Bart Erhman's Book Jesus intrupted, part 2
Again as with Part one and any objection to the content found in the gospel of John, concerning the Chronological order of events; The Gospel of John was not written in Chronological order. It was written to a Hebrew story telling tradition. John was not a educated man, but a simple fisherman and told the story of Jesus in the same tradition as everyother story he would have been told.
Bart simply takes the story of Christ's Farwell out of context, in order to shape it in such a way as to appear disorganized. All one has to do is place the 3 stories back into their orginal context and read them.
John 13:
31 When Judas was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the time for the Son of Man to receive his glory. And God will receive glory through him. 32 If God receives glory through him, he will give glory to the Son through himself. And that will happen very soon.”
33 Jesus said, “My children, I will be with you only a short time more. You will look for me, but I tell you now what I told the Jewish leaders: Where I am going you cannot come.
(This makes the deciples wonder where Christ is physically going)
34 “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other just as I loved you. 35 All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”
36 Simon Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow now. But you will follow later.”
37 Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I am ready to die for you!”
38 Jesus answered, “Will you really give your life for me? The truth is, before the rooster crows, you will say three times that you don’t know me.”
Peter doesn't know where Christ is going but says he is willing to die to follow him anywhere.
John 14:
14 Jesus said, “Don’t be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. 2 There are many rooms in my Father’s house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me, so that you can be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5 Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father too. But now you know the Father. You have seen him.”
Again the deciples at this point do not know that Jesus is talking about going. Maybe some thought he was going on vacation, or more likely they thought he would be sent to jail, who knows at this point that is why they are still asking.
John 16:
16 “I have told you all this so that you won’t lose your faith when you face troubles. 2 People will tell you to leave their synagogues and never come back. In fact, the time will come when they will think that killing you would be doing service for God. 3 They will do this because they have not known the Father, and they have not known me. 4 I have told you all this now to prepare you. So when the time comes for these things to happen, you will remember that I warned you. “I did not tell you these things at the beginning, because I was with you then. 5 Now I am going back to the one who sent me.
Here Christ Just finally told them where he was Going and where they too will follow and why... At this point Christ is probably a little pissed at the disciples. before for it was oh, we'll follow anywhere we are ready to die. Jesus in a sense calls their bluff and says I am about to be killed, and you are as well at a later time, and then says:
Because in short Christ is saying you've been asking me were am I going, where am I going, where am I going and I told you you can not follow still you ask and tell me you will follow. Now you don't ask me anymore? You just resign yourself to great sadness?
A Man like bart should have known exactly what was being said here, maybe that is why he took it out of context in order to make it look like John did not know what he was talking about.
Then He goes off on the OT/Genesis The creation account and Noah's ark. We have gone though both of those very recently and do not see a need to repeat everything we have talked about.
This is the first time God called Moses, and Moses knew who God was, and all He could do as per the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. God was saying when I called abram He did not know me yet He obeyed, and look what I did for him. You know me, take comfort in all I am going to do for you.
12 The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country and your people. Leave your father’s family and go to the country that I will show you.
2 I will build a great nation from you.
I will bless you
and make your name famous.
People will use your name
to bless other people.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and I will curse those who curse you.
I will use you to bless
all the people on earth.”
Abram Goes to Canaan
4 So Abram left Haran just like the Lord said, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the slaves, and all the other things he had gotten in Haran. Then he and his group moved to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the town of Shechem and then to the big tree at Moreh. The Canaanites were living in the land at that time.
7 The Lord appeared[a] to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.”
Abram built an altar to honor the Lord who appeared to him there. 8 Then he left that place and traveled to the mountains east of Bethel. He set up his tent there. Bethel was to the west, and Ai[b] was to the east. Abram built another altar at that place to honor the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord there. 9 Then he moved on toward the Negev, stopping for a time at several places on the way.
Again context verse 3 says "All the Egyptian cattle in their fields will die." 3 then the Lord will use his power against your animals in the fields. He will cause all of your horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, and sheep to get sick with a terrible disease..He did not mentioned any sheltered barn kept animals.
Also note we do not know how much time elapsed between verse 5 and verse 21. These people needed those animals more than we do now, and if they died they would have to have gotten new ones. there was a plague between the death of the live stock and the Hail. Could have been days or weeks or evern months, before pharroah felt the full effect of each plague.
Quote:For example, in John’s Gospel, Jesus performs his fi rst
miracle in chapter 2, when he turns the water into wine (a favorite
miracle story on college campuses), and we’re told that “this was the
first sign that Jesus did” (John 2:11). Later in that chapter we’re told
that Jesus did “many signs” in Jerusalem (John 2:23). And then, in chapter 4, he heals the son of a centurion, and the author says, “This
was the second sign that Jesus did” (John 4:54). Huh? One sign, many
signs, and then the second sign?1
Again as with Part one and any objection to the content found in the gospel of John, concerning the Chronological order of events; The Gospel of John was not written in Chronological order. It was written to a Hebrew story telling tradition. John was not a educated man, but a simple fisherman and told the story of Jesus in the same tradition as everyother story he would have been told.
Bart Wrote:One of my favorite apparent discrepancies—I read John for years
without realizing how strange this one is—comes in Jesus’ “Farewell
Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his
last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the
Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord,
where are you going?” A few verses later Thomas says, “Lord, we do
not know where you are going” (John 14:5). And then, a few minutes
later, at the same meal, Jesus upbraids his disciples, saying, “Now I
am going to the one who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where
are you going?’ ” (John 16:5). Either Jesus had a very short attention
span or there is something strange going on with the sources for
these chapters, creating an odd kind of disconnect.
Bart simply takes the story of Christ's Farwell out of context, in order to shape it in such a way as to appear disorganized. All one has to do is place the 3 stories back into their orginal context and read them.
John 13:
31 When Judas was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the time for the Son of Man to receive his glory. And God will receive glory through him. 32 If God receives glory through him, he will give glory to the Son through himself. And that will happen very soon.”
33 Jesus said, “My children, I will be with you only a short time more. You will look for me, but I tell you now what I told the Jewish leaders: Where I am going you cannot come.
(This makes the deciples wonder where Christ is physically going)
34 “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other just as I loved you. 35 All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”
36 Simon Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow now. But you will follow later.”
37 Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I am ready to die for you!”
38 Jesus answered, “Will you really give your life for me? The truth is, before the rooster crows, you will say three times that you don’t know me.”
Peter doesn't know where Christ is going but says he is willing to die to follow him anywhere.
John 14:
14 Jesus said, “Don’t be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. 2 There are many rooms in my Father’s house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me, so that you can be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5 Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father too. But now you know the Father. You have seen him.”
Again the deciples at this point do not know that Jesus is talking about going. Maybe some thought he was going on vacation, or more likely they thought he would be sent to jail, who knows at this point that is why they are still asking.
John 16:
16 “I have told you all this so that you won’t lose your faith when you face troubles. 2 People will tell you to leave their synagogues and never come back. In fact, the time will come when they will think that killing you would be doing service for God. 3 They will do this because they have not known the Father, and they have not known me. 4 I have told you all this now to prepare you. So when the time comes for these things to happen, you will remember that I warned you. “I did not tell you these things at the beginning, because I was with you then. 5 Now I am going back to the one who sent me.
Here Christ Just finally told them where he was Going and where they too will follow and why... At this point Christ is probably a little pissed at the disciples. before for it was oh, we'll follow anywhere we are ready to die. Jesus in a sense calls their bluff and says I am about to be killed, and you are as well at a later time, and then says:
Quote: And none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But you are filled with sadness because I have told you all this.Read that in a stereotypical Jewish/vaudville tome. Maybe that will help.
Because in short Christ is saying you've been asking me were am I going, where am I going, where am I going and I told you you can not follow still you ask and tell me you will follow. Now you don't ask me anymore? You just resign yourself to great sadness?
A Man like bart should have known exactly what was being said here, maybe that is why he took it out of context in order to make it look like John did not know what he was talking about.
Then He goes off on the OT/Genesis The creation account and Noah's ark. We have gone though both of those very recently and do not see a need to repeat everything we have talked about.
Quote:In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses, “I appeared to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name ‘The LORD’
[= Yahweh] I did not make myself known to them” (Exodus 6:3).
How does this square with what is found earlier, in Genesis, where
God does make himself known to Abraham as The LORD: “Then
he [God] said to him [Abraham], ‘I am The LORD [= Yahweh] who
brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans’” (Genesis 15:7)?
This is the first time God called Moses, and Moses knew who God was, and all He could do as per the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. God was saying when I called abram He did not know me yet He obeyed, and look what I did for him. You know me, take comfort in all I am going to do for you.
12 The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country and your people. Leave your father’s family and go to the country that I will show you.
2 I will build a great nation from you.
I will bless you
and make your name famous.
People will use your name
to bless other people.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and I will curse those who curse you.
I will use you to bless
all the people on earth.”
Abram Goes to Canaan
4 So Abram left Haran just like the Lord said, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the slaves, and all the other things he had gotten in Haran. Then he and his group moved to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the town of Shechem and then to the big tree at Moreh. The Canaanites were living in the land at that time.
7 The Lord appeared[a] to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.”
Abram built an altar to honor the Lord who appeared to him there. 8 Then he left that place and traveled to the mountains east of Bethel. He set up his tent there. Bethel was to the west, and Ai[b] was to the east. Abram built another altar at that place to honor the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord there. 9 Then he moved on toward the Negev, stopping for a time at several places on the way.
Quote:Or consider one of my all-time favorite passages, the description of
the ten plagues that Moses brought down on the heads of the Egyptians
in order to compel Pharaoh to “let my people go.” The fi fth
plague was a pestilence that killed “all of the livestock of the Egyptians”
(Exodus 9:5). How is it, then, that a few days later the seventh
plague, of hail, was to destroy all of the Egyptian livestock in the
fields (Exodus 9:21–22)? What livestock?
Again context verse 3 says "All the Egyptian cattle in their fields will die." 3 then the Lord will use his power against your animals in the fields. He will cause all of your horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, and sheep to get sick with a terrible disease..He did not mentioned any sheltered barn kept animals.
Also note we do not know how much time elapsed between verse 5 and verse 21. These people needed those animals more than we do now, and if they died they would have to have gotten new ones. there was a plague between the death of the live stock and the Hail. Could have been days or weeks or evern months, before pharroah felt the full effect of each plague.
