Book review: The Gospel of John

★★★★★

My one complaint with the book is that it’s a bit slow getting started. The intro, which serves mostly to present credentials, was wordy. What you need to know is that Audlin presents his own translation of John’s Gospel, with liberal commentary, and in so doing makes an effort to restore it as close as possible to its original format and flavor. Late glosses and interpolations are removed, sections are repositioned where they appear to be out of order, words or phrases are restored where they appear missing, and certain current-day conventions and phraseology that distort the message have been swept away. One drawback to this reordering, of course, is that it makes for an awkward reference digest; while detailed by chapter-and-verse, the text is all out of order.

Audlin shares with me a belief that there was an early composition of John’s Gospel, decades before its final form. He finds the most likely scenario of how this “early” John’s Gospel came to be as such: Lazarus, the man whom Jesus restores to life, is the Beloved Disciple and the main voice behind the Gospel. The Gospel is a corroboration between Lazarus and John Mark, the author of all five of the Johannine documents. Lazarus dictated the story of Jesus to John Mark, but the final project was derailed, probably by the war. [Correction provided by the author: The amanuensis was not John Mark, but John the Presbyter.] It was later collected and organized by a redactor, and subjected to further changes by other anonymous contributors. It is the original form that Audlin hopes to present in his translation … not merely the words they left behind, but the intended composition.

Adding to the complexity of this task is Audlin’s contention that certain original themes were downplayed during the redaction process, sometimes by even removing text that John Mark had written. For example, Audlin concludes that the marriage in Cana was of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but anything suggesting that Jesus was the bridegroom in the story was extracted by the redactor.

Audlin puts a great deal of trust in the Beloved Disciple, as the eyewitness, in presenting historical truth. This lets Audlin interpret much of the text (that which he attributes to the Beloved Disciple) with brutal precision. When John’s Gospel tells how the almighty Roman Empire bowed in obeisance to a lowly Jewish rabbi (Jesus, at the arrest site), it really happened as written! This refreshing trust is not naivete on Audlin’s part, since he hardly reads the Bible as inspired. He certainly has no such trust in the writer of Matthew’s Gospel!

Many of Audlin’s conclusions are based on Aramaic idioms and the Peshitta (the Syriac, an eastern Aramaic New Testament of disputed authorship and origin, which contained most of the canon of today’s Bible), and I must confess, of this analysis I can contribute nothing. I am thus unable to evaluate the strength or weaknesses of Audlin’s linguistic arguments, and they do form much of the foundation of his scholarship.

One of the idiosyncrasies of Audlin’s thesis (again, drawing heavily on the Peshitta) is the collapse of many Bible characters into one big happy family (well, maybe not so happy). Among these family ties we can count Jesus, Mary Magdalene (his wife), Martha, Simon the Leper,  Joseph of Arimathea, the Beloved Disciple, Peter, John Mark, John the Baptist, John the Presbyter, Lazarus, Thomas, the Samaritan woman at the well, Barabbas, Judas, and surely a few more I didn’t catch. Some of these names collapse further into a single person; Lazarus, for example, is also Barabbas and the Beloved Disciple.

So, yes, Audlin’s work is surprising, edgy, opinionated, and yet deeply researched. Small wonder that he grows a bit compulsive in detailing his credentials! This project was clearly a labor of love and his appreciation shines for the original beauty of the Gospel, even as his distaste for the clumsy insertions and distractions of the redactor also shows through. He and I share both feelings, and in fact, we share many other unconventional conclusions, and listing a few will give a feel for the flavor of the writing:

1. The Gospel is not at all chronological, and really indicates closer to a one-year ministry for Jesus rather than three years, though Audlin and I disagree on the reason for the jumbled format.

2. We agree that conservative Christianity has mangled the meaning of “eternal life” in this Gospel; Audlin has opted to simply revert to John’s original word, aeon. Jesus promises “aeonic life.” That’s probably best, and in one of many essays at the end of the book, Audlin carefully attempts to put the original flavor back in Jesus’ promise.

3. We agree that the text probably says Jesus did not walk on water (though other Gospels do).

4. We agree that Jesus, himself, did not consider himself any more “one with God” than the rest of humanity.

On the other hand, we disagree pretty strongly on other topics! I encourage both an open mind and a discerning eye, and plenty of time to wrangle with the ideas.