John 1:19-28
“Notice what you notice.” So today we have John’s account of John the Baptist appearing in the wilderness. And it’s always intriguing to compare John’s account of events with the Synoptics. The other three largely agreed with one another and even shared the same words. John shares the same OT verse (Is. 40:3) and the strap of the sandal that he is not worthy to untie, but he has more detail than the others, especially the conversations between John and the Jewish delegation. Again a first verse jumped out at me, the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”. It’s a short phrase, “…the Jews sent…”. Not that “all Jerusalem” or “all of Judea” were coming to him (active voice) but that the priests and Levites “were sent” (passive voice). Obviously the Jews who did the sending were the Jerusalem leaders. But how did John know this? He was not personally at Jesus’ baptism, so where did he get his report? Did he have inside information that the Synoptics did not have? That may well be the case!
Let’s jump ahead some three years. Here’s a familiar passage from John’s Gospel: Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in (Jn. 18:15-16). That disciple (John, most likely) “was known to the High Priest”. It makes me wonder if John is both a first-person witness of later events (after he was called by Jesus) and an insider to the Jewish leadership.
Consider later, when Peter and John are called in before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4-5. Was their “defender”, Gamaliel (Acts 5:34) also John’s insider? Since Gamaliel was …held in honor by all people… (op. cit.) he would have had substantial knowledge of all that was going on. My Study Bible indicates that the phrase “the Jews” occurs some 70 times in John’s Gospel, sometimes favorably and sometimes neutral, but often hostile. John may simply know more of the inner workings of the Jewish leadership than the Synoptics. Intriguing! I may end up reading John in a completely different light!
Blessings!
Let me rock the boat a little bit. You said, “John was not personally at Jesus baptism…” I don’t think we can know that. In fact, if anything, I think it likely that he was. Later (in John 1:35-42) we learn that two of John the Baptist’s disciples leave him to follow Jesus, and that one of the two was Andrew. And we know that Andrew and John were close friends (or at least business partners), so it seems well within the realm of possibilities that the second of the Baptist’s disciples was John.
Later you point out John 18:15 where we learn that Peter gets into the court of the high priest because his companion “is known to the high priest.” While it is of course possible, I find it highly improbable that a fisherman from Galilee would be known to the high priest. Yet it is reasonably likely (though not definitive) that the “other disciple” in this Gospel is indeed its author.
And this is where I’ll rock the boat… Obviously, tradition has long held that the author of the Gospel of John is (of course) John — hence the name of the book. Yet nothing in the Gospel explicitly says that, and I think there is decent internal evidence that it is not John, but Lazarus. What? Lazarus? Yes, Lazarus. The author is fairly clearly “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And there is exactly one individual identified explicitly in this Gospel with that description, and that person is Lazarus. (John 11:3) And with Lazarus’ living in Bethany, very near Jerusalem, he would have a much greater chance of being known to the high priest.
We are clearly way ahead of ourselves here as far as our readings are concerned, and I am not in any way going to be dogmatic about the notion of Lazarus being the author of this Gospel — its truth does not depend on who wrote it. In fact, I will gladly point out a very strong argument against authorship by Lazarus. As we said earlier, it is rather likely that the disciple “known to the high priest” is the Gospel’s author. But John 12:10 says that the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death. So it seems unlikely that someone on the chief priests’ “hit list” would be asking the gatekeeper to let Peter into the courtyard.
Nevertheless, it’s food for thought and may well lead to reading this Gospel “in a completely different light!” 🙂
Very intriguing…!! I can see Lazarus as the John author, being known to the high priest and even being on the chief priests’ “hit list”. And I can see him being allowed into the courtyard and bringing Peter in. Why? The chief priests already had their main man and He was all but executed. Lazarus would have been readily available to them in the courtyard, but rather than confusing the “Jesus” issue by trying to do away with Lazarus also, they would choose to wait for another more appropriate time. So is Lazarus the “beloved disciple”? My head is swimming.
That’s a very good point! Another possibility could simply be that Lazarus could have had a genuine friendship with the gatekeeper, one that might override the chief priests’ plans (i.e., that the guy at the gate might well not share the priests’ views or support their plans).
As for Lazarus being the beloved disciple, that thought occurred to me years ago, and I’ve generally kept it to myself, not wanting to be too speculative in the face of centuries of Christian tradition. Only recently did I discover that the idea has more widespread (and credible) support, notably from Dr. Ben Witherington at Asbury. See http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-lazarus-beloved-disciple.html. Little did I know I was in such good company!
Now my head is swimming too! Intriguing ideas!