Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:20 pm
Stuart wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:11 pm
What gospel is that where John is the hero and Jesus is missing?
In this thread (see my first posts) I am collecting the evidence for the existence of this 'biography' of John without Jesus.
Under your scenario, you are obliged to explain
why,
if John was introduced
ab initio only in Christian sources (i.e. texts where
Jesus is the hero-god),
why was John considered as the Christ, as the True Prophet, by
his disciples ?
I would quote easily the passages in Acts where only a 'baptism of John' is known (the case of Apollos) and the passage in the Fourth Gospel where John
denies that he is the Christ and he
denies that he is the True Prophet. I are dispensed from the efforts of quoting the precise references because I think that Stuart knows
perfectly what I am talking about.
You have not shown any gospel about John ever existed. You have asserted it. But it breaks down under details of the sources you claim. It requires your peculiar understanding of passages.
Granted, there is strong evidence of an apostle named John who baptized, and he is associated with Asia Minor as a rival to Paul. Robert Price wrote a few books which reference this battle for Asia (basically Eastern Turkey today). Ephesus seems to be the epicenter.
But Price draws conclusions I cannot agree with, such as "brand X" baptism per 1 Corinthians 1:12, and 3:4. But I think 1:12 was written after 3:4 or that it was expanded from the Marcionite text, as DA 1.8 quotes 1:12-13 without ἐγὼ δὲ Χριστοῦ (and 'I am of Christ'), as a misunderstanding by the redactor, a blunder. 3:4 only refers to Paul and Apollos. The language refers to each as sect leaders or (arch)bishops (== Apostles), which we see in 3:22-23. Price rather than see it as a blunder by a redactor, sees it as a rabbit hole he can go down and like Alice in Wonderland, discovering a whole new world.
There are many possibilities, and I think the simplest is John was a rival with Paul for patron saint of Asia Minor, and specifically Ephesus. It has also been suggested that Apollos (Ἀπολλῶς) is a thinly disguised Apelles (Ἀπελλῆς), and Paul in the Marcionite collection is an alter ego for Marcion (aka, "Mark"?). If that is the case then Marcion is the builder of the foundation, and Apelles the one building onto it, or that Marcion is the one that plants and Apelles the one who waters (his successor or a splinter group leader?). This is of course all symbolic.
But these solutions do not require inventing a new Gospel with John replacing Jesus. In my view Price is building upon a redactors blunder in much the same way botches the reading of Mark 6:15 in his interpretation of the Elijah identification. It's inventive, it's logical, but the very foundation stone doesn't fit making the house fall down.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift