Ancient People were People

The title of this article may come across as a “no duh” type of statement, but it is something we don’t think about in reality. This morning, I was talking to our esteemed site creator, S.W. Krueger, about the Gospel of Mark. The subject changed, and he asked me about John and the Johannine literature in the Bible. In the bible, we have the “Synoptic Gospels” which are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They’re all pretty similar with similar stories. Then we have the Gospel of John, which is completely different than the other three. It’s weird when you read it, because it doesn’t track along the same narrative style, lines, or use the same stories as the other three Gospels. So asking about why John is so weird is a fair question. I think the reason it's so different is because John was a person. He was writing in a style important to him at the time.

You need to remember, the Bible isn’t a book. It is a collection of writings, all of which come from different times and places. Even though we see the four Gospels, some of them were written decades apart. The earliest Gospel was Mark, likely written around 55 A.D. After that, we have Luke, likely the latest, around the late 60s. By comparison, the Gospel of John is believed to have been written between the early 90s and early 100s. What that means is John the Apostle had been living in the Christian communities, worshipping with them, listening to the letters being read, for between 40-50 years. John likely knew exactly what stories were in the other Gospels because he had read them. So, in his Gospel, he made sure to include new stories, new elements, and new themes that the others had not. John was also reacting to the Gnostics entering the church, which was a group of heretics that held beliefs such as Jesus was not God or Jesus was never fully human. John saw this happening in the church, so he wrote an entire Gospel refuting that idea. I hope you can see now how putting the Bible in its historical context, with appropriate background information, makes the text come alive. It’s not just a book, it was letters, written by hand by real human beings with emotions, feelings, ideas, their own struggles. S.W. Krueger mentioned that the TV show “The Chosen” has done a great job at humanizing the disciples. I personally have not seen the show, but the point is good. The disciples were people.

In a sermon I delivered several years ago, I spoke about the humanity of Paul. We think of him as an intellectual and spiritual titan. He is often in our minds as a larger-than-life figure. But we must remember that he was human too. Paul was a Pharisee. He trained at the feet of one of the most respected Rabbis at the time. Paul was a man who devoted his life to prayer, reading the scripture, and looking for the Messiah to come and rescue his people. And what happened when the Messiah came? Paul missed him. Paul was less than 50 miles away from the man he spent his whole life searching for, and he missed his entire earthly ministry. Imagine how hard that would be to grasp? It would be devastating. It puts his persecution of Christians into a new perspective. Paul, while hunting down Christians, was pursuing a group that claimed they had seen and experienced what he had spent his whole life searching for. From a psychological perspective, it would be hard to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of having waited so long for the Messiah and then having barely missed him. To be fair, Christ did appear to Paul later and teach him. But this only occurred after his Damascus road experience.

Additionally, we can see the humanity of the Disciples through the letters they wrote. If you want to study Biblical Greek, called Koine Greek, you begin by studying the Gospel of John. Why? Because it’s simple. It uses small words, easy-to-follow language, and it isn’t overly complicated. John was a fisherman by trade, so it makes sense that he wasn’t speaking or writing in any complicated way. By contrast, the Gospel of Luke is filled with formal Greek, more complex prose, and more nuanced language, making it harder to read in the original language. This again makes sense, as Luke was a Physician. He was highly educated, writing a letter to educated and respected members of Roman society. Think about the people that you know in your life. Would you expect your doctor to be making grammatical mistakes in a letter, or your high school dropout friend to be writing in elegant and complex ways? The letters are written in such a way that we can see the humanity of the people within them. We even see this in 1 and 2 Peter. 1 Peter contains much simpler language than 2 Peter, and it also contains a less organized flow structure. Scholars believe this is due to the fact that Peter himself may have written 1 Peter, while he dictated to a scribe for 2 Peter. Peter was also a fisherman, so it makes perfect sense that he would turn to a writing expert at times to help him with his letters, since he never really received any formal training on how to write.

I could go on and on, but I think it is important to remember the basic fact: the writers of the Bible were human beings. They are examples to us, they are teachers and powerful leaders in the faith, but they were also human beings. With that in mind, remember that what they accomplished is not impossible for any of us. If we rely on the Holy Spirit, if we grow our relationship with Christ, we too can learn to live like the Apostles and disciples in ancient times. We as modern people aren’t so different fundamentally. Humanity has been struggling with the same problems, temptations, and faults since our very beginning. If the disciples in the first century, regular folk just like us, can learn to love the Lord and obey his commands, then why can’t we?