Dating of the Fourth Gospel: Nongbri

[Stuart]

A reason for dating John after Bar-Kochba, and to think that the persecution of Christians by Bar-Kochba is historical :

John 16:2

They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.

A religious persecution as that here described could only be organized by the State. Only by Bar-kokhba.

This need not refer to any (real) Jews. It refers to "Jewish" Christians chasing out and putting to death (symbolically) the teaching of those supporting John's version of Christ.

The supposed Christian persecution by Bar Kokhba is rather absurd upon examination. The revolt was confined to the Judea Hills south of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), and largely carried out as a guerilla war of small hit and run groups, no large formations or battles. At least not until the Romans finally identified the fortress at Bethar and laid siege to it. The archeological evidence strongly supports this small localized revolt, through examination of the caves throughout Judea and Samaria and Galilee, showing the distribution of Bar Kokhba coins and other items. There were no Christians in that area. What the archeological evidence shows is the region remained Jewish only after Bellum Judaicum and continued to remain so until the middle of the 2nd century when most of the Jewish towns went empty and new Gentile communities began to appear.

It is fanciful to believe some great Jewish army crushed the Roman legion dug in at Aelia Capitolina (zero evidence of a clash there) and somehow roamed all the way into Galilee and persecuted Christians there. Flat didn't happen. A literary fiction from the 4th century or later.

[MrMacSon]

Eusubius, a source I do not trust, says the first edict of the persecution by Diocletian, was in 303 when he ordered that the newly built Christian church at Nicomedia be razed, its scriptures burned, and its possessions seized. Once accomplished this was followed up with an order to do the same for ALL Christian churches.

I wonder if many of these razed supposed-'Christian churches' were places of worship of other religions. Many religions were spreading and growing throughout the eastern Mediterranean in the 1st to 3rd centuries - Mithracism; the Egyptian mystery religions such as the cult of Serapis, the cult of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, etc.

Many 'serapea' were built (singular, serapeum), and were converted to churches around the time of Diocletian eg. The Red Basilica in Pergamon, and one in Ephesus (and I wonder if these specific building became part of the the seven Churches of Asia (which includes Pergamon and Ephesus))

I'd say some history of other religions has been usurped and 'Christianised' to embellish 'Christian history'.

[Bernard Muller]

I do not see why the dating of a papyri would affect the dating of gJohn. That gospel could be first redacted well before the earliest discovered papyri were written.

Some external evidence for gJohn is from Basilides (120-140 CE) (from http://historical-jesus.info/gospels.html):

According to Hippolytus of Rome, in 'Refutation of all heresies', book VII:
Chapter XV "... all the events in our Lord's life occurred, according to them [Basilidians], in the same manner as they have been described in the Gospels." (which would imply Basilides knew about a few gospels, as can be confirmed next, from the same book)
- Basilides knew about GJohn:
Chapter X "The seed of the cosmical system was generated, he [Basilides] says, from nonentities; the word which was spoken, "Let there be light." And this, he [Basilides] says, is that which has been stated in the Gospels: "He was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."[words in italics are as in Jn1:9]"

Basilides also quoted gLuke & gMatthew.

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

Basilides [120-140 CE, supposedly] knew about GJohn.

in 'Refutation of all heresies', book VII, [attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, 170 – 235 AD] -

Chapter X, "The seed of the cosmical system was generated, he [Basilides] says, from nonentities; the word which was spoken, "Let there be light." And this, he [Basilides] says, is that which has been stated in the Gospels:

• "He was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." [as in Jn1:9]

It's possible these words got into John 1 after 'Refutation of all heresies' was written.

It's noteworthy that 'Refutation of all heresies' catalogues both pagan beliefs and 33 gnostic Christian systems deemed heretical, making it a major source of information on contemporary opponents of orthodoxy.

[Bernard Muller]

It's possible these words got into John 1 after 'Refutation of all heresies' was written.

Another appeal to possibility in order to doubt or eradicate clear-cut evidence.

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

Another appeal to possibility in order to doubt or eradicate clear-cut evidence.

I'm not 'appealing' to possibility for anything.

A short passage in 'Refutation of all Heresies' that is in John 1 (or almost identical to, or similar to a passage in John 1)

is not proof that

1. that John 1, or even gJohn (as we know it today), existed before 'Refutation of all Heresies' was written, or
2. that passage - John 1:9 - was in John 1 before 'Refutation of all Heresies' was written.

[Ulan]

I only cite the Christian sources because it is a rare case where they conform to archival documents the Romans left behind. There is ZERO papyri evidence prior to Decius of any Roman actions concerning Christians.

Thank you very much. In particular those letters and their implications were an interesting read.

[Secret Alias]

It is worth asking though at what point Romans became aware that Christians were a distinct people. For instance, in modern parlance, a whole host of subcategories have emerged among the LGBTQ (I don't even know if I have included all the appropriate initials). They were likely simply referred to as 'degenerates' or some such terminology originally. Now there are distinctions between 'gay' 'bisexual' 'transgender' and a host of other categories which weren't known to previous generations. To this end, I remember going to a Toronto Film Festival where they showed Ed Wood movies back in the day. He wasn't referred to back then as 'transgender' but simply a 'crossdresser.' I am not even sure if he is considered transgender today. You need a score card to keep up with the orthodoxy. My point however is that a history of transgenderism or some similar subcategory would necessarily find little or no evidence for the phenomenon existing in modernity before a certain date. You'd have to dig through less explicit evidence in the same respect with Christian perspecutions which in my mind certainly did exist given the association of martyrrs and the Marcionites who died out by the time of Decius and the lack of apparent reason for the orthodox to 'credi' the Marcionites with enduring 'witnesses' if that could be avoided (it would have been much more useful to simply brand them cowards). As always language and terminology is a try thing. Does Lucian for instance ever call Peregrinus a 'Christian'? I don't remember. Note - yes 'Christian' is referenced 3 times.

[Giuseppe]

A reason for dating John after Bar-Kochba, and to think that the persecution of Christians by Bar-Kochba is historical :

John 16:2

They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.

A religious persecution as that here described could only be organized by the State. Only by Bar-kokhba.

This need not refer to any (real) Jews. It refers to "Jewish" Christians chasing out and putting to death (symbolically) the teaching of those supporting John's version of Christ.

The supposed Christian persecution by Bar Kokhba is rather absurd upon examination. The revolt was confined to the Judea Hills south of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), and largely carried out as a guerilla war of small hit and run groups, no large formations or battles. At least not until the Romans finally identified the fortress at Bethar and laid siege to it. The archeological evidence strongly supports this small localized revolt, through examination of the caves throughout Judea and Samaria and Galilee, showing the distribution of Bar Kokhba coins and other items. There were no Christians in that area. What the archeological evidence shows is the region remained Jewish only after Bellum Judaicum and continued to remain so until the middle of the 2nd century when most of the Jewish towns went empty and new Gentile communities began to appear.

It is fanciful to believe some great Jewish army crushed the Roman legion dug in at Aelia Capitolina (zero evidence of a clash there) and somehow roamed all the way into Galilee and persecuted Christians there. Flat didn't happen. A literary fiction from the 4th century or later.

Even if Bar-Kohkba didn't persecute the Christians, the air of religious persecution in John 16:2. reflects probably the post-Bar-Kokhba period.

In Mark Goodacre’s book, Thomas and the Gospels: The making of an apocryphal text, he proposes a mid-second century date for Thomas. In the conclusion to Chapter 9 he gives his rationale:

“The dating of the Gospel of Thomas to the 140s makes good sense of a book that witnesses to the destruction of the temple (Thom. 71) and apparently presupposes the Bar Kokhba revolt (Thom. 68)…”

So he gives two supports for the date apart from the supposed dependence on the Synoptics. The first justification, that Thomas 71 alludes to the destruction of the second temple, is clear but it only means that Thomas was written after 70 AD, so it is hardly relevant to a date in 140s AD. Effectively then, Goodacre only offers a single reason for his late date, and that is that Thomas 68 refers to the Bar Kokhba revolt which took place in 135 AD. It was after this revolt that the Jews were finally banished from Jerusalem.
Now this is what Thomas 68 actually says:

Jesus said: “Blessed are you when they hate you and persecute you, and they do not find a place in the place where they persecuted you.” (Thomas 68)

The idea behind this interpretation is that the “place where they persecuted you” means Jerusalem. So those who “do not find a place” in the “place where they persecuted you“, means the Jews who were expelled from Jerusalem after 135 AD.

[andrewcriddle]

FWIW Mark Goodacre gives moer than one reason for a date of the Gospel of Thomas after Bar Kokhba e.g. on p 168 of Thomas and the Gospels he quotes saying 71

Jesus said, "I shall throw down [this] building, and no one will be able to build it

and argues this dates from after the failure of Bar Kokhba when it became clear the temple was not being rebuilt anytime soon.

Andrew Criddle