So I read the Gospels

[Plotinus]

Yes, and in the west there are even priests - both Catholic and Anglican - who specialise in exorcism.

In Africa, there is nothing rare about exorcism. It is done all the time. African Christianity is often quite different from western Christianity and it retains the supernaturalism of traditional African religions. Typically, even western Christians who believe that miracles, exorcisms etc happened in biblical times don't expect them to happen today, but Africans typically don't make that distinction, and they expect exorcisms, healings, and the rest right now. When this happens in churches that are part of a larger denomination there can be tensions. Emmanuel Milingo is a perfect example of this. He was the Catholic archbishop of Lusaka, and he held frequent and enormous exorcism and healing services that alarmed the Vatican so much that they removed him from his post and sent him to Rome in 1983. The fear was that his services were basically about superstition and charlatanry rather than real Catholic faith. You see, Christians in the west are often very pleased at the incredible advances that Christianity has made in Africa over the past century, but they don't often appreciate just how different Christianity is there and what tensions this sort of thing is going to cause in the future between the churches.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Will there be a schism? Will the African catholics break off like the church of England did? Or be booted out?

 

[Plotinus]

Who knows?

There is already schism threatened within the Anglican church, between the more liberal Americans and the frankly fundamentalist Africans. Peter Akinola, the archbishop of Nigeria, keeps threatening to take his church out of the Anglican communion unless the archbishop of Canterbury unequivocally condemns homosexuality under all circumstances. Since there are more Anglicans in Nigeria than in any other country in the world, even England, this sort of thing is a problem. I think it's less of a problem for Catholicism, though, which is more doctrinally uniform than Anglicanism.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If that happens, it would seem to me that England will side with the US and the African Anglican church will go its own way and devolve into a quasi christianity like we see in some Native American tribes in the southwestern US and rural Mexico.

 

[Plotinus]

Ah, but much of the Church of England has been virtually hijacked by conservative evangelicals who agree with Akinola. If there really were a schism over homosexuality, a very large proportion of the Church of England would want to be on the side of Nigeria rather than New Hampshire. This is why Rowan Williams always looks stressed!

 

[jonatas]

I think it's less of a problem for Catholicism, though, which is more doctrinally uniform than Anglicanism.

But it's also a political issue which reflects into doctrinal conflict I guess. There are varying strains of "Christianity" in Africa. Some are what I would characterize as "Fundamentalist", whereas others are more syncretic, combining indigenous beliefs with Catholicism, for example. You get this in Latin and South America too, which has produced some pretty exotic strains of Catholicism which are incorporated with African or Native beliefs, and even voodoo. I guess perhaps some of these regions just manage to escape notice, and develop/carry on their way of doing things, which is strong among the people. In this sense it's due to customs and cultural history I guess. Still you can get considerable variation on Catholicism, not that it would be necessarily approved in terms of doctrine.

 

[onejayhawk]

I just really liked the parables in Matthew...the sermon on the mount being my favorite part of the entire Gospels, and Luke is very similar to Matthew...

To me, John seemed to portray Jesus in a way that I'm most likely not to believe, not that I don't believe it, but of the personalities in Jesus, the Jesus portrayed in the other three gospels makes him an actual human, less godly figure, who relates more to the people in my opinion...and sees things in more of a black and white view...but that could just have been how I read it at the time too...

Two things to remember about John. First, while there is dispute about who wrote the book, it is quite possibly by the named author, and possibly late in his life, 30 or 40 years after the event. If so, he was clearly, and by a wide margin, the person omoung the 12 closest to the master. The book just drips of close personal relationship. Also, it has, more than the others, observations typical of an eyewitness, eg the comment about the scent of perfume filling the house in the scene where the sinfull woman washed Jesus' feet with her hair (prostitute?).

The other thing is that John shows much less refinement, as if it were written or dictated at a long sitting, rather than footnoted and polished like Matthew and Luke. That being said, it is easily the most difficult of the four to really get a grip on. The focus on love is very simple, but many of the teachings are slippery. The old chestnut is that a child could wade, but an elephant would drown. This is also consistant with a single author, writing after long reflection.

J

 

[Louis XXIV]

But it's also a political issue which reflects into doctrinal conflict I guess. There are varying strains of "Christianity" in Africa. Some are what I would characterize as "Fundamentalist", whereas others are more syncretic, combining indigenous beliefs with Catholicism, for example. You get this in Latin and South America too, which has produced some pretty exotic strains of Catholicism which are incorporated with African or Native beliefs, and even voodoo. I guess perhaps some of these regions just manage to escape notice, and develop/carry on their way of doing things, which is strong among the people. In this sense it's due to customs and cultural history I guess. Still you can get considerable variation on Catholicism, not that it would be necessarily approved in terms of doctrine.

Well, that's nothing unusual. Many Irish Catholics have always believed in Giants and Leprechauns and just incorporated it into their religion.

 

[onejayhawk]

My priest told me that there are some anachronisms in John, also, which tend to point out that the author of John never really knew Jesus. But then, none of the Gospel writers really did, did they?

Matthew may have been written by the titled disciple. Mark and Luke dont even pretend to be among the 12, though Jesus had a larger following than just his chosen few.

Still, I would take issue with your priest. Of the 4, I think John shows the most personal, eye wittness, touches. The fact that it shows the least polish also can be argued both ways. Even apparent insertions, like the story of the Plotinus discusses, can lend an air of verisimilitude, when taken in certain light, such as a recorded conversation, or notes from a lecture or discourse.

J

 

[Plotinus]

I don't understand this claim that John shows the least polish. On the contrary, it is arguably the most polished of the Gospels. A careful study of the structure of the Gospel shows that it has been through several versions before taking the form that we know (a major stage in its composition, for example, was the incorporation of what is sometimes called the Book of Signs; another is the addition of the last chapter). Quite apart from the geographical gibberish, the Gospel is full of anachronisms, such as the claim that Jesus's followers were expelled from synagogues, the depiction of Jesus' opponents as simply "the Jews", and the title of "Rabbi" applied to Jesus. All of these reflect the times in which the author was writing, not the times when Jesus was around.

Again, please bear in mind that all of the Gospels are anonymous and were not assigned their "traditional" authors until a century after being written. None of them "claims" to be by anyone, far less by anyone who actually knew Jesus.

 

[onejayhawk]

No where does John claim authorship. John is the Gospel with the "unnamed disciple", who is identified as John through the other Gospels. However, I find this a compelling point. If John the disciple is not the direct author, or dictator, his influence is still pervasive.

As to polish, perhaps that is the wrong choice of words. I simply meant that the extensive, call it, footnoting of Luke and Matthew is absent. Indeed Luke states that he is trying to give a carefully researched account, and succeeds I might add.

Your point is well taken however, since in many ways, John is the most advanced, theologically speaking. IIRC correctly, it was long thought to be of much later origin for that reason. Of course, manuscript finds have changed the window of possible dates.

J

 

[Plotinus]

I still don't understand what you mean by footnoting!

Also, you can't identify the "beloved disciple" as John via the other Gospels or indeed in any way. In fact, if the other Gospels are to be trusted, the "beloved disciple" can't be John, because you'll notice that in the Synoptics John always appears in tandem with his brother James. But in the Fourth Gospel, neither James nor John appears at all. If the "beloved disciple" is John, where's James?

On the assumption that the "beloved disciple" is meant to be a specific person, there's no way to tell who he is meant to be. He could be anyone mentioned in the Synoptics or someone completely different (note that even the Synoptics do not agree on the names of the "Twelve"). But in fact plenty of scholars think he's just a literary device and not a real person at all, which seems pretty likely to me.

 

[onejayhawk]

I still don't understand what you mean by footnoting!

Also, you can't identify the "beloved disciple" as John via the other Gospels or indeed in any way. In fact, if the other Gospels are to be trusted, the "beloved disciple" can't be John, because you'll notice that in the Synoptics John always appears in tandem with his brother James. But in the Fourth Gospel, neither James nor John appears at all. If the "beloved disciple" is John, where's James?

On the assumption that the "beloved disciple" is meant to be a specific person, there's no way to tell who he is meant to be. He could be anyone mentioned in the Synoptics or someone completely different (note that even the Synoptics do not agree on the names of the "Twelve"). But in fact plenty of scholars think he's just a literary device and not a real person at all, which seems pretty likely to me.

Matthew sites the OT phophetic sources extensively to support Jesus claim to be the promised messiah. Luke includes a mass of collateral information, eg the taxation " when Quirinius was governor7 of Syria", presumably to differentiate it from a different tax registration.

Now I do not get your argument. Granted that both sons of Zebedee are absent, and possibly their mother as well (Salome, at the crucifixion), Granted also that the influence might come from James (my namesake as it happens) rather than John. What is your point? Is this all semanstics whenwe are in basic agreement?

J

 

[Plotinus]

Well, the point is that the "beloved disciple" can't be John (or James) if the Synoptics are accurate in always portraying them together. Moreover, there is no particular reason to suppose that the "beloved disciple" has got anything to do with the composition of the Fourth Gospel, either as its author or "inspiration" (even assuming he's a real person at all, which is far from obvious). So using the "beloved disciple" as an argument for Johannine authorship just seems doomed from the start.

Yes, you're right that Matthew uses more OT citations than John (this again supports the claim that the Fourth Gospel was written by someone with relatively little interest in Judaism). I wouldn't get too excited about the "mass" of information given by Luke, though, given that there's not much of it (only 2:2 and 3:1-2, really) and it's not very helpful (3:1-2 is probably cribbed from Josephus anyway, suggesting that Luke didn't consult quite so many sources as his generic introduction implies). In particular, the supposedly empire-wide census mentioned in 2:1 almost certainly never happened (the first empire-wide census actually took place in AD 74). Even if this census did happen, it's extremely unlikely that people would have travelled to their ancestors' home towns for it, and in any case it wouldn't have applied to Galilee, which was not part of the Roman empire! It's also well documented that Quirinius only became legate in AD 6, too late for Jesus' birth, especially if Matthew is right in dating that before the death of Herod the Great, which happened in 4 BC.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Also, you can't identify the "beloved disciple" as John via the other Gospels or indeed in any way. In fact, if the other Gospels are to be trusted, the "beloved disciple" can't be John, because you'll notice that in the Synoptics John always appears in tandem with his brother James. But in the Fourth Gospel, neither James nor John appears at all. If the "beloved disciple" is John, where's James?

On the assumption that the "beloved disciple" is meant to be a specific person, there's no way to tell who he is meant to be. He could be anyone mentioned in the Synoptics or someone completely different (note that even the Synoptics do not agree on the names of the "Twelve"). But in fact plenty of scholars think he's just a literary device and not a real person at all, which seems pretty likely to me.

Clearly, the "beloved disciple" was Mary Magdalene. And IIRC there is even a movie about her and Jesus coming out this spring.

 

[Evie]

Yes, you're right that Matthew uses more OT citations

Citations or mis-citations? I seem to remember hearing (but it might be wrong, or I might remember wrong) that Matthew had a bad habit of twisting everything he can in the OT into prophecies relevant to Jesus.

 

[Plotinus]

Well, it's not just Matthew. I wouldn't call them mis-citations (Mark gets one or two wrong, but Matthew knows the OT better), but they are arguably misuses. The reason is that virtually all the texts used by NT authors as "prophecies" fulfilled by Jesus aren't presented as prophecies at all in the original text. For example, Matthew claims that certain details of Jesus' crucifixion fulfilled the prophecies in Psalm 22. But who ever said Psalm 22 was a prophecy in the first place? No-one ever thought of the psalms as prophecies. They're just psalms. Elsewhere in the NT use is made of Isaiah 53, about the "suffering servant", and the claim once again is that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. But, again, there's nothing in Isaiah to indicate that this is a prophecy at all - it's presented as a description of somebody in the past tense, not one in the future.

So much of the debate between Christians and Jews in the early centuries didn't revolve around the Christians trying to convince the Jews that Jesus fulfilled the various prophecies in the OT. Rather, it revolved around them trying to convince the Jews that the texts in question were prophecies to start with. The Jews were generally unconvinced by this, which is why so few of them converted. This remains the case today. I've heard Christians wonder why Jews don't all convert, since it's so clear that Jesus fulfilled all these OT prophecies. They don't realise - because they don't read the OT on its own terms - that most of these "prophecies" aren't prophecies at all, and that most Jews are well aware of this fact.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Every time you post, Plotinus, I learn new cool stuff.