Wash Your Own Feet!

I love the final moment of the Book of John . We’ll give him the full three years. Yeah, it’s still, it’s still a pretty big claim to say that if everything that Jesus did was written down, even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. Yeah, that feels a little, a little strong coming on a little strong, Author of John.

Hey everybody, I’m Dan McClellan.

And I’m Dan Beecher.

And you’re listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the Bible. How are things today, Dan?

Rocking and rolling. Keeping it, keeping it juicy.

Keeping it 100, huh?

Keeping it 100. Yes. A fun show coming up today. Awesome. We, we get to talk about a, a book that is not one that I even ever encountered my entire growing up because it is part of the Apocrypha. It is Second Maccabees and we’re going to, we’re going to have some fun.

Maybe Third Maccabees after that.

Yeah, sure. And then we’re going to go into a, a taking issue and the issue we’re going to take is one that like it isn’t obvious right off the jump, but we’re going to be talking about the washing of feet. It is a thing that happened quite a bit and was an interesting ritual and maybe was way more interesting than we knew it was. We’ll see when we get to it. That’ll be, that’ll be a fun discussion.

But to start us off, let’s do a chapter and verse.

All right. All right.

This week’s chapter and verse is in Second Maccabees, chapter seven. Is that right?

Yeah. Yeah. Should we talk a little bit about Maccabees?

Yeah, we should just and, and, and remind ourselves what, why it’s not in all of the Bibles and why the Catholics will have, will remember it and the Protestants won’t. Etc.

Yeah, they’re actually there are four well known books of Maccabees. It’s generally the first two that are, that are included in, in apocryphal texts that if those texts are included and the Maccabees deal with the history of the, the rise of the Hasmonean Kingdom. So the, the fighting back against the Seleucid rulers in the middle of the 2nd century BCE when Jewish folks actually managed to regain a degree of independence and started what has become known as the Hasmonean Kingdom. So this is, these are the events that result in the celebration of Hanukkah, which, which commemorates the rededication of the temple after the Maccabean forces were able to take it back from the Seleucid forces.

And the Seleucids were. Is that related to Babylon? I don’t know who the Seleucids were.

So this is one of the groups that arose after Alexander the Great’s death and his kingdom was fractured. And there were a bunch of different regions that were ruled over by regional powers. And so the Ptolemies, for instance, were, were in Egypt and the Seleucids were around Syria, Palestine area. And so these were Hellenistic rulers. And so Second Maccabees talks about actually a few different rulers. Seleucus the fourth, Antiochus the fourth Epiphanes, Antiochus the fifth, Demetrius the First. So there are a few different Seleucid rulers that are discussed, but they’re the ones who are trying to maintain their, their control over this territory while the Maccabees are, are fighting back and trying to gain independence.

Okay, and who are the Maccabees?

The Maccabees, this is a nickname that is given to some, a family that kind of becomes the, the, the head of this resistance movement. So Judas Maccabeus, for instance, is how one of the generals is known. And we’ve talked in the past a little bit about how there might be a hint at some kind of notion of purgatory in Second Maccabees 12, where Judas Maccabeus and his forces come upon some fallen comrades and they have, they have contraband, they have idols on their persons. And so he passes the hat around to gather up a collection to send off to the Jerusalem Temple so that sacrifices can be made in the names of the deceased so that maybe they can have a better resurrection.

I do remember talking about that. That’s. That’s really interesting. And the, the, the chapter in Second Maccabees that we are going to talk about is actually also just jam packed with theologically interesting little moments which you could, which you could totally miss if you’re not looking for them. Yeah, but they, I mean, as a guy who, like, is peripherally associated with biblical scholarship, they jumped out at me. Quite a few of them did.

And Their Mommy and Their Mother.

Yes. And the interesting thing about this is that there are actually multiple stories of a parent and seven children, seven sons facing death for their refusal to violate God’s laws. Oh, so there’s a text called the Assumption of Moses where we have a character named Taxo who is a father, who is. Takes his seven sons into a cave to protest Roman oppression in a later time period and presumably killing his sons and then himself along the way. And then we have a discussion in Josephus where Josephus tells the same story, but expands on it and actually has the father killing the sons one by one rather than have them fall into Roman hands. And then we have some rabbinic literature as well. That’s, that reflects this story. But we have a slightly different version in Second Maccabees, chapter seven, which I argued in a paper from, oh, many, many moons ago, 2009, I think, is when I actually published it in a student journal where I, I suggested that because of the fact that it is chock full of theological significance.

And also if we look at the trajectory of the development of this story, seems to come from a later time period. I argued, hey, maybe we ought to date chapter seven to later. Maybe it is a later addition to the text of Second Maccabees. But that argument has not won over a ton of supporters. So I, I presented it in a couple different academic conferences and, and was. It was received skeptically, let’s say. But there are a bunch of interesting things that we see in here. For instance, we have this notion of, well, actually, let’s just talk a little bit about the narrative and then we can go through some of these elements.

Before we dive into that. Give me a sense of the dating, the traditional or, or approximate dating of this text, like when, when does this go back to?

So scholars suggest it was probably written somewhere between like 161 BCE and about 63 BCE. Okay, so the, it was obviously written after the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and it was almost certainly written before Pompey’s annexation of Judea, because the Romans are not treated as villains in this. And if it had come after that, then they probably would have been treated as villains. And it starts in chapter seven. It happened also that, and we’re telling stories about ways that the Seleucids are trying to stamp out observation of Jewish conventions, right? Such as circumcision, such as avoidance of pork and things like that. So it happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king under torture with whips and straps to partake of unlawful pig’s flesh.

And one of them, acting as their spokesman, said, what do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors. And then this.

By the way, Unlawful Pig’s Flesh is a great name for a metal band. If anybody wants it, it’s just hanging out there for you.

And then the king fell into a rage and gave orders to have pans and cauldrons heated.

Yeah, it gets, it gets real intense real fast.

Yeah, well, you, you gotta read 4th Maccabees because that is like a. This stretches it out. It expands the torture and it expands the vocabulary that is used to describe the, the torture devices and the ways that the kids are, are tortured. But, but in short, one by one, the seven sons are going to be tortured and killed.

And the torture is spelled out. They scalp them. And it, and it seems to indicate that they are all sort of dispatched in the same manner, which I’m going to get to in a minute because I think there’s a funny thing that. But they are scalped and then their hands and feet are cut off while the. Everybody, the rest of the brothers and the mother look on. And there is something about cutting out the tongue, isn’t there?

Yes, that happens in verse 10. After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands and said nobly, and I got these from heaven. And because of his laws I disdain them. And from him I hope to get them back again.

And that, and that right there is actually the first of our big theological moments. Right, which, which is, which is to say, at least from my perspective, it’s, it’s the first mention that we get, at least in this chapter of I’m Going to Be Made Whole.

Yeah. So this witnesses to a view of resurrection which is something that developed slowly within Judaism. And this is a very early, would be a very early attestation to a rather developed view of, of resurrection. If, if he’s like, oh, I’m getting all this back. And, and we have a few, we have a few different mentions of this. And they’re, I think they’re going oldest to youngest with these. And after he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. And then he cries out and, and each of the sons, before they are killed, says something mean to the king.

Which is funny because it, the, the tongue cutting out thing is actually the first thing that happens to the first one. And if this all goes in the same order, then they all had their tongues cut out. And then later they were like, haha, but for you there will be no resurrection. Which, which is pretty funny. But, but that is verse 14. I can, I, I’ll just read it and then you can talk about it. Because this is, this is the fourth kid who’s being killed. And when he dies, he says, or when he is near death. And by the way, they are frying these kids in a pan after they cut off all their hands and feet. So that’s, that’s pretty horrific. But he says one cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God. The hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you, there will be no resurrection to life, which theologically I suppose means no hell.

Right. That’s oblivion. That’s.

Yeah, I, it is, it does seem to suggest that the, that he can’t count on being raised again. In other words, the resurrection would only be for the righteous unless resurrection to life stands in contrast to resurrection to something else. Oh. But I think the, the idea, the cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. If, if Antiochus does not have that hope, then maybe there is no resurrection of any kind that he can expect and it’s just annihilation. But. Yeah, doesn’t jibe with a lot of, of what we see in, in later ideas where everybody is resurrected. But again, this is a slowly developing ideological framework. Yeah. Then they brought forth the fifth and maltreated him. But he looked at the king and said, because you have authority among mortals, though you also are mortal.

You do what you please. But do not think that God has forsaken our people. Keep on and see how his mighty power will torture you and your descendants. Quite the threat there.

And in the face of, of torture and, and murder. But we start to see the idea that the punishment that they are receiving is a just recompense for the sins of Israel.

Yeah, that, that was a, a bit of a befuddlement to me because that, that theme is repeated multiple times. This idea that, that, you know, we are forsaken and our sin, this is happening to us because of our sins, which I thought was an interesting thing. Can you talk a little bit about why what, what that’s about? Because I, I don’t know. I, I’ve read a lot of, you know, you read the Psalms and, and they’re sort of bemoaning our lot and God, why have you done this to us? But this seems very clear that bad things that are happening to us are, are our fault in some way and we’re. And somehow our atonement for our sins.

Yeah, you do have a sense that these, these punishments and this death functions as a kind of atonement and that if they suffer it, well, then that will appease God’s anger or something like that. Yeah, you, the exilic literature, the earlier literature that’s talking about Israel being sent into exile pretty unilaterally suggests that the exile was punishment for Judah’s sins. And so this later literature is, is probably just accepting that framing of persecution on the part of larger nations. Well, that must be because of, of the sins of the nation. But yeah, we, we do have a sense of kind of proxy atoning for others sins here, which is. Yeah, which is kind of early in my opinion, for, for this thing to be popping up in the literature alongside a very early manifestation of belief in resurrection.

A very early kind of ascetic approach to martyrdom.

Where you know, he regarded his sufferings as nothing, which is not really a first century BCE Jewish ideal. That, that strikes me as, as something that comes a little later, but. And then we get a little. After the six, we get a little about the mother and verse 20.

So again we have this reference to they are, they are sacrificing themselves in order to remain faithful to the laws. And so God will give life and breath back.

Right.

And here Antiochus is outraged. And so we only have the youngest brother left. And so Antiochus not only appealed to him in words, but promised with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable if he would turn from the ways of his ancestors and that he would take him for his friend and entrust him with public affairs. Since the young man would not listen to him at all, the king called the mother to him and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. So it’s representing Antiochus as just this out of control, just raging, barely human tyrant.

Well, actually, I would say that in this moment, it’s representing him as being someone who’s like, I’m kind of trapped into this whole thing. I really need you to. If I’m gonna. I don’t want to kill another kid if, you know, I just. Just eat the pork. It’ll be fine. And when he doesn’t do it, he’s like, mom, come here. Talk to him. I don’t want to kill him. Talk to him. I’ll make him rich. I’ll make him. You know what I mean? Like, it just. It feels. It feels to me like he’s like, he’s really working to make this not happen.

He’s. It also says in verse 24, he was suspicious of her reproachful tone. So I. I think he might be trying to be like, “you smarmy little”—trying to win them over to. To overcome their. Their dogmatism.

And so he urges her, and then she leans in close to him, and she, in their native language, leans in.

Close to her son.

Her son.

Derides the cruel tyrant and says, “my son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb and nursed you for three years and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life and have taken care of you.” And this is verse 28. This is a very famous verse, and I’ll. I’ll explain why in a second. “I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed.”

And in the same way the human race came into being. Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy, I may get you back again along with your brothers. And obviously this passage is appealed to by a bunch of folks as. As asserting creation ex nihilo.

Creation out of nothing.

It definitely. I mean, yeah. God did not make them out of the thing, out of things that existed.

Yes. However. Seem. However, the very next sentence. And in the same way the human race came into being rather complicates things, because they didn’t. The human race did not come into being from nothing. If you. If. If you look at Genesis 2 , the human race was molded from the dust. Made of dirt. Made of dirt. Yeah. Keep a little dirt under the pillow for Adam, the dirt man.

That’s right.

And there’s a further problem. Most scholars these days acknowledge that this “things that existed” and “things that did not exist”—this is a reference to a Greek philosophical notion of. Of matter as existing in a realm of being or a realm of non being, where matter that existed in the realm of non being was still matter and it existed. It was just part of this material substrate that lacked form and function. It was the raw materials. And so to give it form and function was to move it from the realm of non being into the realm of being. And so there have been a. There have been a handful of scholars since, like the 70s and 80s who’ve been pointing out, this is not creation ex nihilo.

But the young man then turns and says, well, what are you waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses. And basically further mouths off to Antiochus, says, our brothers have fallen under God’s covenant, but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance. I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our ancestors, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation, and by trials and plagues, to make you confess that he alone is God, and through me and my brothers, to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation. So again, this is expiation for sin. This is proxy atonement for sin by them giving up their lives for their nation.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you—you skipped it. But it does say in verse 32, for we are suffering because of our own sins.

So, yeah, that’s a—that—that is fascinating. The idea of—of—of proxy atonement. Does that ever come up later in the Bible at all? Does that—it seems like maybe that comes—

It’s in the back somewhere, I think. And then it says the king fell into a rage and handled him worse than the others, being exasperated at his scorn. So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord. Last of all, the mother died after her sons. And then verse 42 let this be enough then, about the eating of sacrifices and the extreme tortures. So the author is—has had enough. The author is done.

That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Is a weird way to end a biblical chapter.

That’s.

That just seems like a very odd thing to say, but. Yes.

Yeah. And—but this is a part of the literature of this time period where they’re like—and now I’m going to go on to talk about this and let that be enough of that.

And then that thus ended that lesson.

Well, yeah, go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to say that’s the story of the mother and her seven sons and represents Antiochus the Fourth Epiphanes in not a very favorable light as, as kind of not in control of his, of his temper and yeah, destined for not a great afterlife if—if the seven sons were correct.

Or not an afterlife at all.

Or not an afterlife at all. Depending on, you know, when we date this and—and what they’re—what they’re thinking about the afterlife.

Yeah. All right. Fascinating. Interesting. And again, one that many of us would not—would never have encountered. I was far older than I should have been before I realized that that’s actually still in a lot of people’s Bibles. All right. Yeah.

There are a number of other fascinating stories in Second Maccabees. And First Maccabees is—is considered slightly more historical. Not incredibly historical, but slightly more historical and—is important for reconstructing the history of this time period. So.

Okay. Yeah, well, we may have to, we may have to come back to Maccabees at some point.

Read your Maccabees, people.

Yeah, important stuff. All right, let’s move on to taking issue. All right. And the thing we’re taking issue with today is feet.

Yes. There are no fetishes going on here.

We are—we—we do not. Yeah. This is—this is not a Tarantino film. We are not into it.

No pictures will be taken. No pictures will be shared.

Although if you check my OnlyFans, you will get—

Oh okay.

Feet things. Anyway, there’s—I—I have one fan—no on. So what I’ve got pulled up is John 13 .

John chapter 13.

And that is where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. They have a meal and then after that he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

And, and you wanted to talk about this. So, so I’m just going to let you. Well, what, what, what is interesting. I’ve always, you know, this has always to me been presented as a gesture of supplication or a gesture of service.

So. So talk to me about what, what’s interesting, what we’re taking issue with.

Well, we’re taking an issue with an interpretation of this that is, that is pretty common in the world of social media, in the public discourse, not as much in the academic discourse, but to some degree in the academic discourse. There’s the notion that feet are euphemisms for genitals in the Bible.

Yeah, you’ve mentioned that a number of times as we’ve talked through things.

Yeah. And you know, to uncover one’s feet can be a euphemism for dropping trou, and to cover one’s feet is a euphemism for defecation.

Because you’re squatting down and.

Oh, okay.

Garments gather around one’s feet. And, and so there are folks who suggest that this is a, a homoerotic story, that, that there is something a little more than washing going on between Jesus and his disciples. And I think if, if there were just a passage that said and Jesus washed his disciples’ feet or uncovered his disciples’ feet or something like that—I mean, maybe there’s a bit more of an argument to make there if it’s something that’s just in passing—but this is a part of a pretty symbolic set of events toward the end of, of John’s gospel. And the details in here just don’t leave room, in my opinion, for interpreting this as reflecting these sexual undertones.

Well, I’m just going to complicate the matter a little bit because the reading that I did started with verse five, but if I start before that, in verse four, Jesus got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing and wrapped a towel around his waist.

Now what. Why did he strip.

That’s.

That seems odd.

Yeah. I would suggest that what’s going on here is that he is doffing his symbols of his equality with the disciples and donning the, the clothing of an enslaved person. Because in this time period, washing feet was, was something that, that happened frequently. And, and you would, you might wash your own feet, but usually if you were well enough off, you would have enslaved folks who would do it for you and your guests. Okay. And so to wash someone else’s feet was to take a subordinate, a position of subordinate social status and basically the position of an enslaved person.

And so can you talk about the word that is translated here as towel, because that’s. That. That might shed a little light.

Okay. Yeah, let me just pull up what we’re looking at here. I don’t have my, my Greek up. Taking a towel, which is lention. So this cloth, this could be an apron. Let me see what BDAG says. Linen cloth or towel. And we have mention of a woman who is preparing to wash another person’s feet. So according to Vita Aesopi, which comes from, which evidently comes from the first century CE—I’m not familiar with this text, but the Life of Aesop—a woman would wrap themselves in a towel before washing another person’s feet. So it sounds like this is imagery that is, that is kind of part of the convention of foot washing.

Yes. Okay.

And sounds like it, but it also.

Puts it, it introduces—it puts an interesting further complication into this, which is that now, is Jesus taking on a woman’s role? And that, that actually becomes a very. That’s a very interesting question to me.

Yeah. I would have to look at the literature to see if there’s something significant about this being a woman or if this is just an enslaved person who happens to be a woman. Or maybe they’re not an enslaved person at all. I. I don’t know. I think there are, there are multiple different conventions, but the, the conventional reading on the part of scholars is that Jesus is indeed debasing himself.

Right.

Humbling himself before his, his disciples in a symbolic gesture.

Right.

To show that what he’s doing. And verse five, then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the. Wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. And so here’s where like the details, the narrative details are a little.

Explicit for this to be a euphemistic reference to something else going on.

Yeah, it does sound very specific.

Yeah. And verse six, he came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” And, and this is kind of the incredulous Peter saying, “No way this is happening.” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” And then, yeah, we cut to Jim side eye. Right? But, and, and so I think the idea here is that Peter misunderstands the symbol.

Peter thinks that Jesus is like, it’s time to get y’all squeaky clean. And Peter’s like, “Well, my head’s been… my scalp’s been feeling a little dry.” So he’s like, “Oh, get all the rest of me too.” And, and Jesus kind of says, “This is a symbol, Peter. This is not… I, I’m not suggesting you all need a bath.”

You’re clean already. This—just let me do the foot thing. Gosh.

Because, you know, you have a bath, you go walk around, your feet are dirty. Yeah. So. Yeah, so the—

Especially, especially in sandals in the desert.

That seems like that’ll—that’s just a recipe for dirty feet.

Yeah. And, and so the, the idea here is that, is that Jesus is, is humbling himself before his disciples as a sign of, of what’s coming. And, and this, this is a symbolic way to, to kind of bring them into what’s going to happen. And, and there, there are a variety of ways to explain what’s going on. But verse 11 says, “For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’” Dun, dun, dun. Yeah, we get Jim side eye. After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?” Yeah. Which would be a weird thing if this were sexual in some way. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

“For I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” And then, yeah, we, we get back to talking about how Judas is not a naughty boy.

Yeah. So it’s a message of, of equality and, and, and sort of, well, mutual—

Submission and, and subordination, kind of servant leadership. You’re… you’re not greater than me, but I humbled myself before you. And so obviously you guys gotta humble yourselves before, before each other and before others. And so it’s, it’s putting that, putting that burden on them to then live that example that Jesus has set, which they are going to do later on once Jesus is resurrected and they all come to their senses because they’re kind of blinded by, by their expectations of what the Messiah is going to be.

And yeah, I guess I… I actually misread when I was… when… when you just read the part about no servant is greater than his master, I actually, in my mind, I had that flipped that—so it’s not about equality. I was thinking it was—it was a message of equality. But no, it’s a message of you’re not better than me, so you guys better—you guys better—you better act right.

Yeah, yeah, you’re not better than me, but I still did this, right? And so, yeah, it is. It is kind of—he’s like, “I am humbling myself before you, even though I am greater than all of you put together.”

Yeah, I’m… I am still way better than you. But if I’m so much better than you and I deigned to do this, you better be deigning. You guys better deign.

Yeah, and I… I’m trying to… I’m trying to find out where he… he says this because this is… this is toward the end of—end of John. I want to bring up something, something else interesting. There are a lot of peculiarities about John’s telling of the—the final week of Jesus’s life. But for instance, this meal that they sit down and have that immediately precedes some discourses and then his arrest is not represented as the Passover meal in John.

And then chapter 15 begins with more sermonizing. Chapter 16 has more sermonizing. And then we get to chapter 18. After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley to the, to the Garden of Gethsemane. So a lot of scholars have pointed out, we’ve got Jesus saying—you know, you could skip right from the end of chapter 14 to the beginning of chapter 18 and miss nothing. Like, narratively, it just flows just fine. But it seems like an editor was like, “I got three chapters’ worth of sermonizing I gotta put somewhere.” And so we have our “true vine” speech, and we have the “world hatred” speech, and then we have the intercessory prayer, and all of this gets shoved right in between Jesus saying, “Let’s get out of here,” and then the verse that says, “So they got out of there,” right?

One of, one of a handful of different cues. Little indications that there’s—there’s been a heavy editorial hand in—

The Gospel of John , and perhaps additions placed in there.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Perhaps some, some—some things were, were cooked up to expand on the significance.

Book’s not long enough. Can we add—can we—is there anything we can put in there?

Well, and, and we know this happens in the Gospel of John because the story of the woman taken in adultery—

Oh, right.

—was not original to the Gospel of John . It was not in the earliest manuscripts, but that is John chapter 7, verse 53 is where it starts, and it runs all the way through chapter 8, verse 11. And so we—and we know about that one because we have manuscripts that don’t have it. And that is not the case for chapters 15, 16, and 17. But, but certainly there is opportunity for editorializing going on. And I think one of the clearest indicators of that is at the very end—this, this—the first time I read this, I was like, “What? What?” So this is John chapter 21, verse 24: “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.” And I was like, wait a minute, who’s “we”?

And perhaps it was dictated.

Where does “we” stop and the beloved disciple start? And so that is always—I’ve always found that a funny little—somebody was like, “Let’s, let’s just mention ourselves and either chuck ourselves into this.” Yeah. The narrator or whoever is, is collating the text just couldn’t help but, but squeeze themselves in there a little bit and then they go: “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.” Which is a peculiar little epilogue that goes back to first-person singular. Yeah, but, but I love that we’ve got this little “we” tossed in there. And, and so I, I think that demonstrates—like, even if you think the Gospel of John was, was written firsthand by an eyewitness, there’s at least that one passage that very clearly was added later.

And there have got to be others. We know the woman taken in adultery is another example. And, and so I, I think it’s just the, the compositional history of the Gospel of John is a fascinating area of research that, that I would love to know more about. I haven’t—

Remind me a little bit. When—when do we think John was written? Like, in—in the order of the Gospels?

A lot of people—

Mark was first, right?

Mark was first. A lot of people think John was last, probably in the 90s CE. But if Luke is the early 2nd century CE, then Luke probably came after John.

But yeah, that’s. That’s something that’s still being debated. And we’ve got a book—there it is—Writing and Rewriting the Gospels, John and the Synoptics by James W. Barker. Okay. Where he makes a case that basically every Gospel author used everything that came before. So Matthew used Mark, Luke used Matthew and Mark, and then John used all of the Synoptics.

So, yeah. There are a handful of different theories about how everything came together, but usually John’s dated to the 90s CE.

I love the—as you point out—the final, the final moment of the Gospel of John where… because the ministry of Jesus was what, a year or something?

Well, in John, it’s three years. Another big difference between the Synoptics and—

Okay, we’ll give him the full three years. Yeah, it’s still—it’s still a pretty big claim to say that if everything that Jesus did was written down, it would—even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. Yeah, that feels a little—a little strong. Coming on a little strong, author of John.

Yeah. Maybe he had extra hours. Maybe he had more than 24 hours in each day that he was going about doing stuff as an itinerant preacher who probably spent a lot of time just hanging out. So—

Yeah, that is some hyperbole there.

The—the “Book of Jesus Chilling” would be—that would be a lot of fun. Yeah. Well, all right, that’s—I’m fascinated. John is a very interesting book. I really—I—we—we should probably do more John stuff. Maybe—maybe we’ll get your friend on.

We’ve got to. Yeah, we’ve got—we’ve got a handful of folks who are waiting to get scheduled, but it—

Might be a minute, yeah.

Yeah, our—

Our schedules are crazy. I don’t know if our listeners know this, but you just had a book come out.

I did just have a book come out: “The Bible Says So: What We Get Right and Wrong about Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues.” And I feel bad that I have to say the subtitle every time because, as I’ve pointed out, I am not responsible for the sub—

Well, you don’t—I don’t know why you feel bad that you have to, because you don’t have to. You can just say “The Bible Says So.” Look for a blue and yellow cover wherever you get your fine books, whatever local bookshop you go to for—for your favorite non-fiction books. Anyway, that’s it for the show today. If you would like to become one of the many wonderful people who help make this show happen, we would love to have you over on patreon.com, where you can sign up to get access to early and ad-free versions of every show. You can get—get access to the Afterparty, which is—which is bonus content that we do for our—for our patrons every week, and—and it also just makes us feel warm and fuzzy and keeps us actually paid so that we can afford to keep doing this. So we really appreciate that. If you would like to reach out to us, it’s contact@dataoverdogma.com. Thanks so much to RJ Ghadimi for editing the show, and thanks to all of you for tuning in.

We’ll talk to you again next week.

Bye everybody.

Wash Your Own Feet!

Segments

The Transcript

Scripture Index

Terminology