ITS A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Gospel Fatigue & Mythic Interpretations.

I've recently encountered a phase of what I'm going to call 'gospel fatigue'. There is only so much you can read of anything, particularly if one's affections never quite soften enough to touch your soul. There is an additional factor in the literary quality of John's Gospel itself. It is like being served up this very rich high caloried pudding to eat every morning. Some mornings you just can't face consuming it, ever ever again. One has to take a break from being ambushed by the supersized culinary feast John is consistently cooking up.

Out in the definitely esoteric world of biblical critique, there is a sub group of a sub group called 'form critics'. They examine the stories in the New Testament to see if they form a repeated pattern. There are established structural 'forms" to the stories related in the Buddhist Sutras. So form criticism is not something specific to Christianity. It's one of the ways you can observe simple reportage slipping into hagiography. The formalised structures in Buddhism are made consciously, and seem above board and obvious as you read them. In the New Testament they are concealed within the narrative, but once you do see them, they are hard not to notice.

There's a structural pattern to the stories involving the Pharisees, for example. The Pharisees make a criticism of Jesus or his disciples, usually over some minor infringement of religious rules or traditions. Jesus will make some enigmatic response, that sort of answers, but doesn't really answer the issue. Trying to wrong foot or not play their game. The Pharisees walk away humbled, perplexed or angry, plotting to give Jesus his comeuppance later. Jesus may then give a teaching in a explanatory coda.

Patterns in the instances of healings involve someone who cannot get near to Jesus. They are either poor, diseased, a foreigner, or from a forbidden sect or sinful proffession. They have to fight to get close or to touch Jesus. Even the disciples sometimes discourage Jesus or the sick person from approaching them. Jesus insists on them coming closer. Usually healing and declaring them as an example of someone with greater faith in him than his own disciples.

One could get into yet another discussion about authenticity, but that would miss the point. The primary intention in formalising the stories is to make them more comprehensible, as a teaching. Because each of the stories has a recognisible structure that leads up to a point that's repeatedly being made. Often exemplifying a way of seeing, acting or being that is considered either correct or incorrect. And a healing story provides the cogent example of it. John constructs these extemporaneous teachings out of them.

Out of all the many hundreds, if not thousands of instances of healing Jesus is reported to have made, why have a handful or two been chosen to retell? Because they are the memorable ones, that exemplify a doctrinal, ethical or spiritual point clearly. One could almost say they were designed for this purpose. I'm not saying faked, just formalised, because that is different. Their intent is focused on demonstrating a mythic level of truth, through this one 'real'.miraculous story.

This element of formalising exists within the structure of individual stories, but also on the broader span of the gospels too. Such as the way incidents from Jesus early life are composed to prefigure or foreshadow what happens later in his life. The story of Lazarus prefigures that of Jesus's own Resurrection, for example. The use of Old Testament prophecies provides justification forJesus being the Messiah, and Jesus then prophesys his own crucifixion and the ressurection, which then happens exactly as he has predicted. The whole of the New Testament Gospels is stuffed to the gills with a sequence of prophecies being fulfilled. Mutually reinforcing the central proposition of why Jesus is who he says he is. None of this is happening by happenstance, it has to have all been foretold by God or his prophets, somewhere in an obscurely versed biblical paragraph.

Jesus is represented, sometimes simultaneously, on three mythic levels, as the son of man historical figure, as an archetypal Messiah/Saviour figure, and as a more cosmic figure the Son of God. ( Father, Son & Holy Spirit ) There is ongoing debate about whether the grammatical gender of the Holy Spirit is being mistranslated. In Hebrew grammar the word for Spirit is feminine, in Greek its neuter, and in Latin its masculine. Its therefore possible that the Trinity could originally have been an archetypal triad of Father, Son & Mother. 

Obviously this is conjectural, because no Aramaic source for the gospels has yet to be found to confirm any grammatical gender swapping. Interestingly though, in some of the so called 'Gnostic' Gospels the Holy Spirit is represented through the feminine archetypal figure Sophia, regarded as an ultimate authority and dispenser of spiritual wisdom. 

Whoever the true writer of John's Gospel is, they are a master storyteller, inserting believable local colour and human detail into it. The narrative line stays consistent to other gospels, but John memorably, buffs up the mythic form of the story. Highlighting elements of betrayal, tragedy, pathos and heroic redemption embedded within it. He also fully reflects the very real debate at the time, about who Jesus actually was - Messiah, Demon, Magician or Charlatan?

The healing stories have a prologue, story and epilogue to them, and are no longer just the bare factual bones, briefly told. John does what no previous gospel writers has been able to do, to turn Jesus"s life and ministry into one seemless coherent whole. It possesses spiritual clarity, but also a stronger emotional resonance. To do this, the writer of John takes quite a few liberties with time, place and sequence, in order to hold your attention, and maintain the dramatic flow.  The effect is similar to the difference between viewing a factual documentary and a technicolour wide screen Hollywood epic. Same source material, but filmed and edited differently.

The words of Jesus in St John's Gospel, take several strides away from verbatim. Presenting us with fleshed out extemporised teachings that are in the spirit of Jesus, but not necessarily wholy by him. For it is no longer just about the teachings. It's the whole metaphorical infrastructure, the theological underpinning. You are being introduced to and instructed into the Jesus myth.