One of Jesus greatest miracles, the raising of Lazarus from the dead seems missing from the other 3 Gospels. How could this be? By the way, in Hebrew his name is Eleazar.

John 11:1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany

John 12:1Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

Luke mentions a Lazarus who is not the Lazarus of John Luke 16:20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores

In my opinion, Lazarus may be this man: Luke 7:11Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out--the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." 14Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" 15The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. 16They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." 17This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea[1] and the surrounding country

These quotes are from the NIV.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonzalez@srla.org), June 04, 2003

Answers

Do you agree with my match or do you have another suggestion?

Can you think of other similar examples of miracles in John which don't seem to be in hte other 3 Gospels?

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonzalez@srla.org), June 04, 2003.

not a good match. two reasons, lazarus was an old man, and he was already entombed for several days before Jesus got to him. the young man you refer to was not even burried.

-- paul (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), June 05, 2003.

Be carefull when you go and try to match things in one gosple with things in another. The four gosples are very different some times. There are a few similarities but most of the time they are different. But don't be despair because of this. Remember that the gosples had 4 different writers that looked at what was going on in four different ways. Because one something is in one gosple and not in another does not mean that it did not happen.

-- Scott (papasquat10@hotmail.com), June 05, 2003.

Which Lazarus are you talking about, paul? is he the one in John or the one in Luke? The one in Luke was probabbly closer to Mary's age, his sister.There is no mentionof wife or children for him.

Sometimes is necessary scott to find matches to see how they are treated in each Gospel. For example, Luke omits that the woman witha blood flow had spent her money on doctors without a cure. This shows that Luke was probabbly a physician because he didn't want to say something bad about his profesion.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonzalez@srla.org), June 05, 2003.

elp,

okay, the Bible doesnt note the age, but you still run into the fact that one was a boy being carried to his grave and the other was a man burried for four days.

also, luke may be considered the physician, but he did not write the gospel of luke. that wasnt even written until after his death. all four of the gospels are written under psuedonyms. how do we know this? only two of the gospels bear the names of disciples, the other two are apostles of the later church who never met Christ.

there is other evidence along this lines too, but i dont have my theology text with me so i dont remember it.

-- paul (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), June 07, 2003.

There is the Papias tradition that Matthew was composed first. Yet,paul, when I was 20 I put the four gospels in parallel format in Koine Greek. I made copies and pasted them alongside.I was able to see the changes in verbs, words, ...

I saw that Mark had to be the father of both matthew and Luke since Mark was copied almost word by word by Matthew, and Luke either copied directly or praphrased sometimes some passages from Mark. Then there is the section which parallels both Matthew and Luke called Q .

I have tried to reconcile this primitive form of the miracles of Jesus found in tday's gospel of John with those of the synoptics.

Not an easy task.

Q parallels also the "Gospel of Thomas" which is not in the canon.

In the case of John, I noticed that there is a primitive Gospel there ( which I would call the Gospel of Phillip, since samaritans are mentioned in this Gopspel, Phillip is one of the main characters there, and Phiilip was the first to convert the samaritans). John also adds or combines elements from the First letter of John.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonzalez@srla.org), June 07, 2003.

yes, ive read about the philip john connection in the gospels before.

-- paul (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), June 08, 2003.

"also, luke may be considered the physician, but he did not write the gospel of luke. that wasnt even written until after his death. all four of the gospels are written under psuedonyms."

Oh, come on, "little paul." I would never have thought that you would be the type who would believe in this kind of "revisionist history." It's a lot of stuff that no one ever said or thought before the 20th century (except perhaps a few faith-losing, "demythologizing" Protestants in the 19th century). Really, orthodox Catholicism is now turning its back on these speculations and theories -- "theories," because they have no evidence.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 09, 2003.

Speculation died in 325 AD, John G. It didn't return until Copernicus, martin Luther, and Galileos's ideas shaped the 16 and 17 centuries. This was followed by Darwin. It wasn't until the 20th century that most people were free to speculate, John.

You still think that Matthew, which is a well organized Gospel into many topics and subtopics which show Jesus as the new Moses in his new mountain comes before Mark, how absurd!

Maybe you only had perfect papers in school, John G! You never made a rough draft, never made any changes to what you wrote. Man, you are a super genius. For you the chicken came first out of nothing.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonzalez@srla.org), June 09, 2003.

Jmj

Elpidio, you are just a simple person like everyone else here. You are no scholar who can inform us. Instead you need to learn.

You are simply a schoolteacher of math, but you have become a self-worshipper. You deserted Catholicism and then apostatized from Christianity.

You come here and waste a lot of people's time with various wild theories, figments of your fertile imagination, fueled by your superficially trained intellect.

Elpidio, I have reached the point of skipping over your rubbish, because I know now that there is nothing of value to be found there.

It's time for you to go into lurking mode for a few years, so that you can learn the fullness of the truth and become a "revert" to the true faith, Catholicism, which God wants you to accept again. What a gift he gave you, but you spat on it and walked away. Now you try to pervert us Catholics, planting seeds of doubt with your goofy heresies. Repent, little boy, before it is too late.

John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 09, 2003.

Jmj

Elpidio, you are just a simple person like everyone else here. You are not a true scholar who can inform us. Instead you need to learn.

You are simply a schoolteacher of math, but you have become a self-worshipper. You deserted Catholicism and then apostatized from Christianity.

You come here and waste a lot of people's time with various wild theories, figments of your fertile imagination, fueled by your superficially trained intellect.

Elpidio, I have reached the point of skipping over your rubbish, because I know now that there is nothing of value to be found there.

It's time for you to go into lurking mode for a few years, so that you can learn the fullness of the truth and become a "revert" to the true faith, Catholicism, which God wants you to accept again. What a gift he gave you, but you spat on it and walked away. Now you try to pervert us Catholics, planting seeds of doubt with your goofy heresies. Repent, little boy, before it is too late.

John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 09, 2003.

My family ( my grandma, father, granfather, used to say: la verdad no peca pero incomoda.)

The truth makes you unconfortable, John G.

Your answer is coming soon.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonzalez@srla.org), June 09, 2003.

Jmj

Really, Elpidio, if you continue with this garbage, I'll be asking the Moderator to ban you. You have because both a nuisance and a spiritual danger to Catholics, and you have reached the point of breaking the forum's rules (which should result in a banning).

You wrote:
"My family ( my grandma, father, granfather, used to say: la verdad no peca pero incomoda.) The truth makes you unconfortable, John G."

Obviously false. The Catholic Church is the only institution on Earth that has the fullness of the truth. Whenever you contradict her, you bring falseness, not truth, into the picture. Nothing you ever say makes me "uncomfortable." It only makes me sad for the sake of your soul -- and angry that you would dare to try to pervert us constantly, for months and months (which is why you should be banned).

Your last words: "Your answer is coming soon."
If you mean that you intend to reply more fully on this thread ... don't bother. Your "answer" means nothing to me. I just got through saying (above) that you need "to go into lurking mode for a few years." Therefore an answer is uncalled for.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 11, 2003.

It's a lot of stuff that no one ever said or thought before the 20th century (except perhaps a few faith-losing, "demythologizing" Protestants in the 19th century). Really, orthodox Catholicism is now turning its back on these speculations and theories -- "theories," because they have no evidence.

quite untrue John, i learned all about this in my theology class at a conservative catholic college taken from a catholic nun. the fact of the matter is that even if the four gospels werent written under psuedonym, then certain portions of the gospels were copied word for word from other scripts. thats not even mentioning that then two of the gospels would have been written by two people who had never met Christ.

-- paul (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), June 11, 2003.

Jmj

Well, you can disbelieve me if you wish, "little paul," but I am not mistaken. I didn't flat-out state that every single thing you have stated is certainly wrong. Rather, I was trying to emphasize that some of it is speculation (educated or uneducated guessing) for which there is not solid, documentary evidence. I hope that you will come across things, in your future reading, that will confirm what I have said.

P: "i learned all about this in my theology class at a conservative catholic college taken from a catholic nun."
J: I believe you, but mere opinions and hunches and even errors and are shared [sometimes taught as if they were facts] everywhere -- even (though more rarely) at good Catholic colleges. A big problem is that, when folks hear/see the same opinions over and over and over again, they can be fooled into believing that they are facts.

P: "the fact of the matter is that ... certain portions of the gospels were copied word for word from other scripts."
J: Notice that you specifically stated, "the FACT of the matter." But there is no hard evidence for this. It is not a matter of "fact." It is only the strong opinion of some scholars (who may be mistaken, though we will never know for sure unless we get to heaven).

P: "two of the gospels would have been written by two people who had never met Christ."
J: Again, there is no proof of this, but only opinion. My own opinion is that two Gospels were written by apostles (Matthew and John) ... one was written by an Antiochene (Syrian) disciple who had not met Jesus (Luke) ... and one was written by a disciple who probably did meet Jesus (Mark). [This last is based on the belief (of some) that Mark and his mother were known to St. Peter in Jerusalem ... and on the belief (of many) that Mark was the young man who fled naked from the Garden of Gethsemane, something found only in his Gospel.]

Paul, when I objected as I did last time, I was trying to say that the following also should not be stated "matter-of-factly," but only as opinions:
----- "all four of the gospels are written under pseudonyms"
----- "luke may be considered the physician, but he did not write the gospel of luke. that wasnt even written until after his death."

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 11, 2003.