In the recent past there were two plagiarism stories involving Peter T. O'Brien and Andreas Köstenberger. O'Brien was accused of plagiarizing F. F. Bruce while Köstenberger was accused of plagiarizing Don Carson. Specifically, O'Brien was accused of plagiarizing Bruce's commentaries on Hebrews and the Prison Epistles while Köstenberger was accused of plagiarizing Carson's commentary on John.
I myself noticed how Köstenberger's commentary reads like a paraphrase of Carson's. Since, moreover, Carson has authored a (periodically updated) NT commentary survey, I thought it must been a strange experience for Carson to read and review Köstenberger's commentary, which borrows so heavily from Carson. Offhand, I think the accusation against O'Brien is a pedantic technicality.
But here's why I bring this up: many readers notice that John's Gospel generally has a very different style than the Synoptics. Moreover, they notice that it's hard to distinguish the style of the Johannine narrator from the style of Jesus. As a result, some scholars conclude that either Jesus in John's Gospel is a fictional character or else the author has reworded the ideas of Jesus in his own style.
Now let's go back to plagiarism. It seems to me there are two basic ways to explain the similarities between the voice of Bruce and O'Brien or Carson and Köstenberger. One possibility is that Köstenberger and O'Brien had the commentaries right in front of them while they were writing their own. They were literally on the same page, and they copied from the commentary, only they paraphrased the original.
Here's another possibility: O'Brien was a student of Bruce while Köstenberger was a student of Carson. They had read those commentaries so often, as well as other writings by their mentors, that they became imbued with the same style. Unconscious assimilation. By the same token, the Apostle John may have become so steeped in the style of Jesus that it's second nature for his to speak the same way. To take another comparison, the style of Apocalypse is marinated in the OT.
It's also striking that, unlike the Synoptics, John often records private conversations between Jesus and another or other individuals. So that's one reason John's Gospel differs from the Synoptics.
It happens in various sects, cults and denominations that people under revered and respected leaders begin to sound and taken on the mannerisms and thought patterns of their mentors. Or their associates/peers at their same "level" [e.g. apostles]. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this phenomenon. For example, Greg Laurie sounds like Chuck Smith his mentor. R.C. Sproul sometimes sounded like his mentor John Gerstner. Jason Meyer sometimes sounds like John Piper. In the world of cults, for example, Ronald L. Dart sounded like Garner Ted Armstrong [who himself kind of sounded like his father Herbert W. Armstrong]. Examples could be multiplied.
ReplyDeleteIf John son of Zebedee was both the beloved disciple and the main writer of GJohn, John's writing style being similar to Jesus' speech in the same Gospel might have been because Jesus and John has similar personalities. You tend to gravitate to people like yourself. That's not necessarily sinful and therefore compatible with Jesus having a special affinity to/with John. If their personalities were similar, that would accelerate and reinforce John's sounding like Jesus as he grew older and matured. Which was when he wrote his Gospel.
Finally, some of the differences between the style of Jesus in the Synoptics and GJohn might be due to audience. You adapt your speaking style to your audience. The Synoptics mostly record Jesus' public preaching to laymen Galilean crowds. While GJohn often records Jesus' sayings in Jerusalem in the presence of highly educated Jewish leaders who could understand theological and Scriptural innuendo that layman likely wouldn't.
Jesus' staetments in GJohn are often in more private and/or intimate settings where there are fewer people. There are 21 chapters in John and the Upper Room Discourse begins in chapter 13. So, nearly half of GJohn records events around the time of the passion and afterwards. So, there's a sense in which you can only compare the bulk of the Synoptic sayings with only about the first 12 chapters of GJohn. That's not much by which to compare Jesus' public preaching in they Synoptics and GJohn. Moreover, the bulk of Jesus' teaching in GJohn is in the upper room. And that was to His intimate followers, and we know from even the Synoptics that Jesus reserved His deeper teachings and elucidations to His inner group [Mark 4:10ff.; Matt. 13:10ff.; Luke 8:9ff.]. The night before His crucifixion would be the opportune time to relay things He may have intentionally delayed saying previously. So, that would also account for some of the differences between the styles of Jesus. A person about to suffer and die, and contemplating his soon death will naturally sound different than when he was not close to his impending death. I think, for example, of Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch's last lecture when he was dying of cancer.
//You adapt your speaking style to your audience.
DeleteIt's not uncommon for people raised in the south of the U.S. but moved north to temporarily revert back to their former speaking style when they visit home. The transformation can be a mixture of both conscious and unconscious intention. It's not necessarily deceptive and insincere. Though, it can be. A possible example might be Hillary Clinton's changing accents. Or think of professors who speak to their colleagues and students one way, and to their family and friends in another way.