Talking Out Of Turn

In response to Mr. A’s email:

On 12 Adar 5764, Mr. A wrote:

> My input will need to be from a different angle. When I first heard
> the teacher teach this idea, I had to “wipe the slate clean” so to speak and
> ask myself if I would come up with the same conclusion if I didn’t
> have any traditional idea on the subject. I think he makes a very
> compelling argument.
>
> Why wasn’t Miriam, the Lord’s mother, not mentioned by the other
> gospel writers?
>
> Why was Miriam Magdalene, Miriam the mother of James and Joseph, and
> Salome - Mark 15:40 (I assume Salome is the mother of the sons of
> Zebedee - Matt. 27:55) reported as watching from a distance or from
> afar in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and then Miriam Magdalene standing
> close to the cross in the account in John? Seems to be a
> contradiction unless there is a translation error (which there
> apparently was with the word “by” as in “by the cross”).

My answer to this would be as follows:

1. John isn’t a synoptic Gospel. The other three were working
   off similar outlines, and then adding and rearranging based
   on their personal source and their audience. John probably
   knew about the synoptic Gospels but he discarded their
   outline and focused on what was important to him. There are
   so many critical passages that are only attested in John that
   calling John’s credibility or at least literal credibility
   into question just because he doesn’t match the synoptics is
   a red herring.
2. John was the only gospel author who was also an eyewitness to
   the crucifixion. We have no indication that any other
   disciple was actually present for it.

However, if you don’t believe that John’s account is truthful, or
if you don’t believe that it is literal, then you will not accept
that John was necessarily there, either. It is important to the
story and the focus of the synoptics that the main representation
of His following present at the crucifixion was the women; it is
important to John that this supremely personal moment is
recorded, in which Yeshua addressed John in the midst of His
agony.

> If John was referring to Miriam the mother of Yeshua, why didn’t he
> refer to her by name? Acts 1:14 does so in order to make sure we know
> she was there during the days of Pentecost. She alone was singled out
> and specifically named above all the other women present, so she
> obviously was held in high honor among the believers.

John never refers to her by name. John 2, the wedding at Cana, doesn’t
ever call her Mary. 6:42 refers to Joseph but not Mary. It fits the
pattern John already established; for whatever reason, he does not
treat her with that much familiarity.

> Why didn’t one of the Lord’s brothers take the responsibility of
> caring for their mother, if the Lord was actually placing the
> responsibility of the care of Miriam to John? I thought that was part
> of the brother’s responsibility. They seemed to be a fairly
> close-knit family. Yeshua, His mother, His brothers and His disciples
> were in Capernaum in John 2:12. It wasn’t just the Lord’s mother that
> was wanting to see Yeshua in Matt. 12:48-50, Mark 3:33, and Luke
> 8:21. It was also His brothers. It wasn’t just the Lord’s mother in
> the Upper Room in Acts 1:14. His brothers were there, too. It
> certainly doesn’t appear that she was abandoned and John had to step
> into the role of a caretaker. There was a time when Yeshua’s brothers
> did not believe in Him (John 7:5), but I don’t see any indication that
> they disowned each other or stopped fellowshipping with each other.

This I have no answer for. It is a worthwhile question, but I don’t
see it as a good enough reason by itself to discard the literal sense
of Yeshua’s statement.

> Also, the Lord Himself introduced the idea of His mother as being a
> composite oneness when told that His mother and family members were
> outside wanting to see Him. Matt. 12:48-50, Mark 3:33 and Luke 8:21
> all indicate that the Lord considered the group of those who did His
> will to be His mother, brother and sisters.

No, He was saying that plural group A (those who did His will) was to be
equivalent to plural group B (His mother, brother, and sisters). If He
had said that they were all His mother, that would be meaningful. But
the compositeness of the group is already established, in that He is
talking about more than one person. Granted, taking this to its
logical conclusion would indicate that only one of those obeying His
will ends up being His mother, but perhaps that’s literally true, in
that His mother was in fact a believer apparently.

> Yeshua seemed to want to downplay the importance of His earthly
> mother. In addition to the scriptures listed in the previous
> paragraph, the Lord immediately corrected some well-meaning lady who
> stated how blessed Miriam was as stated in Luke 11:27-28. However,
> the Lord immediately corrected her by essentially stating the same
> thing He said in Matt. 12, Mark 3, and Luke 8. The blessed ones are
> those that obey the Word of God. The attention is not on the earthly
> mother but on the body of believers, of which Miriam was a member.

Agreed, but this does not prove that He would not have mentioned His
mother while on the cross. He also mentioned something as mundane as
His thirst, but He said on a few occasions that His food was to do the
will of Him Who sent Him. Does this mean that He wasn’t really thirsty?

> Using the term “mother” and “woman” as a composite oneness seems to
> fit John’s writing style. Revelation 12 is an obvious example, unless
> you don’t believe that John who wrote this book. Certainly, the term
> “woman” in Rev. 12 refers to Israel. I don’t think there is any
> argument there. Revelation 17:5 also uses “mother” as a composite
> oneness, although not in a complementary usage. And, even though it
> cannot be definitively proven, I think the “chosen lady” that John
> wrote about in 2 John 1:1,5 is a body of believers, as is the “sister”
> in verse 13 of that same book. Even if John didn’t write these books,
> they are still more examples of that type of usage. However, in the
> books that I have read almost all the writers give John authorship
> credit for the book of Revelation as well as the gospel of John and
> the three epistles of John.

This is the best argument you’ve given, but I don’t think the context
supports it. The Gospel of John, in its narrative moments, does not
deal in symbolism; when Yeshua isn’t speaking, then it is reporting
objective truth. The only place where this really isn’t the case is
chapter 1, where John is using the “beresheit-style” higher perspective
to talk about the nature of the Word, its deity, and its being made
flesh. Why would the ordinary story suddenly give way to a symbolic,
almost parable-like picture language, and then suddenly turn back? In
context there is no indication of this.

In Revelation, however, everything is a symbol or a picture, and one
person can represent a multitude with no problems. As far as 2 John
goes, that would be the exception to the rule, but an understandable
one in terms of the persecution being undergone at the time.

> Galatians 4:26 certainly supports the idea of Jerusalem being the
> “mother”.

Sure, but not in the context of the crucifixion narrative. One can’t
just take symbolic language from a Pauline epistle and force it into a
Johannine factual report. Hey, Babylon is called a mother too.

> John seemed to center his ministry on the Jew and Jerusalem after the
> Lord’s death. He gives more attention to the Lord’s activities while
> in Jerusalem than any other gospel. He also writes a lot about the
> Messianic nature and fulfillment, His deity, and the Hebraic mystic
> picture of light vs. darkness with the Lord being the Light. This
> would also agree with the teacher’s conclusion of what command the Lord was
> issuing to John during the closing moments of His life.

But he ends up in Ephesus and other parts of Asia Minor, and writes a
Gospel in Hellenistic and Greek philosophical terms in which he talks
about the Jews almost as if he were an outsider. I don’t think that
John was entirely focused on the Jews later in life; it seems to me that
he became an elder statesman for the whole church after the other
disciples were dead or gone. And all the Johannine epistles bear marks
indicating that they were likely aimed at Gentiles, not Jews.

> Charlie, if I understand what you wrote correctly, you are saying that
> the Greek only allows for the Lord to be speaking to a singular entity
> - not a plurality. I wouldn’t disagree with this, but this definition
> of the Greek allow for the idea of the mother being Jerusalem and the
> the nation of Israel based the “composite oneness” understanding.
> “Composite oneness” is singular.

I was coming against the idea that the Greek suggested any
compositeness. If there were compositeness, it would be in
interpretation, not in translation.

> I don’t know why the loud, bombastic voice was not used when the Lord
> was addressing the mother (Jerusalem - Israel). I also don’t know if
> John 19:25 is using the word “sister” in the same manner the Lord
> stated in Matt. 12:48-50. However, the observations I listed above
> outweigh the questions I have about the teacher’s conclusion.

I don’t know anything about changing voices in the crucifixion, so I
can’t comment on that right now.

> I am sending this to the teacher, too. I am always open to adjustment in my
> theology. I just wanted to thank you for your input and list most of
> the reasons why I currently think the teacher has it correct on this matter.
> Well, let’s say that I am giving you the reasons that I can think of
> at 2:30am. I need to go to bed now.

OK, I would be interested in hearing your take on my response.

This is one of a few emails that I have had to recreate based on the conversation that followed after. If I said something in this email that Mr. A didn’t quote back, then I don’t have a record of it, unfortunately. But I think he was thorough in his reply. The notes:

• I didn’t mention this yesterday (I did in the first draft that never made it), but it is interesting that Mr. A doesn’t know whether I accept the Johannine authorship of the books that bear his name. When you’re playing footsie with liberal scholarship as often as we were, you had to always keep that possibility in mind — not necessarily for yourself, but for other people.
• I return the favor by positing that maybe he agrees with the teacher that “John is riddled with errors.” As you will see, he doesn’t appreciate this. But, like when he wondered whether I believed in Johannine authorship of Revelation, I didn’t know, so I had to ask.
• I know the whole “plural group A” part of my argument was a bit of a mess. I didn’t really know how to respond to this more clearly; it astonished me that somebody who disclaimed knowledge of the original language would then push a semantic point like this one so hard.

For people who claim to know so much about the Bible, nobody seemed to be able to cope with the issue of genre (or indeed, any kind of sophisticated hermeneutic, except viewing everything through the subjective lens of what we think the Rabbis would have said). Do we expect passages like “This happened when Quirinius was governor of Syria” to be read in exactly the same way as “I saw a woman clothed with the sun”? Of course not; and yet, somehow we were willing to say that, because John referred to Israel as a woman and Babylon as a mother, therefore on the cross when Jesus was talking to a mother, He must have been talking to a nation or group of people? Reading this two years later just makes me more aware of how ridiculous it all was. My dismay at the time was exacerbated by my newly-developed sense of just how silly we were beginning to sound.