There should be no difficulty with the fact that the gospels each give a slightly different picture from the others, because they each represent only a part of a more extensive series of events. Furthermore, the writer of each one worked from his own particular point of view. Matthew composed his narrative as a Jew for Jews using proof methods familiar to learned Jews. Mark turned primarily to a Gentile-born audience and testified with the help of Jesus' miraculous deeds and ministry that he was the Messiah and the Son of God. Luke, the New Testament's only Gentile reporter, followed in particular Jesus' office as the Saviour of the World, a saviour who gave comfort to the poor and sought out the lost. John presented Jesus to his contemporary Greeks as the logos become flesh, the incarnate word of God; Jesus was for him the "way, the truth and the life", the "light of the world" and God's "only begotten son". The gospels attempt to give an answer to the question, Who was that man who effected a revolution in the hearts and lives of those who believed in him? They saw in him the Messiah promised by the Old Testament, whose atoning death and resurrection concerns Israel and the whole world. For this reason the gospels concentrate on speaking of the person of Jesus, his birth, sufferings, death and resurrection. The reader is then left to decide whether or not this all tallies with the Old Testament prophecies.

In the first part of our roots study, where we dealt with the OT Messianic expectation, we saw that the oldest and least censored Jewish source texts describe the Messiah's esoteric, "suprahistorical" features in a way which is reminiscent of the New Testament message. His "origins are from of old, from ancient times", before even the sun, moon and stars. He was before the creation. The spirit of the Messiah hovered over the waters in the creation account. God first created the "light of the Messiah". The Messiah was in the garden of Eden and there drew up his new Torah and prayed for his suffering people, promising to atone for their sins and to carry their afflictions. He is to be born "of the Holy Spirit", from a "closed womb", and through him God will "swallow up death". He also sits at the right hand of God, acting as Israel's champion and prayer intercessor. But do these enigmatic characteristics correspond to the picture of Jesus given by the New Testament?

The gospels devote a relatively large part of their narrative to the description of the time of Jesus' birth. Only Mark passes over this early stage and begins his account proper with John the Baptist. If, as we assume, he knew the reports of both his spiritual father Matthew and the Luke the physician, then we can understand his silence on the matter of Jesus' birth. He "settles the accounts" regarding this omission with his opening words: "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God." John too, who must have known his colleagues' work, solves independently the problem of Jesus' birth. He devises a petihta or 'overture', typical, again, of the Midrash literature, which contains the whole theme of the gospel in essence, just as a petihta ought to do. He explains how the logos, the 'word', God's mimra, became flesh. Thus life, light, glory, grace and truth are all personified in Jesus, God's "only begotten Son".

Only Matthew and Luke give a more extensive account of the birth of Jesus. Both speak of his miraculous birth by the Holy Spirit and both review his descent from the lineage of David, taking advantage of the genealogies available -- Matthew appealing to that of Joseph, Jesus' father in the eyes of the law, and Luke to that of his mother Mary. Matthew tells us separately of the "Messianic star", of the Wise men from the East and of the bringing of gifts to the baby Jesus, which learned Jews in particular may have considered of some importance. Luke interviewed Mary, collecting with care close-up portraits of the main events of Jesus' birth and childhood. There is no need to "harmonise" or "de-harmonise" the gospels. It ought, however, to be understood that they each have their own points of view and, no less, that they observe the procedures customary in the keeping of historical records.

JESUS, THE BEGINNING OF CREATION, AS EXPOUNDED BY JOHN.

John's gospel differs from the other three in its very structure. Matthew, Mark and Luke concentrate mainly on creating a kind of mosaic of the last year of Jesus ministry, whereas John paints with large brush strokes the whole landscape of Jesus' activity. The events described in the first five chapters of his gospel are totally lacking from the others, the same applying to a large part of the later narrative. He presents everything with the vividness of an eye-witness, relating no event in which he did not himself participate. In addition, he gives more geographical details, perhaps necessary for readers living outside the Holy Land, and an account of Jewish customs and laws, which the stranger would not otherwise understand.¹ The language of John is comparatively good Greek, even if the syntax is somewhat Semitic, hinting at a possible Aramaic original.

All of this supports an early date for the gospel. Nevertheless, right in the prologue John brings out features in which the influence of later gnostic philosophy has been suspected for a long time. In the scholarly world these misgivings hold such a sway that, for example, the Finnish professor Rafael Gyllenberg goes as far in his "Introduction to the New Testament" as to place the gospel of John after the spurious 'Apocryphal' gospels, and in his "Exposition and teaching of the Bible" he positions it after Paul's epistles and the letter to the Hebrews. John, in his opinion, is an "early Christian enigma".

At the beginning of 1964 I discussed John's gospel with the Jewish thinker Martin Buber. He said that he did not hear in it "the same voice as in the other gospels". I then referred to some aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls which testify to John's "Jewish" background. "That is certainly true," he conceded, "but you must understand that my only criterion is my ear". Today attitudes towards the genuineness and possible early date of the gospel of John are on the whole much more positive -- the critic is no longer left at the mercy of nothing more than his "ear".

The Prologue to the gospel balances the Epilogue, in chapters 20 and 21, where we read that his words "were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name," and that if everything had been written down, "I suppose that not even the whole world would have room for the books that would be written".

The Prologue presents Jesus as the logos, the creative Word of God who is the basis of all existence, the Christus Veritas become man, the true Christ. The word logos, it is true, appears ONLY in this introductory section. In his office as Bishop of Ephesus John, it would appear, strove to get alongside his contemporary Greek thinkers, to whom this philosophical gnosis, or 'knowledge' of the Divine, was the most important question which could be asked. John wished to demonstrate that "the life, death and resurrection of Christ", events which took place in history, "are the self-revelation of the eternal God, in which we encounter the eternal reality in temporal events".²

The "birth narrative" of John's gospel depicts Jesus as the beginning of creation in a way already familiar to us from the Dead Sea Scrolls. These literary findings, discoverd in the caves of Qumran from 1947 onwards, contain the scripture exposition practised ca. 100 BC by the Essenes, a sect composed, for the most part, of former Temple priests. In 1959-60 I had the opportunity to study the scrolls carefully in professor David Flusser's seminars. The whole of John's gospel and some of Paul's letters thus receive a new series of parallels. The first three verses of John's gospel read as follows:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."

1QS XI:10, the 'Manual of Discipline' scroll, Megilath ha- Serachim, tells us that, "For judgement is God's and from his hand is the way of blamelessness. From his design everything received its origin, and from his design everything that exists was prepared; without him was nothing made".
1 QS III:15-16 says: "All that is and ever was comes from the God of knowledge. Before things came into existence He determined the plan of them; and when they fill their appointed r"les, it is in accordance with his glorious design that they discharge their functions. Nothing can be changed."
1 QS III:20 continues: "All who practise righteousness are under the domination of the Prince of Lights, and walk in ways of light; whereas all who practise perversity are under the domination of the Angel of Darkness and walk in ways of darkness.
The "Book of Hymns", Hôdayôth 1 QH I:19 says in its beautiful, thought-provoking opening chapter: "Thou hast created this, and in the wisdom of thy design thou preparedst its laws before they were. By thy mouth and by thy word it has all come into being; without thee there is nothing which has been made.

Knowing as we do that John ministered in Ephesus it is amazing to read Paul appealing to the same theme of creation in Christ when he mentions in his letter to the Ephesians that "he chose us in him before the creation of the world . . . to the praise of his glorious grace," and that Christ is "far above all rule and authority, power and dominion", and that "God placed all things under his feet". The letter to the Colossians, often considered a twin to Ephesians, complements the Johannine notion even more clearly, in 1:16-17 "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible . . .; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." We might mention here that the same formula is found in the words of 1 Cor. 8:6 about the Father, "from whom all things came and for whom we live," and about the Lord Jesus, "through whom all things came and through whom we live". Similarly, Revelation 4:11 ascribes to the Lord "glory and honour and power; for you have created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

The letter to the Hebrews begins with a prologue reminiscent of the Johannine style. To facilitate comparison I will take a passage from the second and third verses:

"But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being [the imago Dei, or in Hebrew, Tselem Elohim], sustaining all things by his powerful word."

The most natural point of departure is however offered by the mimra concept, beloved of the Aramaic Old Testament expository translations. Although it is repeated 596 times in these Targums, it does not appear once in the Talmud. The word Mimra is an exact counterpart of the word Logos. When Christian Logos interpretation began to spread, the Rabbis avoided using the word Mimra and censored it from their own writings. The Mimra or creative word of God was before the creation. Deut. 33:27 says, for example, that, "The everlasting God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms". Targum Onqelos, the only Targum officially recognised by the Synagogue, says of this that, "these 'everlasting arms' are the Mimra, through whom the world was created". Man too was created by the Mimra. In the OT part of our roots study, in which a thorough account was given of the Rabbinic discussions related to the Mimra, Metatron and the Angel of the Lord, we saw how these concepts are often identified with the Messiah. To the Jewish philosopher Philo the Logos signified "God's representative, his emissary and angel, who acts as High Priest and prays before God for Israel and the world."³

Frequently this Mimra is also identified with God. In the Targums Jacob promises that the Mimra will be God for him if he is protected on his way; Abraham is justified through the Mimra; Moses prays to the Mimra, the seed of Israel is justified through the Mimra, Mimra is to deliver it, and as we saw, the world was also created through the Mimra's instrumentality -- it would appear that the whole Logos theology is related to this ancient Jewish interpretation. John does, then, exemplify Jewish rather than Hellenistic thought.

The Jews of Jesus' time held the book of Enoch, dating from the first century BC, in high esteem. We find in it that, "The Messiah, Son of God, was chosen and hidden with God before the creation of the world (48:6). "Before the sun and the zodiac, the heavens and the stars were created, the name of the Messiah was decreed by the Lord of the spiritual powers" (48:3). Rabbinic exposition of the pre-existence of the Messiah and his pre-creation origins in the discussions around Micah 5:1 and Psalm 72:17 is founded partly on the book of Enoch.

History does not, then, begin with the creation account. Genesis 1:1 uses the word reshîth for 'beginning'. The Logos, the creative word of God, the Mimra, was in existence even before that. Christ, according to John, is the "beginning of the beginning". "Through him all things were made." The word reshîth comes from rôsh, 'head'. The Colossian letter makes a pun on these words, saying in 1:18 that Christ is the "head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead . . ." "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (1:15).

The petihta character of John's gospel is further accentuated by the way the prologue or 'overture' lists the elements which will appear again and again throughout the whole gospel. Its 18 opening verses mention over and over Jesus as being God's only Son, as the Life, the True Light, as Glory, Grace and Truth. The precise meaning of the Greek word monogenes is 'only born' or 'unique'. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed interprets this to mean that Jesus was "begotten of the Father before the ages" and that he "assumed manhood through the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary".

We have dwellt quite intentionally on the problem of the pre-existence of Jesus. No other Jew has dared to declaim as did the thirty year old carpenter from Nazareth that, "before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8:58). In his high-priestly prayer in John 17 he asked, "Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began" (v5), and "you loved me before the creation of the world" (v24). The phrase the Son of Man, used by Jesus 84 times in the gospels, tells us, in the words of Daniel 7:14, that "his dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away". It also serves to remind us of the condescension involved in his incarnation.

The word 'Lord' is applied 58 times to Jesus in the gospels, the word 'Christ' 55 times, 'Son' 32, 'king' 25, 'Son of God' 19 and 'Son of David' 9 times. Luke's favourite appellation 'Master', epistates in Greek, comes from the word ephistamai, 'to stand along side'. This word, found six times in Luke, suggests the teacher's rôle as standing beside the pupil to support him.⁴ This abundance of nomenclature in itself speaks of his majesty.

It would also be worth looking at John's petihta message in the way that the Jew often experiences it. The fact that Jesus referred to himself as "the Life" was particularly bold. John repeats this phrase 40 times. Acts too refers to Jesus as the " Prince of Life" (3:15). John points out that: in Jesus there is "life" (1:4, 3:15 and 36, 5:24, 10:10 etc.); He is the "Bread of life" (6:35 and 48); He is the "Resurrection and the Life" (11:25), and "the Way, the Truth and the Life"(14:6). In this latter phrase the former Chief Rabbi of Stockholm, Gottlieb Klein, felt there was some cryptic reference. He wrote that in Jesus' time there was much preoccupation with Gematria, in which the numeric values of the letters of words were calculated and certain conclusions drawn. This was derived from a statement in the "Wisdom of Solomon", a work which would seem to originate in Egypt in the 2nd century BC. The verse (11:20) reads, "Thou hast arranged everything according to measure, number and weight".

Klein says that:

"The word 'love' in Hebrew is ahavah, the numeric value of the letters being 1,5,2,5, giving a total of 13. The word 'one', ehad, (1,8,4) has the same value, and so it was held that ahavah, 'love' implies 'the One', that is, God. The initial letters of the words emet, 'truth', hayyim, 'life' and derekh, 'way' also form the word ehad, 'one'. Jesus thus points out the union between himself and the Father."⁵

The words 'True Light' and 'Glory' also carry a Messianic motif. The Jewish literature connects the idea of Light with the Messiah in its discussions of Gen 1:3, Ps 36:10, Is 49:6 and 60:1 and Dan 2:22 among others, as we have already seen in our first volume, "The Messiah in the Old Testament". It is furthermore one of the NT's most common themes, found in John's gospel alone over 20 times, and in his letters, where he speaks of 'walking' and 'remaining' in the light. We also find Gematria associated with this: the numeric value of ôr, 'light' is 1+6+200 = 207; the same sum is arrived at with the divine epithets râz (200+7), 'secret' and zêr (7+200), 'crown'; in addition to these the words ên sôph, 'endless'(1+10+50 and 60+6+80=207) and the phrase adôn ha-Olam 'the King of the Universe' (1+4+6+50 and 70+6+30+40=207) which is repeated throughout the Sidûr prayerbook, add up to the same total. By this interpretation, Christ is the Mystery of the Godhead, the Crown of creation, the Lord of the Universe, without end, the True Light.⁶ For the average reader, however, the knowledge that the Old Testament speaks in unambiguous language of Christ as the "Light of the Gentiles" would no doubt be quite sufficient.

John presents Christ as the True Light who has come in to the world, and Jesus himself proclaimed, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (8:12), and, "You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light . . . Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you might become the sons of light" (12:35-36). He could hardly have expressed himself in more simple terms.

"Truth" and "Grace" are repeated in both the petihta and in the whole of John's gospel. The concept of 'truth' appears about 25 times in John, and in the introduction the two words are twice found together, when we read that Jesus was "full of grace and truth" and that "grace and truth" came through him. Later on we read that his disciples are to pray to the Father "in spirit and in truth". They will know the "truth" and the "truth" will set them free. He prayed: "Father, sanctify them in truth; your word is truth". Again, before Pilate, Jesus said that he testified "to the truth", and that "everyone on the side of truth listens to me". The whole New Testament is in agreement with this, Paul, for example, repeating it about 50 times.

The parallel "grace and truth" is found in Exodus 34:6, the hymn to the compassionate nature of God, which is then repeated many times in both the prophetic literature and the psalter:

"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness . . . "

Characteristic of the Dead Sea Scrolls too is their combination of the two concepts "mercy⁷ and truth". In the Manual of Discipline we read that the community must be

"founded at once upon true values and upon a becoming sense of humility, upon mercy and mutual fairness". . ."when anyone has a charge against his neighbour, he is to prosecute it truthfully, humbly, showing mercy towards him".⁸

Bishop William Temple said that in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, in the historical event of his life, we can see "the self-revelation of God, in which we encounter eternal reality in a temporal event".
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1.   John 7:19, 7:23, 7:49, 8:17, 9:22, 16:2, 19:7 etc.
2.    William Temple, Readings in St John's Gospel, Intro. p23.
3.    Gottlieb Klein, Bidrag till Israels Religionshistoria, 1898, p88.
4.    Luke 5:5, 8:24, 8:45, 9:33, 9:49 and 17:13.
5.    Klein, Op. Cit., p55.
6.    Klein, Op. Cit., p11.
7.    The Hebrew word hesed means both 'grace'  and  'mercy'.
8.    Megillath ha-Serachim II, 24 and V,25.