Can We Trust the New Testament?
For the past 150 years or so the Gospel of John has suffered from being isolated―almost insulated―from the others. Up to that time even so liberal a theologian as Schleiermacher could treat it on a par with the rest and indeed regard it as having priority for the picture it gave us of Jesus, since it was the one by the most intimate of his apostles. But over against the Synoptic Gospels John has been treated as the odd one out―in a minority of one to three, and doing a different job. In the hey-day of Liberal Protestant criticism, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Mark supplied the Jesus of history, John the Christ of faith. From the historical point of view, John was entirely secondary, dependent on the Synoptists for anything reliable that he incorporates. In space and time too he was far removed from any direct or even indirect contact with the person whose significance it was his contribution to draw out in the categories of Hellenistic (that is late Greek) mystical philosophy. In date he was put as late as 170. This last has at any rate been knocked out by the most direct piece of evidence possible, the discovery of an actual fragment of the Gospel dated by the paleographers from the first half of the second century―and time must then be allowed for it to have been copied and reached Egypt, in whose dry sands it was preserved. But this was only the first blow to an assessment of the Gospel which has become more and more incredible over the years.
Chapter 5: JOHN'S PICTURE OF JESUS
For the past 150 years or so the Gospel of John has suffered from being isolated―almost insulated―from the others. Up to that time even so liberal a theologian as Schleiermacher could treat it on a par with the rest and indeed regard it as having priority for the picture it gave us of Jesus, since it was the one by the most intimate of his apostles. But over against the Synoptic Gospels John has been treated as the odd one out―in a minority of one to three, and doing a different job. In the hey-day of Liberal Protestant criticism, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Mark supplied the Jesus of history, John the Christ of faith. From the historical point of view, John was entirely secondary, dependent on the Synoptists for anything reliable that he incorporates. In space and time too he was far removed from any direct or even indirect contact with the person whose significance it was his contribution to draw out in the categories of Hellenistic (that is late Greek) mystical philosophy. In date he was put as late as 170. This last has at any rate been knocked out by the most direct piece of evidence possible, the discovery of an actual fragment of the Gospel dated by the paleographers from the first half of the second century―and time must then be allowed for it to have been copied and reached Egypt, in whose dry sands it was preserved. But this was only the first blow to an assessment of the Gospel which has become more and more incredible over the years.
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