E
EarlyActs
Guest
My title is not totally crazy. This thread is a discussion of the difficult delivery of the Bible, and why my work in novels wrestles with the same question. I mean delivery in a communication sense.
The difficult delivery may best be illustrated by the CHOSEN's episode on John 2's wedding. A considerable amount of work went into unpacking 'you have served the best wine first.' I don't just mean exegetical-historical work, but the production. When I was done, I was puzzled, not at CHOSEN episode, but at the Bible. The most important part of the story is so out of reach, as is.
Because of this, I have found that Christians find themselves in a dilemma: either we use the easy-access cliches of John 3 with people, even if it means missing a very important feature about it, or we develop a 'novel'--not necessarily a printed one, but in terms of the level of elaboration of an account, as found in John 4.
There are things about John 3 that people just don't see because they are quite eager to jump to the 'close of the deal', tell people they must be born again, and how to be born again, and get business done. I just read a summary of secular educator J. Dewey's pragmatism: the only thing we need to know is what is useful for results we want. That pragmatism is what people have done to John 3.
What they don't see are things like: 'you must be born again' is actually rhetorical and incomplete. He was saying you won't see the kingdom at work without it. It is not an outright command to drop everything right this minute and just 'have the experience.' 2nd, it spoken to a fairly high leader in Judaism, so high that Jesus even dares him by saying he should know better. Please remember this when using the expression! Are you talking to someone steeped in Judaism about birth-line? 3rd, there is much more here that devalues the natural Judaic genealogical descent than explains new birth or birth from above/from the start. 4th, on top of all of this, there is no description of the so-called key phrase! Nothing that happens to Nicodemus is explained. We only know that he believed secretly and at the end, offered his burial plot. Instead the text of Jn 3 elaborates on what justification in Christ means--the historic event which accomplished it, and what is gained.
As such, John 3 is not nearly as elaborated as John 4 with all its symbolism and history and questions. It is novel material. John 3 is not. But Christians tend to go to cliches in John 3 to 'make the Gospel simple' to people, even though the end conversation of Jesus (or elaboration by John) is a very advanced statement.
John 4 is full of a complete table of background questions, some of which are asked. They range from OT questions to very personal marital questions and sophistications people use--to 'rename' something they've done. All of this could be fleshed out into a complete novel.
But let's notice something similar between 3 and 4's interviews. We (the reader) don't get very much description of any change in the person. Instead something else happens in the account. While the woman has focused on what we might called Jesus' clairvoyance, this is not what pulls in Samaritans to the Messiah-titled person. It was Jesus' teaching--from the OT. 'We no longer believe because of what you told us.'
Notice that at the end of ch 1, Philip realizes that everything Moses and the prophets had said about Jesus was being realized. This is a huge statement. It is actually very different material than what we find in the text, where the encounters seem to be mysterious. This feature of the Bible--even the NT-- bothers me. All the encounters from John to the 1st disciples seem to hinge just on the charisma of Jesus. But actually, this line from Philip changes all that.
The same thing is true as to how the Samaritan village instance goes. They don't believe because of her claim; they believe because of persuasive teaching from the OT about Him. We don't even know if she changed, we don't know if her husband came. We do know the 'psychic' ability of Jesus attracted some attention which was then surrounded by OT teaching and forgotten.
So I find that there are 'difficult' passages in Jn 1, 2, 3, but not so much in 4. I'm not talking about error or contradiction. The difficulty is that very subtle background is hardly communicated and may as well be considered lost. John 4 is so much 'easier' to read because real detail is preserved, even if it is not what matters after all.
It almost seems as if the scant 'difficult' passages are theology, while the fully-colored 'easier' passages are "novel," which is why I write them. Through novels, we are asking all the W questions of a person (who, what, where, when, why) before we go on to make a claim about Christ for them.
The thing that becomes interesting then is that very few people know of the solid gems in John 4 (we now worship in spirit and truth, or salvation came through the Jews) but everyone seems to have heard the misapplied line about 'being born again'--even when they themselves have almost no value invested in their lineage.
Notice then that at the end of all the things Jesus did, there is 40 days of teaching from Moses and the scriptures, like a true start. The previous miracles and exception things will be retold, but Jesus is focused very tightly on about 20 passages, especially Psalms 2, 16, 110, 118. It's much like John 4, really.
The difficult delivery may best be illustrated by the CHOSEN's episode on John 2's wedding. A considerable amount of work went into unpacking 'you have served the best wine first.' I don't just mean exegetical-historical work, but the production. When I was done, I was puzzled, not at CHOSEN episode, but at the Bible. The most important part of the story is so out of reach, as is.
Because of this, I have found that Christians find themselves in a dilemma: either we use the easy-access cliches of John 3 with people, even if it means missing a very important feature about it, or we develop a 'novel'--not necessarily a printed one, but in terms of the level of elaboration of an account, as found in John 4.
There are things about John 3 that people just don't see because they are quite eager to jump to the 'close of the deal', tell people they must be born again, and how to be born again, and get business done. I just read a summary of secular educator J. Dewey's pragmatism: the only thing we need to know is what is useful for results we want. That pragmatism is what people have done to John 3.
What they don't see are things like: 'you must be born again' is actually rhetorical and incomplete. He was saying you won't see the kingdom at work without it. It is not an outright command to drop everything right this minute and just 'have the experience.' 2nd, it spoken to a fairly high leader in Judaism, so high that Jesus even dares him by saying he should know better. Please remember this when using the expression! Are you talking to someone steeped in Judaism about birth-line? 3rd, there is much more here that devalues the natural Judaic genealogical descent than explains new birth or birth from above/from the start. 4th, on top of all of this, there is no description of the so-called key phrase! Nothing that happens to Nicodemus is explained. We only know that he believed secretly and at the end, offered his burial plot. Instead the text of Jn 3 elaborates on what justification in Christ means--the historic event which accomplished it, and what is gained.
As such, John 3 is not nearly as elaborated as John 4 with all its symbolism and history and questions. It is novel material. John 3 is not. But Christians tend to go to cliches in John 3 to 'make the Gospel simple' to people, even though the end conversation of Jesus (or elaboration by John) is a very advanced statement.
John 4 is full of a complete table of background questions, some of which are asked. They range from OT questions to very personal marital questions and sophistications people use--to 'rename' something they've done. All of this could be fleshed out into a complete novel.
But let's notice something similar between 3 and 4's interviews. We (the reader) don't get very much description of any change in the person. Instead something else happens in the account. While the woman has focused on what we might called Jesus' clairvoyance, this is not what pulls in Samaritans to the Messiah-titled person. It was Jesus' teaching--from the OT. 'We no longer believe because of what you told us.'
Notice that at the end of ch 1, Philip realizes that everything Moses and the prophets had said about Jesus was being realized. This is a huge statement. It is actually very different material than what we find in the text, where the encounters seem to be mysterious. This feature of the Bible--even the NT-- bothers me. All the encounters from John to the 1st disciples seem to hinge just on the charisma of Jesus. But actually, this line from Philip changes all that.
The same thing is true as to how the Samaritan village instance goes. They don't believe because of her claim; they believe because of persuasive teaching from the OT about Him. We don't even know if she changed, we don't know if her husband came. We do know the 'psychic' ability of Jesus attracted some attention which was then surrounded by OT teaching and forgotten.
So I find that there are 'difficult' passages in Jn 1, 2, 3, but not so much in 4. I'm not talking about error or contradiction. The difficulty is that very subtle background is hardly communicated and may as well be considered lost. John 4 is so much 'easier' to read because real detail is preserved, even if it is not what matters after all.
It almost seems as if the scant 'difficult' passages are theology, while the fully-colored 'easier' passages are "novel," which is why I write them. Through novels, we are asking all the W questions of a person (who, what, where, when, why) before we go on to make a claim about Christ for them.
The thing that becomes interesting then is that very few people know of the solid gems in John 4 (we now worship in spirit and truth, or salvation came through the Jews) but everyone seems to have heard the misapplied line about 'being born again'--even when they themselves have almost no value invested in their lineage.
Notice then that at the end of all the things Jesus did, there is 40 days of teaching from Moses and the scriptures, like a true start. The previous miracles and exception things will be retold, but Jesus is focused very tightly on about 20 passages, especially Psalms 2, 16, 110, 118. It's much like John 4, really.