BEMA 87: John — Grafted
Transcription Status
21 Jun 23 — Initial public release
9 Dec 22 — Transcript approved for release
John — Grafted
Brent Billings: This is the BEMA podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host, Brent Billings. Today we spend time in the Gospel of John, investigating the different tools he uses in speaking to his particular audience.
Marty Solomon: Gospel of John, last of the four. We have gone over Matthew. What did we say his agenda was, Brent?
Brent: The mumzer.
Marty: The mamzer, the outsider. All those people on the margins. Who was he?
Brent: He was a Jew writing to Jews.
Marty: He was a Jew writing to a Jewish audience. Then we had Mark—who was he?
Brent: He was the Roman Gospel. He was a Jew writing to the Romans.
Marty: Jew writing to Romans and his agenda was trying to give the Romans a euangelion that they would hear and accept and understand. We’ve got Luke. Who was Luke and what was his deal?
Brent: He was most likely a Jewish convert. He was a Gentile originally, and wrote and authored a Gospel that we think paired up with the parashah readings.
Marty: Yes. We took M. D. Goulder’s theory in the last podcast to do that. We want to talk about John. Now popular theory, typical understanding would say—well, popular scholastic theory even—would say—who’d we say popular opinion puts first as far as order of being written?
Brent: Mark, typically.
Marty: Mark, then what comes next?
Brent: Matthew or Luke?
Marty: Yes. Matthew, sharing the source material that we called what?
Brent: Q.
Marty: Q. Popular scholastic opinion is Mark is written first then Matthew. There’s a debate about Luke and John scholastically—what I was taught in my undergraduate education might not represent scholastic opinion, but popular conservative evangelical opinion is often that Luke was written next after Matthew and Mark. Like we talked about, popular opinion says Luke was trying to expand, give a more chronological, more accurate, more orderly account.
We challenged that in the last episode and said, maybe there’s another way to read it—but that’s the popular opinion. Then John, popular opinion, comes along later and says, “Man, there’s all these stories that you”—what’d you call those three Gospels before, Brent?
Brent: The synoptic Gospels.
Marty: The synoptics. Popular opinion says, John looks at these synoptic Gospels and goes, “Oh, you’re leaving out some really good stories and you need to include those stories.” John writes a Gospel to try to fill in the gaps. Again, I’m going to completely disagree with that. I think John has something else happening and I actually would put John third in the order of authorship as far as how they order. I think Matthew comes first, followed by Mark. I then believe John writes his and Luke comes after to write that parashah companion reading.
Let’s talk about John. If he’s not just the last Gospel, trying to fill in the blanks and fill in the gaps and pick up what everybody else missed. If that’s not what’s going on, what is driving him? What’s one of the main questions that we always ask Brent?
Brent: Who’s his audience?
Marty: Who’s his audience? For Matthew, it was a Jewish audience that drove his Gospel. For Mark, it was a Roman audience that was everything behind his Gospel. Luke, it could be a synagogue, that’s his audience and that’s driving his Gospel of how he wants his Gospel to interact with the parashah reading. Audience is really everything, in a lot of regards.
Who is John’s audience? John cares about that. There’s actually a passage out of 1st John, that I think you have up. It’s not from the Gospel of John, but give us the address and read us a passage we have there.
Brent: It’s 1 John 1:1–4. That, which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared. We have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.
Marty: John has a heart for his audience. He wants his audience to understand who Jesus was. He wants them to understand that Jesus was real, that they walked with Him, that they talked with Him, that they knew Him. This is a big part of what drives John to write the things that he writes, to come up with the things that—this is his agenda, he wants his audience to know.
Who is his audience? A little bit of background: John is known, to history, as the “Pastor to Asia.” We can debate when the Gospels and the different—there’s five books that are up for discussion with John. You’ve obviously got the Gospel of John. You have what other three books?
Brent: He has 1, 2, and 3 John—the three letters.
Marty: Then we also have which last book?
Brent: Revelation.
Marty: Revelation. All five of these books could be credited to John. A lot of scholastic opinion is not going to give all five of those books to John, possibly John and Revelation. I give all five books to John. I think it’s all John, personally.
Brent: Before we go too much further, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this yet in the podcast run yet. When you say Asia, when he’s the pastor to Asia. Where are we talking about?
Marty: Let’s get back to my main point. Thank you for pulling me back on track there. John’s the pastor to Asia. Before I answer Brent’s direct question, I’ll give it a little bit more context. After Jesus dies and is resurrected, everything’s centered where? Where are even the disciples? Jesus tells them to stay somewhere until the Holy Spirit comes…
Brent: In Jerusalem.
Marty: Jerusalem. Then even in Acts, what did Jesus say? “You’ll be my witnesses in…?”
Brent: Jerusalem, Judea, and the world.
Marty: Yes. Judea, and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth. There’s this outward movement of this Gospel, this euangelion going out. It starts in Jerusalem. When Jesus dies and is resurrected, He passes on this mantle to his followers, to his disciples, to his leadership of this movement. We’ll call it the church leaders of the church that gets passed on. Now, if you know your Gospels—and we haven’t studied them yet, but most people are somewhat familiar—who do you suppose would be the most likely candidate to pass his leadership onto?
Brent: Peter.
Marty: Peter, and maybe even a couple other guys.
Brent: James and John.
Marty: Because every time we turn the pages of the Gospels, Peter, James, and John. They’re like the inner circle. This would’ve been typical in a rabbinical havurah. Havurah is a Hebrew word for a group of disciples. Jesus had a group of 12. That was His havurah. In this havurah, in any havurah, it’d be very typical following a rabbi that the rabbi has usually the older talmidim. The older disciples are going to be the leaders of the group.
They’re going to be ones that speak first, that act first. They’re going to be ones that walk right behind Jesus. They’re going to be ones that talk to Jesus more than any others. They’re going to see things that nobody else sees. They’re going to have an understanding—when the leadership of the church gets passed on after Jesus’s resurrection, it makes sense that the leadership gets passed on to Peter, James, and John.
In fact, when we get to Galatians, we will study Paul actually references this. It lines up a church history, but it’s not just church history, it’s not just church tradition. It actually lines up with our New Testament text. Paul will call them the pillars. “I went to talk to those three pillars of the church, Peter, James, and John.” Peter, obviously, we know him, James and John I think most of us just flippantly think, sons of Zebedee, when we think Peter, James, and John.
There are multiple James’s in the havurah. That’s not the right James. You have John and then you have James, son of Alphaeus. A lot of debate, a lot of historical debate about who the right James is. Here’s my point for bringing that up—forget about who James is, who John is, all that kind of stuff. Peter, James, and John. Peter’s going to be the head of what, Brent?
Brent: The church in Jerusalem.
Marty: Well, the church.
Brent: Overall.
Marty: Yes, the church universal. Peter’s going to be the guy who has the keys to the kingdom. That was Jesus’s right hand disciple, the rock on which the church is built. We’re going to talk all about these passages, but Peter’s going to be the guy in charge of the church, no matter where it is, no matter where it goes, Peter is the guy.
Brent: I guess he was the first Pope, right?
Marty: Yes. Well, in that Catholic tradition. Yes. It’s funny because, obviously, if you really hold the apostolic succession really tightly, it seems so silly and ridiculous. On the flip side, I grew up Protestant and we always made fun of that. There is absolutely a truth to apostolic succession because Peter was, in a sense, the first—they weren’t at all popes, but he was the first guy [overseeing] the church.
Brent: I said that flippantly, but my point is whatever side of the aisle you’re coming from, Peter is considered the first leader of the entire church.
Marty: Absolutely. Then underneath him, you’re going to have James and John. You said the church really started in what city?
Brent: Jerusalem.
Marty: Jerusalem. Well, that’s going to be a very Jewish church. It’s going to be the Jewish beginnings of this Christian movement. The leader of that church, we know from the Bible, from the book of Acts and from church history is James. James will end up being the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Then God calls this crazy guy, we’ll talk about later named Saul. We know him as Paul, the apostle Paul, and he helps take the Gospel to what your question was, Asia and Asia Minor.
Asia and Asia Minor are modern day Turkey. I always get them flipped around in my head because of what I want to think—Asia is the coastline where all the major cities are Ephesus, Sardis, I believe it to be in Asia. Pergamon is one of the last cities in that portion of Asia. Philadelphia is the doorway in between Asia and Asia minor. If you’re looking at Turkey, you have like this, maybe a fifth or a sixth of the country over on the far west, on the coast there on the west. Everything else in Turkey is what they would call Asia Minor. Asia and Asia Minor. John ends up being the pastor to Asia.
Brent: We’re just referencing this here. When we get to Paul’s letters and especially Revelation, we’ll give you all kinds of maps. We’ll talk specifically about where these cities are and why.
Marty: Absolutely. In fact, you may even be able to dig up a map for our show notes.
Brent: I suppose if you insist, I could do this then.
Marty: Just find something with Asia and Asia Minor. Maybe something that distinguishes between Asia and Asia Minor—or make your own Brent Billings map, because you’re super good at that, and just darken Asia and Asia Minor. Yes, that would be where John ends up eventually. The Gospel gets over there, to this world of Asia and Asia Minor. This was a very Jewish conversation.
In Asia and Asia Minor, scholars are now saying that the Jewish population was 20%, like 20% of the population of Asia and Asia Minor was Jewish. This is not like, “Oh, that’s for the Gentile.” I mean that’s how it’s always taught, like, the Jews are in Jerusalem and the Gentiles are in Asia and Asia Minor. Well, that’s not really true at all. This is still a very, very Jewish movement.
We do, however, have two different kinds of Judaisms, if that makes sense. Those that have stayed in Jerusalem, are people that are committed to that Judeo-centric identity. They’re clinging to that temple identity especially before its destruction, that’s your church in Jerusalem. If you’ve settled throughout the land of Asia and Asia Minor, what worldview do you think that probably harkens the most?
This would be an inappropriate direct parallel but, just using our language that we’ve used about the five responses to Hellenism, Brent, which group do you suppose would say, “Yes, I’ll go live in Ephesus”?
Brent: Probably leaning towards Herodians.
Marty: Yes, Herodians, absolutely. If you’re living all throughout Asia and Asia Minor, it means you’ve settled within the Greco-Roman world, for whatever reason. Could be very missional reasons, could be selfish reasons, could be all kinds of reasons, not good or bad. You’ve just settled in that world. You probably have a little bit more of an assimilated, engaged worldview, rather than a separatist worldview.
That kind of mindset is going to end up in places like Galatia, it’s going to end up in places like Cappadocia, all of that kind of stuff. John is the pastor to Asia. John goes to this new world where the euangelion of Jesus has reached the Greeks, the Hellenistic Jews, and the Greeks but predominantly the Hellenistic Jews of Asia and Asia Minor.
When John gets there, I believe John says, “Matthew’s Gospel is not going to do here.”
You’ve come with me Brent, you went to Israel, you studied in the Galilee with me, you went to Jerusalem and then you went over to Turkey. Were those two different worlds?
Brent: Very different.
Marty: Very, very different, right? You have a very Jewish identity in the Galilee, if you were in Chorazin or Capernaum, or if you were in the triangle there, or if you were in Jerusalem. Then you go over to Ephesus and we’re just in a completely different world.
Brent: Even the scale of the place is like—the Jewish cities were very small, very tight communities. Whereas the Asian cities were huge in comparison.
Marty: Yes. Ephesus, somewhere between 500,000 to a million people, depending on which scholar you read and talk to. This is compared to, like, a Bethsaida, which maybe had 1,000 to 3,000 people, or Chorazin, which had 3,000 to 5,000 people in it. You’re talking about just a whole different world. John says listen, “Matthew, your Gospel, it doesn’t work here. Mark, your Gospel’s written to Romans, but we’re not in Rome.”
Mark’s Gospel will work in Rome, Mark’s Gospel will work in Roman pockets but John finds himself in a uniquely Greco-Asian culture. It’s Roman, it’s part of the Roman Empire, but it has a Greek flavor to it. Much less Roman, much more Greek.
Brent: Much like the United States is very different. Somebody from New York City is in a very different environment than somebody in Moscow, Idaho, for example.
Marty: Absolutely, absolutely. Just totally different worlds. This Greco world, this Greek world, is steeped in a particular kind of paganism, like it has that Olympian god, that pantheon of Greek gods, that is recaptured and redone by the Romans, with a Roman flair. It’s still just its own unique world.
You’ve been to Roman, I haven’t even been to Rome, you’ve been to Rome and I haven’t been. Rome, I’m sure, had a different feeling than Ephesus did.
Brent: I went to the Pantheon, in Rome, and it’s cool, but it’s tucked away like it’s not really a big deal. The leadership structure, the palaces, the praetorium, all that stuff, that’s huge. The Colosseum is right there, that’s all in one place, sprawling. Then, the Pantheon is a little ways away—small little building.
Marty: Yes. Rome had its system, its government. It’s people-driven. Rome. It had Rome. That’s what Rome was but when you got outside of Rome and you got into the Greco world, well, it was much more driven by their pagan, call it whatever you will, mythologies, pagan superstitions, pagan religion, that was driving the day. If you were to enter the Pantheon, not that they had one, but you get the idea, if you were to enter that kind of district in the Greek world, it’s driving the show.
John needs a unique Gospel, Mark’s Gospel isn’t going to work here, in Greece. It might be more useful than Matthew’s, but John realizes, “I have an opportunity to tell the story of Jesus in a completely unique way, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke haven’t even been able to do here.” That’s what John does. The word for John that I like to use, is the word “Grafted.” My first round of BEMA, BEMA 1.0, we used the word, “Blended,” kind of like a blended family, and by that I meant this is a blended family of Jews and Greeks together, and John needs to bring a euangelion to a Jewish-Greek world.
I still mean that but I like the scriptural play. I think of Romans 11, the scriptural play of God grafting, grafting the Gentiles into this Jewish tree. So I called John, “Grafted.” It’s a grafted family. It’s a Jewish family that now has this influx and this rush, this explosive inclusion of Gentiles in it and they need a unique euangelion, so that’s what John sets out to do.
You can see it from even the opening verses. You have, I think, John—the first five verses of John. How about you read those for us, Brent?
Brent: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, without Him, nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Marty: Okay, so John’s got two different kinds of audiences. What kind of listeners does he have here, Brent?
Brent: He’s got some Jews.
Marty: He’s got some Jews, and he has some?
Brent: Gentiles.
Marty: Gentiles, okay. Now, in the beginning was the word. Now, can you remember what the word for “Word” was in the Greek?
Brent: In the Greek it’s logos.
Marty: Yes, logos, right. This Greek idea of logos. Now, let’s just take it from a Gentile perspective. John’s Gentile readers. One of the most prominent discussions in first century BC going through to even second century, some would even say third century AD, is the discussion of the logos. In the Greek world, I’m not talking about the biblical Greek world, I’m just talking about people like Plato and Aristotle, the Greek philosophers. They are discussing the nature of the world, and that which lies outside our created world.
One of the words that they’re getting huge mileage out of, they’re debating it, but they’re all getting mileage out of this idea of logos. In the Greek world, even the Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo, Philo of Alexandria, talked a lot about the logos. This was a very Greek concept that Gentiles would have understood. It would be impossible to talk about everybody’s position about the logos, but I could oversimplify it by saying this.
The Greek idea was that there was something out there that was holding this whole universe together. There was some transcendent idea. There was something transcendent that was bigger than the matter, like we talk about matter, it was bigger than the atoms, it was bigger than just mere science. There was something mysterious out there that held this world together, that drove the reality that we lived in. They called this unnamable thing Logos. The Word.
If you’re a Greek and you hear John start with, “In the beginning was the logos,” you’re thinking, “Yes, all the philosophers say that.” There’s nothing new about that. That is totally—“In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God.” If you’re Greek, you’re going, “Yes, yes, yes. Sure, sure, sure. I’m behind it.”
“In the beginning was logos, it was with God and it was God.” No Greek’s going to have a problem with that. What does the next verse say, Brent?
Brent: He was with God in the beginning.
Marty: Okay, it starts with what word? First word.
Brent: He.
Marty: Okay now, at this point, a Greek is going to go, “Wait. Wait a minute. He? No, the logos is not a person.” That’s the whole point, the logos is more transcendent than a person. In this first paragraph, John is talking about this thing that makes total sense, except for this: He’s making the logos thing, in the Greek concept, he’s making it a person, and obviously he’s making it Jesus. He’s saying Jesus is this logos that you’re talking about. This would have been a subversive, like “Whoa, this is a—I don’t even know if I can go there, I don’t even know if I can agree with that.”
If you’re a Greek reader, you’re going, “This is a totally brand new idea,” but that’s exactly what John is trying to do. Okay, now let’s hit the pause button and just go back and listen to this statement as a Jew. Now, if you say, “Word,” what do you think of in the Hebrew, Brent?
Brent: You think of God’s voice, you think of God speaking.
Marty: Or, let’s go literal, like more literal word, what do you think of?
Brent: The Text.
Marty: Yes, and what do they call it? Another word that starts with “T.”
Brent: The Torah.
Marty: Yes, right. One of the things that the Jews taught—again, first, second century BC, we don’t know when they first started talking about it, but it definitely predates the Gospels—is this idea that in the beginning was Torah. Sometimes they called Torah “Wisdom” and the more mystical Jewish traditions will talk about Wisdom. Wisdom predated creation, they said. Torah predates creation, and you’re like, “How does that happen?” Moses writes down Torah.
Yes, yes, yes, Moses writes down Torah, but the whole, the reality, the truth of Torah, Torah itself—not in its written form, but Torah in its unwritten form—has always been, they said, because Torah is essentially that which is God. It preexisted creation. Now, let’s read that same paragraph from a Hebrew perspective. “In the beginning was Torah,” and every Jewish reader goes, “Yes, absolutely.”
“Torah was with God and Torah was God.” I think every Jewish reader goes. “Yes, yes, yes. That’s exactly what we teach. Absolutely.” What was the first word of the next sentence?
Brent: He.
Marty: At the exact same word, at the exact same moment, a Jewish reader now has to pause and go, “No, no, no, Torah’s not a person. Torah is God. Torah is the mind of God. Torah is the will of God. Torah is the words of God, but Torah’s not a person.” In the exact same paragraph, John is able to speak to two groups simultaneously and make the exact same point at the exact same point in the paragraph.
I’m blubbering here, but this is unbelievable to get your head around. When this finally clicks, it’s like “welcome to the New Testament.” Your New Testament authors are absolutely brilliant. John is probably the best New Testament author at this. He is speaking simultaneously to two different audiences using the exact same chunk of text. By the time we get to Revelation, this is going to get good, isn’t it, Brent? Because we’re going to add about two or three layers to what we’re doing right now.
This is just, yes, this is just the introduction to the concept here. It’s mind-blowing how John’s able to do this. John has a grafted audience, Jews and Gentiles together and John has to figure out how to communicate the euangelion and he’s going to do it in a totally unique way. Not because he is trying to fill in the gaps that Matthew, Mark and Luke left out, but because he’s got a different audience and there’s an opportunity that lies before him to communicate the Gospel in a unique way.
Brent: What’s amazing about John is I feel like if you ask almost any Christian, “Hey, I’ve got this new believer. They’ve never read the Bible before, where should they start?” Almost every Christian is going to say the book of John.
Marty: Right. Absolutely.
Brent: He’s this perfect, simple foundation gateway into the scriptures, and yet the depth in this Gospel and in all of John’s writings is incredible.
Marty: Absolutely. John, in that regard, is like Mark. We like John. It’s Greek; we’re Greeks. We’re Romans, so we like John; it’s full of pictures. It’s part of the reason why we give it to a brand new Christian is we would say read this. It talks about light. It talks about things. It doesn’t talk about doctrine or theology. It talks about things you can understand. Jesus is a shepherd, those kinds of things. A vine, a door. These are things—I can get my head around these things. I can understand Jesus through language.
That’s part of the reason why we like it. You’re absolutely right, there’s a depth that we haven’t even realized is there, unless we’re really studied in that Johannine literature.
Speaking of which, we just referenced a bunch of, I am statements. One of the most common themes that we know about in the Gospel of John and talk about often are the great, I am statements. How many of the I Ams are there, Brent?
Brent: Seven.
Marty: Seven “I Am” statements.
Brent: -ish.
Marty: -ish. This is one of the themes that John uses. I want you to see how John’s doing the same thing, even with the themes of the I am statements. You have them all. Let’s go ahead and go through.
Brent: Yes, in John 6, he says, Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.
Marty: I am the bread of life. I am statement number one. What’s the next one you got?
Brent: John 8, When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world.
Marty: I am the light of the world. You can hear it. You can feel the theme that John is using as he uses these statements
Brent: Over in John 10, he says, I am the gate for the sheep.
Marty: The gate of the sheep. All right. “I am the door” would be a translation you might have.
Brent: Yes. Just a few verses later, he says, I am the good shepherd.
Marty: I am the good shepherd. Okay. I am the bread of life, light of the world. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. What else do we have?
Brent: John 11, I am the resurrection and the life.
Marty: I am the resurrection and the life. Okay.
Brent: John 14, I am the way and the truth and the life.
Marty: I’m the way, the truth, and the life. Okay.
Brent: Finally, in John 15, I am the true vine.
Marty: I am the true vine. Let’s ask the questions. What is this? What are all these I am statements saying to one of the members of his Gentile audience? In this pagan world, when you study the context, you begin to realize, it’s not hard to pull out when you start to—when you know what questions to ask and what you’re looking for. These I am statements were statements that were already made by pagan gods.
“I am the bread of life.” You even have a few candidates on almost all these statements, but I am the bread of life is a statement that was made by Demeter, Ceres in the Roman world. Same god: Demeter/Ceres, was the god of provision. The god of grocery. We get the world, the word “cereal” from the word Ceres. I am the bread of life. That’s what Demeter said.
When a Gentile hears John say, Jesus, say, “I am the bread of life” they hear—Jesus just confronted, Jesus just threw down in front of Demeter. Like “You Greeks think that Demeter is the bread of life? Demeter is not the bread of life. I’m the bread of life.”
The next statement was “I am—” what did we have? “I am the light of the world.” That could be a lot of things. Probably our best candidate there is Apollo. Apollo, god of light, god of the sun, or god of the underworld and of mystery and of oracle. The Roman Greek system is incredibly confusing to keep all of our gods intact, but definitely Apollo would’ve said, “I am the light of the world.” Jesus confronts this Apollo myth and says, “Oh, Apollo’s not the light of the world. I’m the light of the world.” What else did we have? We had…
Brent: I am the door.
Marty: I am the door. Okay. That one’s a little tricky. I think our best candidate for that would be the god Janus. Janus was the two-faced god of transitions. They called him the god of the doorway. We get our word January from the word Janus. Janus. Why January? Because January is the New Year. January is the doorway from last year into this year. Anytime you have a transition, anytime you’re going from death to life or birth or any kind of, if they were in our world, I’m sure things like retirement or graduation, you would’ve honored the god Janus, the god of transition.
He’s the god that gets you through the door. He’s the god that can look in both—he’s a two-faced god that can look in both directions. He can look backwards and he can look forward. He can see what lies in front of you. Jesus says, “I am the door. Not Janus; forget about that. I’m the door.”
“I’m the good shepherd.” The obvious connection there is—there’s probably a couple options—but our obvious connection would be the god Pan. We’ll talk more about Pan later in our Session 3, but Pan is the half-goat, half-man, head of a goat, god of sexual fertility, but he is also the god of the flock. He’s the god that would oversee the flock. I am the good shepherd, a direct confrontation of Pan. “I am…” let’s see, what did we have, Brent?
Brent: The resurrection and the life.
Marty: “I’m the resurrection and the life”—probably Asclepius. You could probably make a couple cases for others, but if we don’t want these to overlap with other gods, probably Asclepius is our best. Asclepius the myth of Asclepius was driven, we’ll learn more about Asclepius later, but Asclepius was the son of Apollo and had these unbelievable—he was given to the centaurs to be raised, according to the mythology, the centaurs taught him how to heal.
Brent: We’ve mentioned the Asclepian before in relation to healthcare.
Marty: Absolutely. He was your god of healing. He had learned from the Centaur according to the mythology, how to heal. According to the myth that they would even put in the Asclepion—sometimes in places like Pergamon they would show it two times a day in the Asclepion, as a drama, as a play. He resurrected a ruler’s son. Zeus was furious, so they struck him dead. Asclepius was raised back to life. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus confronts Asclepius.
Next one was, “I am the way the truth and the life.” It’s going to be Athena. Athena was the goddess of truth. The goddess of the way. She was—like in Pergamon, her temple sits in the middle of the library of Pergamon. She is the goddess of truth. I am the truth, being Athena’s statement.
“I am the vine,” that’s Dionysus, Dionysus, the god of wine and of orgy, one of the most commonly worshiped and had some of the largest followings in the Greco-Roman world was the god Dionysus.
These are the I Am statements. When a Gentile hears them, Jesus is saying “Everything you’re looking for when you worship Janus, you can find in me. Everything you’re looking for when you worship Pan, you can find in me. Everything you’re looking for, when you worship Apollo, you can find in me. I’m the answer. Not just multiple gods.” Jesus says, “I’m all—these other gods are counterfeits, and I can get you—I can give you the real thing.” It won’t be probably the real thing like you want the real thing, but I can give you life and life to the full—the Gospel of John will say. This is how a Gentile hears it.
How is a Jew going to hear these same statements? It’s going to be hard to believe, but do some research. You’ll be astounded to find out those same statements. Almost all of those statements are easy to find as predating the Gospel of John references that Jews would make about Torah. If a Jew would’ve said bread of life, they would think of things like the manna in the desert. One of the things they talked about, well, the real bread of life, wasn’t the manna in the desert. The real bread of life was what Brent?
Brent: The word of God, the Torah.
Marty: The Torah. The Torah is the bread of life. Let’s see here, what is the light of the world? What is a lamp unto my feet?
Brent: Your word is a light. Lamp to my feet, light to my path.
Marty: Torah is the light of the world. Torah has so many passages, that’s just one reference. We could pull out 20 more. Torah’s the light of the world. The door. What is the doorway? If you wanted to walk through, this is a little bit harder to find rabbinically, but what is the great door? What is the door? What is the invitation to walk through? The Torah; Torah is the door. Torah is the doorway to eternal life, the rabbis would say. Let’s see what is, I should say sages, rabbis are post-Gospel. Sages are what they called teachers before AD 70. What did the sages say about let’s see, what was the next one? I am the good shepherd. God is our good shepherd, the scripture tells us that, but how is it that God shepherds us? A shepherd leads with his what, we said in Session 1?
Brent: With his voice.
Marty: With his voice, and what is the voice as far as we have it in our world?
Brent: The Torah.
Marty: Torah is the good shepherd. Now, God is a good shepherd, but Torah is the good shepherd. Torah is the thing that leads us. The thing that guides us in our deserts and in our wilderness. Let’s see, I always get lost here? What am I forgetting?
Brent: The resurrection and the life.
Marty: Torah is the resurrection and the life. The Pharisaical school likes to talk about resurrection. Torah was, you want eternal life. You want to be counted among that book of life and the book of Daniel to be raised in the age to come? Torah. Torah is the resurrection and the life. My favorite is the way, the truth, and the life. See, we just read that. We just get hung up on Jesus as the only way to heaven. That may or may not be, but that’s not at all what Jesus is saying.
He’s not saying the only way you get to God is through me. He’s saying, this is the way you see God. In the Gentile version, he’s confronting Athena. She would say, “I am the truth. I am the way that you get to god. I am the way you see god.” He’s saying, “No, no, no, that’s me.” He’s not saying, “I’m the only way to get to heaven.” He’s saying, “I’m what Athena claims to be.” But in a Jewish sense, “I’m Torah.” We do have a record, predates the Gospels by about 70 to 80 years depending on the way you date the Gospels, a reference to Torah being the way, the truth and the life. It’s Torah.
The true vine, that one, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually connected the true vine to Torah. I would just assume six out of seven, that there must be something that I don’t know that Torah is the grapevine. Again, I have a simultaneous agenda. Seven “I am” statements, that to a Gentile are brilliant, subversive, confrontational, and to a Jew. John has this agenda from the opening verses of his Gospel, in the beginning, was the word. John’s case to a Jew—simultaneously, by the way.
Simultaneously to his Gentile narrative. His case to a Jew is “Jesus is Torah. Jesus is Torah.” I just would love to have been a fly on the wall as John sat in Ephesus, learning about Greco-Asian culture going, “Wait a minute. Apollo said, he’s the light of the world, but we think Torah’s the light of the world and I think Jesus is both. Oh, man. What about the resurrection and the life? What about the good shepherd? What about the light of the world?”
I would’ve loved to have seen all these lights go off for John and have him put this Gospel together. Would’ve been something to behold. So that’s just one of them. John has a ton of other sub narratives by the way. Those are two examples of how we see the simultaneous Jew-Gentile grafted nature of his Gospel, but John has a lot. It’s impossible. There are a lot of ideas that obviously have merit, like they’re there. Not just like it could be there, but there are some obvious things that John is definitely doing.
John is definitely playing off the book of Genesis as a theme throughout his entire Gospel from front to back. A good example of that would be the signs after the first sign, John points out in his Gospel, “this was the first miracle that Jesus did.” Then after the second sign, others have pointed out John says, “this is the second sign of Jesus.” Then John stops counting; but to a Jew, he’s already pointed out, “I want you to count the signs.” So you end up having how many signs, Brent?
Brent: Well, I’m going to guess seven.
Marty: Seven, and the seventh sign ends up being…?
Brent: The raising of Lazarus.
Marty: The raising of Lazarus, which makes the resurrection, the first sign of a new creation in Jewish thought, right? You have seven signs, which culminates in the resurrection, which is brilliant. Awesome. But then his own resurrection ends up being the first of a new creation.
If you’re like, well, I don’t know if I buy that. It’s a nice idea. No, no, no. He’s resurrected. Where is his tomb at, Brent? It’s in a…?
Brent: In a garden.
Marty: It’s in a garden and who comes there?
Brent: A gardener.
Marty: Well, there’s a gardener there and who comes to the garden?
Brent: The angel.
Marty: There’s an angel, but who else comes to the garden?
Brent: A woman.
Marty: A woman comes looking for Jesus. Her name is Mary, right? Mary is in the garden. When was the last time—now, according to the other Gospels, how many other women were? Was it just Mary?
Brent: There were a couple of them, right?
Marty: Yes. There were at least a few of them, but in John’s Gospel, it’s just one woman. When was the last time—why again, if my apologetic bells go off, I’m missing something because John wants to put one woman in a garden, talking with a gardener. What’s the subtext? What’s the theme there? He’s calling us back to the garden. We have a new creation on our hands so there’s that subtext. There’s that sub-narrative.
Brent: It’s funny that I made a couple of other connections to the garden story before I got to the one that you’re actually trying to illustrate how much of a connection there is there.
Marty: Absolutely, it’s blatant.
Brent: It’s not a weak tie.
Marty: Absolutely, it’s absolutely blatant. So there’s that. There’s a Jacob subtext. The narrative of Jesus follows the narrative. The lifetime of Jacob, as if John is saying, Jesus is the new Jacob, that’s a definite subtext. We can do that some other time. I’m already at 36 minutes so I’m going to not get into that one, but there’s all of these different subtexts playing into what the Gospel of John is doing just layer after layer, after layer.
It is astounding when you start looking at what’s going on in the Gospel of John—shout out to Paule Patterson, who I’m sure doesn’t listen to my podcast, but if he does, just loved the Gospel of John because of all the different things that were going on there. Used to give him a hard time every time he was in sermon club, preparing sermons with us because no matter what we were preaching on, he’d find a way to bring it back to the Gospel of John.
Brent: Like I said, the depth of this Gospel is just incredible.
Marty: Yes, absolutely. I don’t have some profound idea to close this, just John’s stupendous ability. He’s my favorite author in the New Testament. He’s got so many things going on. The more I’ve studied the other authors, the more I’ve come to respect them because I thought none of the other authors could touch John. The more I study people like Luke in our last podcast and what he’s doing: phenomenal. The more I study Matthew: phenomenal.
Mark. We might even look at a couple of things in Mark over the course of the next episode in this session. He’s doing some phenomenal things. The writer of Hebrews: unbelievable. Paul? I used to not respect him at all until I understood what he was doing rabbinically. He’s exactly what you would expect a student of Gamaliel to be like. The New Testament authors are doing things that are just crazy in their ability to communicate their narrative. John’s euangelion is brilliant, beautiful, and totally unique for the world that he’s talking to.
If you really want to understand this, I’m just realizing now just how much there’s a talk about this. If you really want to understand this, we’ll hit a little bit of this in revelation when we study that in Session 4, but you really have to come on the trip. You need to walk through Turkey with me to really appreciate it. That’s where all of your John bells will go off, all the lights on your dashboard that say John will all go off as you walk through Turkey.
Next time we go to Turkey, you come with us because you got to see what John was doing. John is phenomenal. It is so brilliant and you will not think ever again, John just wrote this Gospel to fill in the gaps. You will realize how blatant John is and his ability to communicate the Gospel to that world.
Brent: I guess maybe in the summary of these four Gospel writers, we just have to point out that each one of them knows their Text incredibly well.
Marty: Unbelievably well.
Brent: They know their rabbi’s teaching.
Marty: Very well.
Brent: Obviously, they spent a lot of time with him. They probably went all over all of these things multiple times.
Marty: Exactly.
Brent: They know their audience and their cultural context incredibly well.
Marty: We really have to give credibility to that because that is a big point, I think we sometimes look over—how well did they have to know their culture? It’s one thing to know their Bible; to be Bible nerds, to be a disciple who followed their rabbi. That’s one thing, but how badly did these guys want to bring a Gospel to their culture? That they would have to live in a place long enough to understand a culture? How long did John have to live in Asia before he understood the culture well enough to write this Gospel? I mean years.
Brent: That would explain alone why the Gospels were written when we think they were written, several decades after Christ.
Marty: Absolutely. They’re not just trying to record—“Quick. Let’s write it down before we forget!” They’re not going to forget. They’re trying to figure out, “How do we get these people to know Jesus the way that we knew Jesus?”—and that’s their mission.
Brent: These guys got their Ph.D. in Jesus in modern terms, and then they went on to get a Ph.D. in wherever they ended up in life, and then they said, okay, here’s how we’re going to work those things together.
Marty: We’re going to call it “Text to Context.” It’s going to be one of our phrases that, hopefully, you get so tired of hearing. You’re going to be like, “Oh, no more ‘Text to context.’ ” That’s exactly—they’re taking Text and they’re taking their rabbi and they’re putting him into their context.
Brent: Yes, that’s great. All right. Well if you have questions about this podcast, feel free to get a hold of Marty. He’s on Twitter at @martysolomon. I’m at @eibcb. You can go to BEMAdiscipleship.com, contact us there. We’ve got a Facebook page as well, where Marty’s always sharing links and things to think about. He puts out alerts whenever a new podcast is up, as well, so you’re welcome to follow along with us there. Thanks for joining us on The BEMA Podcast. We’ll talk to you again soon.