Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)
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Chris Sims: "Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come out. Those who have done good things to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things to the resurrection of judgment." The Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 28 through 29.
[Music: "You Only Live Twice" by Nancy Sinatra]
C: Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It's the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. We are your hosts, the Sons of Thunder. My name is Chris Sims, with me as always is Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you today?
Benito Cereno: Feeling a little broken up, if you catch my meaning.
C: You know what would be great?
B: What's that?
C: If we could be done with the Gospels
B: Yeah, that'd be pretty good, right?
C: These four at least, if we could be done with the canonical Gospels, that would be very exciting for me.
B: Yeah, I mean, it has been fun, but yeah, we thought it was going to be four, in and out, no problem. And instead, we're at six now, and some of them are individually our longest episodes. Much, much gospel content.
C: So much gospel content. And we're going to go ahead and dive into that. We are finishing up the Gospel of John today, come heck or high water. We are going to be done with it in about an hour or so.
B: Yeah.
C: If you would like to read along, please do. But before we get into that, do you have anything to talk about extracanonically, I guess?
B: No. How about you? We didn't talk about last time where you went and your anti-Lukan behaviors.
C: That's true. I did go to wizard school.
B: Yeah, you did. And you didn't even tell me, was your wizard name Simon Magus?
C: No, but if you would like to hear a full two hours of me talking about Wizard School, up on the War Rocket Ajax Patreon, there is a two hour recording of me talking to James D'Amato from the One Shot podcast about the Wizard School experience, because he had done a previous version of it. What it was, was a four-day LARP called New World Magischola, which was my first LARP ever, and which was very, very fun, but also very, very emotionally draining. But we do talk in that about what if I just become Simon Magus in the next one? What if I just play as Simon Magus and introduce myself as Simon Magus, you know, from the Bible?
B: Yeah, that would be really good. I also– it just now, like, it struck me before, but it really hit really hard right now that the people who listen to this show that tuned in for the Bible content are learning about all sorts of things that have nothing to do with the Bible that they had no idea about. Someone's mom has listened to this podcast and had to Google "Roy Thomas" because of us. Someone's mom has listened to this podcast and is like, what is LARP? And they might have accidentally stumbled upon the delicious Thai/Laotian minced meat salad that I endorse heavily. That's larb. But if you found that by accident, great. That's not what Chris did. Although, larb at a LARP, somebody make that event happen.
C: I feel like you're caught in a spiral right now. And I should pull you out. I should pull you out and into the Holy word as we read through the gospel of John. What do you say?
B: Yeah, let's do that. Probably.
C: I feel like I am going to have to put a musical drop in here. Cause we're about to talk about Lazarus at Bethany.
B: Ah, yes.
C: This also we get in chapter 11, verse 35. That is the, the very extremely well-known biblical trivia. It's the shortest verse of the Bible.
B: Yeah.
C: "Jesus wept."
B: And yeah. And if you'd ever wondered what was Jesus crying about? Now you have the context, you know. And in order to talk about that fully and maybe why he was so emotional about it, Chris, can you do me a favor? Can we start a war? Can we start a nuclear war?
C: Where do you want to start it?
B: At the gay bar.
[Music "Gay Bar" by Electric Six]
B: So we might as well, here, while we're talking about Lazarus, let's talk about the not insubstantial amount of gay content in the Gospel of John.
C: A... yeah, not insubstantial is the way to put it. I would say somewhat considerable.
B: Yeah. So we have Lazarus here. And we definitely talk about Jesus loves Lazarus so much that he cries upon his death, right? "See how He loved him!"
C: Even before that, when we hear that Lazarus has died, it's right at the start of chapter 11. It's verse 2: "Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to Him: 'Lord, the one You love is sick.'"
C: Now, I know as many people who have done a modicum of biblical study do that there are different words for love.
B: Right.
C: We see agape a bunch of times in the Bible. Which one's this?
B: I don't have the Greek in front of me, but I would almost put money on it that this is philia. This is brotherly love. Pileo is the verb or pelea is the noun. It's the one you get in Philadelphia.
C: The city of brotherly love.
B: Theophilus, that one, right? –phile, if you're used to that ending. That's, yeah, there's the four different Greek words for love. There's agape, which is basically unconditional love, such as God has for people. There's brotherly love, which is pelea. You have eros, which is sexual love and desire. And then there's storge, which isn't important. It's not as common as the other ones. That's closer to the love of a parent for a child. That one's not going to come up as much as the other three.
C: This is what they tell him. Jesus drops everything, goes to Bethany, and Lazarus dies. And Jesus is real torn up about it. And, "So the Jews said," because I guess all the Jews went with him, as you were saying, "See how He loved him!" But they don't know why he doesn't just bring him back from the dead if he loved him so much.
B: Well...
C: If you love him so much, why don't you bring him back from the dead?
B: Yeah. And so he does. Right? The seventh sign. It's all been building up to this. This is the sign that proves Jesus's mastery over death. It proves that he's the son of God because he can do this for Lazarus. He can do it for himself. And so everything up until this point has been building to this miraculous climax of the book of signs. There's obviously the passion and resurrection to come. We're on the topic of gay content. Let's go ahead and talk about, while we're at the gay bar, let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room, the very gay elephant in the room, who is the beloved disciple.
B: The beloved disciple is mentioned six times and possibly eight, depending on your interpretation, in the book of John, but only in the back half. He's first mentioned in chapter 13. And where do we see him? He is sitting in Jesus's lap, resting his head on Jesus's bosom.
C: Yep.
B: So that's the first time we see the beloved disciple. We're going to see him later. He's present at the crucifixion. We're going to see him at the tomb, at the resurrection. Usually we do not see male disciples at these things, but we do see the disciple that Jesus loved. So the question is, who is this boy or girl? Who's the beloved disciple? And I will say the verb definitely used here is pileo, which is the one that usually implies like a brotherly, friendly love. So if I'm going to get dinged on this by say, for example, a popular Canadian New Testament professor, he would probably say that I'm reading homosexual content into this when it's not an erotic word that's used. That's true. It is not the erotic verb. However, I'm in the company of, for example, Christopher Marlowe and King James. But I'll get to them in just a second.
B: So the question is, who is the beloved disciple? Well, the most common interpretation of who the beloved disciple is, is John, John Thunderson, because he is present at things that usually only the 12 apostles would be present at, and people are able to use process of elimination, right, to see that John's the only one left. Also, if we assume that John the Presbyter is also John the Apostle, John the Presbyter talks a lot, a lot, a lot about love in his letters. 1 John chapter 4 is all about love. That's the most common one, especially if you assume that John the Apostle is John the Evangelist, it makes sense that it says at the end, the beloved disciple wrote all this stuff down. So beloved disciple is John. John wrote the book. That's easy. That's the traditional view.
B: However, there are other interpretations. One interpretation is that maybe the beloved disciple is Lazarus. Why? Well, like we just said, we had a whole chapter talking about how much Jesus loved Lazarus. So it only makes sense that he would continue to refer to him that way. Who's the disciple that Jesus loved most? Well, who's the one we talked about him loving so much that he cried, it's Lazarus. And so: could be.
B: And there's also even a theory then that at the end of the gospel where it says the beloved disciple, it was his recollections that are written down. The idea then is that Lazarus is the eyewitness who remembered all these things, but he told them to the son of his sister Martha, whose name then, according to this theory is John, and he's the one who wrote them down. So the book was written by a John, just not John the Apostle, and this John would have been the nephew of Lazarus, the disciple that Jesus loved.
B: And also I should point out that it is "disciple" here. We have not drawn a very fine distinction between a disciple and an apostle. We use them interchangeably, which is common, especially in churches. They're used interchangeably. If I say the 12 disciples, that's the same as the 12 apostles. But disciple just means student, right? The Greek word is mathetes, which is just a learner, a student. The apostles are the people that received the great commission from Jesus because the word apostle comes, apostolos means one who's been sent out. And so the 12 Apostles plus, Paul is considered an apostle because he also received a commission. Modern missionaries are often called apostles because they've received a mission from God. So it's very possible for us to say disciple here, and it doesn't have to be one of the 12 apostles because Jesus would have had thousands of disciples versus the main 12 apostles.
B: So Lazarus is our second possibility. Third possibility, Mary Magdalene is the disciple that Jesus loved.
C: Out of whom he drove seven demons.
B: Out of whom he drove seven demons. And there's a couple of non-canonical gospels that we're going to be free to get to now that we've gotten through all the canon boys. For example, the gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip that specifically point out Mary Magdalene as the disciple of Jesus that he loved more than any other. And of course, you know, Da Vinci Code, blah, blah, blah, Jesus and Mary were married and they had a child and that child, I don't know, something with the Knights Templar, whatever, Tom Hanks is there.
C: And then that child started the line of the Magdalena, which you can read about in Top Cow Comics.
B: Yes, also that. But the idea there involves the idea that people do not approve of a woman being named an official disciple. And not only that, but Jesus' favorite disciple. And so there's some editing, which because some of you might be going, "oh, that doesn't make any sense" because there's definitely scenes where Mary Magdalene and the disciple Jesus loved most are mentioned interacting with each other. So some people argue that was edited to diminish a woman's role or to hide the fact that maybe Jesus did love her with a different Greek verb, right?
B: Other theories, maybe it's James, the brother of Jesus. Could be. And that would be explained a bit where Jesus says, "hey, disciple, behold your mother," which is a very literal interpretation of that. Like if James is his brother, like look at your mother. He's like, yeah, I know. But some people, some people like that.
B: Or let me toss out another theory. What if it's another John? What if it's John Linen, L-I-N-E-N? What if it's our linen boy from Secret Mark? What if that's who it is?
C: Lord Almighty. That's maybe the worst joke on the entirety of this podcast.
B: Yeah, it probably is, but it's the first one I thought of for this whole gospel, so it stayed in the show.
C: Okay.
B: But that overlaps with your theory that the boy from Secret Mark is Lazarus, right?
C: So I am as convinced of that as I was that Boba Fett was a clone of Han Solo.
B: Yeah.
C: Which think about it. You know, in your heart, that makes more sense.
B: Like I said, the most common theory is that the beloved disciple is John. And this has been interpreted as truly gay content by much more famous people than me. Here's a couple of examples. Christopher Marlowe, contemporary of William Shakespeare. He said–
C: You talking about Kit?
B: I'm talking about Kit Marlowe. That's the very one. He was put on trial for this. He said "St. John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom, that he used him as the sinners of Sodom." And then King James…
C: Wow!
B: Yes.
C: Wow! Okay! Yeah, I can see why that might cause a problem.
B: Right? King James, himself in a boy-boy relationship with the Duke of Buckingham, compared Christ and John the apostle to his he says, "Christ had his John, and I have the Duke of Buckingham." That's just how it is. And then, a venetian monk named Calcagno who was executed in 1550, he does not mince words. He just straight up says, "Saint John was Christ's catamite." So he really got to it. And so what's implied there by that–
C: I don't know that I've ever heard that word in my life.
B: Well it means "the catcher."
C: Okay.
B: But what it actually, in more of an ancient context, means is he's implying a pederastic relationship which would have been very common in ancient Greece. Achilles was in one, right? Like that's in the in the Iliad. The idea is you have an older man and a younger man and it's kind of a mentor/protege relationship but also some kind of sex is involved. And you have the erastes, the lover and the arominus, the beloved who is the younger man, and so the implication here is that Jesus is the erastes and John is the arominus.
C: I mean you you say Achilles, but like also Hercules would probably be the more...
B: Yea, Hercules, Zeus was Zeus and Ganymede. Ganymede was the arominus of Zeus. I mean it's incredibly common. Absolutely every Athenian would have known about this. It's not... But yeah, it's again, it does not have the explicit vocabulary of this pederastic relationship and so someone could argue, "no this is a friend. This is the friendship love," and so maybe no gay content but maybe? But maybe.
C: I mean I can definitely see where that would create a problem that would require someone to be say put on trial in the 1500s.
B: Yeah, definitely some people got executed for that.
C: So, you ready to move on?
B: Yeah.
C: To where Jesus talks about being the vine? Because we don't get a ton of notable stuff between that... There's a part in chapter 14 where we talk about Jude the Apostle and he is mentioned as Judas (not Iscariot)."
B: yeah
C: Which I think is very fun.
B: Yeah that's Judas Thaddeus. That's the other one. Yeah, you have to point that one out. "You know, Judas? Not that Judas."
C: Yeah "other Judas." Like unfortunately Judas is going to be Judas, now you have to be "other Judas," but in this case it's a good thing.
B: Yeah.
C: In chapter 15 we get another very, very famous quote, which in the HCSB is translated thus: "No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends."
B: Right?
C: "No greater love hath any man," as you might be familiar with it from the KJV.
B: Yeah.
C: I like that one.
B: That's a good one. That's one of my favorites. It's also repeated in 1 John as well. And so, yeah, I used to actually have a poster with that one on it when I was a teen.
C: That's a weird thing to have a poster of.
B: You know, just a favorite, just a good verse. I liked it.
C: I mean it's a it is a good verse but you're still like dying in that one.
B: Christianity is a weird culture to be in, man.
C: In chapter 16, verse 29, Jesus literally tells the disciples, "Hey I'm from heaven. I'm going back to heaven. I am leaving the world and going to the father." Verse 29: "'Ah!' His disciples said. 'Now You’re speaking plainly and not using any figurative language.'"
B: Finally, Jesus stops he stops with all that code language. I could finally understand. Yeah, straight up has to lay it out.
C: Then we get a very long prayer. All of chapter 17 is Jesus praying, which we have not– we've seen him instruct people on how to pray before, but this is a big Jesus speaking to the father.
B: Yeah, I do want to jump back just a second because we only touched on the John version of the Last Supper in as much as we talked about how a disciple was in his lap, but I do want to come back to it because it's a little different from the synoptic Last Suppers in that it doesn't have the eucharist in it. It doesn't give us the instructions of blah, blah, blah. We talked about that a little bit before because there's the bit earlier where Jesus is like, "I'm literally bread, literally eat my body."
C: Yeah there's quite a bit of bread content in the Book of John. Bread Johntent.
B: Bread Johntent. Eat my bread, and do a vampire to me.
C: That's in the red letters.
B: That's– yeah, red like the blood.
C: "Eat my bread and do a vampire to me," is in the red letters, that's the word of the Lord.
B: Yeah, put it on a poster so some teen can have it in their room up on the wall. Or, so that someone's aunt can post it on Facebook. But anyway, the thing that's different about the last supper here is that it focuses less on eating and more on washing feet. So this is where we get Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. That's the origin of Maundy Thursday, which I vaguely recall we talked about a little bit like during one of our first episodes because we were recording like on Spy Wednesday and the next day is Maundy Thursday. And that kind of strange word, Maundy, we don't know exactly what it means. It probably comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means commandment. And so the commandment is: wash people's feet. So do that, I guess.
B: But what I like here is Jesus's prediction of the betrayal, right? We saw that before Matthew and Mark have it, at least. And there it's just kind of like the one to whom I hand this bread is the one who's going to turn me in, the one who's going to call the cops on me. And here it's a little bit different because "Jesus replied, 'He’s the one I give the piece of bread to after I have dipped it.' When He had dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas." And that's such a weird image to me. Like the idea, like one of you is going to betray me. And they're all like, "No, who is it? Oh no. I hope it's not me." And he's like, "Well, I'm going to take this jalapeño popper. I'm going to put it in some ranch and the one whose mouth I pop it in. That's the one who's calling the cops on me."
C: It is like a weird party game, right? Like, it's like, "Okay, now close your eyes and reach into this bowl. It's full of eyeballs. And now open your mouths and one of you is going to get some bread and you're going– Satan will enter you, and you will betray me and send me to my death. And then you will explode.
B: Yeah. Open your mouth and close your eyes and you'll get a big surprise. Surprise! You're history's greatest villain.
C: Surprise! You are going to be chewed by Satan for eternity.
B: You and two Roman guys, which implies to me that Dante thought that Caesar was twice as important as Jesus, but that's a whole other issue, right?
C: He was Italian.
B: Yeah, he was. And that does play a big role in his understanding of a lot of things. But yeah, so that's weird to me. The other thing that's really funny to me is it's not as clear in the HCSB translation but in the SV, because HCSB has: "After receiving the piece of bread, he," Judas, "went out immediately." The SV has it that, "after he'd finished eating the piece of bread," which is extra wild to me that Judas gets this traitor bread he's like, "Well I'm not gonna waste this piece of bread," and so he hangs out finishes eating the bread after Jesus has told him like, "It's you you're the villain," but he's like, "It's pretty good, I should finish it," and he does and then he checks out.
C: Well we know that Jesus's wine is the best wine.
B: It is the best wine.
C: So presumably, Jesus's bread is like the best bread.
B: Yeah like a nice ciabatta, or it's just Olive Garden breadsticks.
C: We're gonna have to talk later about how you think Olive Garden breadsticks are the best bread.
B: Look.
C: Like when you imagine a food, a nourishing food that comes from the Lord, from Emmanuel, God on earth, you think of Olive Garden, unlimited breadsticks.
B: They're unlimited. The way I feel about it, the unlimited nature of any food can raise a gentleman's C to an unlimited A minus. So that's, that's how I feel about it.
C: By that rationale, what you were telling me is that Golden Corral is close to godliness.
B: It sure is. Golden Corral is great because I can get fried shrimp and put them in a chocolate fountain if I want to. And you can't stop me.
C: I feel like I have been betrayed.
B: Yeah.
C: By the one whose chocolate shrimp I will put in his mouth. And it's you.
B: Yeah. Anyway, Judas. The other thing we learn about Judas and John that we don't get in the other gospels is that we learned that, first of all, Judas was the club treasurer for the disciples, and also he was dipping his hand in the old kitty there. We learned that back in the Mary and Martha story, because in the other versions, some of it's unnamed disciples who are like– not the Mary and Martha, but rather Mary washing Jesus's feet with the expensive oil. And they go, "That oil is expensive. She could have sold that and use the money to give to the poor." Solid point disciples. But Jesus is like, "The poor will always be with you. But I'm here right now," which weird. I know someone's got some cool explanation for why that's actually a cool thing for Jesus to say. And I know it's going to pop up in our Tumblr or Twitter or whatever.
C: I would love to hear it because that is the thing in this very weird gospel. That is the thing that seems least like the Jesus that we know.
B: Right.
C: First of all, he's like, you're always going to have poor people. Like it's very defeatist.
B: Yeah.
C: For one thing. And secondly, he's like, and you don't need to worry about him until I'm gone.
B: Yeah. I'm, I'm here now. Give me that good foot oil, please.
C: Yeah. That's really weird. And I would genuinely love to hear an explanation.
B: Right. But at any rate, that's where we learn Judas is the treasurer. We also learned that he's embezzling. And here we get the idea of Judas as the treasurer again. And so the other disciples are not suspicious of Judas because they think Jesus is just telling him, hey, take the money you have and go buy some supplies for Passover.
B: We also haven't talked about Judas's name, Iscariot, at all, and this seems like our best chance to talk about that. Nobody knows what that means. It's basically used here to distinguish Judas from the 100 million other Judases that we have, including brother of Jesus, Judas. Judas, by the way, would have been such a popular name because of Hanukkah hero, Judas Maccabaeus, who we'll learn about later.
B: But what does Iscariot mean? It seems most likely that it probably just means the man from Cariot, and that's why it's his father's name too, right? Because he's the son of Simon Iscariot. But another popular explanation is that it is a corruption of the Latin word Sicarius, which means assassin. And of course, that's also where we get the Spanish word "sicario," so blessed "Day of the Soldado," to all of you out there. He's either Judas from Cario or he's Judas the assassin. So, go with whatever feels right in your heart. Nobody knows.
C: Vaya con whatever.
B: Vaya con Diablo. That's what Judas does, because we see we see Satan in his heart. Satan entered him when he ate a piece of bread. It was Satan bread.
C: We previously thought Satan was the size of a kitty cat, but now it seems like maybe he's the size of a little piece of bread
B: Now we know he is small enough to spread on a slice of garlic toast.
C: Do you think he like wrapped the bread around him like a little blanket?
B: Yeah! I mean it was probably could be a flatbread right? It is Passover! It's Passover.
C: It's Passover so it's unleavened.
B: Yeah so he couldn't wrap it. It would crack. It's very brittle, so...
C: Maybe he like pulled it over him like a sheet.
B: Yeah.
C: Like Satan was like, "oh I'm tired," and he just like laid down on the bread and pulled another piece of bread over him.
B: Yeah.
C: What we're learning is basically Satan is a cartoon character from the 1920s.
B: Yeah. He's a very good Fleischer boy.
C: I mean, he's very bad.
B: He's very bad.
C: He's very bad, actually.
B: Yes, but you know he does that thing where he can't stand still. He bounces in rhythm up and down when he's just like a Street Fighter character.
C: So there's one other thing that we see in chapter 13 that I think is worth noting, since we're back here. I've talked about this. Peter's narrative has changed since Mark.
B: Yeah.
C: Especially since Matthew. Peter does not get dunked on in this book nearly as much. He gets a hero moment later on. I don't think this was established before and I might've missed it, but he's the guy who, when they come for Jesus, he's the one who gets his sword out and tries to defend him.
B: That's right. Yeah. This is the first gospel that identifies Peter as the one who attacks the servant. I mean, we've seen the bit of the ear getting cut off. We've seen that in other gospels, the ear gets healed. I don't think it gets healed in John, but this is the first one that identifies Peter as the one who jumps to Jesus's defense. Yeah.
C: But we also do get one kind of classic Peter moment in this, and it's in chapter 13, verse 6. "He came to Simon Peter, who asked Him, 'Lord, are You going to wash my feet?' Jesus answered him, 'What I’m doing you don’t understand now, but afterward you will know.' 'You will never wash my feet—ever! Peter said." Like, hey, I'm not going to let that happen. You're my dude and bros don't wash each other's feet because there's too much respect here.
B: Yeah.
C: And then Jesus goes, no, I'm going to wash your feet. And Peter's like, well, hey, can you get my head and hands too while you're.
B: Yeah. Yeah. The main reason that Peter says you're never going to wash my feet is foot washing, that's slave work and the idea that Jesus would be as Peter's slave is distasteful to him. So yeah that's the real thing, but yes of course him suddenly turning around is like, "well if you're cool with it, please, let's get the full body rubdown, I guess."
C: And then Jesus looks at the camera and we cut to commercial.
B: Yeah.
C: So this all leads us back to chapter 18 which is where the betrayal happens. This is where Peter, "Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear." And then we get like a little parenthetical here: "The slave’s name was Malchus."
B: Yeah.
C: Just so we know, like we can go, we can go source of that. We have a citation.
B: Yeah, we can go flip through the who's who and we go, "Oh, Malchus, there he is. First appears in John chapter 18."
C: And then as soon as that happens, we get the Peter denying Jesus story. And this is something that I mentioned last week.
B: Yeah.
C: Peter's denial of Jesus in this– there was a lot of Peter rehab going on because he kind of has, a reason for it beyond just the cowardice that we've seen before. Like Peter denying Jesus in Luke is very, "I don't want to be associated with him and be arrested and also be crucified." That will come later. See, see that fate in about in about 30 years. But here Jesus is, I think I said it last week. He's kind of going undercover.
B: Yeah.
C: And so Peter has a reason to not want to draw attention to himself as he's warming himself by this fire outside while Jesus is taking care of some business.
B: Yeah.
C: Like Peter's actually just trying to keep it low key.
B: Yeah, there's a whole thing with like Peter and the other disciple, which presumably is the beloved disciple. They actually are sneaking around and going undercover places. We actually, one of our listeners, and I forgot who it was and I apologize, commented that Peter's denial makes so much sense in the context of our very real, not at all a joke theory of teen Peter. Because nothing feels realer than a teen going, "I would die for you." And then being the first one to split from the party when the cops show up.
C: I am convinced, like, that's not a, that's not a joke. I'm 100% serious that Peter is 16. That's a thing like that– send that to Dr. Goodacre.
B: Yeah. Somebody wrap that up, tie it to a dove, fly it down.
C: Get that in a book, get us published.
B: Yeah. That's the whole, that's the whole book. It's called team Peter by Chris and Benito flip it open. It says "Peter was a teen, a doy, the end." Footnote: "Listen to Apocrypals."
C: I don't want to bother our boy Francis.
B: Yeah.
C: But if you, if anybody out there does want to hit up at Pontifex and be like, hey, do you agree that Peter was a teen in the time of the gospels? Then he can bust that out ex cathedra and we will know for sure.
B: Yeah. And, and you know what? Some people might go, "Peter was married." And that's true because one of Jesus's first miracles is healing Peter's mother-in-law. But guess what? Dudes got married at 16. His wife's probably nine. So like, yeah, that doesn't stop anything.
C: So there's that I guess.
B: Yeah.
C: Then we get Pilate, and my previous experience with Pontius Pilate, right?
B: Yeah.
C: Basically limited to my mom blasting Jesus Christ Superstar every Easter morning for my entire childhood. Like just cranking it up as high as it'll go on one of those old speakers like, those old stereos from the 80s.
B: Yeah one of those one, just like as big as a Cadillac.
C: Yeah. Just dropping the needle on that bad boy.
B: Yeah.
C: Pilate is coming off as... for the guy who ordered the crucifixion of the Messiah, he comes off as not necessarily sympathetic, not necessarily relatable, but he does try.
B: Yeah. And I mean, at this point you have to do that. The Romans won, right? It's over.
C: Yeah.
B: The Romans won, the Jews lost. And so you got to be like, the Romans did their best. And it was the Jews primarily. Good job, good job, Romans. We love you. Please don't destroy our city again.
C: Yeah, we're just going to shift all of that enmity for the Romans that we saw in the book of Acts just right over to the Jews.
B: Yeah.
C: Just move it right over. And I'm sure that won't cause any problems for the next 2000 years.
B: Absolutely. I think this should be fine.
C: But I do like this part that we get in John 18:35 where it's a very– it's very much like our pal Porky Party where Pilate goes, "Look, are you the king of the Jews or not?" and Jesus is like, "Now are you asking that or did someone tell you to ask that?" and Pilate just goes "I'm not a Jew. I don't know what's going on I need someone to explain this to me, please."
B: Yeah.
C: The last verse that we see Pilate in is 18:38 and it's just. "What is truth?" He's like, he's so tired.
B: Yeah.
C: He's just trying to figure out what's going on and Jesus is like doing cryptic– it's Vertigo Jesus stuff, right? Like he's kind of cryptic he's being like, "You know, yeah, the real truth is within those who hear my voice," and it's like Pilate's not here for that. Pilate's a government official.
B: Yeah. When he's just like, "Okay, are you the king or not?" And he's just like, "I don't know. Am I?" And Pilate's just like, "I cannot handle this right now. I'm not getting paid enough for this."
C: And then in chapter 19, we again get what we saw in Luke, which is Pilate really trying not to crucify him.
B: Yeah. Yeah yeah.
C: Again, like, "Hey, the Romans weren't so bad. It was these people in the crowd that were yelling at Jesus and you know who they were."
B: Yep.
C: Yeah, when you said, "virulently anti-Semitic," you were not kidding.
B: Yeah, that's this one. And it's so weird just because at the same time, it's a very Jewish gospel. It's very clearly coming from a Jewish place. And a thing I didn't even mention before, I mean, I covered the Gnostic idea, the Gnostic interpretation of Logos. I didn't even talk about how the idea of the Logos is very much similar to an idea from Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism, the idea of Lady Wisdom that we would see in Proverbs and also different like esoteric writings as well. This whole idea of the wisdom of God being this separate agency. And so like, even that idea is very Jewish at its core. And yet, everything is just like, "sure do hate those Jews. I hope they feel bad about kicking your boy out of the synagogue."
C: And we even get Jesus like directly telling Pilate. "Hey, it's okay."
B: Yeah.
C: Like, "Hey you're not the real problem. I know that the only reason you have authority in this matter is because God has given it to you. It's the it's the people who handed me over they're the real bad guys."
B: Yeah, and I mean outside of canon there's plenty of tradition about Pilate turning completely good. Pilate's wife is a saint and maybe Pilate himself in certain churches is as well. I don't know, but we'll see more about Pilate later in different, later works. But yeah, he is pretty much absolved by tradition later. People go, "He did his best." And obviously he's going to have a conversion moment later. And in some books he does.
C: Here's my question. We talked about this being written in the nineties CE.
B: Right.
C: Christianity does not become the state religion of Rome until what, around 500?
B: No, like 300.
C: The intervening 200 years there. How good a job did this book do of getting him in with the Romans?
B: Not great.
C: From what I know about how the rest of the apostles ended up, not great.
B: Yeah, Christian literature from the second century is primarily stories of martyrdom. And yeah, so you've got, we've got different Acts of the Apostles, which we'll look at as many of those as we can. But you've also got other early important Christian literature, like the story of Perpetua and Felicitas that maybe we'll read. It's not really scripture, but it is an important Christian document. And that's just straight up a martyrdom narrative. And most of those are considered to be happy endings. It's a happy ending if you get killed for Jesus. And that's like the central plot of most like second, third century Christian literature.
C: And I mean, that continues to be the happy ending for literally every saint.
B: Yeah.
C: Like the worst thing that can happen to you if you're a saint is you get married.
B: Yeah.
C: And the best thing is that you get your head chopped off.
B: True. Absolutely true.
C: It's very much unlike the modern day romantic comedy where there are very few beheadings.
B: Yeah.
C: Lots of marriages.
B: It's funny because if you were to look at ancient literature, Greek plays, and you say, what distinguishes a tragedy and a comedy? And if you look at Shakespeare the same way, because you can watch a Shakespearean tragedy and say, well, this tragedy's got jokes in it, right? Or somebody dies in this comedy or whatever. How can you really distinguish a tragedy from a comedy? Well, a tragedy ends with people dying and a comedy ends with a wedding. And for Christian literature, it is absolutely the reverse. The worst tragedy, yes, is getting married. The best happy ending is Caesar cut your head off. So.
C: Are you ready for me to get extremely frustrated with the gospel of John and with the ancient world in general?
B: Oh, you know, I am.
C: Chapter 19, verse 25, we get a gathering at the cross. We get Jesus's closest lady pals showing up. We get Jesus's mother, Mary. You're familiar with her.
B: Not named in this book, but yes.
C: No, but we know who Jesus's mother is.
B: Sure.
C: He is only called Jesus's mother, which is weird. That's like the mother... That's not as weird as the mother of Zebedee's sons, but it is weird. We get Mary Magdalene. out of whom he drove seven demons.
B: That's– I've heard of it.
C: Then we get Mary's sister, Mary.
B: Uh-huh.
C: Buddy, what are we doing?
B: So-
C: We have Mary, Mary, and Mary's sister, Mary. What is happening?
B: So, well, depending on how you read it, and it is ambiguous and nobody really knows. Is this three women or is it four women? Because it could be his mother, his mother's sister, then Mary, and then Mary, and that's four. Or it could be Mary and her sister Mary and then this other Mary. So, yeah, you bring up, of course, an excellent and confusing topic.
B: And now that we are in our final canonical gospel, I think it's time that we introduce a new, very important, and yet only one-time going to happen segment to the show that I like to call: Whomst Was At the Tombst? Let's do a little wrap up of who was where and when across the four gospels.
C: Okay.
B: So let's start with Mark, our earliest guy. In Mark, present at the crucifixion itself is Mary Magdalene.
C: Out of whom he drove seven demons.
B: Out of whom he drove seven demons. Then we have Mary, the mother of James and Joses, who of course we can say that's probably Jesus's mom, right? Because Jesus' brothers are James and Joses and Judas and Simon, right? Common interpretation, however, is that this James is James the Less, James the son of Alphaeus. And maybe it is, because some people would interpret that James the Less is also James the brother of Jesus. We can talk about that perhaps in a second. But so we've got Mary Magdalene for sure. Then Mary, the mother of James, who's either also the mother of Jesus or the mother of James the less. Then we have Salome, who, again, this is not the character we popularly know as Salome, because now that's the name we use for the daughter of Herodias, who demanded Johnny Bapto's head on a plate. She's not given that name in the Bible at all. This Salome is an early Christian and tradition says possibly one of Jesus's sisters. We know Jesus had at least two sisters. One early tradition says Salome is one of those.
B: Then in Mark at the tomb, Mary Magdalene and then the mother of Joses. She's not even James and Joseph this time, the mother of Joses. And then on Easter morning at the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene again, Mary, the mother of James and Salome. Okay? So earliest gospel: our people are Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, Salome.
C: Okay.
B: So then by Matthew at the crucifixion again, we have Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joseph, but Joses is just a nickname for Joseph – it's just an alternate form. So Joseph is just Joey basically so that's easy probably the same person. And then the mother of the Sons of Zebedee which we talked about so...
C: Thunder.
B: And then at the tomb, both times, at the at the full tomb and at the empty tomb, it's Mary Magdalene and then the other Mary. Which other Mary? And who knows. So if we're trying to reconcile Matthew and Mark we can look at that and go, okay well Mary Magdalene's obviously the same, mother of James and Joses that's the same James and Joseph, that's the same, that would mean that Salome is the name of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, which if we add to that, that Salome is maybe Jesus's sister, that would mean James and John Thunderson are Jesus's nephews. So that's a possibility if you follow that particular interpretation and you decide to reconcile the two texts that way.
B: Then at Luke, he doesn't bother to name any women at the crucifixion or at the burial. He just says some women were there.
C: Do you blame him? Do you blame him at this point for just saying, yeah, there were some women there instead of being like, okay, it was Mary, Mary, Marie, Maria, Mary, and then Mary's sister.
B: Yeah. So yeah, he doesn't name them, but then at the empty tomb on Easter morning, he names Mary Magdalene, Joanna O.C., D.N.S., and then Mary, mother of James. So that's harder to reconcile. Is Joanna an alternate name for Salome? That's what you would have to do to do that. That Joanna is her Greek name, maybe.
B: And then here in John, we have at the crucifixion, we have specifically named his mother, not named Mary, but called his mother, his mother's sister, who may or may not also be Mary, the wife of Clopas, because it may be three women, it may be four women, depending on whether you believe these are in sequence or if that's one thing is in appositive to the other. And this Mary of Clopas, also Cleophas, alternate spelling there, and then Mary Magdalene, who's the only one who's everywhere every time.
B: And then for John, there's nobody named at the burial, and it's just Mary Magdalene at Easter. So obviously Mary Magdalene is significant because she's the only one who's present at everything, every time across all the Gospels.
B: So the thing about Mary of Clopas, it just says Mary of Clopas. So there's a couple of things you can assume about that. Presumably she's Mary, the wife of Clopas. It could also mean Mary, the daughter of Clopas. And then if you're trying to reconcile this with the other gospels, then you can say, well, Clopas or Cleopas is the Hellenized version of the name Alphaeus. And so, or vice versa, I guess, Alphaeus is the Hellenized version of Clopas, sorry. That means that this Mary is also the mother of James the Less, James the son of Alphaeus.
B: Alternatively, here's an interesting theory that I read that I don't know how I feel about. But we don't know very much about Joseph, right? We barely see him. We see him at the birth. We see him at the flight into Egypt. We see him going to get teen Jesus from the temple, tween Jesus from the temple. And then we don't ever hear about him again, right? So the logical assumption is that what happened to Joseph? He died, right? The logical assumption is that he died, especially given the context of the crucifixion where Jesus has to turn to the beloved disciple and say, "hey, please take care of my mother." If she was still married, she wouldn't, you would just say, "Joseph, please take care of my mother," right, instead of giving her into the care of some other unnamed disciple. So the theory I saw was that you have Mary who has Jesus, you know, by God or by whomever you choose to believe, there are various theories on that, but then she marries Joseph and has no children with Joseph. Joseph dies, and so something we haven't talked about, but that has come up in the things we've read, among Jewish society at this time, they had what was called the Levirate Law, which means that if your husband dies, you're supposed to marry his brother. That comes from the Latin word levir, which means brother-in-law. And so we see that when the Pharisees come up to Jesus and say, what if the wife marries seven brothers and each one of them dies, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? And Jesus is like, this is the dumbest rhetorical question anyone has ever asked me. And I hang out with guys who ask dumb questions for a living. But according to this theory, then Cleophas would be Joseph's brother. And so Mary would have married Joseph's brother, Cleophas, And then would have had James and Joses and Judas and Simon and Salome and some other sister by Joseph's brother, Cleopas. Just a theory, an interesting one, something to think about, mull that over.
B: Of course, that requires some textual editing to make up for the fact that it says clearly Mary of Clopas is the sister of Jesus's mother. So that would require some fudging of the text. But we know that kind of stuff exists. We've seen evidence of it before.
B: But then, yeah, if you read it that Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, are sisters, which you can definitely read it that way, that leads to a very wild theory that I love because of how wild it is called the Three Marys.
C: Okay.
B: And this is a theory, the Three Marys is a theory. There's multiple groups of women called the Three Marys. Obviously, the Three Marys at the tomb, the three Marys we saw before. But the three Marys I'm talking about here, this is a theory that started in the mid ninth century that St. Anne, who obviously is a name that comes from extracanonical tradition, because we don't see Mary's parents get names at all. So the names Anne and Joachim for her parents that comes elsewhere. We'll see it. I promise, Theophiloi, we will see that story by the end of the year. But St. Anne, the theory is that she had daughters by three different husbands. And so with her husband Joachim, she has Mary, mother of Jesus. Then she marries a guy named Clopas and has another daughter named Mary. And then she marries a third guy and has a daughter named Mary, a.k.a. Salome. So then, that makes the three Marys at the tomb all sisters named Mary, who are the daughter of the same mom. And Mary Magdalene doesn't count. Mary Magdalene is the Johnny Bapto of this discussion. Of the Mary discussion, Mary Magdalene is definitely not one of the other ones, just like John the Baptist is not one of the other Johns. That's the only thing that is clear about which Mary is which and which John is which.
C: Hey.
B: Yeah.
C: If we have any time travelers listening.
B: And I hope we do.
C: And you want to make things easier specifically on me, but like also if you want to clear up like a lot of centuries of debate and theorizing, just drop like a baby name book back in Nazareth circa like, maybe you know what, let's go like 10 or 15 BCE so it's got time to get around. Just take that baby name book and leave it somewhere where they'll see it. And that's all you got to do. I don't feel like that'll butterfly affect anything.
B: Yeah.
C: You know,
B: It would be fine. It would be fine. It would clear up a lot. We get some different final words of Jesus in John.
C: No, oh wait, do you mean the gospel of Travis? Oh, the timeline's changed.
B: Oh no. Oh, I can feel it already. Travis, the evangelist.
C: No it's Travis the Evangelist, also Travis the Revelator.
B: No it's Taylor the revelator. What have you done?
C: As it was written in the book of Steve...
B: what have you done, Chris? all right, but yes we get some different final words of Jesus including "I'm thirsty," which I'm just saying the disciple he loved was right there who knows what that could mean. Actually, funny story, one of the kids that I work with in my day job, and in fact the only one who knows about this podcast so he's gonna hear this eventually, what's up man? In his house they have a crucifix up on the wall. They're catholic, most of the kids I work with are. And on this crucifix during most of year, they have a palm leaf wrapped around it. That's pretty common, but all the time they have underneath it, they kind of made their own little titulus out of a post-it note. And so under Jesus's feet, it says, I thirst. And I managed to take a picture of it and I'll post it. But for a long time, I wanted to share that picture and just say, "Hey guys, do you think my profile for Christian Mingle is too on the nose?"
C: That is very funny.
B: Yeah.
C: You did not mention that Jesus' actual final words, according to John, are, "I'm out."
B: Yeah. Look, guys, you keep coming in and you're saying, "oh, the forsaking is a victory cry." You know, what's a real victory cry. We did it. We did it, everybody. Work is done. It's finished.
C: Yeah, done. And then he ascends to heaven.
B: Yeah. According to tradition, the last words of the Emperor Augustus were, "Octum est plaudete." That is, it's done. The play is over. Clap now. That's this. That's a mic drop. It's Jesus. We did it, Reddit.
C: Benito, you know what we get now?
B: What's that, Chris?
C: A little thing called the Spear of Destiny.
B: Yeah, it's true.
C: This is going to show up again.
B: It is.
C: This is going to tie it all back together by showing up again in the works of Roy Thomas.
B: Finally. Yeah. What do Roy Thomas, Charlemagne, and Hitler have in common?
C: The Spear of Destiny, a.k.a. the Lance of Longinus. This is a big deal. This is the thing.
B: Yeah.
C: Like Simon Magus, it's one of those things that's mentioned very briefly, canonically, that has since become this and the Holy Grail are like the most notable holy artifacts. And we actually, we have not really seen the Holy Grail.
B: Yeah. Cause I mean...
C: The bread dip holder? Is that what's holding the ranch?
B: Yeah, I guess. Yeah. It's the ranch bowl. It's the ranch bowl for the jalapeño poppers. Probably. Yeah. Cause yeah, obviously he doesn't even get a name here. He's just the soldier. That name is going to come later. Maybe the golden legend. It's a medieval name. And it possibly comes from the Greek word lancea, which means a spear. And so you go from that and you get Longinus. And so, yeah, he's this he's the spear boy. And actually, speaking of the Spear of Destiny, I've had some time to think about it since we were discussing our theoretical comic-con Last Supper, you know where it's you and me and we're sitting around with all of our friends? Since I've had some time to think about it, absolutely Kyle Starks would be the one that would betray us for 30 dollars, hands down. Hands down,
C: No question. Jesus gives up the ghost. They don't break his legs
B: Right? Yeah.
C: Because his bones shall not be broken.
B: Right and we see that the idea is that you would do that to speed up a crucifixion because normally you would die by suffocation. But if it's taking too long, you can break someone's legs and they can bleed out or whatever. But they don't need to do that to Jesus. He died in time to be kosher for Passover.
C: Now, did you also have a talk with a pastor where the mechanics of crucifixion were discussed in detail?
B: Oh, I've had that explained to me many times. Yeah. In Sunday school, everywhere. It's laid out in the Carman song, "This Blood's for You." Yeah. It's all there.
C: It's a very weird evangelical Christian tactic, I think, because I feel like what is at dispute is not, "is being crucified a bad way to die?"
B: Right.
C: We all agree it is. It's, it's where the word excruciating comes from.
B: It is. It absolutely is. Yeah.
C: Yeah. It's not good. And yet people have felt the need to convince me it's real, real bad.
B: Yeah. Here's the thing that I think people forget. I'm, you know, some people who don't know me outside of this show don't know that I'm also very into horror movies. That's one of my other things. I'm really into haints and spookums and I like horror movies. In the early 2000s, mid 2000s, there was a very popular subgenre of horror that was going around as evidenced by franchises such as Saw and Hostel and Wrong Turn and Wolf Creek and these kind of movies that get referred to as torture porn. I don't find that a great name necessarily for those movies. I don't care for the term. However, but what I think a lot of people forget is that that term was not first applied to Saw or Hostel or Funny Games or any of those movies. Torture porn was originally a term used to describe Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. And there it feels more accurate because, yeah, the point is to show you in great detail, great and gory detail, a man being tortured to death. And you're supposed to go, yes, this is very good. This thing I'm seeing right now.
C: I think the idea, the way that it was explained to me, because, buddy, you were living in Kentucky and I was living in South Carolina when Passion of the Christ was in theaters.
B: Yes.
C: It was a hot topic of discussion.
B: Yeah.
C: The way that it was described to me was that people had not realized the level of suffering that you get from a crucifixion.
B: Yeah.
C: Like bare mins, you're getting nailed to a piece of wood.
B: Right.
C: In a time before anesthetic exists, should it even be an option? I feel like that's understandable. like if we operate from that being a starting point. Also like, yeah like crown of thorns: not great. Being scourged: terrible. I don't know how the target audience of that film was surprised by that. Like that that was, you'll forgive the term, a revelation for them that it was real, real bad.
B: No, it couldn't have been. It couldn't have been a surprise, and so the only reason you would go to see it is for some kind of, maybe not necessarily a sexual titillation, but some kind of– something in your brain is getting tickled by that is it's weird.
C: It's is it a like catharsis?
B: Yeah, sure. Maybe.
C: Because here's my problem with it. I feel like for me, certainly... So that was 2004. And I know that for me back then, a thing that has always stuck out to me: Jesus is by far the most famous victim of crucifixion. It is his symbol.
B: It's Jesus, then it's Spartacus, and then could you name anyone else? Dismas is number three, and that is a distant number four before you could name someone else, probably. Well, Peter. Peter and Andrew, okay. Whatever. I'm whatever.
C: Yeah. Look, yeah. Peter and Andrew were slightly different.
B: Yeah.
C: Xena. Xena's probably number two.
B: Yeah.
C: Honestly. So Jesus, Xena, Spartacus.
B: Yeah.
C: Saint Dismas, Peter, Andrew.
B: Yeah, I think we've got a solid top five or six there. Yeah.
C: Yeah, but like that only reinforces my point: it's very strongly identified with Jesus and I know that this might have just been my experience from people that I was talking to back then, but it was very much presented to me as: this is part of Jesus's story that is unique, right? Like that that he– this suffering was the suffering of man, was the sins of man. It was equivalent to that.
B: Right.
C: Which raised the question for me, like, there were a lot of people that got crucified. A lot of people. Like, it was the Romans that did it. it was their thing. The Roman empire lasted for quite some time and it was their go-to move.
B: Yeah. Yeah, and the contrast is the Jewish form of execution which we saw attempted on Jesus a couple times in this book, would have been to stone somebody. And we see James Thunderson get stoned and Stephen gets stoned. So yeah, it does happen to a couple of people, but Jesus manages to avoid being stoned because of his own prophecy that he'll be lifted up. And so they're like, let's make his own prophecy come true, that he'll be lifted up. And so, yeah, so they make sure that he gets turned over to the Romans for crucifixion.
C: That is the crucifixion of Jesus. Good news though, Evangelion. Good news.
B: Yeah.
C: He comes back.
B: Oh good.
C: And we get John doing the very, like, elusive-Christ version of what we already saw in Luke which is Jesus teleporting around and messing with his buds.
B: Yeah. Sneaking up behind 'em.
C: Yeah, just like, goes up to Mary Magdalene who is distraught.
B: Yeah.
C: Just goes up to Mary Magdalene, he's like, "Hey what's wrong? [hehehehehe]" It's kind of like it's such a weird move for Jesus to not like reveal himself in all his splendor, you know?
B: Yeah.
C: I don't dislike it. I think it's like kind of cool, right? But it's a very weird move. Like, I understand why he does it for Thomas. Thomas, as you might have heard is the one who doubts. Thomas wants the proof.
B: Yeah, he's also the one called "twin," which, that gets dropped every time. It's very much the Midgard-footnote-Earth of the gospel of John, in that every time he says, "Thomas, called twin." Thomas, by the way, means twin. Thomas means twin and then Didymus is the greek equivalent of twin so he gets called Thomas Didymus. Neither of those is probably an actual name so later with the various works of Thomas he'll get additional names, but yeah that's it. It feels very much the Midgard-footnote-Earth.
C: Thomas called twin was a ronin or masterless samurai.
B: There it is. There it is.
C: He shows up and he's like, "Hey, I don't believe it. If I don't get to see where the nails went in, I don't believe it." and Jesus shows up and he's like, "Hey, put your put your hand in there. Put your finger in there. Do it. Do it."
B: Which is strange because that follows the very famous "Noli me tangere" moment, that "don't touch me," right? He wouldn't let Mary Magdalene touch him, but then he's like, "Hey Thomas put your fingers and all into my body holes." So that's a weird, weird contrast. The question, and no one's really sure, why does Jesus tell Mary not to touch him? And, it might be because like, he's still got, ambient radiation from heaven or from the harrowing of hell, perhaps.
C: Well, if you remember our discussion, Benito, of resurrection bodies...
B: Yeah. He's vibrating too fast.
C: He's vibrating and he's probably like slowing down since he's, you know, coming back to his earthly form, but he's probably, he's past that Barry Allen level.
B: Yeah.
C: He's past that Barry Allen level. Now he's at that Wally West level where if he passes through a solid object, it'll explode.
B: Yeah. Mary's hand might've exploded. That would have been real bad. Although it has been a minute since we've had an explosion on the podcast, so...
C: Would have been better if Thomas exploded.
B: Yeah. What if Thomas did it and exploded?
C: And everybody else was like, "I'm convinced."
B: "I've learned a lesson about doubting on this day."
C: As you said, we get the epilogue, which is the big party. I think that I wrote down was that everybody's fishing and they're not having a good time. So Jesus shows up, and, you know, get some fish in the in the nets there. And they pull a shore 153 large fish.
B: Yeah.
C: Which, hey, that's a lot of fish for, this is for like eight dudes. This is for like, maybe like 15. If all the Marys are there.
B: Yeah.
C: That's 10, 10.1 fish for everybody.
B: That's too many. It's too many fish. They'd be like, okay, we got it, Jesus. You're, you're here. That's cool. What are we going to do with all this fish? That's how I feel about like, so I feel about cooking shows on TV. They make all the food and then like, and then like Gordon Ramsey takes one bite and then they throw it in the trash. And it's like, there was a whole chicken Parmesan there that they could have given to, for example, a homeless person.
C: Jesus gives them 153 fish. And I love that it's a very specific odd number.
B: Yeah.
C: Cause it's not like, it's not like 12 or 40 or seven. It's not like the numbers that we have seen before.
B: Right.
C: Repeated.
B: Yeah.
C: This is 133.
B: Yeah. Nice prime number. Needless to say, people have tried to interpret that symbolically, but it's just like, no, it's just a lot of fish. That's it, it symbolizes a lot of fish.
C: Before anyone corrects me, by the way, 10.2 fish per person.
B: There you go. There you go.
C: For a party of 15.
B: Yeah.
C: And then Jesus goes, Hey, let's eat breakfast. And teleporting hungry Jesus is back, baby.
B: He's back. "Bread and fish, break it up. Let's go. It's, it's breakfast time. I need– my vibrating resurrection body needs a lot of food because my metabolism is incredibly high."
C: Yeah. It's post-crisis Wally West.
B: Yeah, absolutely.
C: This is, in a very real sense, this is post-Crisis Jesus
B: It is. It absolutely is post-Crisis iron age Jesus, again in the comic book sense, not in the archaeological sense. Sorry to confuse any archaeologists who might be listening to the show.
C: We get a variation on the great commission.
B: Yeah.
C: And then we get John being like, "By the way, this is all true."
B: Right, well hold on. We missed Peter's redemption arc here. John gives Peter closure to his denial, right? He denies Jesus three times. Here, it's the threefold affirmation of Jesus that restores Peter, makes up for his earlier mistake. That's why, you know, do you love me? Yeah, dude, feed my sheep. Do you love me? Just that I did. Cool. Feed my sheep again, continually. Do you love me three times. Yes, man. Sheep metaphor. And Peter: restored. Gets the keys back.
C: He gets his keys. Jesus heads off to heaven. "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true."
B: Yeah. And then I love this. Like we don't get an ascension or anything. They just, "And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were written one by one, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written." I don't have time to write the infinity of adventures of Jesus, but they believe me, if I did write them down, the whole library of the world could not hold all of these very cool continuing adventures of Jesus. You're just going to have to take my word on that. You might notice, actually, we get a very similar thing at the end of chapter 20. "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name." And then we get after this, Jesus revealed himself again.
B: So I don't know, Chris, have you learned enough about textual criticism at this point to figure out probably what happened there? Well, I know, you know, but for the benefit of our listeners, the original manuscript of John would have ended at chapter 20. And in chapter 21, the epilogue is tacked on. And that's and that's why you get two endings. That's why you get two endings there.
C: I also like, I really do like John being like, so that's what happened with Jesus. But what do you think happened?
B: You don't have to take my word for it.
C: Yeah. But, you know, maybe check out my next book, The Gospel of John 2.
B: Actually, check out my next book. It's called First John, which I realize is confusing. It's a little bit like the titles in the Rambo franchise. But, so, you know, First Blood, Rambo, First Blood, Part 2. So it's like John, 1 John, 1 John Part 2, John 3. Next one's just called John. The next one's called Creed for some reason. That's two different Stallone franchises, I know. You don't have to write into me. It's just goofs, guys. It's just goofs.
C: You biffed it, buddy. You biffed it. So that's it. That's the Gospel of John.
B: Yeah.
C: Give me 153 fish because we're celebrating. We're done with the Gospels. The canonical Gospels.
B: We did the canonical Gospels. That means we've got a couple of really wild ones we can talk about. And then a bunch that are literally just Jesus talking about stuff that won't make any sense, but that's fine. We'll get there too. Before we do final, final thoughts, do you have any final thoughts on John? What do you think about John? It's weird, right?
C: It's a weird book. It's a really weird book. It's weirdly structured. It has things that we do not see elsewhere– and part of this is because we have three synoptic gospels and one that's not right.
B: Right.
C: We have three very closely related gospels and this one.
B: Right. And I should say, generally speaking, you know, if you don't accept the tradition that all the gospels are true and divinely inspired, if you don't accept the tradition that they're all either first or secondhand accounts. And if you do, that's fine. That's cool. I love you.
B: But if you don't accept that, it's generally agreed that John, the teaching in John, which doesn't match the teaching of the synoptics very much, is it's fully religiously inspired. It's the church, it's the Johannine community writing this out, and it is less likely to be accurate to whatever the real teachings of the historical Jesus were than the synoptics, which are probably only, you know, which are either probably included real teachings of Jesus that might have been in Q, if Q exists. Or they're only like a step removed because you've got this evangelical tradition that's probably only a step removed from the Jerusalem church with James the Just, which would have been probably the closest to real authentic historical Jesus. And so there's several steps of removal, and that's part of why John is so weird relative to the synoptics because it's a whole other tradition that the teaching is coming from.
C: Yeah.
B: So it's weird, but I think when it's good, it's really good. I don't know. Do you feel that way about it? Like it's got some real choice bits in it.
C: It does have very good stuff. And I like the stuff that it has that we don't see elsewhere.
B: Sure.
C: I like the variation in miracles that we have. Like it, I, I do– I said before that I prefer the Jesus who is a little easier to relate to, but I kind of do like Jesus having concerns about things that are beyond earth because that's his deal, right? Like, you know, you lay up your treasures in heaven. Like you don't need to like be in the world, but you are not of the world. You know, like that's his whole deal.
B: Yeah.
C: And I kind of like the way that comes through in John. Not a fan of the virulent antisemitism.
B: Yeah, that part.
C: Not so good.
B: That part kind of blows. Yeah. Yeah.
C: Like I, I appreciate it from the way that it shows us the changing historical context of these, but: oof. Oof.
B: Right.
C: And also, also my favorite part of the book is apparently not part of the book.
B: Yeah. The adulteress and the stone throwing, right? Yeah.
C: Yeah. And Jesus writing everyone's sins in the dirt, which is a boss interpretation.
B: Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. All right. So with that in mind, what's the, what's the final ranking? Every gospel ever, Chris, what's the list?
C: I'm going to say Mark at the top.
B: Okay. All right.
C: John is a strong number two.
B: All right.
C: Going to put Luke in at number three.
B: All right.
C: Which makes Matthew bring up the rear at number four.
B: Yeah, okay.
C: Although I do really love how much Matthew hates the rich.
B: Yeah. Not as much as Luke though. Luke hates the rich way more.
C: Yeah, not a fan.
B: Yeah.
C: But I do like Mark is– Mark is very interesting.
B: Yeah.
C: I think Mark is– it's short which is nice
B: Yes.
C: iIt is interesting for what it does not have. We talked about that. Like, it is very interesting for beginning with the baptism and the spirit coming down as a dove.
B: Right.
C: It's got some good parables. The Parable of the Sower is a very good parable. That's like, "Hey leave people alone, they'll figure it out or they won't."
B: Yeah.
C: It also, you know, I was a big fan of Isaiah. Mark has a lot of callbacks to Isaiah.
B: Yeah. Matthew has more callbacks to Isaiah though.
C: That's true, but I mean Matthew has problems.
B: True. Yeah. Okay. Cool, interesting, interesting. And yeah, that works. Anyone listening, if you want to hit us up with your final rankings of the canonical gospels, love to hear them. So yeah, one final roundup I'd like to do, Chris. This was inspired by a listener. Again, I forgot the name. I should write these down before we record the show. But I don't. Sorry. And that is Do He Vape? Evangelist Edition.
C: Okay.
B: So the question is, which evangelist vapes? Who is it? I have my answer. I've already given my answer on Twitter. If you follow my Twitter, you probably saw this. But here are my thoughts, and I'd like to hear your thoughts after mine. Because as we do in so many things, we probably disagree. But my thought is this. Matthew does not vape because Isaiah did not vape. Mark does not vape. He chain smokes unfiltered real cigarettes. Luke is a nerd. He doesn't do anything. John vapes weed, but smokes cloves. And that is my final answer to Do He Vape? Evangelist Edition. Chris?
C: It's weird how you know so much about the Bible and you're so completely wrong.
B: Okay. Hit me. Let's hear it.
C: First big problem. First big problem saying that Isaiah did not vape: an angel pressed a burning coal to his lips.
B: Chris, I...
C: Do you think he did not rip cotton after that?
B: Chris, burning is antithetical to the very base purpose of vaping. You're going to –
C: They did not know what it was then.
B: You're going to get sick if you breathe in burning paper. That's what I learned from magicvapershop.com's very many radio ads that I hear all the time. Burning paper, breathe in.
C: Did Isaiah get sick? Did Isaiah get sick? Did he get sick? No, he didn't. No, he didn't. he took that he took that burning angel coal and he ripped that cotton.
B: All right, okay, all right.
C: John I think is definite because I feel like the angel coming down and stirring up the the water that's a metaphor.
B: That's a metaphor for a vape rig? Okay.
C: Yes what is the what is the Sea of Galilee if not the vape rig of the Holy Land.
B: The Sea of Galilee was full of vape juice, guys. It was e-juice. The sea of E-juice – it's basically an anagram for Jesus. It's all coming together.
C: You got it, Matthew and Luke I don't know about. I feel like Luke's a no because, yeah that is too close to wizardry./
B: Luke is a strong no. Would Roy Thomas vape? no.
C: I run into Roy all the time. I could ask him.
B: Okay.
C: He would not appreciate the question, I guarantee it.
B: Yeah
C: All right, so are we done? Are we done with the gospels?
B: Yeah, I think we are. You got a favorite verse you want to hit us with?
C: Well since we did two parts on this one I've already read mine. I really liked the one where Jesus said everybody was going to get resurrected but some of you need to watch out.
B: That's cool.
C: Also what is it 18:25 is "Jesus wept" which is a highly useful one. My most quoted verse of the bible for sure.
B: If you just want to have one in the chamber to go, if someone's like, "I bet you can't quote a bible verse." Yeah I can. "Jesus wept."
C: 11:35 is "Jesus wept."
B: Yeah. Yeah chapter 11, because that's where Lazarus is. Why was he crying? About that boy he loved. So now you know.
C: Also you really can't deny 3:16 as being a pretty good verse.
B: It's pretty good. It's pretty good. My actual choice, a little bit after, it's actually 3:19. So here was my choice: "This, then, is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it,[k] so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God." Democracy dies in darkness, or something. People embrace the darkness because you can hide your bad stuff. Come to the light, guys. Show that good, good action.
C: So since we are through the Gospels, I believe next we are planning on taking a journey, not back to the Old Testament, but into some Old Testament era apocrypha, correct?
B: Yeah, we're going to hit those intertestamental, capital A apocrypha boys. We're going to take a little bit of a breather because this was a big undertaking and we're planning on another foolishly large undertaking very soon, and so in between we're going to do a little bit of a breather we're going to turn to, yeah, a deuterocanonical book: it's got angels, it's got demons, it's got poop as a plot device, it has a man vaping a fish, and it is called Tobit and it will not be in your HCSB, if you have it. However you can find it if you are one of those who bought an NRSV, or you can find it on Bible Gateway under the NRSV translation. Just go to Bible Gateway and look up the NRSV. That's the New Revised Standard Version. That does include the deuterocanon, and Tobit is definitely there. Tobit is very well accepted by many different churches as secondary canon. So Tobit is not a super deep cut as far as Apocrypha goes, but I think you guys will enjoy it. It's a little bit shorter. If you've been burdened by these long episodes, these long books, if you're reading along Tobit should be a nice little palate cleanser, I hope.
C: Alrighty. So where can everybody find us online?
B: Well, you can find us at apocrypals.tumblr.com. If you want to see supplemental materials, links, images that relate to the show. Or if you enjoy the show and you want to help us out a little bit, want to help us with the hosting, you want to help pay for those sweet music drops that Chris does throughout the show, you can go to K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals. It's ko-fi.com/apocrypals. And there you can just, it's basically a tip jar. It's not like a Patreon where it's a recurring donation, but you can absolutely come back if you want to and leave one every time you feel like we've done a good job. You just leave a donation in increments of $3. And we vastly, vastly appreciate all the people who have gone there so far. It really means a lot to us that you're enjoying the show enough that you would buy some cups of coffee, a.k.a. pay for the hosting on the show. We really absolutely do appreciate it.
C: Yeah, and we also appreciate it if you've left a review for us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or if you've just recommended the show to a friend, unless you have personally said mean things about me, in which case you can go live in a garbage dump with screech owls.
B: Yeah, thank you to everyone who talks about the show on Twitter, we love you. Anyone who uses #apocrypals, you are great, and I will probably retweet you. Anyone who recommends us to celebrities when they ask for podcast recommendations, you're awesome. I love you. Probably, and I'm not you know speaking to anyone in particular, but hypothetically speaking if you were to talk about the show on Twitter and you want people to know that the show is good and cool and also you don't want us to feel bad about ourselves, probably don't say one of us, I won't say which one, but probably don't say that one of us has a clown voice. Don't do that, probably.
C: What does that even mean?
B: I don't know Chris. it could be either one, I don't know, it could be you, it could be me. One of us has a clown voice, the other one is a mild-mannered bible school guy. I can't identify from that information which one might be which. But I don't know what a clown voice is. You sound like bozo...?
C: Garbage dump. Garbage dump. Screech owls, garbage dump.
B: What if that means we sound like Tim Curry? That'd be actually pretty nice
C: Gahbage dump
B: Yeah, there you go. Let's just assume it means that you sound like Tim Curry in 1990's hit telefilm, It, also starring Harry from Night Court.
C: Take that to the outer darkness.
B: Yeah.
C: That's what I have to say about that. All right, if you want to find me, you can head over to the-isb.com. That's got links to everything that I do. I'm doing some comic books right now that you can find by going to your local comic book store and asking them about Dark Hawk or Sleepwalker or some of the other stuff that I've done in the past. You can find information on all that at my website. That's gonna do it for the Gospel of John. That was my Bible closing. Thank you for listening, we will talk to you next time. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I've been Chris Sims. Peace be with you.
B: And also with you!
[Music: "You Only Live Twice" by Nancy Sinatra]
