Joseph in John, Judas and Jewish Jokes

Adam Bradford

Description

The gospel of john has been subject to nearly two thousand years of scrutiny. The prevailing view has always been that Jesus' legal father Joseph was dead. In his extraordinary new book, Dr. Bradford brings out clear evidence that Joseph was alive and present in the background of Jesus' ministry. This is of first importance in understanding Jesus' temple interactions with the Pharisees, the jewish religious lawyers.

Dr. Bradford's book also reveals exactly who Judas Iscariot was and why Jesus chose him to be an apostle. As a jewish-christian scholar, Dr. Bradford also demonstrates Jesus and John's abundant use of Jewish humour found (but often missed by non-Jews) in this gospel.

The book has been described as 'brilliant' by a professor of theology.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Biblical Biography
• Philosophie et théologie
• New Testament

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 14 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456634070
• Langue: English

Extrait

Jesus ’ Sense of Humour in John ’ s Gospel
 
A Commentary On The Gospel of John
 
By Dr A. T. Bradford
 
 
ISBN 9781456634070
 
Copyright © 2019 Dr A T Bradford
Published by Templehouse Publishing, London, England.
www.templehouse-publishing.com
For other titles by this author please see our website
 
This book largely draws (unless otherwise indicated) upon the NASB Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible ® , Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
 
Cover design by Idea Signs
Author ’ s Note
 
Having researched and written ‘ The Jesus Discovery ’ in 2009 -10 and identified   exactly who   Joseph,   Jesus ’ earthly father was - the senior architect of Herod ’ s Temple - my interest in the various double meanings around his use of ‘ father ’ in Jesus ’ teaching was piqued. Eventually, I realised that, like all Jewish teachers,   Jesus incorporated these double entendres to illustrate a deeper level of meaning within his sayings.
 
For most of Jesus ’ audience, such as the Jewish Pharisees that he regularly debated with, the issue with his ‘ father ’ was something that many of them understood, but they were unable to clearly identify personally with who Joseph was, because of the location of work, as a tekton- architect in Sephoris in Galilee. Separated from Judea to the north by hostile Samaria, and in days without public transport, the ability to go north and meet such an important   Jewish tekton   engaged in overseeing the important Roman defensive construction work there was severely limited. And so, the Jews, particularly in Jerusalem, were severely limited in their access to Joseph, Jesus ’ legal human father.
 
Jesus was able to use double meanings to keep his audience, particularly the hostile members (such as the aggressive Temple Court Pharisees) guessing, as to whom exactly he meant, when he spoke of his ‘ father ’ . Was   it   father Joseph, whom they knew mainly by his reputation for the Temple of Herod, or Father God?
 
For many of them the idea that God was in some personal way Jesus ’ ‘ father ’ was alien and extraordinary. For them, Jesus ’ use of ‘ Patros ’ meant ‘ father ’ as in Joseph.  
The problem however with most translations of the Bible is that the   translators usually rather arbitrarily decide to   capitalise certain   letters, such as putting a capital F at the beginning of the word father, thereby directly conveying the meaning that Father God is the person being referred to.
 
Yet throughout John's Gospel, there are references from Jesus ’ enemies to   Jesus ’ ‘ father ’ , which could not possibly   have   meant   Father God , but rather, meant father Joseph .
 
These indicate that Jesus ’ audience were well aware of the fact that his father Joseph was   still   alive. And they use that fact to appeal a matter of Jewish law related to Jesus ’ age. Being below 40 years   old, the presence of the father was legally required to confirm or deny the authenticity of the remarks that Jesus was making concerning himself (his self-testimony).  
 
Jesus ’ Temple debates were often punctuated with Jewish humour, frequently involving evasive double meanings, much to the Pharisee ’ s annoyance!
Contents
 
Author’s Note
Introduction to John’s Gospel
John Chapter One
The Prologue
Chapter 2
A Valuable Wedding Gift with Important Long-term Consequences
Chapter 3
Born From Above!
Chapter 4
Well water in Samaria
Chapter 5
Sick Sheep in Denial
Chapter 6
Bread from heaven and hungry bellies
Chapter 7
A Demonised Professor of Theology?
Chapter 8
Pharisees and Adultery
Chapter 9
The Blind Man and the Myopic Pharisees
Chapter 10
The Good Shepherd Of Ezekiel 34 And Winter Unbelief
Chapter 11
Wanted, Dead or Alive!
Chapter 12
More of Lazarus; Judas et al
Chapter 13
A Celibate Jew Performs a Gentile Slave’s Menial Task
Chapter 14
Worried Men With Worried Minds
Chapter 15
Grapes and Gardening
Chapter 16
Scandals, Advocates and Children
Chapter 17
Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer
Chapter 18
Betrayal and Arrest
Chapter 19
The Trials and the Torture
Chapter 20
The Triumph of Resurrection and of the Women’s Faith
Chapter 21
Fish, Sheep and Reconciliation
Other Titles By Dr A T Bradford:
End Notes
Introduction to John’s Gospel
 
John’s Gospel differs from the three other (synoptic) Gospels in some noteworthy ways. It was written later than the other gospels, c. 65AD, most likely in Ephesus. John was a first cousin of Jesus, and was formerly a disciple of John the Baptist. He deals, in common with the Book of Hebrews, with the question of John the Baptist’s standing in relation to the Messiah, seeking to emphasise Jesus’ divinity over and above John’s humanity.
John also presents Jesus’ teaching/debates in relation to the early rabbinic and Pharisaic scholarship prevalent at that time (as recorded in the Jewish Talmud and the Mishnah), clearly evidencing both Jesus’ supreme skill in Torah exposition and his (typically Jewish) sense of humour. For example, John does so by making use of the fact that Joseph, Jesus’ legal father, is still alive and present in the textual backdrop. These last points are aspects that appear to have eluded biblical scholars to date.
Having described in ‘ The Jesus Discovery ’ how Jesus had come to dominate Temple and Torah scholarship and exposition, and having written commentaries on Matthew and Luke ’ s Gospels, and prayed into a variety of other Spirit led insights, I now offer the following commentary on John ’ s Gospel. It is my prayerful desire that it should, by God ’ s grace, live up to Jesus ’ saying about spiritual teaching recorded by Matthew (himself a scribe) in Matthew 13:52: “ Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
May God continue to illuminate his Scriptures!
 
Dr A T Bradford, Kent, UK. October 2019.
John Chapter One
 
The Prologue
 
1:1: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men.’
John’s prologue begins with an introduction proclaiming that a person called ‘ Logos ’ (Greek, meaning ‘word’, ‘thought’, ‘word from God’, ‘spoken word’ or ‘creative word’) was in fact God and that this ‘word’ was also with God. In other words, there has to be more than one person called God!
There is the ‘ Logo s’ and then also someone else called ‘God’ - we might perhaps call this ‘God’ the ‘Father’. This follows nicely on from Genesis 1:1’s use of ‘ Elohim ’ . Because the word ‘God’ in this ancient Hebrew verse is expressed in the plural.
And, of course, Genesis 1.26 then says ‘let us make man in our own image.’ So both Genesis chapter 1 and John chapter 1 clearly point towards the dual plural and singular nature of ‘God’ in both being and essence.
1:2: ‘The Word ( ‘ Logo s ’) was in the beginning with God.’
The Genesis symbolism continues, with the ‘ Logos’ there with God, on day one of creation. In some mysterious tri-united way, the ‘ Logos ’ was present and was one with both God the Father and God the Spirit (the Holy Spirit who had hovered over ‘the face of the deep’ – Genesis 1:2).
1:3: ‘All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made’
Put another way, if it exists, then it exists because of the ‘ Logos’ . Within his creation nothing living happens without the ‘ Logos’ being involved somehow, because he is Life.
Because as well as meaning ‘life giving word’, ‘ Logos ’ is described by John as containing ‘life’, and so this particular ‘Word’ is indeed life giving - one could equally well call ‘ Logos ‘‘Life’! John is identifying this ‘ Logos’ as fundamentally being the Creator first and foremost.
1:4: ‘In him was life and the life was the light of men.’
Light is what gives life – scientifically, without sunlight, there is little life - there is no green plant photosynthesis and therefore no vegetable life. In fact it’s also very, very cold and very, very dark; two things that are best avoided for long periods of time!
1:5: ‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it!’
A question. Where was this light? Was it on its own somewhere, abstract in the universe? No, it was in a place where there was darkness, but the darkness could not understand it or, alternately, could not overcome it/snuff it out.
‘Overcome’ here is (in the Greek) ‘ katelaben’ , which has a dual meaning of being ‘overcome’ or ‘understood’. Darkness neither understands nor overcomes the light - in Greek, ‘ phōs’ – because light has the power to destroy darkness!
With light and darkness, light overcomes darkness; you do not need a lot of light to make a room that is dark slightly less dark and hence be able to see in it. Light overcomes darkness every single time. It has both wave and pulse action and it always takes away darkness, even if there is just a tiny bit of light. Even a large amount of darkness (e.g. Nazism) cannot overcome light!
In fact, even a little light (e.g. from a mobile phone screen) will make a dark room light enough to see in; and even the very, very little light from the phone charger in the wall power socket will make a dark room light enough to see in. So now we no longer need to use candles to see where we are going in the dark and so can avoid risking burning the house down – a big advantage of mobile phones!
1:6. ‘There was a man sent from God whose name was John.’
John (the ‘Baptist’/‘dipper’) is now going to figure large in this passage. John was actually another of Jesus’ cousins. His mother, Elizabeth, was herself a cousin of Jesus’ mothe