From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: The Historical Jesus 
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 14:33:17 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In article <0adHohmm6@cs.psu.edu> kiledal@lisp.cs.psu.edu (Erik Kiledal) writes:

>Roger, pick up your Bible (I assume you have one?), look up the Gospel
>according to John, chapter 21, verse 24. This is near the very the end 
>of the book: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who 
>wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true." (NIV). John the
>apostle, an eyewitness, wrote this gospel. From the commentary of the
>NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985, p. 1591: "The author
>[of the Gospel according to John] is the apostle John, "the disciple
>whom Jesus loved" (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20,24).                    

  Chapter 21 of John, the final chapter, is known to New Testament
  scholars as "the epilogue of John." They agree that this chapter
  was NOT part of the original manuscript, but was added later,
  very likely by a different author. As such, it was written to
  SOLVE ONE OR MORE PROBLEMS: one being to bring John into
  accordance with Matthew's sightings of a risen Jesus in Galilee,
  but more significantly, in all probability, to quash the brewing
  scandal over "the disciple whom Jesus loved." The late Morton Smith,
  a scholar of ancient history, wrote that "it has often been
  argued from Johannine evidence that the unnamed 'Beloved
  Disciple' was Lazarus. In the "Epistle of Clement of Alexandria"
  that Smith discovered in an ancient monastery in 1958, there
  is reference to EXACTLY such allegations being made at the
  time, which Clement of course denies. But in this same letter,
  Clement affirms the existence of a "Secret Gospel of Mark", i.e.
  portions of the gospel of Mark that had been "censored out" from
  the text in general circulation because church leaders felt
  they would be damaging to the new faith. One "censored" passage
  has Jesus raising Lazarus in Mark (a story otherwise only in John);
  however, it has the two of them spending the night together
  in circumstances suggesting that their "love" was more Socratic
  than Platonic. "Lazarus in Mark as Jesus' lover" also helps
  explain the curious snippet of "the youth who fled naked in
  the garden" (Mark 14:51-52), a passage unaccountably deleted
  by both later Synoptic gospels, one of the very few that were.
  There is much more about this in my book, "The Making of the
  Messiah" (Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY).
>
>
>The letter of James was most likely written by the brother of Jesus, how 
>much closer can you get?

 How can a woman who is "perpetually virginal" be the mother of at
 least two children? :)

 (I realize that most Protestants have no trouble with this, and
  neither do I; I can accept that James was Jesus' brother. 
  However, many scholars challenge that he was actually the author
  of this letter; nobody knows for sure.)
>
>
>Zechariah 12:10 "...They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and
>they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child" (This is the word
>of the LORD)
>
>More than 500 years later John, the eyewitness apostle, writes:
>
>John 19:34 "Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear,
>bringing a sudden flow of blood and water". The "instead" refers to
>instead of breaking Jesus' legs (to hasten death) which was normally
>done (this fulfills another prophecy that his (the Passover Lamb's) bones 
>will not be broken (Exodus 12:46; Num. 9:12; Psalm 34:20).

  No possibility that the author of John could have written in the
  details he did, already KNOWING what the prophecy is supposed
  to be?
>


-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
       
                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968