From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 18 1995 - 21:55:07 EST
At 8:00 PM 12/18/95, David Moore wrote:
> Eusebius's cites Papius to the effect that Mark's Gospel renders
>the Gospel information faithfully but does not preserve a careful ordering
>of the events of the Lord's life (Eusebius III:39). If this testimony be
>credible, and if Luke and Matthew (at least in the form we have the
>latter) were influenced by Mark's ordering of the material, John may
>represent the best testimony we have regarding the chronology of the life
>of Christ.
>
> Raymond Brown, in his commentary on John, notes the possibility of
>the historicity of the chronology of the Fourth Gospel but mainly discounts
>it on theoretical redactional grounds (R. Brown, _The Gospel According to
>John_ [Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966], pp. xlvi-li).
>
> Nevertheless, I find these references in John intriguing -
>especially from the standpoint that they can be fit into a plausible
>chronology. Also, the reference to 46 years for the building of the
>temple provides a plausible figure for the number of years the temple
>would have been under construction from Herod's initiating its building in
>19 BC (Josephus, Antiq. XV 380), if the words recorded in Jn. 2:20 had
>been spoken in 28 AD. This, of course, would be taking the aorist
>OIKODOMHQH as referring to the building as an event accomplished in so
>many years. The imperfect would probably not be required here, although
>the temple was not yet complete, for Jesus had referred to TO NAON TOUTON
>(v. 19) indicating what was then standing.
This is all fascinating. At the very least it would have to be said that
John is building his chronology deliberately, and perhaps, even, with
historical probability. The one question that comes to my mind in
particular, however, is, I believe, an old one. The Synoptic gospels all
place the "Cleansing of the Temple" at the beginning of Passion Week,
whereas John puts it in Chapter 2. I think the usual harmonization is to
say that John has deliberately placed the events in chapter 2 of the
beginning (wedding at Cana) and of the end (Cleansing of Temple) of Jesus'
ministry. Your reading would appear to take the positioning of the
Cleansing of the Temple as indeed taking place historically three (or at
least two) years PRIOR to that last week in Jerusalem. I won't say this is
impossible--I obviously can't prove it is--but is it plausible that this
sort of challenge to the authority of the High Priesthood would have been
allowed to go unsanctioned for two successive years?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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