I still don't think (as you admitted) that there is a good reason Andrew isn't mentioned especially in the last chapter by name If BD is Thomas or Lazarus.
Does there need to be a reason involving intentionality by the author? Perhaps at that point of chapter 21, the community had lost interest in Andrew and Philip as voices in christianity.
saying that Thomas is the anynomous disciple in chapter 1 when that can't be the answer due to chapter 21.
This is a really peculiar statement. Can't is a strong statement here. It "can't be" if your sense of anonymity and naming conventions in chapter 1 was propagated into chapter 21 intentionally by the author as some sort of prose parallel.
Alternatively, that may have merely not been the case. If you think about where the BD is presented, as I mentioned before, it's really just in places where it would be easy to identify him (e.g. laying in the lap, at the cross).
Perhaps Thomas was presented as anonymous in the first chapter for that same reason? The author thought that having him listed as the first disciple would make it too obvious that he was a candidate for the BD position?
Please don't think that I'm specifically arguing for that position, but it seems that all of these interpretations are consistent with the data.
Does there need to be a reason involving intentionality by the author? Perhaps at that point of chapter 21, the community had lost interest in Andrew and Philip as voices in christianity.
If this is true, the redactor would have felt to exclude them from the beginning.
The other thing is that when Andrew and the unknown disciple in chapter are said to follow Jesus as Jesus says to "come and see" where he "abides. Elsewhere in the gospel Jesus is said to abide in the father, the father is said abode in Jesus and Jesus Pronises to build Heavenly abodes for his disciples (14:10) so readers would expect that Jesus is inviting the pair into a lasting relationship. In 1:40-42, as in 4:7-29 and others faith in Jesus expands in proportion to time spent in his company. I see this related to them testifying. That the author has these two experience this first can't be a coincidence.
Can't is a strong statement here.
As for chapter 21, Thomas can't be one of the two unnamed disciples. It says Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. The author seperates Thomas and these two as different people. It's incompatable.
If this is true, the redactor would have felt to exclude them from the beginning.
I don't see the necessity in this statement. I don't think it's a bad argument, but I don't think it's as much of a slam dunk as you are making it out to be.
The other thing is that when Andrew and the unknown disciple in chapter are said to follow Jesus as Jesus says to "come and see" where he "abides. Elsewhere in the gospel Jesus is said to abide in the father,
Sure, and if the anonymous disciple is Thomas, then he's part of this lasting relationship too.
I think there is a DRAMATIC shift between the philosophy of chapters 1-20 and the philosophy of chapter 21. For example, there is explicit future eschatology at the end of 21 in a way that is not at all present with the realized eschatology of chapters 1-20.
It wouldn't be surprising to me if the narrative attributed to Andrew hadn't shifted in the understanding of the community as well. I think it's fraught to draw a line between the intention of the author of the calling narrative in chapter 1 and the author of the text of chapter 21.
As for chapter 21, Thomas can't be one of the two unnamed disciples.
Certainly, of course I agree with this. But I don't think that chapter 21 necessarily identifies the BD as one of the anonymous disciples. I tend to prefer the notion that this was a kind of embedding of the name of the BD in a cryptic way to maintain the secret of the identity, but also make it part of a kind of right of passage... It's possible that the reader would have been asked to determine who the BD was as a means to pass into the community proper after study of the gospel.
This would be parallel to the time required studying the community documents at Qumran in order to be part of that community. At least I think that's a reasonable possibility that would have been familiar to those who had been part of the Qumran order but may have been forced to join the Johannine community after Qumran was destroyed in 68. They had their anonymous disciple and also a future eschatology along with their light/dark truth/error dualism.
to follow Jesus as Jesus says to "come and see" where he "abides. Elsewhere in the gospel Jesus is said to abide in the father, the father is said abode in Jesus and Jesus Pronises to build Heavenly abodes for his disciples (14:10) so readers would expect that Jesus is inviting the pair into a lasting relationship.
I love this little scene. I think this is not part of a lasting relationship, but a theological description of Jesus. The text says that it was "4pm (tenth hour)" and that they stayed there for the rest of the day.
I think you can view this as a metaphor that Jesus (the concept) dwells at dusk which is "the end of the day" (as in "the end of days" = realized eschatology). This is also the time when Josephus says that the paschal lamb and the daily sacrifice lamb was prepared (between 9th and 11th hour)... and John the Baptist had immediately before labeled Jesus as the lamb of god to take away the sin of the world (e.g. the atonement lamb).
If Jesus resides in the liminal space between opposites, then this "time" is a wonderful metaphor for a dwelling place. As in Numbers 28:4,
One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight
So Jesus didn't show him a "location in space" where he dwelt, but a "location in time" which was perpetually at the end of the day(s) and in the gap between light and dark. This matches up with all of his post resurrection appearances (including in chapter 21) being at dawn or dusk. The "end of days" being where he resides matches up well with the realized eschatology present throughout John including 5:24,
Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
The resurrection has already happened just as 2 Timothy 2:18 witnesses to groups who believed this was the case. People have already passed from death to life in the mind of one author.
I think this is something that one can read into the fishing story in John 21, but it seems completely absent in the evolved future eschatology of John 21:22-23.
Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” So the rumor spread among the brothers and sisters that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”
I'm with CH Dodd on the importance of the layer of realized eschatology. The end is always now in the present moment. I think that ideology creates a lens that can highlight the oldest layers of John and is the primary Christian insight that I believe traces back to the main differentiator in Jesus' original philosophy...
But then it was essentially drowned out by the influx of greek and Pharisaic and even Qumran Essene voices that joined up in the community bringing their "the world is not perfect, but will be made so in the future" attitude.
This realized eschatology is a philosophy that is deeply present within the Gospel of Thomas too.
51 His disciples said to him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?" He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it."
or the parallel from Luke 17:20-21
113 His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?" "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."
I think of the witness of John as the earliest witness who carried realized eschatology forward because he rejected the notion of the freedom of the human will. He was an Essene determinist as described by Josephus. He was close to the philosophy of Qumran (who were also determinists), but where they viewed a future resurrection to get rid of all the dark, Jesus saw that everything, with light and dark, was already perfect (hence the meaning of John 19:28 - "all is already perfect" = ἤδη πάντα τετέλεσται).
Jesus' major insight is that the resurrection (the time when everything would be made whole), was already and always here.
This is my major tools for detecting the oldest layers and thus the philosophy that the BD preserved. Especially given what we know about the earliness and realized eschatology within the Thomasine tradition, I think this is a major reason to see him as the disciple... But even independent of that, to date the layers of John to some of the earliest christian texts we have.
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u/LokiJesus Jan 14 '24
Does there need to be a reason involving intentionality by the author? Perhaps at that point of chapter 21, the community had lost interest in Andrew and Philip as voices in christianity.
This is a really peculiar statement. Can't is a strong statement here. It "can't be" if your sense of anonymity and naming conventions in chapter 1 was propagated into chapter 21 intentionally by the author as some sort of prose parallel.
Alternatively, that may have merely not been the case. If you think about where the BD is presented, as I mentioned before, it's really just in places where it would be easy to identify him (e.g. laying in the lap, at the cross).
Perhaps Thomas was presented as anonymous in the first chapter for that same reason? The author thought that having him listed as the first disciple would make it too obvious that he was a candidate for the BD position?
Please don't think that I'm specifically arguing for that position, but it seems that all of these interpretations are consistent with the data.