WHERE WE ARE

In Part 1 of this series, I showed there was good reason to believe that the Gospel of Mark was written about three decades before the Gospel of John (70 C.E. vs. 100 C.E.). That means that if there are significant conflicts between the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, we should infer that the Gospel of Mark is more likely to be correct on those points than the Gospel of John, other things being equal.

In Part 2 of this series, I showed that there was a significant conflict between the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John over this question:

Was “the kingdom of God” a central focus of the teachings of Jesus?

In Part 3 of this series, I showed that there was a significant conflict between the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John over this question:

Was casting out demons a key focus of the ministry of Jesus?

In Part 4 of this series, I showed that there was a significant conflict between the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John over this question:

Were religious statements by Jesus of the form “I am the …” a key focus of his teachings?

Because the Gospel of Mark was probably written about three decades before the Gospel of John, that gives us good reason to accept the view of the Gospel of Mark that “the kingdom of God” was a central focus of the teachings of Jesus, and that casting out demons was a key focus of the ministry of Jesus, and that religious statements by Jesus of the form “I am the …” were NOT a key focus of his teachings, contrary to the Gospel of John.

Furthermore, the Gospel of Matthew agrees with the Gospel of Mark on all three of these significant questions, and the Gospel of Luke also agrees with the Gospel of Mark on all three questions. So, the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke provide further evidence of the correctness of the Gospel of Mark on these three significant points and of the incorrectness of the Gospel of John on these significant questions. This evidence is sufficient to show that the Gospel of John is historically unreliable.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS VS. THE SERMONS OF JESUS

However, there are more good reasons that show the Gospel of John to be historically unreliable. In this current post, I will present another reason for this skeptical view of the Gospel of John. This reason is based on a distinction between the sayings of Jesus and the sermons of Jesus. Basically, in the Gospel of Mark (as well as in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke) we find sayings of Jesus rather than sermons or religious speeches of Jesus, but in the Gospel of John we find not just sayings of Jesus but also some alleged sermons or religious speeches (discourses) of Jesus. This difference raises another problem with the historical reliability of the Gospel of John.

The problem is not that there is a conflict between the Gospels over whether Jesus sometimes gave sermons. The Gospel of John might well be correct in implying that Jesus sometimes preached sermons or taught in long discourses. The problem is that the content of a sermon or discourse is much more difficult to remember accurately than the content of a saying:

We know that the oral memory best retains sayings and anecdotes that are short, provocative, memorable–and oft-repeated. Indeed, the oral memory retains little else. This information squares with the fact that the most frequently recorded words of Jesus in the surviving gospels take the form of aphorisms and parables. It is highly probable that the earliest layer of the gospel tradition was made up almost entirely of single aphorisms and parables that circulated by word of mouth, without narrative context…[1]

There were no video cameras or tape recorders to capture the numerous sentences and paragraphs that Jesus would have uttered in an hour-long sermon, or in a half-hour long discourse. Paper and pens were not readily available 2,000 years ago, and most people in ancient Palestine, including the disciples of Jesus, did not know how to read and write. So, very few people would be able to take notes during, or shortly after, Jesus delivered a sermon.

It is very unlikely that the sermons of Jesus were written down at the time Jesus gave them. It is also very unlikely that anyone could remember an entire sermon by Jesus, or even a large portion of a sermon by Jesus, with a significant degree of accuracy. Sayings, however, especially striking aphorisms or meaningful parables could be remembered with significant accuracy, especially if Jesus often repeated particular aphorisms or parables to his followers.

Therefore, it is very possible that many of the sayings of Jesus that we find in the Gospels could have been remembered and preserved in oral traditions by the followers of Jesus for a few decades, and that this preserved some of the ideas and sayings of the historical Jesus with a significant degree of accuracy, until some educated and literate Christians put the alleged teachings of Jesus into writing.

WHAT ABOUT THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT?

An obvious objection to the above argument is that the Gospel of Matthew contains the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7), and that the Gospel of Luke contains the “Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6:17-49). So, it is not just the Gospel of John that presents sermons by Jesus.

I have two main responses to this objection. First, if we take the “Sermon on the Mount” (or the “Sermon on the Plain”) to be an attempt to accurately represent a specific sermon delivered by the historical Jesus, the alleged content of this sermon would be subject to the same skeptical issues faced by the sermons (or religious discourses of Jesus) found in the Gospel of John. It is very unlikely that the “Sermon on the Mount” accurately preserved a specific sermon delivered by the historical Jesus.

Second, NT and Jesus scholars do not generally view the “Sermon on the Mount” to be an attempt to accurately represent a specific sermon delivered by the historical Jesus. Rather, this is an organized collection of some sayings of Jesus (some of which might accurately represent actual sayings of the historical Jesus) organized largely by the author of the Gospel of Matthew, as noted by the NT scholar M. Eugene Boring[2]:

…it is clear that the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew’s composition. Although some of the sayings are from the historical Jesus[108], the Sermon on the Mount is not a report of a speech actually given on a Galilean hillside. In the sixteenth century John Calvin had already taught that the sermon expresses the intention of the evangelist “of gathering into one single passage the chief headings of Christ’s teaching, that had regard to the rule of godly and holy living”–i.e. it is the composition of the evangelist [the author of the Gospel of Matthew].[109]

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FOOTNOTES:

108. So say most scholars. Betz argues that the sermon was composed by a Jewish Christian in a pre-Matthean church and incorporated en bloc by Matthew. See Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount.

109. John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972) 1:168.

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A question often arises about whether the “Sermon on the Plain” in the Gospel of Luke is just a different presentation of the same sermon by Jesus that is presented in the “Sermon on the Mount” in the Gospel of Matthew. The NT scholar Robert Stein points to two different explanations of the differences between these two sermons:

Augustine suggested that the differences are due to their being two different sermons uttered by Jesus at two different times and places. Others, like Calvin, have argued that they are two versions of the same basic sermon of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1-7:29) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49) are literary creations of Matthew and Luke in the sense that they are collections of Jesus’ sayings that were uttered at various times and places and have been brought together primarily due to topical considerations, i.e., in order to have an orderly account (1:3). There is no need, however, to deny that a historical event lies behind the scene. Jesus’ teachings on a mountain/plain has been used as an opportunity by the Evangelists [the authors of these Gospels] (or the tradition) to bring other related teachings of Jesus in at this point.[3]

Stein appears to endorse the view that both the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain were “collections of Jesus’ sayings that were uttered at various times and places”. This implies that these were NOT attempts to accurately present the content of a particular sermon delivered by Jesus, even though Jesus may have in fact delivered a sermon on the mount, and/or a sermon on the plain.

In any case, many NT scholars view both of these “sermons” as compositions created by the authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, drawing on various alleged sayings of Jesus that they selected and organized into these sermons. There are five “sermons” of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, and they can be viewed as collections of alleged sayings and parables of Jesus from various times and places that were selected and organized by the author of the Gospel of Matthew, who put them into the form of a sermon.

RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Unlike the sermons in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, the religious discourses of Jesus found in the Gospel of John are not collections of sayings and/or parables that were selected and organized by the author of the Gospel of John. They are more like an actual coherent speech or discourse.

Because the Gospel of John was probably written six or seven decades after Jesus was crucified, it is highly improbable that these speeches or discourses represent actual speeches or discourses by the historical Jesus with any degree of accuracy. Thus, as with many speeches in ancient historical writings, these speeches or discourses were probably composed by the author of the Gospel of John (or by a first-century Christian preacher who had been a follower of Jesus and who was known to the author of the Gospel of John as the “beloved disciple” of Jesus) and do not represent attempts to accurately reproduce a sermon or discourse presented by the historical Jesus.

It is not, however, merely the fact that Jesus delivers sermons or discourses in the Gospel of John instead of sayings or parables like we find in the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Luke. There are other good reasons to doubt that the sermons or discourses attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John accurately reflect that words and teachings of Jesus, as I shall argue now.

THREE DISCOURSES RELATED TO “I AM THE …” STATEMENTS BY JESUS

There are three discourses in the Gospel of John that are related to alleged religious statements by Jesus of the form “I am the …”:

• The Bread of Life Discourse (John 6:35–58)
• The Good Shepherd Discourse (John 10:1–18)
• The True Vine Discourse (John 15:1-17)

In addition to the length of these discourses giving us a good reason to doubt the historical reliability of the words attributed to Jesus in these passages, there are other good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of these three discourses:

• Jesus does not discuss the kingdom of God in any of these alleged discourses, which was a central focus of the teachings of the historical Jesus (see Part 2 of this series)
• Jesus does not present any parables in these discourses (or anywhere else) in the Gospel of John, but parables were a key focus of the teachings of the historical Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Luke.
• In these discourses, Jesus asserts religious claims about himself in the form of “I am the …” statements, but such claims are never made by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Matthew, or the Gospel of Luke (see Part 4 of this series)

For these reasons, it is probably the case that these three discourses are either fictional, composed completely by the author of the Gospel of John without any eyewitness testimony or eyewitness memory as the basis for them, or they have some basis in eyewitness testimony or memory, but that testimony or memory contained a significant degree of inaccuracy. In short, we may reasonably conclude that these three discourses are historically unreliable accounts of the words and teachings of Jesus.

ONE-ON-ONE DIALOGUES BETWEEN JESUS AND ANOTHER PERSON

Discourses by Jesus in the Gospel of John also include one-on-one dialogues between Jesus and another person. Here are some examples of such one-on-one dialogues:

1. Dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:1-21)
2. Dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (John 4:1-42)
3. Dialogue between Jesus and Pilate (John 18:28-19:16)
4. Dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18)
5. Dialogue between Jesus and Thomas (John 20:24-29)

There are good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of these one-on-one dialogues between Jesus and other persons. So, once again, although the frequent occurrence of discourses of Jesus in the Gospel of John is by itself a good reason to doubt the historical reliability of this Gospel, concerning the words and teachings of Jesus, there are additional good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of many of the specific dialogues in the Gospel of John.

If I can show that there are such additional good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of the above examples of one-on-one dialogues in the Gospel of John, that will, in conjunction with the historical unreliability of the previously discussed three discourses where Jesus makes religious statements of the form “I am the …”, provide sufficient reason to conclude that the Gospel of John is historically unreliable, especially concerning the words and teachings of Jesus.

In the next post of this series, I will critically examine the above one-on-one dialogues found in the Gospel of John.

END NOTES

1. Robert Funk, Roy Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), p.28, emphasis added.
2. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), p.172, emphasis added.
3. Robert Stein, The New American Commentary, Volume 24 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press,1992), p.198, emphasis added.