Be guilty of a splendid fraud, declaring him to be the son of Semele, for this will make it seem she is the mother of a God, and will confer honor on all our race” (lines 332-336).

We will return the The Bacchae shortly.

Price comments:

•  2. Water into Wine (John 2:1-11)

• Though the central feature of this miracle story, the transformation of one liquid into another, no doubt comes from the lore of Dionysus, the basic outline of the story owes much to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:8-24 LXX (Helms, p. 86). The widow of Zarephath, whose son has just died, upbraids the prophet: “What have I to do with you, O man of God?” (Ti emoi kai soi, 17:18). John has transferred this brusque address to the mouth of Jesus, rebuking his mother (2:4, Ti emoi kai soi, gunai). Jesus and Elijah both tell people in need of provisions to take empty pitchers (udria in 1 Kings 17:12, udriai in John 2:6-7), from which sustenance miraculously emerges. And just as this feat causes the woman to declare her faith in Elijah (“I know that you are a man of God,” v. 24), so does Jesus’ wine miracle cause his disciples to put their faith in him (v. 11).

The gospelness of the synoptic gospels seem to include an interplay between a secretive and exoteric dimension (eg Mark 4:11).  In fact, Crossan has argued the stories about Jesus are extended parables based on the sayings of Jesus.  GJohn explicitly contradicts Mark 4:11,

• 20 Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 212). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

This kind of exegetical work is rampant in Mark.  Price comments for instance:

• It is remarkable that Mark does anything but call attention to the scriptural basis for the crucifixion account. There is nothing said of scripture being fulfilled here. It is all simply presented as the events of Jesus’ execution. It is we who must ferret out the real sources of the story. This is quite different, e.g., in John, where explicit scripture citations are given, e.g., for Jesus’ legs not being broken to hasten his death (John 19:36), either Exodus 12:10, Numbers 9:12, or Psalm 34:19-20 (Crossan, p. 168).

This type of dual nature writing was common at the time.  Carrier points out

• Near the end of the first century, around the same time the first Gospels were being written, the Greek scholar Plutarch honored Clea, a priestess of the mysteries of Isis, with a treatise about her religion entitled On Isis and Osiris. In this he explains why her cult had adopted a certain belief about the life and resurrection of Osiris, in the “true” account reserved for those who, like her, were initiated into its secrets. He said the real truth was that Osiris was never really a historical person whose activity took place on Earth, as public accounts portrayed him to be. Osiris was, rather, a celestial being, whose trials and sufferings took place in outer space just below the moon, where death and turmoil reign. Thence Osiris descends every year, becomes incarnate by assuming a mortal body of flesh, and is killed by Set (in Greek, Typhon, the Egyptian analog to Satan). Then he is resurrected—literally undergoing, Plutarch says, an anabiôsis, a “return to life,” and a palingenesia, a “regeneration” (the same word used of the resurrection in Matthew 19:28). From there Osiris ascends back to heaven in glory. (Carrier, 2020, p. 31).

What was the Gospel of John trying to do?  We read

John 20:31

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

• 31 But these are written so that you may continue to / come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

We’re not trying to create a category so wide that “gospel” thereby means everything and nothing, but are in a preliminary way asking after Mark’s usage, and he is imitating Augustan propaganda

We have many examples of gospels, including gnostic gospels, so we are asking after what it means to say “The Gospel of John.”  To orient ourselves, we may look to the original gospel, the Gospel of Mark.  Price quotes Helms that:

• The syncretic flavor of Mark is at once evident from his reproduction of a piece of Augustan imperial propaganda and his setting it beside a tailored scripture quote. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” closely matches the formula found on a monument erected by the Provincial Assembly in Asia Minor (1st century BCE): “Whereas… Providence… has… brought our life to the peak of perfection in giving us Augustus Caesar… who, being sent to us and to our descendants as a savior…, and whereas… the birthday of the god has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (euaggelion) concerning him, let all reckon a new era beginning from the date of his birth.” (Helms, p. 24)

So, in this case, “gospel” means propaganda that is going to run the Peace through Justice of Jesus against another Son of God, the Peace through Victory of Caesar.  This is the sense in which Mark is sharing the “good news” about Jesus.  It is a different kind of propaganda selling and reinforcing Jesus we are going to see in the gospel of John.  But first, Mark. 

Mark seems to be engaged in exegetical work to show that hidden behind the stories of Jesus, there are literary models the stories are imitating (mimesis in Greek; Haggadic Midrash in Hebrew).  For instance, Mark’s crucifixion narrative imitates the psalms and Isaiah from the Greek translation of the old testament, the Septuagint (LXX).  So,

  The Passion of the Christ in Mark:

(Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 in Haggadic Midrash)

• Likely the clearest Prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
  
  The only thing is, as all critical scholars agree:

• Isaiah wasn’t making a prophesy about Jesus. Mark was doing a haggadic midrash on Isaiah, inventing details of Jesus’s death to imitate Isaiah. So, Mark depicts Jesus as one who is despised and rejected, a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. He then describes Jesus as wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The Servant in Isaiah, like Jesus in Mark, is silent before his accusers. In Isaiah it says of the servant with his stripes we are healed, which Mark turned into the story of the scourging of Jesus. This is, in part, is where the penal substitution atonement interpretation comes from, but it would be silly to say II Isaiah was talking about this kind of atonement – simply consult any Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 53 like https://aish.com/isaiah_53_the_suffering_servant/. Anyway, the servant is numbered among the transgressors in Isaiah, so Jesus is crucified between two thieves. The Isaiah servant would make his grave with the rich, So Jesus is buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea in Matthew, a person of means.
•  
• Then, as Price says
  
  The substructure for the crucifixion in chapter 15 is, as all recognize, Psalm 22, from which derive all the major details, including the implicit piercing of hands and feet (Mark 24//Psalm 22:16b), the dividing of his garments and casting lots for them (Mark 15:24//Psalm 22:18), the “wagging heads” of the mockers (Mark 15:20//Psalm 22:7), and of course the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34//Psalm 22:1). Matthew adds another quote, “He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him” (Matthew 7:43//Psalm 22:8), as well as a strong allusion (“for he said, ‘I am the son of God’” 27:43b) to Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20, which underlies the whole story anyway (Miller, p. 362), “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life: for if the righteous man is God’s son he will help him and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture that we may find out how gentle he is and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”
  
  As for other details, Crossan (p. 198) points out that the darkness at noon comes from Amos 8:9, while the vinegar and gall come from Psalm 69:21. It is remarkable that Mark does anything but call attention to the scriptural basis for the crucifixion account. There is nothing said of scripture being fulfilled here. It is all simply presented as the events of Jesus’ execution. It is we who must ferret out the real sources of the story. This is quite different, e.g., in John, where explicit scripture citations are given, e.g., for Jesus’ legs not being broken to hasten his death (John 19:36), either Exodus 12:10, Numbers 9:12, or Psalm 34:19-20 (Crossan, p. 168). Whence did Mark derive the tearing asunder of the Temple veil, from top to bottom (Mark 15:38)? Perhaps from the death of Hector in the Iliad (MacDonald, pp. 144-145). Hector dies forsaken by Zeus. The women of Troy watched from afar off (as the Galilean women do in Mark 15:40), and the whole of Troy mourned as if their city had already been destroyed “from top to bottom,” just as the ripping of the veil seems to be a portent of Jerusalem’s eventual doom.

The crucifixion story also seems fictional because of us being told what Jesus said from the cross, but also what Jesus and the high priest said to each other, and what Jesus and the crowd said to each other (who would have been around to record these conversations?). And so we can propose there may not be any historical content with a fairly comprehensive haggadic midrash reading of The Passion of the Christ in Mark. We can establish on other grounds that the historical Jesus was crucified, but the narrative details in Mark are historical fiction.

So, as I discussed with Dr. Mark Brettler and Dr. Amy Jill Levine (eds) when the first edition of their Jewish Annotated New Testament came out, the fact that we can detect exegetical work in the New Testament in and of itself leaves us nowhere epistemologically . The author may have started with facts about Jesus and shaped it according to the Old Testament model, or may have started with the Old Testament model and invented the narrative details about Jesus out of whole cloth. And, there is a lot of room in between these 2 poles. Some events could be historical, or none, or all. For instance, Matthew’s Jesus infancy narrative seems to imitate the story of Moses. We know, on the whole, Matthew is shaping his story to present Jesus as the new and greater Moses. Further, we know that ancient writers would invent childhood stories about famous people of whom nothing is known of their childhood. Moreover, these infancy details are things Mark and Paul seem completely unfamiliar with, such as the miraculous birth, which is another theme ancient writers were known to invent. Given this, we must initially bracket historicity of event claims about particular pericopes that show an obvious theological agenda because the early church would have had reason to invent it. But, this epistemological principle doesn’t simply suspend judgment on everything out of court. For instance, Paul frames his interpretation of the cross according to the Old Testament by saying Jesus was “hung on a tree,” as per Deuteronomy 21:23,

Similarly, Dennis MacDonald has tried to show that just as Mark’s narrative imitates Jewish literature, it also imitates Greek literature such as the Odyssey.  MacDonald gives the example of imitation with the story of the Gerasene Demoniac.  Price summarizes MacDonald that:

13. The Gerasene Demoniac (5:1-20)

• Again, Mark has mixed together materials from scripture and from the Odyssey. Clearly, as MacDonald shows (pp. 65, 73, 173), the core of the story derives from Odyssey 9:101-565. Odysseus and his men come to shore in the land of the hulking Cyclopes, just as Jesus and his disciples arrive by boat in the land of the Gerasenes (or Gergesenes, supposedly the remnant of the ancient Girgashites, hence possibly associated with the mythical Anakim/Rephaim, Derrett, p. 102, who were giants). Goats graze in one landscape, pigs in the other. Leaving their boats, each group immediately encounters a savage man-monster who dwells in a cave. The demoniac is naked, and Polyphemus was usually depicted naked, too. The Cyclops asks Odysseus if he has come with intent to harm him, just as the Gerasene demoniac begs Jesus not to torment him. Polyphemus asks Odysseus his name, and the latter replies “Noman,” while Jesus asks the demoniac his name, “Legion,” a name reminiscent of the fact that Odysseus’ men were soldiers. Jesus expels the legion of demons, sending them into the grazing swine, recalling Circe’s earlier transformation of Odysseus’ troops into swine. Odysseus contrives to blind the Cyclops, escaping his cave. The heroes depart, and the gloating Odysseus bids Polyphemus to tell others how he has blinded him, just as Jesus tells the cured demoniac to tell how he has exorcised him. As Odysseus’ boat retreats, Polyphemus cries out for him to return, but he refuses. As Jesus is about to depart, the man he cured asks to accompany him, but he refuses. As MacDonald notes, sheer copying from the source is about the only way to explain why Jesus should be shown refusing a would-be disciple.  Psalm 107, whence details of the stilling of the storm were borrowed, has also made minor contributions to this story as well. The detail of the demoniac having been chained up seem to come from Psalm 107’s description of “prisoners in irons” (v. 10), who “wandered in desert wastes” (v. 4) and “cried to the LORD in their trouble” (v. 6), who “broke their chains asunder” (v. 14). It is also possible that Mark had in mind the Exodus sequence, and that he has placed the story here to correspond to the drowning of the Egyptian hosts in the Sea.

This is the so-called deconstructive or higher criticism that attempts to go beyond a holistic interpretation and let individual elements have their voice.

PRICE ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

The imitative texts are more sparse for Price in the Gospel of John, but the central ones include:

The Gospel of John

• 1. Nathaniel (1:43-51)

• As all commentators agree, this episode is based on Jacob’s dream of the ladder/stairway between heaven and earth, with angels going up and down along it (Genesis 28:11-17ff). Nathaniel is to be a New Testament Jacob, lacking the shrewd worldliness of his prototype.

• 2. Water into Wine (2:1-11)

• Though the central feature of this miracle story, the transformation of one liquid into another, no doubt comes from the lore of Dionysus, the basic outline of the story owes much to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:8-24 LXX (Helms, p. 86). The widow of Zarephath, whose son has just died, upbraids the prophet: “What have I to do with you, O man of God?” (Ti emoi kai soi, 17:18). John has transferred this brusque address to the mouth of Jesus, rebuking his mother (2:4, Ti emoi kai soi, gunai). Jesus and Elijah both tell people in need of provisions to take empty pitchers (udria in 1 Kings 17:12, udriai in John 2:6-7), from which sustenance miraculously emerges. And just as this feat causes the woman to declare her faith in Elijah (“I know that you are a man of God,” v. 24), so does Jesus’ wine miracle cause his disciples to put their faith in him (v. 11).

• 3. The Samaritan Woman (4:1-44)

• As Robert Alter notes (p. 48), this scene is a variant of the “type scene” which frequently recurs in the Bible of a young man leaving home and coming to a well where he meets young women, one of whom he marries. Other instances and variants include Genesis 24 (Abraham’s servant meets Rebecca), Genesis 29 (Jacob meets Rachel); Exodus 2 (Moses meets Zipporah): Ruth 2 (Ruth meets Boaz); and 1 Samuel 9 (Saul meets the maidens at Zuph). But Helms (pp. 89-90) adds 1 Kings 17, where, again, Elijah encounters the widow of Zarephath, and it is this story which seems to have supplied the immediate model for John 4. Elijah and Jesus alike leave home turf for foreign territory. Each is thirsty and meets a woman of whom he asks a drink of water. In both stories the woman departs from the pattern of the type scene because, though having no husband as in the type scene, she is mature and lacks a husband for other reasons. The woman of Zarephath is a widow, while the Samaritan woman has given up on marriage, having had five previous husbands, now dead or divorced, and is presently just cohabiting. In both stories it is really the woman who stands in need more than the prophet, and the latter offers the boon of a miraculously self-renewing supply of nourishment, Elijah that of physical food, Jesus that of the water of everlasting life. Just as the widow exclaims that Elijah must have come to disclose her past sins (“You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance,” 1 Kings 17:18), the Samaritan admits Jesus has the goods on her as well (“He told me all that I ever did,” John 4:39).

• 5. Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene (20:1, 11-18)

• This story owes much to the self-disclosure of the angel Raphael at the climax of the Book of Tobit (Helms, pp. 146-147). When Tobias first saw Raphael, he “did not know” he was really an angel (Tobit 5:5), just as when Mary, weeping outside the tomb, first saw Jesus there, she “did not know” who he really was (20:14). Having delivered Sarah from her curse, Raphael reveals himself to Tobit and his son Tobias and announces, his work being done, that “I am ascending to him who sent me” (Tobit 12:20), just as Jesus tells Mary, “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). Why does the risen Jesus warn Mary “Touch/hold me not, for I have not yet ascended to the father” (20:17a)? This is probably an indication of ocetism, that Jesus (at least the risen Jesus) cannot be touched, not having (any longer?) a fleshly body (the story was not originally followed by the Doubting Thomas story with its tactile proofs, hence need not be consistent with it; note that in 20:17b Jesus seems to anticipate not seeing the disciples again). The reason for seeing ocetism here is the parallel it would complete between John 20 and the Raphael revelation/ascension scene, where the angel explains (Tobit 12:19), “All these days I merely appeared to you and did not eat or drink, but you were seeing a vision” (i.e., a semblance).

Generally, John is trying to avoid the crypticness leading to lack of understanding in Mark 4:11.  However, the Cana wine miracle is interesting because Jesus’ first miracle here seems to be the catalyst for belief from the disciples, but at the same time appears to be secretly fictional as the author winks to the reader that it is an old testament rewrite. Similarly, 4.43–54: Second sign: healing of the official’s son points to Your son will live, see 1 Kings 17.23 (Elijah) and 2 Kings 8.9 (Elisha).

.  John says the miraculous signs are present to initiate and foster belief.  Price comments:

• 557] In a sense, this implies that the Signs Source served as a basic skeleton for the whole book, as the evangelist packed the meat of the Revelation Discourses and the Passion Narrative onto its bones.

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 318). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

John 19:35 and 21:24 claim the material goes back to eye witnesses, although Price, as he likes to do, thinks interpolations are at work here.  Just the same, he says:

• But suppose the author is being cagey, and he is really referring to himself (cf., 2 Cor. 12:2-7). Why must we believe him? There are many such eyewitness claims in ancient writings that are clearly spurious, merely a literary device (“These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote.”). We still do this: “My name is Ishmael.” It is the crudest error to equate the narrator, who is himself a kind of character in the narrative, with the actual author who stands behind the narrative. Do I have to believe that Captain John Carter really had adventures on Mars because author Edgar Rice Burroughs posed, within the narrative, as Carter’s friend and secretary? I hope for your sanity’s sake you don’t.

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 324). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

Jesus’ striking lie to his family in the Gospel of John is particularly important if we keep in mind, as Méndez and Moss recently argue, that the Gospel of John could be a forgery, since forgery is a kind of deception and lying, and, though frowned upon, was quite common historically, as Ehrman documents in Forgery and Counterforgery. So, Moss says:

• The Gospel presents itself as the work of an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’ ministry and death. It doesn’t say it was written by John but instead states that it is the work of a “disciple whom Jesus loved,” who “testifies” to what he has seen (1:14; 19:35; 21:24). Eyewitness testimony here is an important point in the Gospel. It is because the one who wrote the Gospel had seen these things happen and written them down that “we know that his testimony is true” (21:24). (Moss, 2020)

There is currently a debate in Johannine scholarship about whether or not the Beloved Disciple or The Elder referred to by the Gospel of John were historical people. Weighing the evidence, Méndez concludes that they probably did not exist. Méndez writes:

• I have found the arguments of Ismo Dunderberg and Harry Attridge that the Beloved Disciple is probably some sort of literary device compelling. I have also been persuaded by David Litwa’s comparisons of the Beloved Disciple to invented eyewitnesses in ancient literature. As I see it, the most damning evidence against the disciple’s existence is the fact that “every Synoptic parallel that could corroborate [the disciple’s] presence at a given moment in Jesus’ life does not—not the Synoptic crucifixion scenes (cf. Mk 15.40-41; Mt. 27.55-56; Jn 19.26-27) nor Luke’s description of Peter’s visit to the tomb (Lk. 24.12; cf. Jn 20.2-10)” (363). I also find the artificial and idealized texture of the disciple highly suspicious. These issues cannot be dismissed easily. (Méndez, 2020b).

The author(s) of John seem to see the Paraclete or Beloved Disciple as an answer to the riddle of Mark 4:11 where Jesus teaches in parable to be misunderstood so people will be confused fertile ground for the event of the cross and resurrection. Price comments that:

• Bultmann notes that the Paraclete was very likely originally understood to be a second (human) revealer to appear in Jesus’ wake, to clarify and amplify his teachings. This would fit exactly with a centuries-long tradition in Middle Eastern esotericism on display among, e.g., the Ismail’is[577]and the Druze, who believe that, again and again throughout history, God has sent pairs of revealers, first, the Proclaimer, and then shortly afterwards, the Foundation. The Proclaimer would announce the public (exoteric) version of a new revelation, the Foundation providing the “inside stuff,” the esoteric meaning of it, for the elite who were able to understand it… And then there’s the business about the Paraclete transmitting new teaching to the disciples which they just wouldn’t have been able to process back in the old days. Surely it must be obvious this is just saying somebody, namely the Paraclete, is claiming to channel the Ascended Master Jesus.[582] Why is the teaching of Jesus in John so different from that presented in the Synoptics? This is why! And John 16:12-15 is poking the reader in the ribs. “Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!”

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 327). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

The very events of the gospel of John become understandable as we double take, just like mimetic stories require us to look back over ground previously trodden:

• Verse 22 is quite important as a frank admission that the theological significance of the events in Jesus’ life, which is baked right into the Synoptic cake, actually became evident only in retrospect (just as in John 12:16). The case is exactly parallel to the Christian “double take” on scripture, the retrospective “recognition” that various Old Testament passages were hitherto-unknown predictions of Jesus as the Messiah (John 20:9).

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 336). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

We further see the fictitiousness of Jesus’s wonder work with the story of the woman at the well.  Price comments that:

• But Helms[604] adds 1 Kings 17, where, again, Elijah encounters the widow of Zarephath, and this story is the one which must have provided the immediate model for John 4. Elijah and Jesus alike leave home turf for foreign territory. Each prophet is thirsty and meets a woman from whom he requests a drink of water. In both stories the woman departs from the pattern of the type scene. As usual, she lacks a husband, but for different reasons. The woman of Zarephath is a widow, while the Samaritan has sworn off matrimony, having had five previous husbands, now dead or divorced.  divorced. Now she doesn’t even bother with the ceremony and just cohabits with some guy in a trailer. In both of these stories the woman stands in need more than the prophet who has asked her help. The prophet offers her a miraculous, self-renewing source of nourishment, Elijah that of physical food, Jesus that of the water of everlasting life. And, just as the widow exclaims that Elijah must have come to disclose her past sins (“You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance,” 1 Kings 17:18), the Samaritan admits Jesus has the goods on her as well (“He told me all that I ever did,” John 4:39).

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 340). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

Jesus is God incarnate, meaning not God but exemplary of God as compassion, in that when you see Jesus in his love of widow orphan stranger and enemy, you see the essence of God shining through Jesus.  Price says:

• Thus Jesus is not the Father but points the way to the Father (John 14:6).

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 370). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

Reinhartz comments:

• No one has ever seen God, extending the contrast between Jesus and Moses, this phrase emphasizes that unlike Moses who is not permitted to see God face to face (Ex 33.18), Jesus is the one who makes God known to the world.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition

And so,

• Okay, now back to theology. John’s story of Lazarus is the great object lesson of realized eschatology. The “fact” that Lazarus need not wait for the apocalyptic End of the age to rise is a way of saying that the real resurrection, spiritual rebirth, is something that happens here and now. ​Jesus’ climactic saying (for me, even more climactic than Lazarus’ emergence from the tomb), “I am the resurrection and the life” (verse 25), appears in some manuscripts simply as “I am the resurrection,” which strikes me as even more powerful. ​The raising of Lazarus has a huge impact, convincing many to sign up with Jesus.

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 365). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

So just as we have Jesus lying to his brother which makes it possible for him to preach and create belief, we have the fictional story of the raising of Lazarus producing belief in abundant fashion.  We know the fictionality of the story for instance because Jesus is weeping even though he expressly sees this a glorifying the father.

We can thus see the contrast between the desperate Gethsemane event in the synoptics with John:

• The arrest in Gethsemane does not follow a prayer of agony as in the Synoptics. John has dispensed with all that back in chapter 12. Here he snipes at the cowardly-seeming Synoptic accounts again. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” It is a rhetorical question only, as if to say the very idea is absurd and offensive.

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 384). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

Maybe why God abandoned Jesus to the cross, Jesus thinking he knew better than God just like the Jewish authorities thinking they could outsmart God by killing Jesus even though God forbid it.

A central theme in John’s gospel is what makes belief possible.  Price writes:

• Haven’t you felt that God is asking a lot more from you than he did from those “lucky, lucky bastards,”[731] the disciples? Not much trouble believing in the resurrection of Jesus if you saw it with your own eyes, right? But if you didn’t (and that’s all subsequent Christians), you’re at one heck of a disadvantage. But you have to believe it anyway, or you’re in serious trouble. Well, that is the point of the Doubting Thomas tale. At the end of it, Jesus pretty much just turns to the audience and addresses the reader: “Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe” (verse 29). The reader is supposed to identify vicariously with Thomas, but that’s a cheat. In case you haven’t noticed, you still haven’t seen the risen Jesus for yourself! This is no less a mere piece of narrative than the resurrection stories before it. Snap out of it! You’re still just as bad off.  Anyway, this device was by no means unique to John.

Price, Robert M.. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (p. 396). Mindvendor. Kindle Edition.

The meaning of “Truth” is in play, which I will look at later:

• Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 213). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

DENNIS MACDONALD

According to Courtney J. P. Friesen:

• The popularity and influence of the Bacchae throughout antiquity are extensive, and thus its reception involves a vast cross-section of readers and audiences who span divisions of class, language and region, religion and ideology. . . . [A]ncient interest in the Bacchae extends well beyond circles of the educated elite within the “pagan” Greco-Roman world

Smith provides a helpful, concise summary of MacDonald’s work on the parallels between Jesus and the Dionysus of Euripides. He writes:

• Just as in John the heavenly Logos assumes a human body, so “Dionysus declared that he ‘changed into this mortal /appearance’ (53) in order to reveal his power to unbelieving Thebans and to punish Pentheus, their king” (30-31). Just as in John Jesus is identified by many names and titles (Logos, light, the one-of-a-kind God, the chosen one of God, king of Israel, Messiah, son of Joseph, rabbi, son of man), so also “Dionysus was notorious for his multiple titles,” including Bacchus, Bromios, Iacchos, Dithyrambos, ‘the god’, and ‘the child of Zeus’” (39). Just as Jesus’s first miracle in John is to change water into wine, “Euripides twice mentions the god’s miraculous production of wine in the Bacchae” (41). If Jesus purifies the temple, his father’s house in John 2, this “resembles Dionysus’s intention to vindicate his mother in the place of his birth” (46). Where the Johannine Jesus heals an old cripple so that he can walk again, “early in the Bacchae two old men, Cadmus and Tiresias, gain the strength to dance with the worshipping women in the wild” (47). There juvenation of Cadmus is also comparable to Jesus’s making it possible for Nicodemus, who is old, to be born anew (48-49). Just as the Baptist insists that “it is necessary that he [Jesus] increase” (3:30), so Cadmus witnesses to Dionysus that “it is now necessary- with respect to the child of my daughter, / Dionysus, a god manifest to people- / to increase 181-183). This parallel is all the more striking in view of the fact that “the combination of these two words in the New Testament; it never appears in the LXX” (50). MacDonald draws a dozen or so further parallels between the two texts. The most important of these are the “true vine” discourse and parallels between Jesus and Dionysus in terms of their respective arrests and trials, where the arresting parties are oblivious to their own ironic states of powerlessness in the confrontation. (Smith, 2018, pp. E2-E3)

MacDonald argues

The healing of a cripple in John 5:2-9a shares so much with Acts 3:1-8 that one should suspect a literary connection:

Both healings take place in Jerusalem at a named gate.

• In both, the one healed had been lame for about forty years.

• In Acts, others daily had taken the man to the temple to beg; in John, no one had assisted the man in being the first to plunge into the troubled waters.

• Peter and Jesus use precisely the same command: ἔγειρε καὶ περιπάτει.

• Both stories use precisely the same word to verify the efficacy of the healing: περιεπάτει. 100

The second example also involves an imitation of the healing of the old cripple in Acts. This miracle provoked the Sanhedrin to interrogate Peter and John; in John 11, the provocative miracle was the raising of Lazarus. Compare the episodes that come next:

• In Acts, the healing of the cripple causes many at the temple to believe, which dumbfounds the Sanhedrin; in John the raising of Lazarus causes many to believe, which troubles the Sanhedrin.

• Among the members of the Sanhedrin in both Acts and John one finds Caiaphas.

• In Acts 4 and in John 11, the Sanhedrin deliberates what they should do with men who perform irrefutable signs: τί ποιήσωμεν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τούτοις . . . σημεῖον / τί ποιοῦμεν ὅτι οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος πολλὰ ποιεῖ σημεῖα.

• In both accounts, the Sanhedrin intends to do physical harm to these miracle workers in order to protect “the people [τὸν λάον / τοῦ λάου].”

• In both accounts, despite the danger, the miracle workers return to the temple.

Surely there is sufficient reason to suspect a literary connection between these trial scenes, and insofar as elsewhere the Gospel of John displays awareness of the Gospel of Luke, it is reasonable to hold that the account in Acts influenced John (Acts<John) and not visa-versa.

Here is why this nexus matters: Vol. 2, A Mimetic Syncrisis of the Acts of the Apostles, argued for Luke’s extensive imitation of the Bacchae for describing divine madness in Jerusalem (Acts 2-5), and the excerpts from Acts 4 with parallels in John 11 appear in the middle of this section. The synopsis that follows in Volume 3 will show that whereas in Acts 9-16 Luke portrays Paul as a new Dionysus, the Fourth Gospel does the same for Jesus himself.

MacDonald argues:

• his first sign of changing water into wine in John 2:1-12, which rightly has attracted scholarly attention.4 He also calls himself “the true grapevine” (15:1 cf. v. 5), a stunning metaphor designed to rival Dionysus.  Scholars also have called attention to Jesus’s offering of eternal life to those who eat his flesh and drink his blood, which echoes the Bacchic rite of omophagia, eating raw and still bloody animal flesh in commemoration of the god’s death at the hands of the Titans and his revival thanks to his father Zeus. The rite granted the participant eternal life through identification with the deity.6  Whereas Acts repeatedly and strategically had imitated the Bacchae to portray Paul as a new Dionysus, the author(s) of the Johannine Gospel did the same for Jesus himself.

From the Bacchae on lying:

• Cadmus’ advice regarding Dionysus that “Even if this man (Dionysus) be no God, as you think, still say that he is. Be guilty of a splendid fraud, declaring him to be the son of Semele, for this will make it seem she is the mother of a God, and will confer honor on all our race” (lines 332-336).

I have now come to the land of the Greeks for the first time,

after having made those regions dance and having established my

rites, so that a god might be revealed to mortals.

Of the cities of Greece, Thebes was the first one

that I stirred to ululate, having clothed the women in fawn skin

and placed the thyrsus in their hands, my ivied spear.

Since my mother’s sisters—whom one might least expect—

were saying that Dionysus was not born from Zeus,

but that Semele had been seduced by some mortal man,

and that she had attributed to Zeus her own sexual sin,

[her pregnancy by Zeus being] a sophistry by Cadmus; on account of this

they gloated publicly that Zeus killed her, because she lied about the marriage.

For this reason I drove them [the women] from their homes.

Compare Johannine Jesus with super high Christology:

god-fights against me, bars me from libations,

and never remembers me in his prayers.

For this reason I will show him that I am a god,

and all the Thebans, too. And into some other land,

once I have set things right here, I will travel by foot

and reveal myself.  To this end I have changed into this mortal

appearance and transformed my shape into the form of a man. (45–50 and 53–54)

MacDonald comments:

• Whereas Dionysus came to Thebes to punish its disbelief, the Logos came to earth as its savior

For his overall picture, MacDonald says

• Archaeologists bent on monitoring the history of the pueblo must begin with the most recent and dig down to the first to discover, date, and interpret its earliest Anasazi stratum. Similarly, this Methodological Prolegomenon will first target the most recent and canonical recension, which I will call the Beloved Disciple Gospel. The next layer down is the Anti-Jewish Gospel, and the earliest layer is the Dionysian Gospel, which supplements the Synoptics with mimesis of Euripides’ Bacchae. All three compositional strata postdate the Johannine Epistles, the earliest stratum of the Apocalypse, and Papias’s Exposition.

MacDonald comments regarding the middle anti Jewish stratum that:

• One might say that Jesus’s relationship with the outgroup, “the Jews,” is that of a condemning judge, whereas his relationship with the ingroup is that of a mystical friend. Neither role characterizes his portrayal in the first stratum or in additions by the last.38

This seems to miss Paul’s point that the Law was uniquely given to the Jews knowing they would transgress it making the evil sin nature conspicuous and hence ripe for repentance.  Hence John says Salvation is from the Jews (4:22)

MacDonald says:

• The Paraclete as the Post-Mortem Voice of the Prototypical Leader. In 1 John one finds the earliest Johannine reference to a Paraclete, none other than Jesus himself, who will advocate for the faithful at the final judgment. But in the Anti-Jewish Gospel, one reads of “another Paraclete” who will succeed Jesus, “the spirit of truth,” who will teach the disciples “all things” and “remind” them “of everything” that Jesus had taught them.

• Udo Schnelle: “The Paraclete takes on, above all, a hermeneutical function: he becomes a teacher, witness, and interpreter for the community of the meaning of the person of Jesus Christ and will lead the believers in the future.”43 This promise of continued divine revelation to Johannine believers would help to explain their audacious fabrications of extensive discourses. The Paraclete makes no appearance in content created by the first or the final strata.

Regarding the earliest stratum, MacDonald comments:

• It also is worth noting that the prototypical leader in the Dionysian Gospel, unlike the Jesus of the two later strata, makes no provision for the leadership of the ingroup after his death. There is no extended last will and testament, as in the Synoptics; no promise of a Paraclete, as in the Anti-Jewish Gospel; no restoration of Simon Peter to be the shepherd of the flock, as in the Beloved Disciple Gospel. The laser-thin focus on Jesus himself suggests that devotion to him alone defines the ingroup.

MacDonald comments from mimesis of the Bacchae.

In the first line in his opening monologue, Dionysus declares “I, the child of Zeus, have come,” and several lines later reveals why he had disguised himself as a mortal priest and had come to Thebes: “Whether it wants to or not, this city must learn the truth, / though now it is ignorant of my bacchic rites; / I will give a defense on behalf of my mother Semele” (39-41), who had conceived him by a god. By placing the purging of the temple at the beginning of Jesus’s career, the earliest Johannine evangelist identifies Jesus as the avenger of those who were abusing his Father’s house.

The absurdity of the temple story pointing to a different reason for Jesus’s arrest contrasting John with the Synoptics.  Price explains

• Mark:

33. Cleansing the Temple (1:15-18)

• Jesus’ overthrow of the Temple service (not only does he scatter the livestock for offerings but somehow bans anyone carrying sacrificial vessels) is historically impossible as it reads here. The envisioned area is huge, and for Jesus to commandeer it like this would have required a military raid, something of which Mark’s text seems oblivious. Though it is not unlikely that the story preserves some faded memory of the entry of Simon bar-Gioras into the Temple to clean out the robbers of John of Giscala on the eve of the Temple’s destruction, the story may simply conflate various scripture passages, which it seems to do in any case. The “cleansing” must have in view that of Malachi’s messenger of the covenant who will purify the sons of Levi (3:1-3, as hinted by Mark 1:2 and 9:3), as well as the oracle of Zechariah 14:21b, “And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.” The saying of Jesus on that occasion is merely a conflation of Isaiah 56:7 (“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”) and Jeremiah 7:11 (“Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”). The priests and scribes react to this disturbance by plotting to destroy Jesus, just as the priests, prophets, and people lay hold of Jeremiah and cry out, “You shall die!” when he likewise predicts the destruction of the city and the Temple (26:8) (Miller, p. 274).

The temple tantrum episode isn’t meant as an explanation for why Jesus ticked off the Jewish leaders which ultimately led to Jesus’s death.  It isn’t about Jesus at all except that Jesus was God’s special emissary and represented Him. 

Reinhartz comments that:

• Son of God, the most frequent christological designation in the Gospel of John, which portrays Jesus as God’s unique son, the one who does his will (5.30) and serves as his agent (e.g., 6.38). In Ex 4.22–23, God refers to Israel collectively as “my son” (see also Hos 11.1). In Job 1.6 and 38.7 “sons of God” refers to angels.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Jesus’s temple tantrum is meant to show the the temple was destroyed by the Romans as part of God’s plan because it had become corrupt. In an ancient world where the Jews were continually under the thumb of different conquering powers and the Romans had destroyed the centerpiece of Jewish life in the temple, what we have is what the Jewish tradition always came up with: an apologetic for how God could be in charge and yet the Jews were suffering.  For example, for Israelites of the time of the Babylonians, the Babylonians’ destruction of the Temple and exiling of the Israelite elite wasn’t understood to mean that the Babylonian gods had won. Instead, it apologetically meant that the God of the Israelites was working through the Babylonians to teach the Jews a lesson.  So, yes the later temple in the 70’s CE was destroyed, but it was God’s will because it had become corrupt.  Jesus’ temple tantrum was God passing judgment on the corrupt temple cult.  Obviously, this has nothing to do with why the leaders turned on Jesus because it never happened, for a host of reasons: eg there would have been guards there to deal with such a disturbance.  Jesus exemplifies this hiddeness of God in the Jewish tradition, such as the theme of the messianic secret Wrede noted.  The Gospel of John is going to argue Jesus was killed because of the Lazarus incident, the leaders were threatened by Jesus’s powers.

MacDonald notes:

• In the Synoptics, the purging of the temple of “robbers” fueled the ire of the temple authorities, but this episode takes place much earlier in the Dionysian Gospel (2:13-22). The immediate cause of Jesus’s death in the Dionysian Gospel becomes instead the raising of Lazarus.

Exploring further, giving a different interpretation of the scene from the cross with Jesus’s mother, we read from MacDonald:

• The final redaction predictably gives a crucial role to the Beloved Disciple, the only friendly male at the cross and the one to whom Jesus entrusts his mother (vv. 26b-27). In v. 35 one reads: “the one who saw it has given eyewitness, and his witness is true that he knew that he was speaking the truth, so that you too might believe.” The authors of the Anti-Jewish Gospel, on the other hand, apparently had said nothing about the Beloved Disciple and had added to the first edition the casting of lots for Jesus’s garments, “so that the scriptures might be fulfilled” (vv. 22-24). Similarly, in v. 28b they added “so that the scriptures be fulfilled.” Finally, these authors composed the entire episode about the piercing of Jesus’s side “so that the writing might be fulfilled” and inserted two biblical citations (in 19:31-34 and 36-37).

• Once one removes these secondary additions, the Johannine crucifixion scene reads differently and again displays Euripidean influence. In the first place, Jesus’s statement, “Woman, behold your son” no longer instructs her to look upon the Beloved Disciple and an ersatz son; instead, it instructs her to look upon him.154

He threw his [female] headdress from his hair,

so that pitiable Agave, on recognizing him, might not kill him.

And he says, touching her cheek,

“Mother, it is I, your son

Pentheus, whom you bore in the house of Echion.

O mother, have pity on me! Do not kill me for my

sins—your own child!” (Bacch. 1115-1121)

Demented by Dionysus, Agave failed to recognize her son and killed him.

Reinhartz comments:

• “Woman,” an unusual and discourteous address to one’s mother, though Jesus uses it elsewhere to introduce a revelation (4.21; 19.26; 20.13,15). This mode of address implies a distance between Jesus and his mother (which is overcome at the cross),

By contrast, if MacDonald is right about the different strata, at an earlier stage we are invited to look at Jesus on the cross through the pained eyes of his mother, and at a later stage in the middle of torture/crucifixion caring only for his mother’s welfare and entrusting her to the beloved disciple,

Regarding Jesus’s last words, MacDonald comments that:

• The evolution of final utterances in the canonical Gospels is a spectacular example of a mimetic chain. Jesus’s last words in Mark are “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (15:34 [# 216]). Although it clearly is a citation of Ps. 21:2 (MT 22:2), it also imitates Hector’s recognition that Apollo had abandoned him in Il. 22.209-213 and 295-303. Matthew repeated Mark here, apart from rendering the cry of dereliction not in Greek but in transliteration of a Semitic text (27:46). Luke, however, replaced the cry of dereliction with the confident citation of Ps. 30:6 (MT 31:6): “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (23:46), imitating perhaps Socrates’ confidence before dying in Plato’s Phaedo.   John’s Jesus is even more confident, even triumphant; his final utterance consists of a single Greek word: τετέλεσται, “‘it [i.e., his mission] has been completed.’ He dropped his head and handed over his spirit” (19:30). His death in the Dionysian Gospel is the victorious exit stage left of the King of the Jews. In the Bacchae, after the god of wine successfully completed his mission to punish Thebes and especially Pentheus and the royal family, he departs and then returns deus ex in his true Olympian glory. Jesus, too, will return to the Johannine stage victorious after his resurrection.

ADELE REINHARTZ on the nature of the Gospel of John

• John 20.30–31 describes the Gospel’s intended purpose. The NRSV reads, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” This translation implies that the purpose is to bring new believers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah (Christ) and Son of God. This matter, however, is not so straightforward. The verb translated as “that you may come to believe” reflects a particular manuscript tradition. Other manuscripts contain a different form of the verb that is better translated “that you may continue to believe.” This second form suggests that the Gospel was intended to strengthen the faith of those who already believed Jesus to be the Messiah and Son of God. While both readings have significant manuscript support, the latter reading is preferred by most textual critics. It also better suits the overall tone and content of the Gospel, which does not have a strong missionary focus. The Gospel’s direct address to its audience — “so that you may continue to believe” (20.31)—has suggested to many scholars that the Gospel was written within and for the sake of a specific community, known as the “Johannine community.” This hypothesis also coheres with the view that the Gospel should be read as a two-level drama that tells both the biography of Jesus and the historical experience of a community. The expulsion hypothesis is used by some to explain the predominantly negative role “the Jews” play in the narrative: if “the Jews” expelled the Johannine community from the synagogue, that is, from the Jewish community, and if the Gospel reflects that experience, then perhaps the Gospel’s hostile passages are a natural consequence of that trauma…It is important to stress, however, that the Gospel itself makes no reference to a Johannine community, nor does it, as noted above, require a two-level reading. These are scholarly constructs for which there is no external evidence.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 171). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

However, if the core of the gospel is Dionysian as MacDonald argues, this casts serious doubt on Reinhartz’s reading that the mission among gentiles is not a core issue.  Reinhartz comments:

• The passage suggests the practice of theophagy (lit., “eating the god”) associated with Greco-Roman mystery cults such as those of Demeter and Dionysus. The allusion implies the Gospel writer’s familiarity with such cults and supports the hypothesis that the audience included Gentiles.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

She emphasizes the intertextuality of the gospel,

• The Gospel includes numerous quotations and allusions to the Pentateuch (Torah) and prophetic literature, as well as the writings (see annotations for examples), most likely in Greek translation. Important biblical figures such as Abraham, Moses, and Jacob are mentioned. More subtly, certain biblical narratives form the basis of several of the major discourses. Lady Wisdom and her association with God and with creation, is a major feature of Jn 1.1–18, the Gospel’s Prologue (Prov 8; Sir 24; Wis 10; cf. Philo, De Opificio [“On the Creation”]). The Abraham cycle (Gen 12–36) underlies Jn 8.31–59, especially the contrast between Ishmael and Isaac (Gen 16 and 21; see also Jn 8.34–35), Abraham’s hospitality to three angelic visitors (Gen 18; see also Jn 8.39–44), and the tradition that Abraham was given a vision of the future times and heavenly worlds (Gen 15.17–20; see also Jn 8.53–58; T. Abr.). The Exodus from Egypt is evoked throughout John 6.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (pp. 171-172). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Regarding the Jews,

• Nevertheless, John’s Gospel has been used to promote anti-Semitism. Most damaging has been Jn 8.44, where Jesus declares that the Jews have the devil as their father.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 173). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

This is questionable, because Paul points out the Jews are uniquely guilty because God gave them the law which he intended them to transgress to make sin conspicuous and thus inspire repentance.

Regarding Signs,

• “Signs” stories, which are the accounts of Jesus’ miracles, tend to have the following general structure: identification of a problem, expectation that Jesus will provide the remedy, apparent frustration of this expectation, the sign itself, and the aftermath. For example, in 2.1–12, the wedding at Cana, Jesus’ mother points out to Jesus that the wine has run out, and she clearly expects him to do something about this; he rebukes her (2.4) and states that his hour has not yet come. He then performs the miracle. The steward marvels, and the narrator explains, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (2.11). This pattern suggests that Jesus’ miracles are intended not to demonstrate his superhuman abilities, but to testify to his identity as the Son of God. This aspect of the Johannine signs recalls Ex 10.2, in which God tells Moses that the signs that he has done among the Egyptians were in order that the people might know that “I am the Lord.” As noted above, some scholars think that these sign stories existed earlier in a separate source used by the author of John. A second example of narrative patterning appears in the stories depicting the call of the disciples. In almost every case, new followers are brought to Jesus by someone who has already become a follower. For example, John the Baptizer tells two of his disciples to follow Jesus. One of them, Andrew, tells his brother Simon Peter, who then becomes a disciple (1.42). Jesus finds Philip, who tells Nathanael, who then encounters Jesus and becomes a disciple (1.49). The Samaritan woman meets Jesus and then testifies to her Samaritan community, which then invites Jesus to stay with them, after which they become believers (4.41–42). The purpose of this pattern becomes clear at the end of the Gospel, when Thomas refuses to believe the disciples’ testimony that Jesus has risen from the dead unless he can see for himself. Jesus returns and invites him to see and touch him, but he offers a gentle rebuke: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (20.29). Here the Johannine Jesus is clearly addressing readers who will not see Jesus directly but who nevertheless believe. The concluding statement (20.30–31) indicates that for later generations, the Gospel of John will be the means through which believers encounter Jesus.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (pp. 173-174). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

We see in John that Jesus is the Passover lamb, not the Yom Kippur goats.  I would point to my two penal substitution essays to more fully explore this, but here consider Reinhartz that the issue with Jesus’s sacrifice is not individual sins:

• Takes away the sin of the world, the singular (sin) rather than plural (sins) suggests a redemptive function to the “Lamb of God” in that he removes the world’s sinful condition (as opposed to removing the consequences of each individual’s misdeeds). The fact that biblical law does not identify the Passover as a “sin” offering did not prevent the Gospel from associating lamb imagery with the redemption from sin in this passage.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

There is a consistent theme in the gospel of misunderstandings that are then resolved.  Reinhartz says:

• Another misunderstanding. The Jews take Jesus to refer to the Dispersion (the Diaspora), yet readers know that Jesus is alluding to his death. Greeks, Gentiles rather than Diaspora Jews.
• More misunderstanding; the Jews ask about Jesus’ paternity, whereas Jesus claims God as his father.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Reinharz offers a discourse on truth in the gospel:

• The truth will make you free, Heb “ʾemet,” “truth,” implies reliability or steadfastness. For John, truth can only be knowledge of and faith in Jesus’ identity as the Messiah and Son of God. Jesus’ statement could be combined with his claim, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (14.6) to mean “The one who knows me knows the truth and is thereby free.” This statement, and the passage as a whole, plays on the contrast between Isaac and Ishmael (see Gal 4): Isaac as the son of the free woman, Sarah, and Ishmael, as the son of the slave woman, Hagar. Faith in Jesus signifies one’s own freedom and therefore identity as the son of Isaac and heir to the Abrahamic covenant.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

However, Reinhartz does not approach truth from re-velation (a-letheia), and so does not penetrate to what is most essential here.  We read,

• Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 213). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Reinhartz comments

• The way … , summary of Johannine Christology. Christ-believers called themselves “the Way” (Acts 9.2). Truth … life, knowledge of truth is a personal relationship, not an intellectual experience. No one … except through me, basis for exclusive claims of Christian salvation.

Jesus is the only way because he was God’s chosen one who was nonetheless rejected and brutally tortured/crucified.  The sins of those guilty were thus conspicuous in a way that could truly inspire repentance for those who could see this evil in themselves.  Works, not just “signs” but Jesus’ willingness to offer his life (15.13).  Reinhartz comments:

• For John’s Gospel, the Jews, who plotted Jesus’ death, are Satan’s agents (8.44).  Not have sin, as elsewhere, sin is not a moral category but rather denotes lack of faith in Jesus.  They have no excuse, those who knew Jesus and saw his works cannot claim ignorance as an excuse for their opposition to him. 23: Hates my Father, Jews who do not believe in Jesus are said to “hate” God.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

John stresses the lack of the Jews ability to believe, a problem that will be rectified by the moral influence cross.  Jesus says:

• 34Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 195). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

.Reinhartz says:

• Could not believe, the Jews’ lack of understanding is seen as evidence of their inability to believe, which in turn must somehow be part of a divine plan, given God’s power over God’s creation.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

It was coming to see that Jesus was God’s specially favored and chosen one who was sent to the cross and resurrected that would open eyes.

Jesus’s only lamentation in John is that Judas had to betray him, not concern for his own well being following the desperate Gethsemane prayer.  He did his best to protect his disciples, but couldn’t protect Judas.  But, John emphasizes that the devil entering Judas and the betrayal fulfilled God’s scripture, and so it was all part of God’s plan.  The law made the Jew’s sin conspicuous, but this was all part of the plan to defeat Satan:

• Could not believe, the Jews’ lack of understanding is seen as evidence of their inability to believe, which in turn must somehow be part of a divine plan, given God’s power over God’s creation… Troubled in spirit, a reference to deep emotion; see 11.33. This is the only point at which John’s Jesus shows any concern about the events that await him; the immediate reference here, however, is to the betrayal and not to his impending death. See, by contrast, the Gethsemane prayer in Mt 26.36–46; Mk 14.32–42; Lk 22.39–46.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Conclusion

We see the level of lunacy Jesus’s opponents were operating in.  Jesus did amazing works of God but all they could focus on is whether he did them on the Sabbath. With the healing at the pool, we see this exchange:

• 5O ne man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 8Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”  16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. 17But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” 18For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 186). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

With all his demonstrations, the crowd still needed to know whether Jesus fulfilled a trivial messianic prophecy like where he was born:

• 40When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.” 41Others said, “This is the Messiah.”d But some asked, “Surely the Messiahd does not come from Galilee, does he? 42Has not the scripture said that the Messiahd is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” 43So there was a division in the crowd because of him. 44Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 193). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

The priority of the beloved disciple over Peter is clear in this exchange:

• 25Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

There is Platonic imagery here with Plato and Crito offering a cock to Asclepius for the poison that will heal the ancient world.  We see also a contrast between the cowardly lies of Peter and the noble lie of Plato.  Plato’s justice required the impaled just man, just as the cross of Jesus was required, with allusion to Jesus healing like Moses’ staff.

This Gospel is all about establishing belief so those who have not seen can believe,

• 24This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament (p. 218). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

But, the irony is all this begins with the Cana wine miracle, which the writer winks at the reader is just a fictive rewrite of scripture.  So, getting back to the initial question, thinking Jesus died because of the temple tantrum misunderstands that it is merely a fictive story that is an apologetic of God (which the Jewish writers always seemed to need because they were constantly being conquered), while John argues it was Jesus’ work as a healer that got him in trouble.

Bibliography:

MacDonald, Dennis. Synopses of Epic, Tragedy, and the Gospels Paperback – 2022

Price, Robert M. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith Paperback – 2017

The Jewish Annotated New Testament Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition (2017)