1. Deuteronomy 18:18-19
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
2. Some of John's words here are echoed in a previous section. As he may have been addressing different people, there is no reason to object to the idea that he might have repeated himself.
On the other hand, John in particular seems to use literary license in order to transmit important spiritual truths that the writer had gained after years of walking with the Lord. Some of these truths he likely picked up from oral tradition and snatches of written material. The rest came through inspiration by the Spirit, perhaps in a communal setting. The primary aim of John is to teach new believers or those who are nearing belief about what it means to have Jesus Christ in your life.
Please see my discussion on the composition of the Sermon on the Mount. The remarks there apply in general to the formation of the gospel accounts.
On the writing of the Sermon
http://tiny.cc/v1y9rz
3a. We should beware assuming that John's proclamation was taken seriously by more than a very few bystanders. Those who heard it probably did not know what to make of it; Jesus did not look like a king. And once he had retreated into the desert, he vanished from any public consciousness.
3. One wonders why John was unaware that his cousin to be the messiah. Had not his mother Elizabeth told him? Didn't their families get together from time to time? Perhaps not, as John lived with his parents in the Judaean mountains and Jesus grew up in Nazareth. Still, this seems out of place. Scholars think John adapted "the Spirit descending" event either from Matthew or Luke or had access to another version of the report. Also, scholars wonder about the scene in which Mary and Elizabeth meet, as they question the infancy stories in general.
John bypasses infancy and childhood stories with a focus on the pre-existence of the Word, which is the Son (and Projection) of God.
4.
John relates that, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus went through the Temple in Jerusalem like a whirlwind and cast out the money changers and the dove-sellers, while the other three gospel writers place that episode at the close of his earthly life. Had Jesus done such a deed early in his career, one would think he would have been quickly put under arrest. Yet, we cannot exclude the possibility that Jesus actually did perform such an action twice. Perhaps on a first occasion, he simply vanished into the enormous crowds thronging Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. Had that occurred, he would have been soon forgotten as just another overzealous crank.
Yet, I don't think the John writer was much concerned with chronological accuracy. He wanted to play up the episodes and ideas that would get across the Christian message of salvation in an artful way. Though he, and perhaps an editor, is a literary artist, that does not mean he was not fashioning his material from the recollections of witnesses, as handed down in the Johannine community.
Yet, I don't think the John writer was much concerned with chronological accuracy. He wanted to play up the episodes and ideas that would get across the Christian message of salvation in an artful way. Though he, and perhaps an editor, is a literary artist, that does not mean he was not fashioning his material from the recollections of witnesses, as handed down in the Johannine community.
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