Episode Details

John’s Gospel is so different from the other three Gospel accounts, one might have to wonder …..

This week, we talk to a New Testament scholar with particular expertise on the writing of the Gospels. His most recent book focuses squarely on the Gospel of John.

After asking some basic background information on that Gospel account, we dove head-first into the biggest problem that Luke has with the Gospel of John: how/why it’s SO VERY different from the other three Gospel accounts:

• while Matthew and Luke introduce Jesus as a baby boy born into a poor family in first century Roman-occupied Palestine who is prophesied to be the Jewish Messiah (a human leader who would liberate Israel from Rome), John introduces Jesus as an impersonal cosmic force which embodies the logic and laws of the universe (the “Logos“), as well as “the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world”.
• John recounts the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and a sermon about being “the Resurrection and the Life”, something that none of the other three Gospel writers remembered, or found worthy of telling!?
• John has seven “I am” statements, each of which are hugely theologically important; once again, the other three Gospel writers don’t mention these.

After our guest admitted that “John might have made it up”, we discussed the impact that this kind of bombshell might have on laypeople in the church pews.

There’s a lot of food for thought in this episode, folks!

And …… we highly recommend this book.

As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …

Find out more about Dr. Mark Goodacre and this book at his website and his YouTube channel.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy several of our previous episodes collected thematically under “The Bible.”

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