Mark Goodacre was my Tutor for the Batchelors of Divinity degree in Birmingham University, (England not South US). He memorably started his course on the New Testament by showing the nativity scene as envisiged in the movie "Life of Brian". He was very helpful when I needed to re-take Hebrew because I was having hip surgery. One lovely guy.
@@catholicbeth2371 I'm afraid that you might have mi a understood me? You people don't even know the basics of the gospel of salvation. I know this for a fact.
Oh please. Having done degree courses with Professor Goodacre I can confirm he is extremely knowledgeable about the doctrines of salvation which are accepted by the different churches. He himself is a Protestant, but perhaps by "you people" you are referring to my church, Catholic. Either way you're demonstrating shocking ignorance. I remember C, S, Lewis quoting the saying "Be good fair maid and let those who can be clever," Lewis said it should be changed to "be good fair maid and don't forget being good involves being as clever as you can". Having a simple faith does not involve rejecting the intellect, ask Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Irenaeus or Athenasius.
@catholicbeth2371 like was mentioned, not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, etc. Your of CS Lewis, he's of Profesdor Good all. The carnal wisdom of this world is foolishness. Let no man glory in men. What happened to the wisdom of God? You learned at a University, a College, of men liscenced by a State, which knows nothing about God? You're glorying in dead people, Charles Spurgeon, c.s. Lewis, not in the wisdom of God. Good Night my friend
Try again.... Imagine the pagan gods of Rome, Zeus, Posiden, Aphrodite etc they were not bound by reason, their actions are irrational, not bound by rational or thought. Our God, the Christian God, is the source of reason. God says "I am the truth". He wants us to use our minds to seek his truth. His creation is rational and predictable. If you plant an acorn you get an Oak growing, not a cherry tree. God has made his creation predicable that way, it makes scientific progress possible. God is not hiding. He has revealed himself in scripture and tradition. God wants us to use our brains, however good or bad they may be, to seek him. Stop disrespecting professors. God wants us to use whatever intelligence we have in our search for him. If you use a little humility you may learn from them and grow in your walk with God. Remember Luke chapter 2 when Jesus was lost, Mary and Joseph found him discoursing with the learned doctors in the Temple. He didn't tell them to stop studying.
Try again. God gave us intelligence, to a greater or lesser degree, he wants us to use it. Think of the gods of Rome, Zeus, Posiden, Aphrodite etc. Their legends depict them as unpredictable and irrational. By contrast the Christian God is the actual source of reason itself, the one who says "I am the truth". God is the God who reveals himself. His very creation shows his predictability. If you plant an acorn an oak tree will grow not a cherry tree. That predicability makes scientific knowledge possible. He reveals himself in scripture and the teachings of the church. Remember in Luke 2 he gets lost and is found debating the learned doctors of the day. He doesn't tell them to stop studying. Stop disrespecting Doctors and professors, if you develop a little humility you might learn knowledge from them that can help you in your journey to God.
Goodacre is one of my favorite, down-to-earth and mostly objective scholars. I used to listen and enjoy his NT podcasts. You can tell he is one of those scholars with little to no clear personal agenda other than to be curious and investigate the texts. Something in me always rejects a scholar with a strong personal agenda 😂 I would love to read his new book
Great dialogue between you two. I like the idea that sharing academic pursuits can improve the understanding of "real people" in areas where they are genuinely curious, just maybe not equipped with the full tool set and resources available to some.
I would love to hear Goodacre address something like why John’s temple cleansing is set at a different time in Jesus’ ministry than the Synoptics. I’ve heard an answer that had theological reasons (to establish that Jesus had authority from the beginning of his ministry, even thought the clearing didn’t historically happen at that time), but this is a stark example of a lack of synopsis.
In John the temple cleansing from the Synoptics was moved to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in order to make room for the new miracle (raising Lazarus) that also provided a brand new reason for why Jesus was arrested and executed.
Y'all when UA-cam adjusts titles to fit different screens you get provocative theses like "why John is synoptic with Mark" / Goodacre. Looking forward to the talk
Here is the way I have always described it. Mark is a police report of the incident. Matthew is a newspaper story of the incident which now adds/creates details and analysis. Luke is a proposed treatment of the incident that is used to sell making of a movie about it. John is the actual script of the finished movie. Like Hollywood always says: "Based on a true story".
This seems kinda silly at first, because of course gJohn will to some degree be “synoptic” because it would be truly strange if gJohn didn’t have agreements or share stories with the other three gospels, but, at least for me as a layman, there really is a sort of mental barrier between the synoptics and John, something like “these three and then the other one” and that’s also my impression of how it’s often presented, at least in public communication, so I think this is valuable to help us take a step back and rethink our categorizations a bit. I can’t imagine there will be any sort of paradigm shifting coming from this, the synoptics will probably always be their own thing and John will always be the odd man out, but it’s good to not lock ourselves into this too strictly and remember the how’s and whys of our categories and their limitations.
Anyone else think that Marks gospel is the 40 days of temptation? The wilderness is earth. The angels are the women. Satan tempts Jesus ultimately leading to his death. Being tempted in a random desert doesn’t make sense when the big temptations are the ones in the gospel
I've always believed that John presupposed his audience knew the earlier writings and was filling in details and possibly even correcting a few things (so disagreeing synoptic parallels are important if John takes sides). I also believe that John 21 was added by his disciples after he died. This also seemed obvious after reading John; apparently some scholars agree.
I don't need the epilogue to be a "Johannine school" addition, but I share your vibe that John is making sure to fill in the details that his buddies omit. I don't think that's a controversial take, but what do I know?
@@HighKingTurgon I've never looked up the Ch 21 point before today; I mentioned what I had seen to a friend over 40 years ago who replied that his study bible said the same, citing "most scholars", and read it to me. Looks like it is, in fact, a controversial assertion, with support on both sides. This is the first support I've come across for the 'details filled in' belief, and will be happy to discover it's not controversial. (BTW, I don't NEED either 'vibe' (rightly named) to be true, it just struck me as an obvious truth decades ago that was immediately confirmed and therefore not looked into further.) Thanks for the reply.
There's a conversation to be had about where to draw the line on what makes a synoptic and how to determine how similar the texts are. (Please no one try to convince me your line is the correct one. This is for consensus, not random anonymous people to assert they're right)
My initial thought here was, "Oh gosh, Goodacre has jumped the shark!" but 10 minutes in you realize he is just stirring the pot in his same old inimicable style.
I worry that Goodacre thinks that similarity is evidence of literary dependence, and that difference is not evidence of literary independence. While he agrees that the gospel writers may have had all sorts of written and verbal sources, he does not seem to propose that such sources influenced the texts. Instead, he seems to think that the gospels sprung entirely from literary dependency on each other, and the creativity of the authors. He ends up seeing literary dependence where there is little evidence, such as in John's story of the Samaritan woman. But I could be wrong and will read his book with interest when it comes out. I hope he interacts with Bauckham and others who have argued that the anonymity of disciples in Mark are for their protection, and that John adds the names because they no longer needed protection when he wrote.
From brief googling of his scholarship, this seems to be a misunderstanding of how he presents new testament origins. He seems to support a succession of authorial familiarity without necessary reference to eyewitness testimony, etc. I get the notion that "dependence" is somewhat too strong a word.
A smoking gun that John knows the synoptics is that he calls the Lake of Geneserath the "Sea of Galilee." That is not something anyone called it before the Gospel of Mark. It's not a sea and that is a literary term used by Mark in order to make some Homeric allusions.
Why should it be surprising that God who reveals himself fully in the incarnate humanity of Jesus Christ would reveal the goodness of the divine physician in the figure of Asclepius? That the religious experience of communities the world over bears similarity to the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus seems to me rather to undergird Christian claims about the human person and his relationship to God, rather than undermine it.
...so just because YOU like to be provocative and 2ndl reason 'why not?' 92% OF JOHN contains different material from the 3 Synoptics Mark is according to scholarship was deemed the 1st gospel written.90% WORD FOR WORD Matthew copied Mark 60% WORD FOR WORD Luke copied Mark that's why John is referred to as the 4th gospel ...duh
It seems to me that this particular professor of the New Testament is aware of these distinctions, but is gently proposing a paradigmatic shift in how we approach the distinction "synoptic." As he says, useful distinctions can reify into substantial barriers to actually discerning the gospel message from the gospel texts.
John: I'm something of a synoptic myself
Mark Goodacre was my Tutor for the Batchelors of Divinity degree in Birmingham University, (England not South US). He memorably started his course on the New Testament by showing the nativity scene as envisiged in the movie "Life of Brian". He was very helpful when I needed to re-take Hebrew because I was having hip surgery. One lovely guy.
@@catholicbeth2371 I'm afraid that you might have mi a understood me? You people don't even know the basics of the gospel of salvation. I know this for a fact.
Oh please. Having done degree courses with Professor Goodacre I can confirm he is extremely knowledgeable about the doctrines of salvation which are accepted by the different churches. He himself is a Protestant, but perhaps by "you people" you are referring to my church, Catholic. Either way you're demonstrating shocking ignorance. I remember C, S, Lewis quoting the saying "Be good fair maid and let those who can be clever," Lewis said it should be changed to "be good fair maid and don't forget being good involves being as clever as you can". Having a simple faith does not involve rejecting the intellect, ask Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Irenaeus or Athenasius.
@catholicbeth2371 like was mentioned, not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, etc. Your of CS Lewis, he's of Profesdor Good all. The carnal wisdom of this world is foolishness. Let no man glory in men. What happened to the wisdom of God? You learned at a University, a College, of men liscenced by a State, which knows nothing about God? You're glorying in dead people, Charles Spurgeon, c.s. Lewis, not in the wisdom of God. Good Night my friend
Try again.... Imagine the pagan gods of Rome, Zeus, Posiden, Aphrodite etc they were not bound by reason, their actions are irrational, not bound by rational or thought.
Our God, the Christian God, is the source of reason. God says "I am the truth". He wants us to use our minds to seek his truth. His creation is rational and predictable. If you plant an acorn you get an Oak growing, not a cherry tree. God has made his creation predicable that way, it makes scientific progress possible. God is not hiding. He has revealed himself in scripture and tradition.
God wants us to use our brains, however good or bad they may be, to seek him. Stop disrespecting professors. God wants us to use whatever intelligence we have in our search for him. If you use a little humility you may learn from them and grow in your walk with God.
Remember Luke chapter 2 when Jesus was lost, Mary and Joseph found him discoursing with the learned doctors in the Temple. He didn't tell them to stop studying.
Try again. God gave us intelligence, to a greater or lesser degree, he wants us to use it. Think of the gods of Rome, Zeus, Posiden, Aphrodite etc. Their legends depict them as unpredictable and irrational. By contrast the Christian God is the actual source of reason itself, the one who says "I am the truth". God is the God who reveals himself. His very creation shows his predictability. If you plant an acorn an oak tree will grow not a cherry tree. That predicability makes scientific knowledge possible.
He reveals himself in scripture and the teachings of the church. Remember in Luke 2 he gets lost and is found debating the learned doctors of the day. He doesn't tell them to stop studying.
Stop disrespecting Doctors and professors, if you develop a little humility you might learn knowledge from them that can help you in your journey to God.
Best guest ever !! Dr. Goodacre is at the top of his field !
Goodacre is one of my favorite, down-to-earth and mostly objective scholars. I used to listen and enjoy his NT podcasts. You can tell he is one of those scholars with little to no clear personal agenda other than to be curious and investigate the texts. Something in me always rejects a scholar with a strong personal agenda 😂 I would love to read his new book
Great dialogue between you two. I like the idea that sharing academic pursuits can improve the understanding of "real people" in areas where they are genuinely curious, just maybe not equipped with the full tool set and resources available to some.
Love this! The response to the tendency for academic gatekeeping is pitch perfect!
I finished doing Mark's course on the Mysteries of the Synoptic gospels and highly recommend it.
I *love* Mark's philosophy of history. Very scientific approach and I think his theories are stronger for it.
I’m a simple man. I see Goodacre, I click.
I hope now that this book is done he will get back to making some more eps of the NT Pod!
Thought-provoking discussion. Thank you.
I would love to hear Goodacre address something like why John’s temple cleansing is set at a different time in Jesus’ ministry than the Synoptics.
I’ve heard an answer that had theological reasons (to establish that Jesus had authority from the beginning of his ministry, even thought the clearing didn’t historically happen at that time), but this is a stark example of a lack of synopsis.
In john, Jesus is arrested for a different reason as well.
@ true!
In John the temple cleansing from the Synoptics was moved to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in order to make room for the new miracle (raising Lazarus) that also provided a brand new reason for why Jesus was arrested and executed.
Prof. Goodacre-does Eerdmans have a publication date for the new book? I'm excited to drop university-press money on it.
Fantastic conversation. Thank you for including the common people in your smart guy talking.
😂😂😂😂
After listening to this video, it feels to me like John was written to be a thumb opposite the fingers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
This is so good
Y'all when UA-cam adjusts titles to fit different screens you get provocative theses like "why John is synoptic with Mark" / Goodacre. Looking forward to the talk
Here is the way I have always described it. Mark is a police report of the incident. Matthew is a newspaper story of the incident which now adds/creates details and analysis. Luke is a proposed treatment of the incident that is used to sell making of a movie about it. John is the actual script of the finished movie. Like Hollywood always says: "Based on a true story".
I like this.
This seems kinda silly at first, because of course gJohn will to some degree be “synoptic” because it would be truly strange if gJohn didn’t have agreements or share stories with the other three gospels, but, at least for me as a layman, there really is a sort of mental barrier between the synoptics and John, something like “these three and then the other one” and that’s also my impression of how it’s often presented, at least in public communication, so I think this is valuable to help us take a step back and rethink our categorizations a bit. I can’t imagine there will be any sort of paradigm shifting coming from this, the synoptics will probably always be their own thing and John will always be the odd man out, but it’s good to not lock ourselves into this too strictly and remember the how’s and whys of our categories and their limitations.
I like daniel b wallace’s evidence for the early timing on the writing of the gospel of john
Anyone know when Goodacre's book on the gospel of John will be coming out?
I do not. Being encouraged to go out and buy it today was jarring. I suppose it'll be fine most of the time the video is on UA-cam
Late Summer, early Fall 2025
When is the book out?!
Goodacre is awesome. Thanks for sharing the video.
Anyone else think that Marks gospel is the 40 days of temptation? The wilderness is earth. The angels are the women. Satan tempts Jesus ultimately leading to his death.
Being tempted in a random desert doesn’t make sense when the big temptations are the ones in the gospel
I've always believed that John presupposed his audience knew the earlier writings and was filling in details and possibly even correcting a few things (so disagreeing synoptic parallels are important if John takes sides). I also believe that John 21 was added by his disciples after he died. This also seemed obvious after reading John; apparently some scholars agree.
I don't need the epilogue to be a "Johannine school" addition, but I share your vibe that John is making sure to fill in the details that his buddies omit. I don't think that's a controversial take, but what do I know?
@@HighKingTurgon I've never looked up the Ch 21 point before today; I mentioned what I had seen to a friend over 40 years ago who replied that his study bible said the same, citing "most scholars", and read it to me. Looks like it is, in fact, a controversial assertion, with support on both sides. This is the first support I've come across for the 'details filled in' belief, and will be happy to discover it's not controversial. (BTW, I don't NEED either 'vibe' (rightly named) to be true, it just struck me as an obvious truth decades ago that was immediately confirmed and therefore not looked into further.) Thanks for the reply.
There's a conversation to be had about where to draw the line on what makes a synoptic and how to determine how similar the texts are. (Please no one try to convince me your line is the correct one. This is for consensus, not random anonymous people to assert they're right)
But the "consensus" has "drawn the line." It's the 3 and then John. As Goodacre acknowledges that is what the majority of scholars believe.
Mark one step closer to becoming a mythicist
John's style of writing is quite different to the others. Long meditations on incidents and speeches. The synoptics narrate short incidents.
So our source is vibes
Goodacre rules.
My initial thought here was, "Oh gosh, Goodacre has jumped the shark!" but 10 minutes in you realize he is just stirring the pot in his same old inimicable style.
5 minutes in, really...
Do you mean "inimical" or "inimitable"? What kind of style do you mean?
@@HighKingTurgon good catch! I did mean inimitable, thanks.
@@richardforster5394 he's new to me, so I certainly would not have recognized imitation! I like his talk here; I'll be interested to see the book
I worry that Goodacre thinks that similarity is evidence of literary dependence, and that difference is not evidence of literary independence. While he agrees that the gospel writers may have had all sorts of written and verbal sources, he does not seem to propose that such sources influenced the texts. Instead, he seems to think that the gospels sprung entirely from literary dependency on each other, and the creativity of the authors. He ends up seeing literary dependence where there is little evidence, such as in John's story of the Samaritan woman. But I could be wrong and will read his book with interest when it comes out. I hope he interacts with Bauckham and others who have argued that the anonymity of disciples in Mark are for their protection, and that John adds the names because they no longer needed protection when he wrote.
From brief googling of his scholarship, this seems to be a misunderstanding of how he presents new testament origins. He seems to support a succession of authorial familiarity without necessary reference to eyewitness testimony, etc. I get the notion that "dependence" is somewhat too strong a word.
A smoking gun that John knows the synoptics is that he calls the Lake of Geneserath the "Sea of Galilee." That is not something anyone called it before the Gospel of Mark. It's not a sea and that is a literary term used by Mark in order to make some Homeric allusions.
John's on a spectrum? I thought that was Matthew.
All the gospel authors were definitely "on the spectrum"
Nah.. I see too many parallels of Asclepius in John.
Why should it be surprising that God who reveals himself fully in the incarnate humanity of Jesus Christ would reveal the goodness of the divine physician in the figure of Asclepius? That the religious experience of communities the world over bears similarity to the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus seems to me rather to undergird Christian claims about the human person and his relationship to God, rather than undermine it.
John is a kind of Hermetica.
...so just because YOU like to be provocative and 2ndl reason 'why not?' 92% OF JOHN contains different material from the 3 Synoptics Mark is according to scholarship was deemed the 1st gospel written.90% WORD FOR WORD Matthew copied Mark 60% WORD FOR WORD Luke copied Mark that's why John is referred to as the 4th gospel ...duh
It seems to me that this particular professor of the New Testament is aware of these distinctions, but is gently proposing a paradigmatic shift in how we approach the distinction "synoptic." As he says, useful distinctions can reify into substantial barriers to actually discerning the gospel message from the gospel texts.
John didn't right John
Then who did? Like asking is John his real name? Is John whose real name?
What do you think of the idea of Lazarus?
@@evanhadkins5532 Lazarus probably wrote Lazarus, not John.
0 people in this conversation think that he did