Reframing to me. I was pleasantly surprised when I came across Michal Bird and NT Wrights treatment of John in their introduction to the New Testament. Both are very conservative scholars from my perspective and I may go much further than them, but it looks like we have similar thoughts on John.
“John thus artistically blends together the life of Jesus with the love of God revealed in Jesus. He offers historical testimony married to the spirit of truth, allowing the scriptural voice to serve as the background harmony to the living voice of the spirit. The Johannine gospels yields a creative blend of memory, mystery and midrash. The Johannine Jesus is what Jesus looks like viewed through the lens of the spirit, the paraclete.” pg 651 The New Testament in Its World.
This is what I believe. The version of Jesus in John is from a divine vantage point where all things were always in control. John is true, we are looking at the face of God in earth in Jesus. But there is a lot of theological development and creative thought going on here. I’ll lay out some current thoughts and quote some old material I had put together long ago.
There is a host of material found only in John and a host of material in the synoptics missing in John. This is to be expected if the accounts are independent but its clear patterns emerge in the type of material each retains and when there is overlap, John presents it in a different way, In John the subject of many of Jesus’ discourses is mainly himself. In the synoptics, however, he speaks mainly of the kingdom of God which is mostly absent from John. There are other noted differences between them and E.P. Sanders and Margaret Davies (Studying Synoptics p. 5) summarize them well:
“In the synoptics there are short, pithy statements, aphorisms and parables which focus not on Jesus’ person but on the kingdom of God. The synoptics’ Jesus must ask his disciples who they think he is (Mark 8:27 and parr.), and it is clear that he has not identified himself explicitly. He refuses to give a sign to those who ask (Mark 8:11-13). When he is on trial, according to Matthew and Luke, he will not even give a straightforward answer about who he is when asked by the high priest. The Jesus of the Gospel of John, however, talks in long monologues, and the subject is usually himself: his relationship to God on the one hand and to the disciples on the other. He offers ‘signs’ in abundance (see, for example, John 2.11), and he says explicitly that ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10.30)."
The narrative presentation of Jesus is different. The types of things Jesus says, his focus and manner of discourse all appear different. Kingdom of God in John? Maybe one verse. Littered all over the synoptics. Exorcisms in the synoptics? All over the place. In John are there even any? If we look at all the material in John, all the self-identification statements of Jesus are inexplicably absent from the synoptic Gospels. Jesus doesn’t even permit anyone to speak of him in the Gospel of Mark. He commands everyone to silence. In John it seems he doesn’t stop talking about him self. That is a completely different portrayal from the synoptic version of Jesus. The first three gospels are radically different in their presentation of Jesus. On historical grounds, its implausible to suggest we have independent streams of tradition that somehow made it into the synoptics and into John and that we should just harmonize them all as if they were factual. That does a disservice to both John and the Synoptics and God’s Church. I also will not take the secrecy route where John told a while bunch of different stuff to a beloved disciple. John ends up becoming like a “gnostic” Gospel possessing the secret sayings of Jesus in that case.
John Dominic Crossan wryly observed: "If you read the four gospels vertically and consecutively, from the start to finish and one after another, you get a generally persuasive impression of unity, harmony, and agreement. But if you read them horizontally and comparatively, focusing on this or that unit and comparing it across two, three or four versions, it is disagreement rather than agreement that strikes you most forcibly. And those divergences stem not from the random vagaries of memory and recall but from the coherent and consistent theologies of individual texts. The gospels are, in other words, interpretations.” (JRVp.X)
Looking at the Passion of Jesus:
[1] In Mark Jesus --greatly disturbed-- asks that the cup be taken away. In John (12:27) Jesus literally scoffs at the heretical notion of asking that the cup be taken from him.
[2] In Mark Jesus is seized or captured and the disciples run . In John Jesus lets the soldiers accompany him to his glorification and lets his disciples go free.
[3] In Mark it is Jesus who is prostrate on the ground praying before meeting his captors. In John it is the arresting party (a detachment of soldiers, their commander and Jewish leaders) who all fall to the ground when Jesus identifies himself.
[4] In Mark, Pilate interrogates Jesus. In John, one might get the impression Jesus is interrogating Pilate.
[5] In Mark, a painfully human Jesus is granted assistance carrying his cross. In John, the serenely transcendental and always-in-charge-Jesus requires no assistance at fulfilling the cup the father poured for him.
[6] In Mark Jesus is offered a drink while crying out on the cross My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In John after Jesus realizes knowing all is finished and so that scripture could be fulfilled he says I am thirsty and someone brings him a drink.
[7] In Mark, Jesus lets out a loud cry and breaths his last breath. In John, knowing that all is fulfilled, Jesus chooses to give up his spirit. In John not only do the arresting party and Pilate have no power over Jesus, death itself does not have any power over Jesus.
The account in Mark shows a very human Jesus obedient to God, willing but nervous about death to the point of almost losing control (falling on the floor multiple times). The same Jesus not allowing anyone to speak about him. John depicts Jesus as fully in control and serenely transcendent at all times. He openly proclaims himself.
We can add to this. Why is a transfiguration lacking in GJohn? It wasn’t needed. Jesus is/was that way all along! To submit Jesus to a baptism by John? Ridiculous! John knows we are looking at the human face of God on earth and recast many narrative details in lieu of this.
Sure you can harmonize some of these details but that’s to misinterpret them altogether. John represents years of prayer and post-Easter beliefs of who Jesus ultimately was. He is writing from the Divine perspective and blending “memory, mystery and midrash” as he seems to hint at writing a new Genesis (John 1:1 and Gen 1:1). It is a response to the synoptic portraits of Jesus in some sense and a statement of who Jesus is.
John is also writing to a community harsh rejected by the “world” or synagogue. He is reinforcing their Jewish beliefs in the face of hostilities that they are God’s true children and that their beliefs are correct. The more hostile their rejection, the more certain they can be of their election just as the more Jesus identified with God, the more ferocious his opposition was (paraphrasing Bird and Wright). They are the legitimate heirs to the promises given to Israel.
Sanders and Davies offer interesting exegesis on the
Lost Sheep Parable found in Matt 18.12-13 and Luke 15:3-6. This is possibly an original parable that has been buried into a discourse now developed and attributed to Jesus as a monologue.
"What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
Begin Sanders/Davies:
“This is a parable. It is short, the similitude or metaphor is simple and it makes one point. That is not to say that it is only a commonplace. It is quite surprising that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine without protection, and the surprise lends emphasis to the point that God seeks the lost. We note that the primary point of the similitude is that of a situation: as it is with the shepherd and the sheep, so it is with God and people. To the degree that the ‘characters’ in the parable have counterparts, the shepherd represents God himself: it is God who goes in search of the ‘sheep’ (the lost person), God who rejoices when it is found. There is no explicit self-assertion on the part of Jesus, though he presumably sees himself as doing God’s will and seeking the lost.
John’s passage which uses ‘sheep’ as a figure is a long monologue, covering eighteen verses, which focuses precisely on the person of Jesus. First, we read that it is the shepherd, not a thief, who enters by the door of the sheepfold. ‘To him the gatekeeper opens: the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out’. These sheep will follow only their own shepherd (10:1-6). Next Jesus states that he himself is ‘the door of the sheep’ and that only those who enter by him can be saved (10.7-10). Third, he says that he is the good shepherd and that ‘the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep’, and then he reiterates and explains:
I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep (10.11-15).
Fourth, he adds that he has other sheep ‘that are not of this fold’. He will bring these as well, ‘so there shall be one flock, one shepherd’ (10.16). The monologue concludes with the reassurance that the Father loves him, Jesus, because he lays down his life, and that he lays it down of his own accord and has the power to take it up again (10.17-18).
Very little of this long passage could possibly make parabolic sense. In a parable a person could not be both ‘door’ and ‘shepherd’. Further, in real life sheep can be driven by anyone and do not respond only to their own shepherd. Finally, if one wanted to define a ‘good shepherd’ in the Galilean hill country, it would be the one who successfully kills the wolf, not one who voluntarily dies and who can take his life back up again. This is not a parable, but an involved series of metaphors which can be understood only if we see that the different parts apply to Jesus in different ways. He is both the way in – the door, and the means of access to salvation – and the leader of his followers – the shepherd. The passage also depends on knowing important points of Christian doctrine: that Jesus willingly gave his life, that he had the power of resurrection, and that he was the intermediary in all ways between the Father and the believers. We even learn that the importance of Jesus as mediator extends beyond Palestine: ‘there are sheep ‘who are not of this fold’. Here the worldwide mission of the church is indicated. We have, in short, a complicated theological meditation of the figure ‘sheep’, one which shows how many ways it can be turned. It makes sense only when one knows the view that those who believe in Jesus are saved by his death. A parable may be surprising, but it must make sense in everyday life. The discourse on sheep in John 10 does not do so.” <>
Vinnie