I blogged about this the other day, but I think I wasn’t straight forward enough. Also, I’ve found a blog about it by the same person. Ben Witherington III elaborates on Lazarus as the Beloved Disciple and I’ve found his arguments extremely compelling. Here are links to his lecture at Baylor, and to his blog on the topic:
Read: Was Lazarus the Beloved Disciple?
Watch: The lecture at Baylor
March 15, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Definitely interesting.
I skimmed his article, but want to read it more fully, as well as watch the lecture, later on– when I don’t have 3 midterms to study for
Initial reaction: Makes me think, but I’m not ready to agree yet.
A few reasons:
It’s true that philew and agapaw are basically synonymous by the time of the NT writings, so we can’t say that the terms the one who Jesus loved in chapter 11 (philew) and thereafter (agapaw) refer to different people on semantic terms, but it seems strange that the author would introduce the BD as hon phileis, then completely drop the term for agapaw. One would think he would stick with the original title, or use them intermixed. Seeing as how the term philew is dropped after chapter 11 leads me to suspect that it could be the author’s way of keeping the two identities separate through stylistic variation–e.g. the use of autos and ekeinos in 1 John.
Second, Witherington holds that Lazarus is not only the author of the Gospel (which he must hold on internal evidence) but also the epistles, which bear stylistic similiarities. I tend to agree with Carson and Moo’s arguments for favoring the John as the author of the Gospel as well as the epistles (which bank on the Gospel), some of the things they answer are specifically brought up by Witherington, such as how a fisherman could have access to the high priests house, etc etc.
All this to say that I’m not convinced, yet. I need to give it a better reading and listen. We’ll see what comes of it.
March 15, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Hmm, I completely missed BW3’s point about Lazarus writing the epistles also. I’m going to have to re-read as well as I missed that part. I’ve not read the epistles recently though, so I can’t really hazard an opinion at this time. I do know that Lazarus as the BD does fit nicely into the context of the fourth gospel IMHO.
March 15, 2008 at 2:15 pm
By Carson and Moo, I mean their book An Introduction to the New Testament.
I think that point (about the author of the Gospel and the Epistles being Lazarus) was brought out more fully in the comment section, which I also skimmed through.
March 16, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Um.. I hope you don’t mind my asking…
I’m reading the Bible for the first time and started with the book of John. It’s funny that you’d post about this now because I was just thinking how odd it seems that one disciple would be singled out as the disciple Jesus loved. Have you heard any explanation for this? Wouldn’t Jesus have loved all of them… and why would one be so noteworthy as to be recorded in the Bible?
Please do not feel obligated to respond. I will not be offended if you decline to comment and I sure don’t mean to put you on the spot!
I’m normally too shy to ask, except that we’ve spoken before and then the timing of your post is right when I was wondering about it.
March 16, 2008 at 1:29 pm
It is possible that the Gospel of John was written originally by someone, and then finally edited together by someone named John. If the original author had died before the gospel was ultimately distributed in the form we have today, then the community that the author left behind may have referred to him by the title of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” etc. No one really knows what the truth is, but it is very interesting to me to learn of the various possibilities.
My advice would be to read the gospels as they are, and in prayer, and keep an open mind to what the text says. Certainly the author is not nearly as important as the message
Whether it was written by the John of the original 12, Lazarus, or someone else it doesn’t ultimately matter to me. (I should probably mention that I believe all scripture is inspired by the ultimate author, God)
I will pray for you as you read the Bible for the first time. There is so much history in it that it can be an enormous task, though one that I’ve found to be the most rewarding thing I have ever done.
P.S. You should start a blog and post what you find as you read the Bible. I’d love to visit it and it would be easier to help if you’ve got questions (don’t we all!)
March 16, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Thanks Nathan!
Yes, I’m thinking about starting a blog. It seems like everything I’m looking into lately has a large time commitment for the setup stage (which translation to use.. how to learn Greek.. how the heck do you startup a blog…) I laugh now to think how naive it was to walk into the Christian Bookstore to “just buy a Bible.” But yeah, I’ll probably be starting a blog soon. Thanks again.
March 16, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I originally made a blog in December using Blogger. It was extremely easy to start up, and make a post. You can easily make your first post in 5 minutes if you want. If you’re like me you may spend an hour just browsing the templates and choosing your layout. I ended up using WordPress though because they have more features, and I much prefer it. You can also get a post up really fast in WordPress. The best thing is that they are free:
http://wordpress.com/signup/
http://www.blogger.com/create-blog.g
March 16, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Thanks!
BTW, I second the suggestion for using bibelwissenschaft.de — it is easy to navigate to the online Greek NT even if you don’t speak/read German.
April 20, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[...] later I discovered Ben Witherington’s blog and a related post about Lazarus. I decided to post about what I had found because it was so interesting to me. The next day I was offered a review copy of The Disciple Whom [...]