JOHN - The Lazy Apostle ?

by Lampokey 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Lampokey

  From the Gospel according to John , 21:25 New World translation :

  "There are , in fact , many other things which Jesus also did , which , if ever they were written in full detail , I suppose , the world itself could not contain the scrolls written."

  Well , John , here you are , charged with the responsibility to relate the life and times of Jesus , and you do not tell us what these "many other things" are.

  Why not ? Did you run out of time ? Did you run out of scrolls? Is your ref to "many other things" hearsay ? If so , why put unsubstantiated rumour in the account? If the Bible is divinely inspired , God must have caused John to write the gospel. Why did God not entrust the task to someone who had the ability - or time/energy/scrolls , whatever - to provide a more detailed account? Were the "many other things" irrelevant ? If so , why did Jesus do them? If not , why did God not ensure we knew of them?

  Anybody able to play advocate for John ?
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  Greenpalmtreestillmine

  Hi Lampokey,

  The Bible does not give full details about almost everything. It gives us what we need to know that's all. It's the essence not the full story.

  Sabrina
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  Satanus

  John liked his psychedelics, and got distracted a lot.

  S
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  Leolaia

  I think of it as a nice piece of hyperbole (as a literary device) that gives a conclusive, momentous end to the gospel. I think it is the best ending to any of the books in the Bible. It's not an admission of laziness; the author said all he wanted and needed to say. A+ to the author who came up with that (who may or may not have been the author of the rest of the gospel according to some scholars).
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  MungoBaobab

  You're calling JOHN the lazy apostle? He's the only one that didn't plaigarize the whole thing from Matthew!
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  czarofmischief

  He could have told you. But then he'd have to kill you.

  CZAR
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  Narkissos

  It may remind one of the conclusion of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), whence the "lazy" connotation perhaps:

  Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

  About the "author", the whole chapter 21 is actually an addition coming after a first ending of the book in chapter 20. Notice the conflicting subjects in this second ending (just after an allusion to the death of the "beloved disciple"):

  This (the beloved disciple) is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
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  eyeslice

  No, you draw a silly conclusion.

  As Narkissof said, there is some debate has to who actually put the gosple of John together. If you are interested, I would recommend that you read William Barclay's Commentary on John (available as two volumes). There are a number of interesting things about John's gosple, e.g. John indicates Christ as dying prior to the passover and makes no mention of the so-called last supper. John constantly compares Christ to the Lamb of God and therfore Christ dies as the passover lamb, being sacrificed on the day prior to the passover. The other gosple writers have Christ dying on the actual passover day.

  John's gosple certainly isn't lazy but its timing and content are extremely important to the development of early Christian theology.

  Eyeslice
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  A Paduan

  Anybody able to play advocate for John ?

  Yep

  Well , John , here you are , charged with the responsibility to relate the life and times of Jesus ,

  Who said ?
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  Justin

  Two points: Regarding the correlation of Jesus' death with the passover, John apparently has Jesus die at the time the passover lambs were sacrificed at the temple rather than on the passover day itself. For this to happen, the Last Supper could not be the actual passover meal - though some have speculated that Jesus and his disciples may have had an "early" passover. This leaves us in the dark historically, but it does indicate that both John and the synoptics (other gospels) viewed Jesus as the true passover.

  Secondly, the statement at the end of the gospel that all Jesus' deeds were not recorded, while it is hyperbole and it is, as it were, a post script, may be an allowance for the fact that this gospel is different from the others. So the writer may, in effect, be saying, "You may already know things about Jesus which you haven't read here. That's OK. This is the version we are offering now."