Prof Dale Martin: Surprises in the Gospel of John (2021-07-16) ​

0:00:02 she speaks with an american accent
0:00:05 uh good evening everyone and welcome to
0:00:08 blogging theology
0:00:09 and um as you can see we are with our
0:00:12 very esteemed guest professor dale
0:00:14 martin i will just
0:00:16 straight off the bat say apologies for
0:00:18 my fuzziness
0:00:20 um but uh dale is uh crystal clear i
0:00:22 think
0:00:23 um and that's what really matters uh
0:00:25 we're recording this
0:00:26 on zoom uh because we've had technical
0:00:28 problems so
0:00:30 um i've not had time to sort out my own
0:00:32 fuzziness
0:00:33 i don't really mind about that it's
0:00:34 seeing and hearing dale very clearly
0:00:36 that really matters
0:00:37 so welcome dale back to blogging
0:00:39 theology
0:00:42 and um today we're going to be talking
0:00:44 about uh the gospel of john
0:00:46 and uh i'm drawing as usual on the book
0:00:50 by dale martin
0:00:51 called new testament history and
0:00:53 literature this is
0:00:54 an undergraduate text published by yale
0:00:56 university uh which is kind of
0:00:58 a transcript or re-edited form of
0:01:01 lectures that he gave to undergraduates
0:01:03 at yale
0:01:04 uh introducing them to the new testament
0:01:06 the historical jesus and
0:01:08 and the nature of history historiography
0:01:11 authorship date and so on and it's very
0:01:14 readable
0:01:15 i do recommend it so i'm going to just
0:01:17 quote briefly the overview that daley
0:01:19 himself gives at the beginning of his
0:01:20 chapter
0:01:21 on the gospel of john and then ask dale
0:01:24 to expand and then there's a couple of
0:01:26 questions
0:01:26 uh also i want to ask him to address if
0:01:29 he's up for that so
0:01:31 um dale writes uh at the beginning of
0:01:34 his
0:01:35 book uh sorry a chapter on the gospel of
0:01:37 john the gospel of john
0:01:39 is dramatically different from the
0:01:41 synoptic gospels that's matthew mark and
0:01:44 luke of course
0:01:45 it is full of long dialogues and speaks
0:01:48 of signs
0:01:49 rather than exorcisms or miracles
0:01:52 and its narrative differs at many points
0:01:55 from the synoptics
0:01:56 the themes themes in the gospel of john
0:01:59 are also repeated throughout
0:02:01 themes such as ascending and descending
0:02:04 light and darkness seeing and knowing
0:02:09 johannine literature presents a high
0:02:12 christology
0:02:13 that requires jesus sorry that equates
0:02:16 jesus with god
0:02:18 the gospel also reflects the sectarian
0:02:20 nature
0:02:21 of the community to which the author
0:02:23 belonged
0:02:25 so that's the the overview very succinct
0:02:27 overview to the gospel
0:02:29 i just want to begin by asking you dale
0:02:31 most of us think that
0:02:33 the apostle john the beloved disciple
0:02:35 that the the gospel refers to
0:02:38 is the author of the gospel and thus it
0:02:41 is an
0:02:41 eyewitness account of the life and
0:02:44 ministry and death and resurrection of
0:02:46 jesus
0:02:47 and yet i suspect that historians these
0:02:49 days don't think that
0:02:51 why would they doubt such an obvious
0:02:53 conclusion of traditional
0:02:54 christian views
0:02:58 well let's start with the first thing we
0:03:00 should start with which is the evidence
0:03:05 you know you said there's you know very
0:03:08 similitude in this
0:03:10 gospel that is it looks like it should
0:03:13 be real and historical yes but if you
0:03:16 actually compare it
0:03:17 with the other three gospels um
0:03:22 you start getting the impression that
0:03:25 they might be closer to what actually
0:03:28 happened than
0:03:29 john was john
0:03:32 looks later he has these long speeches
0:03:36 the the the narrative is carefully
0:03:39 constructed to fit a certain pattern
0:03:42 of from the dark galilee to the
0:03:46 i mean the bright galilee to the dark
0:03:48 jerusalem
0:03:49 um there's there's just so many things
0:03:53 about the gospel
0:03:54 john that make you think whoever wrote
0:03:57 this took a lot of time at it
0:04:00 and was very smart about it
0:04:04 and probably i think that
0:04:07 whoever wrote the gospel of john may
0:04:09 have known
0:04:10 the gospels of mark and luke because
0:04:13 there
0:04:14 are striking uh similarities
0:04:18 um at parts and so you think well
0:04:22 you know if if this person did not at
0:04:25 all know
0:04:26 any of the other gospels why
0:04:29 why did he write his story just like
0:04:32 this
0:04:33 um so that's the kind of thing that make
0:04:37 me think that the whoever wrote the
0:04:39 gospel john
0:04:42 was not a disciple of jesus because
0:04:46 he gets too much wrong
0:04:51 if we use any of our other sources
0:04:54 for the historical jesus which
0:04:57 include matthew mark luke and maybe
0:05:00 thomas
0:05:04 and the letters of paul
0:05:08 so
0:05:11 i think it's just remarkable that the
0:05:13 gospel of john
0:05:15 is not written by an eyewitness but is
0:05:18 written by someone
0:05:20 who is actually one of the most talented
0:05:24 writers we have in our new testament
0:05:28 okay so when is it likely to be written
0:05:31 if it took
0:05:32 time to develop these uh these themes
0:05:34 that we see in john which are
0:05:37 quite distinct you know light darkness
0:05:39 ascending descending
0:05:41 knowledge so are we looking at towards
0:05:44 what the end of the first century
0:05:45 or the second century even
0:05:48 um i would have to say
0:05:52 not before the 90s
0:05:56 so the end of the first century right
0:06:00 but as to when how late it is
0:06:04 i oh i'm not very good about this i
0:06:07 would
0:06:07 want to go and see when uh different
0:06:11 second century authors
0:06:14 mention the gospel of john
0:06:18 um
0:06:22 so you know off the top of my head
0:06:25 justin martyr
0:06:27 who was martyred around the year 150
0:06:30 i think that i remember that he seems to
0:06:34 know the gospel of john well
0:06:37 um so that would just
0:06:40 i mean any time between i would put the
0:06:44 writing of the gospel of john anytime
0:06:46 between 90 and 140.
0:06:48 right so it could be second century then
0:06:51 clearly yes
0:06:52 yes clearly that's uh quite late um
0:06:55 is he not quoted say in some of the
0:06:57 apostolic fathers i don't know in
0:06:59 clement
0:06:59 of rome that famous letter that the the
0:07:02 person called clement wrote to the
0:07:04 corinthians in the 90s uh
0:07:05 and what about ignatius of antioch who
0:07:07 wrote those seven now
0:07:09 authentic letters to the various
0:07:11 churches
0:07:12 very early in the second century to
0:07:14 either of these writers do you know
0:07:15 quote from john
0:07:16 or have joe hanine words well
0:07:20 those those are the right questions to
0:07:22 ask and i'm sorry i'm
0:07:23 i'm not up on this this is just not one
0:07:25 of my fields of expertise but
0:07:29 um i just don't know
0:07:33 whether ignitious so ignatius's letters
0:07:36 come from around 110 to 112.
0:07:39 yeah um and
0:07:44 clement of alexandria well
0:07:47 that's not so early because most of
0:07:50 those
0:07:51 sorry clements of rome who the whole
0:07:53 president of wrong actually
0:07:55 the corinthians uh in 1896 approximately
0:07:59 yeah but but even then we don't really
0:08:02 know who wrote
0:08:03 any of that or exactly when it came
0:08:05 about um
0:08:07 but you're right it would probably be
0:08:09 early first century so
0:08:11 if either of those writers um explicitly
0:08:15 quoted the gospel of john then that
0:08:16 would
0:08:17 prove an earlier dating for it
0:08:20 yeah i'm not aware that they they ever
0:08:22 did actually i was just seeking
0:08:24 confirmation i don't think they they did
0:08:25 quote john in any obvious way at all
0:08:28 uh there's synoptics yes matthew and so
0:08:30 on but not
0:08:31 john but is it again i don't want to
0:08:33 push you into areas where you're not
0:08:34 uh comfortable but what wasn't there
0:08:36 some hesitancy
0:08:38 uh in the part of the early church or
0:08:40 some parts of the early church and
0:08:42 accepting john
0:08:43 as scripture as authoritative because of
0:08:46 the use that it was made of by
0:08:47 uh people called gnostics you had this
0:08:50 uh
0:08:51 uh obsession but this kind of idea that
0:08:53 it was through knowledge through gnosis
0:08:55 that one um acquired uh salvation and a
0:08:58 theme that kind of
0:09:00 then in some way in john itself it talks
0:09:02 about knowledge
0:09:04 uh knowing god
0:09:07 yes um
0:09:10 most people tend to think that the
0:09:14 arguments in the early church about what
0:09:17 to include in the bible
0:09:18 in the canon had to do with
0:09:22 authorship or dating yeah
0:09:25 they really didn't they had to do with
0:09:27 theology
0:09:30 and um so john
0:09:33 became suspect because
0:09:37 outside of thomas he was the favorite
0:09:41 gospel
0:09:42 for what later people would call
0:09:44 gnostics
0:09:45 now the word gnostic just comes from the
0:09:48 word for knowledge
0:09:49 and means like knowledge people people
0:09:52 who are in the know
0:09:53 yeah it's not something that they seem
0:09:56 to have called themselves so much so
0:09:58 we're
0:09:58 we're kind of hesitant to use the word
0:10:00 gnostics for a definable historical
0:10:03 group
0:10:04 but there were people early christians
0:10:07 and jews
0:10:08 who considered that they had a special
0:10:11 inside
0:10:12 look at wisdom
0:10:15 and one of the most important aspects of
0:10:17 that was the word logos
0:10:20 which is the greek word for word but it
0:10:22 also means speech
0:10:24 or rationality or
0:10:28 it means a logarithm a ton of stuff it
0:10:31 means for
0:10:32 why why things hang together in the
0:10:34 universe
0:10:35 that we wonder why they hang together
0:10:37 that's logos
0:10:39 um but it's just a it's a
0:10:42 big big word that means a lot of
0:10:44 different things
0:10:45 yeah and uh because
0:10:48 i mean the gospel john starts off in the
0:10:51 beginning was the logos
0:10:54 and other christians looked at it and
0:10:56 they say well this can't be good news um
0:11:01 if this guy's starting off talking about
0:11:03 the divine logos that
0:11:05 permeates the entire world well that
0:11:07 means it permeates
0:11:09 satan doesn't it
0:11:13 so uh no the gospel of john was very
0:11:17 controversial
0:11:18 right and yet it was super popular
0:11:22 among especially christians of the east
0:11:24 yeah in
0:11:25 syria and places and so uh
0:11:29 it's it's like it couldn't really be
0:11:31 kept out of the
0:11:32 cannon but it shouldn't have the first
0:11:36 place
0:11:37 yeah i think that's kind of where they
0:11:40 came down right
0:11:42 interesting one of the distinctive
0:11:44 features of
0:11:45 uh this gospel unique features is the
0:11:48 way
0:11:48 jesus speaks of himself and he
0:11:51 he uh calls himself uh the i am he says
0:11:55 i am
0:11:56 the light of the world before abraham
0:11:58 was i am i am the resurrection of the
0:12:00 life i am the good ship
0:12:01 and so on and so on um a form of speech
0:12:05 a way of self identifying himself which
0:12:07 is entirely absent i think from any
0:12:10 other gospel
0:12:10 from mark from matthew from luke and
0:12:13 many people seem to think that this
0:12:15 identification
0:12:16 as i am is
0:12:19 you know referring back to the name of
0:12:21 god in exodus chapter 3
0:12:23 verse 15 and 16 or 14 and 15.
0:12:27 is that right is jesus taking the divine
0:12:29 name on himself in the gospel of john
0:12:32 uniquely unlike in the others
0:12:35 i think so i i admit that it's
0:12:37 controversial
0:12:39 that how you read the words
0:12:42 could be uh disagreed about
0:12:45 but i think that precisely because
0:12:49 when in one of the scenes in the gospel
0:12:51 john when
0:12:52 jesus says that i am the jews
0:12:55 take up stones to stone him yeah
0:12:59 which means that they that and these are
0:13:02 not real jews we need to keep in mind
0:13:04 these are caricatures
0:13:06 of jews invented by the writer of the
0:13:09 gospel of john
0:13:11 and so we need to be careful about using
0:13:15 these caricatures
0:13:16 but the characters of the jews take up
0:13:18 stones to stone
0:13:20 jesus after he says i am which means
0:13:23 they
0:13:24 thought that he was quoting yahweh
0:13:30 but doesn't it doesn't in one of those
0:13:31 episodes in john chapter 10
0:13:35 where he's accused of making himself
0:13:37 equal with god
0:13:38 i mean i'm not very clear what it says
0:13:40 but it suggests that jesus
0:13:42 attempts to refute them uh by quoting
0:13:45 psalm 82
0:13:46 you know ye shall be as gods and and as
0:13:49 if this
0:13:50 language could be used in a non-absolute
0:13:53 yahwest
0:13:54 sense and refer to human beings
0:13:57 therefore why do you have a problem with
0:13:58 me jesus says
0:13:59 you i call myself the son of god so he
0:14:02 seems to be deflecting to some extent
0:14:05 if i miss if i've answered it correctly
0:14:07 this accusation and modifying it
0:14:10 in a way that would lead to the
0:14:12 conclusion that he was not claiming to
0:14:14 be equal with god why have i
0:14:15 misunderstood john 10
0:14:19 this is another point where i need to
0:14:21 bring up the sedimentation
0:14:22 issue right okay so it's really
0:14:26 according to
0:14:27 what do we imagine a historical jesus
0:14:30 could have talked about
0:14:31 in this context right and that's one
0:14:34 thing
0:14:35 and i can't imagine any historical jesus
0:14:38 who was a good pious jew of his time
0:14:41 claiming to be equal to god yeah
0:14:45 i i could see him claiming to be divine
0:14:49 in a sense like king david was divine
0:14:53 yeah a son of god maybe
0:14:56 a son of god yeah not the son of god
0:15:00 right but so i take that
0:15:04 first level as being one place where we
0:15:08 analyze such a statement like that
0:15:10 right but then you go up several levels
0:15:13 and you get into trinitarian
0:15:14 christianity
0:15:16 which is where you know these gospels
0:15:18 are
0:15:19 you know all of the gospels even if
0:15:21 they're not fully trinitarian they're
0:15:23 trinitarian to some extent they all
0:15:27 they all believe that jesus is divine
0:15:31 in some sense in some sense
0:15:34 and this and the son of god are a son of
0:15:37 god
0:15:38 and then most of them except mark seem
0:15:41 to believe that the holy spirit
0:15:43 is also some kind of figure in this
0:15:47 yeah um so
0:15:50 you just got several sedimented later
0:15:53 layers
0:15:54 of divinity where do you ascribe
0:15:57 divinity at a particular time
0:15:59 that's that's the question and so
0:16:02 when you get to the bible as we have it
0:16:06 of course um it is a trinitarian bible
0:16:10 not because it's trinitarian in its pulp
0:16:14 in its makeup but because it has to be
0:16:18 interpreted
0:16:19 by the church which is a trinitarian
0:16:21 church right
0:16:24 and as always the meaning of the text is
0:16:27 not in the text
0:16:28 it's in the interpretation right right
0:16:31 so are you saying then that the gospel
0:16:34 itself
0:16:34 has been i take your point about at the
0:16:37 later trinitarian context
0:16:38 and then at the other end of the
0:16:40 spectrum the
0:16:42 historical jesus whatever that means but
0:16:44 you
0:16:45 does the text itself the gospel of john
0:16:48 is that also a product of various
0:16:50 editorial stages some scholars
0:16:52 famously like raymond brown the american
0:16:55 scholar
0:16:55 uh union theological seminary catholic
0:16:57 priest perhaps the
0:16:59 20th century's greatest expert on the
0:17:02 gospel of john he positive multiple
0:17:04 redactional editions of the gospel of
0:17:07 john
0:17:08 even perhaps starting with the apostle
0:17:10 john himself
0:17:11 but ending up with several further
0:17:14 stages of editing and would that make
0:17:18 sense of the
0:17:19 to me the contradictory christological
0:17:22 statements
0:17:23 in job for example in in john 17 we have
0:17:26 jesus praying to god
0:17:27 saying and this is eternal life
0:17:30 that they may know you the only true
0:17:33 god and jesus christ whom you have sent
0:17:37 so that suggests jesus is absolutely
0:17:40 differentiating himself from
0:17:42 the true god and yet you have other
0:17:45 statements
0:17:46 before abraham was i am you know
0:17:50 wow you know i mean what are you
0:17:52 supposed to make of that so can we make
0:17:53 sense of these
0:17:54 apparent contradictions in a a an
0:17:57 in-depth
0:17:57 reading through reductional layers would
0:18:00 that be an approach
0:18:02 well that i mean i have to confess
0:18:05 maybe to my entire shame that i am a
0:18:08 total disciple of raymond brown
0:18:11 and lou martin you didn't mention louis
0:18:14 martin
0:18:16 sorry he's my fellow texan um when
0:18:19 texas a m and so you but he
0:18:22 he also with raymond brown uh
0:18:25 wrote about these levels of the
0:18:27 johannine community
0:18:29 yeah and how you can kind of
0:18:31 archaeologically almost
0:18:33 dig a borehole uh down through the
0:18:36 layers of the johannine community
0:18:39 yeah and i mean i totally bought all
0:18:42 that
0:18:43 i drank the kool-aid i you know
0:18:47 i am a total yeah
0:18:50 i'm a total follower of of lou martin
0:18:53 and ray brown i think they got it right
0:18:56 i think that one of the best ways now of
0:18:59 course this is not the only way
0:19:00 somebody 10 years from now may publish a
0:19:04 book and say
0:19:04 something completely different but i
0:19:06 think at this point in my career one of
0:19:08 the best ways for making
0:19:10 sense of the gospel of john but not just
0:19:12 the gospel of john
0:19:13 the three letters of john
0:19:17 now i don't include revelation because i
0:19:19 don't i don't believe the book of
0:19:21 revelation was
0:19:22 connected at all with the this other
0:19:25 johannine
0:19:26 literature yeah but the gospel of john
0:19:29 and the three letters of john
0:19:31 um i think uh
0:19:35 necessitate an archaeological
0:19:38 spade level kind of sifting through the
0:19:41 layers
0:19:42 of history to find out okay what did
0:19:45 this saying mean at this time
0:19:47 because it it means something totally
0:19:49 different at nicaea
0:19:51 in you know 325 right yeah
0:19:56 you know when they totally ignored the
0:19:58 thing you brought up which is when jesus
0:20:00 says
0:20:01 you know why do you call me good no one
0:20:03 is good but god.
0:20:06 yep that didn't even come up for
0:20:08 discussion really
0:20:10 i don't think um so
0:20:13 you know it's just layers upon layers
0:20:15 upon layers of christology
0:20:18 whatever you make of jesus totally
0:20:21 depends upon the layer you're at
0:20:24 um you and i are sitting on the top of
0:20:28 the heap
0:20:29 which is kind of anglican orthodoxy
0:20:34 uh but there's lots of layers below us
0:20:38 that are gonna present jesus in a
0:20:40 totally different way
0:20:42 and we know this i mean to give an
0:20:44 example a perhaps a clear
0:20:45 in your face example in the gospel of
0:20:47 john itself it talks about these people
0:20:50 called
0:20:50 the jews you the jews the jews hate
0:20:54 jesus
0:20:54 the jews accuse jesus of this and if
0:20:57 you're thinking
0:20:58 hang on jesus is a jew the disciples
0:21:01 jewish what the hell's going on here how
0:21:03 come suddenly
0:21:05 you get the jews and you get on the one
0:21:07 side and jesus and the others on the
0:21:09 other side doesn't make any historical
0:21:10 sense because they're all
0:21:11 jews so uh people like raymond brown uh
0:21:14 obviously yourself and your
0:21:16 uh your texan colleague um would see
0:21:18 this reference to
0:21:20 the jews as a kind of um a sectarian
0:21:24 reference
0:21:25 by the perhaps the final author the
0:21:27 redactor of john
0:21:28 to a kind of inter-sectarian
0:21:32 uh conflict perhaps towards the end of
0:21:34 the first century maybe some
0:21:35 the jews had expelled uh
0:21:38 or anathematized or uh
0:21:42 um the johannine community who produced
0:21:44 this
0:21:45 and so they became the enemy the second
0:21:47 and this
0:21:48 sectarian you know we are the real
0:21:50 believers
0:21:51 they're the enemies now and so that
0:21:53 that's be speaks
0:21:55 of a context uh much
0:21:58 after the time of jesus when as far as
0:22:00 we know
0:22:01 uh jesus wasn't and his fathers weren't
0:22:03 expelled from the synagogue not during
0:22:05 jesus own lifetime i mean
0:22:06 would that be going along the right path
0:22:09 do you think
0:22:10 yes exactly you take the words the
0:22:14 word that you use for expelled from the
0:22:16 synagogue is
0:22:17 actually a very peculiar greek word it's
0:22:20 not
0:22:21 a normal greek word aposunage
0:22:26 and it means someone who has been
0:22:30 literally expelled from the synagogue
0:22:32 and it occurs
0:22:33 three times in the gospel of john it's a
0:22:36 very peculiar word and the fact that it
0:22:38 occurs three times
0:22:40 in the gospel of john as a technical
0:22:42 term for
0:22:43 a person like you know
0:22:47 somebody did not want to be upon a goat
0:22:50 case
0:22:51 or uh he was apostates
0:22:54 um so
0:22:58 this break between the community of john
0:23:03 which sees itself as completely jewish
0:23:05 they do not see themselves as ex-jewish
0:23:11 but they see themselves as
0:23:15 thrown out of the synagogue so
0:23:18 that's i think that's the main point of
0:23:21 the whole gospel
0:23:25 and the reason it becomes controversial
0:23:28 is because
0:23:30 those jews who have this who belong to
0:23:33 the community of john
0:23:34 they have a higher christology than
0:23:37 other jews who may respect
0:23:38 jesus right as a prophet
0:23:42 but don't see him as equal to god
0:23:45 and what happens is when this certain
0:23:48 group of jews
0:23:49 start believing that jesus is actually
0:23:52 divine
0:23:53 in a full sense that prompts this
0:23:57 rupture of a community
0:24:01 that's the way i see it and so you see
0:24:04 uh you can't read the gospel of john
0:24:07 without reading it
0:24:08 along the lines of several different
0:24:10 historical periods
0:24:12 and that's what lou martin and ray brown
0:24:15 did
0:24:16 they they peeled back the onion layers
0:24:20 of the gospel john uh and then they said
0:24:23 okay
0:24:24 we're going to put this one around the
0:24:26 year 320
0:24:28 and we're going to put this one around
0:24:29 the year 300
0:24:31 and then we're going to put this one
0:24:32 around the year 250. and that was
0:24:34 brilliant
0:24:38 has that is that has that found wide
0:24:40 acceptance in the scholarly community
0:24:42 this idea of
0:24:44 the community levels of of discourse uh
0:24:47 uh crafting and creating the narrative
0:24:50 affecting the narrative in the gospel
0:24:52 like that
0:24:53 well i think that if you say is it uh
0:24:57 part of the community of scholarship for
0:24:59 the whole bible
0:25:01 including all the books you get to say
0:25:03 yes this is kind of the way
0:25:05 we study the history of religion these
0:25:08 days we
0:25:09 we don't take anything at face value we
0:25:12 just
0:25:12 you know we start peeling back layers
0:25:15 that's what we do
0:25:16 and it doesn't matter whether it's
0:25:18 buddha or
0:25:20 hindu traditions or the scripture the
0:25:22 hindu scriptures
0:25:24 or judaic scriptures or
0:25:28 uh christian scriptures we that's the
0:25:30 what that's just what we do
0:25:32 um now is it true also
0:25:35 for uh you know christianity
0:25:38 i think yes it's it's um there
0:25:42 there are pushbacks there are people who
0:25:44 say you know
0:25:45 you're destroying the text by doing this
0:25:48 it's supposed to be dealt with as a
0:25:50 complete
0:25:50 full text my response to that is say
0:25:54 well yeah but the
0:25:58 number one the meaning of the text is
0:26:00 not the text itself
0:26:01 and it's not the intention of the author
0:26:05 the meaning of the text is something for
0:26:07 you as a reader
0:26:09 to figure out and to establish
0:26:13 and it's you as a reader can't be
0:26:16 robbed of that job um so
0:26:21 you know but but the idea that the text
0:26:24 should be torn apart historically
0:26:27 has been challenged but and i just
0:26:30 basically
0:26:30 my response is sure it's not the only
0:26:33 way to get to the meaning of a text
0:26:35 but it's there's nothing wrong with it
0:26:37 either
0:26:38 i wonder if that's i mean when when i
0:26:40 read when
0:26:42 students of yours have read this book of
0:26:43 yours uh says an undergraduate
0:26:45 introduction to the new testament
0:26:48 and and they read say the text the
0:26:50 chapter on the gospel of john
0:26:53 when i read this i'm trying to unders at
0:26:55 least in my mind i'm trying to
0:26:57 understand what dale martin
0:26:58 is trying to communicate to me as a
0:27:00 teacher
0:27:01 uh of this as a historian and i imagine
0:27:04 if
0:27:05 i was part of a class of 30 other
0:27:07 students and we all came to radically
0:27:09 different conclusions about what you had
0:27:10 said in that chapter
0:27:12 and you heard us say that you were would
0:27:15 you not protest and say no no
0:27:17 no you've misread what i've said you
0:27:19 misunderstood
0:27:21 my meaning and intention in writing this
0:27:24 would you not seek to reign in
0:27:25 and regiment the exegesis
0:27:29 of this text according to the authorial
0:27:31 intent otherwise what you intended and
0:27:34 and that being the case would that not
0:27:36 be a different paradigm than the one
0:27:37 you're suggesting
0:27:39 then for the new testament in terms of
0:27:41 reading
0:27:42 texts it's not a different paradigm
0:27:46 really because
0:27:47 i mean when we use these terms like
0:27:50 the the meaning of the text or what the
0:27:52 text says
0:27:53 those are shorthand terms they just help
0:27:56 us skip over
0:27:57 parts of the conversation um because
0:28:00 the parts of the conversation
0:28:02 Music
0:28:05 so for example when a student
0:28:09 and this has happened me of course where
0:28:11 a student
0:28:12 reads out something that i've written
0:28:15 and says
0:28:16 you're a racist
0:28:19 um and i'll say i don't think
0:28:23 that's the right way to interpret that
0:28:26 sentence but i can't
0:28:30 say i'm the author of the sentence and
0:28:32 therefore you're wrong
0:28:34 why not why not because i don't
0:28:35 understand why you can't make that
0:28:37 because
0:28:37 you have generated this ex nilo
0:28:40 you know out of your own mind is not
0:28:43 being given to you so why can't you
0:28:45 claim
0:28:46 ownership and proprietorship over that
0:28:49 to determine
0:28:50 the correct understanding of that
0:28:54 well we have to think empirically
0:28:57 um by what legal mechanism
0:29:03 would you assert my authority
0:29:07 over the interpretation of that stat
0:29:09 that statement
0:29:10 in a court of law why a legal concept
0:29:13 why not a moral con
0:29:15 your moral right to be identified as the
0:29:17 author
0:29:19 why a legal metaphor why not a moral one
0:29:23 well legality is just
0:29:26 easier to settle moral is kind of a
0:29:29 matter of opinion isn't it
0:29:32 i mean uh i can
0:29:35 say i have a moral right to
0:29:39 the meaning of this statement but
0:29:43 how do i prove it how do i make it stand
0:29:47 up
0:29:48 that's why i bring up the legal issue is
0:29:51 that
0:29:53 if you have a illegal ownership of
0:29:56 something
0:29:58 you can make a claim in court for it
0:30:02 if you have a moral ownership of
0:30:04 something
0:30:06 where's your court
0:30:10 i'm trying to be an empiricist which
0:30:13 means
0:30:14 let's don't think let's don't just think
0:30:17 about how we think things ought to be
0:30:20 let's think about how we things how we
0:30:23 think things are
0:30:25 um and i can spend all day
0:30:29 thinking ought to be but i go
0:30:33 widely of just who owns a statement
0:30:39 i go into issues of love and
0:30:42 you know
0:30:46 and ownership and love which is a
0:30:50 whole other issue okay um
0:30:54 just finally to try this uh
0:30:57 issue with you um if if there are any
0:30:59 christians
0:31:01 hearing what you say who are not
0:31:02 familiar with new testament studies they
0:31:04 would
0:31:05 i'm sure be be quite shocked to to hear
0:31:08 the way you speak about the uh the
0:31:11 different community levels
0:31:12 and the uh the non-historicity of
0:31:15 some of the statements attributed to
0:31:17 jesus now this is a common place in your
0:31:19 in your profession of course is the norm
0:31:22 um but the question then is of what use
0:31:26 is this gospel then in the ongoing life
0:31:30 for christians
0:31:31 if they were to take on board what you
0:31:34 say as historically plausible
0:31:36 so if they were to think in the back of
0:31:38 their minds you know
0:31:39 i'm convinced that the historical jesus
0:31:42 we haven't discussed what that means but
0:31:43 we'll go with that term
0:31:44 for the moment presumably meaning the
0:31:46 actual flesh and blood jesus of nazareth
0:31:48 who walked the streets of
0:31:50 galilee or jerusalem 2000 years ago it's
0:31:53 unlikely
0:31:54 that he said i am the way the truth in
0:31:55 the life behave before abraham was i am
0:31:57 and so on attributed to him by john
0:32:00 therefore when we when we hear these
0:32:01 words preached in the pulpit
0:32:04 when we hear billy graham or his son
0:32:06 tell us this is what jesus claimed
0:32:09 the back of my head we think well no he
0:32:12 didn't
0:32:13 say these things probably for the
0:32:16 reasons that dale martin and
0:32:17 many many other scholars will tell you
0:32:19 you know without rehearsing all the
0:32:21 points you know they're
0:32:22 pretty strong arguments i think
0:32:24 historically
0:32:25 so of what utility is this gospel now
0:32:29 if we take away its foundation as
0:32:32 historical reminiscence
0:32:34 as eyewitness testimony that
0:32:37 isn't the gospel of john now perhaps
0:32:39 more in the same category
0:32:40 as plato's dialogues so we read these
0:32:43 amazing stories about socrates
0:32:46 arguing with you know fellow athenians
0:32:48 in the republic and euthyphro and
0:32:50 symposia and so on but no no one
0:32:52 actually thinks that these are actually
0:32:54 transcripts of conversations the
0:32:55 socrates said these are dramatizations
0:32:58 of plato to communicate philosophical
0:33:01 truth
0:33:02 about whatever is going on now i know
0:33:05 you've heard always before but
0:33:07 how of what utility is the gospel of
0:33:10 john
0:33:10 in this context that i've just kind of
0:33:13 sketched
0:33:14 do you think um i can't i come at it
0:33:18 by by saying that um
0:33:21 again if you take the gospel of john
0:33:25 or the letters of paul or any other part
0:33:27 of the new testament
0:33:29 or the bible as being
0:33:32 something like
0:33:36 gibbons history of the
0:33:39 you know roman empire yeah roman empire
0:33:43 you're not going to read it right yeah
0:33:47 um if you
0:33:50 take it to be more like
0:33:54 uh homer's
0:33:59 iliad
0:34:03 you're getting closer to it
0:34:08 and then if you take it like plutarch's
0:34:12 lives of the famous philosophers
0:34:16 of the first century or second early
0:34:19 second century
0:34:21 you're getting really close to what the
0:34:23 gospel is
0:34:24 the gospel because what i'm trying to
0:34:28 say is that
0:34:30 the text is not something you see
0:34:33 through the text is something you live
0:34:36 in
0:34:37 the text if if it's script if it's
0:34:40 science yes you just want to read an
0:34:42 owner's manual to see okay where do i
0:34:44 put this screw
0:34:46 on my vacuum cleaner
0:34:49 but is that the way you read a poem
0:34:54 no you read a poem differently
0:34:57 and what i'm saying is that to read the
0:35:00 bible as scripture is closer to reading
0:35:02 it like a poem
0:35:04 than treating it like an owner's man i
0:35:07 see
0:35:08 i see i see and this has been totally
0:35:11 against everything we've been told
0:35:13 for the last 100 years that's the
0:35:16 fundamentalists who say
0:35:17 this is your owner's manual this is your
0:35:20 owner's manual
0:35:21 all you have to do is follow the rules
0:35:23 in your owner's manual and you'll be
0:35:25 happy and safe for the rest of your life
0:35:27 and into eternity
0:35:29 yeah and you know there's just got to be
0:35:32 enough people who say
0:35:33 it's not an owner's manual yeah it
0:35:36 doesn't have any good illustrations in
0:35:38 it
0:35:38 it doesn't tell you where peg b
0:35:41 goes into point a which would be helpful
0:35:44 sexually
0:35:45 um you know but it
0:35:49 doesn't have any of those pictures in it
0:35:52 it's not an owner's manual folks stop
0:35:54 talking about it like it's an owner's
0:35:56 manual no
0:35:58 that is a crude metaphor that i you
0:35:59 often come across or that it's a love
0:36:02 letter from god to the
0:36:03 individual believer and i'm thinking
0:36:05 have you read the bible recently
0:36:09 it's not very uh loving in in some parts
0:36:11 so
0:36:12 you're calling for i don't mean you per
0:36:14 well you personally yes but
0:36:16 the community in which you are part
0:36:17 scholars historians christian historians
0:36:19 are calling for a revolution basically
0:36:21 in how one approaches the scriptures
0:36:24 away from this fundamentalist um
0:36:28 quasi-owner's manual approach to
0:36:30 one that engages with it as literature
0:36:32 perhaps or poetry or
0:36:34 spiritual nourishment or i don't know
0:36:37 what other words you might call
0:36:38 call it well i think well i
0:36:42 i would like to believe what you said
0:36:44 but i think you're exaggerating my
0:36:46 influence
0:36:47 um i would not say that most people in
0:36:51 my discipline
0:36:52 are doing what i'm saying ah okay i
0:36:55 think a whole lot of them still believe
0:36:57 that if you just get to the historical
0:36:59 meaning of this text
0:37:01 right or the historical jesus of
0:37:04 historical paul or what did paul
0:37:08 intend this verse to mean i think most
0:37:11 of them still kind of believe that
0:37:12 that's the meaning of
0:37:14 the text i'm actually in a minority
0:37:18 voice
0:37:20 uh in trying to move beyond the
0:37:23 modernist
0:37:24 uh idea of referential truths truth
0:37:29 that you know truth is something you can
0:37:31 point to
0:37:32 and it's just right there and i don't
0:37:35 believe that
0:37:36 and that's why just pointing to the text
0:37:40 of the new testament of the bible is not
0:37:43 the way for me
0:37:45 to render truth but that is the way a
0:37:48 whole lot of scholars still think
0:37:50 about it yes you're right i mean people
0:37:52 like tom wright who who's a great
0:37:54 person absolutely biblical scholar uh
0:37:57 very popular in america i think probably
0:37:58 more popular where you are than he is
0:38:00 here well not here in britain i mean
0:38:02 but i mean he's he's uh in his in his
0:38:04 early work which i read because this is
0:38:06 a philosophical question about how we
0:38:08 uh interpret reality texts and knowledge
0:38:11 you know he's got this concept of
0:38:13 critical realism if i remember rightly
0:38:15 so we that we can actually have
0:38:17 objective
0:38:18 knowledge of texts or history whatever
0:38:21 although it has to be understood
0:38:22 critically we're not just passively
0:38:24 receiving it whereas
0:38:25 you seem to have a more want of a better
0:38:27 term post-modernist
0:38:29 philosophical approach which has a
0:38:32 different
0:38:33 orientation at least a different result
0:38:36 as well so is this not a
0:38:37 root a philosophical question rather
0:38:40 than a question of
0:38:41 details of history yes and it's a
0:38:44 philosophical question that's more than
0:38:46 100 years old i mean
0:38:47 so this is not this is not a recent
0:38:52 philosophical disagreement um
0:38:56 maybe the strength to which
0:39:01 the difference has been put is stronger
0:39:05 now
0:39:06 because of where we are in the
0:39:09 uh 21st century so that i would say that
0:39:12 um my insistence
0:39:16 on you know what for lack of a better
0:39:19 term we could call post-modernism
0:39:22 uh is
0:39:25 very central um and it probably would
0:39:29 not have been
0:39:30 possible even 75 years ago
0:39:34 but yes i
0:39:38 my basic point is that and here again
0:39:41 i'm an empiricist
0:39:44 you proved to me that your
0:39:46 representation of truth
0:39:49 is the pure representation of truth and
0:39:52 not simply
0:39:52 a representation
0:39:56 now see the thing is i know
0:39:58 philosophically
0:40:00 rationally that that's impossible to do
0:40:05 so is my argument about it empirical
0:40:08 or is it rational well it's both
0:40:12 it's because at some point my empiricism
0:40:16 stops because i think there's no way
0:40:18 that person could do that
0:40:21 but why did i just say there's no way
0:40:23 that person could do that
0:40:25 because i'm exercising rationality
0:40:30 i'm just trying to imagine what's
0:40:32 possible in a world
0:40:34 and that's what rationality is so
0:40:38 um
0:40:41 i don't know i i just see that the
0:40:45 limitation of what you know
0:40:49 has got to be the best limit of
0:40:51 philosophy
0:40:55 i i i'm not going to go into kent and
0:40:57 this is strictly a different subject but
0:40:59 i was impressed in his i call it cpr the
0:41:02 critical pure reason
0:41:04 because it gives you a heart attack just
0:41:05 trying to read it that's a joke um
0:41:07 but he talks about um you know he tries
0:41:10 to build up from the bottom upwards the
0:41:12 sense of
0:41:12 a priori knowledge and synthetic a
0:41:14 priori knowledge so extending it beyond
0:41:17 analytical truths and mathematics into
0:41:19 uh statements of the synthetic
0:41:21 statements about the world around us
0:41:22 which is still a priori
0:41:24 in other words they're a precondition of
0:41:25 knowledge itself
0:41:27 and you know space time and causality
0:41:29 and motion and so on
0:41:31 and um i i just found that quite
0:41:33 powerful but
0:41:34 i don't think you're talking about
0:41:36 canton epistemology but i think
0:41:38 i i i do think there is a way of
0:41:40 transcending the empiricist
0:41:41 rational debate at least kent thought
0:41:43 there was
0:41:44 um but then he was an enlightenment
0:41:46 thinker and uh he
0:41:48 he did dismiss or they believed in god
0:41:49 and believed there were some arguments
0:41:51 for god's existence
0:41:52 although arguably not as strong as one
0:41:55 might think they were
0:41:56 um but he would have um shared i think
0:42:00 your
0:42:00 um skepticism uh about some of the uh
0:42:05 the early christian stories uh in terms
0:42:07 of their historicity anyway
0:42:11 oh yeah that's clear yeah and he was he
0:42:13 was quite well read on biblical studies
0:42:15 yes well read on everything he was a
0:42:18 polymath
0:42:21 okay well that's without going into
0:42:22 further details about john as she wants
0:42:24 to add anything but
0:42:26 um in terms of the four gospels that we
0:42:29 have today
0:42:30 um how is the lay christian having had a
0:42:33 brush
0:42:34 with your approach to move forward now
0:42:37 with those gospels
0:42:38 you know as they continue their walk as
0:42:41 a christian they've got their bible they
0:42:42 still go to a middle-of-the-road church
0:42:45 what kind of attitudes or approaches
0:42:48 should they be
0:42:49 adopting to be consistent with
0:42:52 the methodologies that you're advocating
0:42:56 um i hate to sound flip but the
0:42:59 main thing i can answer is just read it
0:43:02 um
0:43:03 that's what scripture is about is just
0:43:05 read it um
0:43:07 you don't have to you don't have to know
0:43:10 what it means
0:43:12 you don't have to decide something about
0:43:15 it
0:43:16 you read it and when you go to church
0:43:20 you have it read out loud so you can
0:43:22 kind of walk through it
0:43:24 as a way of uh you know physically
0:43:27 uh reading it but the main thing about
0:43:30 scripture
0:43:31 is just read it um
0:43:34 that's what it means the word means
0:43:36 something read
0:43:38 that's it um
0:43:42 so i don't have much of
0:43:45 advice but particular ways of
0:43:47 interpreting the bible
0:43:49 uh i do believe that all the different
0:43:52 ways are
0:43:54 valuable so i like i like the way that
0:43:57 you know i learned how to read
0:43:59 this in this kind of radical historical
0:44:01 way with this
0:44:02 radical skepticism uh i appreciate that
0:44:06 i think it's a good way to learn to read
0:44:09 but i don't think it's the end or
0:44:12 anything
0:44:13 no it's just it's just bringing all
0:44:15 those together in a human life as a
0:44:17 person lives
0:44:18 uh radical skepticism but reading the
0:44:21 bible and just letting it speak to you
0:44:24 this seems quite sort of a difficult
0:44:27 juggling act
0:44:28 perhaps or is it a thing one practices
0:44:31 over time
0:44:34 well let's bring it back to the gospel
0:44:36 john i mean
0:44:37 uh the gospel of john is um
0:44:41 an amazing document
0:44:44 that has so many layers of puzzles
0:44:47 in it that you can never figure out all
0:44:50 of them
0:44:51 yeah the most you know from the most
0:44:54 obvious who is the beloved disciple
0:44:57 that we're never told uh
0:45:01 you know to the most uh
0:45:04 maybe more obscure why are why is there
0:45:07 not
0:45:07 one exorcism in the gospel of john
0:45:11 whereas there are tons in the other
0:45:13 gospels
0:45:15 another one of my favorites is the the
0:45:16 date of the crucifixion is different
0:45:18 in john matthew mark and luke and and
0:45:22 and the reasons for that seem to be
0:45:23 theological about jesus being the lamb
0:45:25 of god as
0:45:26 the baptist proclaims him really early
0:45:28 on and so jesus is crucified just at the
0:45:31 moment when the lambs have been
0:45:32 slaughtered the lands are being
0:45:33 slaughtered
0:45:35 i think that's the answer i think i
0:45:37 think that's the answer i think the
0:45:39 author or some precursor
0:45:41 um quite ideologically changed
0:45:45 that uh crucifixion scene to make him
0:45:49 to make it fix the passover yeah
0:45:53 so i think that's pretty obvious but
0:45:57 there are so many things like that in
0:45:58 the gospel john that
0:46:00 you know why does the last discourse of
0:46:03 jesus
0:46:04 start in chapter 13 of john
0:46:08 you know basically halfway through the
0:46:11 gospel
0:46:12 and continue all the way up until like
0:46:14 what
0:46:15 chapter 21 the final discourse of jesus
0:46:19 turns out to be
0:46:21 the largest valedictorian speech
0:46:25 yes uh but there are just so many
0:46:29 interesting things like that about john
0:46:31 i think
0:46:32 so just a a very naive trivial
0:46:34 historical question but
0:46:36 would jesus do you think normally have
0:46:37 spoken aramaic or greek or both or was
0:46:40 he multilingual
0:46:42 uh i mean what would have been his
0:46:44 normal mode of discourse
0:46:46 on all these occasions if they happened
0:46:48 what language would he actually have
0:46:50 spoken
0:46:51 was that still not er i think aramaic um
0:46:56 he may have understood a bit of greek
0:46:59 when he was in the synagogue i mean uh
0:47:02 hebrew
0:47:02 when he was in the synagogue right
0:47:04 because they would use hebrew
0:47:07 um and so he might be able to understand
0:47:10 a bit of hebrew but mainly aramaic
0:47:14 and um at least some of the people
0:47:17 around him he
0:47:18 he did move in a kind of bilingual
0:47:20 culture
0:47:22 because uh some of the people who are
0:47:24 his closest disciples
0:47:26 had greek names uh philip
0:47:29 and andrew for example those are
0:47:33 clearly uh greek names
0:47:36 nicodemus is that a greek or a aramaic
0:47:39 what was the
0:47:40 that would be that would be a greek name
0:47:42 yeah the reason i asked that is because
0:47:44 that discourse with nicodemus where you
0:47:47 know jesus talks obscurely about being
0:47:49 born again or
0:47:50 i mean i i know enough greek to know
0:47:52 that the the greek means
0:47:54 born again or born from above and so
0:47:56 there is a kind of
0:47:57 um pun there that there is a which is
0:48:01 which is there in the greek but i
0:48:03 understand it's not there in the
0:48:04 aramaic i'm not that i know any aramaic
0:48:07 but would that mean that that discourse
0:48:08 would have happened in greek or is that
0:48:10 just
0:48:10 john making that story up um it's
0:48:13 probably john
0:48:14 making that story up yeah yeah
0:48:17 because you're right it the pun wouldn't
0:48:21 work
0:48:22 in aramaic or hebrew right
0:48:27 so the story the story had to originate
0:48:32 in
0:48:33 greek but if nicodemus was a greek guy
0:48:36 i mean i'm assuming historicity here
0:48:38 then why not in greek in the first place
0:48:43 well it's just
0:48:46 i think we would come along and question
0:48:48 and pick at all those little details you
0:48:51 know
0:48:51 why do you think nicodemus is historical
0:48:54 uh you know
0:48:56 just it's like you just go down the line
0:48:59 of okay
0:49:00 what are the different presuppositions
0:49:02 that are going into this hypothesis
0:49:04 and how possible or probable
0:49:08 are the different hypotheses that's just
0:49:10 that's just what you have to do
0:49:12 and that's why sometimes you say
0:49:16 that's possible and sometimes you say
0:49:20 i don't think there's any way
0:49:25 yep fair enough uh fair enough okay well
0:49:29 just to conclude i i do um as i said
0:49:31 before recommend
0:49:32 uh this book um by uh dale
0:49:35 uh new testament history and literature
0:49:37 published by yale university a very good
0:49:39 introduction to
0:49:41 well everything in the new testament um
0:49:44 and uh
0:49:45 i think dale and bart ehrman who i know
0:49:47 is a friend of yours have done a great
0:49:49 service to
0:49:50 educating the general public the
0:49:52 educated general public in
0:49:54 um the uh the cloistered ivory towers of
0:49:58 biblical scholarship
0:49:59 just to open the windows and let some
0:50:00 fresh air uh in and
0:50:02 let us sample some of these delights and
0:50:04 uh it's all in the name of knowledge
0:50:06 really understanding the truth
0:50:07 understanding
0:50:08 what's really going on as far as we can
0:50:10 tell so
0:50:11 i do recommend dale's work and by urbans
0:50:14 as well
0:50:15 for similar reasons i think they're both
0:50:16 good communicators
0:50:18 of uh academia and that's in my
0:50:21 experience
0:50:21 not a common virtue it tends to be the
0:50:24 exception rather than the rule so thank
0:50:26 you very much for that
0:50:27 uh dale um well before we conclude we've
0:50:30 had a good hour is anything else you
0:50:31 want just to conclude with
0:50:34 no i'm fine no well thank you
0:50:37 once again dale very much for your time
0:50:40 uh
0:50:40 in uh texas and um i i know
0:50:44 that the viewers will benefit usually
0:50:45 from this i know a number of people who
0:50:47 wanted to hear you talk specifically on
0:50:49 this subject but john i mean
0:50:51 so i i hope they have all benefited too
0:50:53 so thank you once again professor
0:50:55 dale martin okay thank you goodbye