That last paragraph had me in tears! 😭🙌🏻 I cannot agree more wholeheartedly. A serious read through John’s Gospel blew the door to Christianity open for me. I can entertain different theories about its history, but I cannot for a second doubt the miracle that it brought to bear within my own soul.
One can get quite far by observing that what is implicit in the Synoptics is made explicit in John. For example, in the Synoptics Jesus offers his disciples the cup, calling it both his blood and the “fruit of the vine,” implying that he himself is the vine—a picture of true Israel (Mt 26:28-29 & pls; cf. Jer 2:21 et al.). In John this becomes explicit (15:1). Occasionally this kind of translational move occurs within the Synoptics, though on a much smaller scale (e.g., Mk 13:14; cf. Lk 21:20). I would advise caution in referring to any of Jesus’s “I am” statements as direct claims of divinity. The LXX Greek of Exod 3:14 is ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν, “I am the Being,” which Jesus never says. The words at John 8:58 are a claim to eternity, and therefore by implication to divinity (cf. Ps 89:2, LXX; 90:2, MT). A fine distinction, I know, but one worth making. The gospels are strewn with implicit claims to Jesus’s divinity—a big subject of its own, which you have touched on elsewhere.
That last paragraph had me in tears! 😭🙌🏻 I cannot agree more wholeheartedly. A serious read through John’s Gospel blew the door to Christianity open for me. I can entertain different theories about its history, but I cannot for a second doubt the miracle that it brought to bear within my own soul.
One can get quite far by observing that what is implicit in the Synoptics is made explicit in John. For example, in the Synoptics Jesus offers his disciples the cup, calling it both his blood and the “fruit of the vine,” implying that he himself is the vine—a picture of true Israel (Mt 26:28-29 & pls; cf. Jer 2:21 et al.). In John this becomes explicit (15:1). Occasionally this kind of translational move occurs within the Synoptics, though on a much smaller scale (e.g., Mk 13:14; cf. Lk 21:20). I would advise caution in referring to any of Jesus’s “I am” statements as direct claims of divinity. The LXX Greek of Exod 3:14 is ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν, “I am the Being,” which Jesus never says. The words at John 8:58 are a claim to eternity, and therefore by implication to divinity (cf. Ps 89:2, LXX; 90:2, MT). A fine distinction, I know, but one worth making. The gospels are strewn with implicit claims to Jesus’s divinity—a big subject of its own, which you have touched on elsewhere.