"T.L.:D.R." DAVE SIM (YAWN) ON JOHN 19!" Part 2

Hi, Everybody!

Anyway, From Dave Sim:

17 Feb 18

Hi Matt!  

Since you were asking about Biblical commentaries, I thought I'd send this to you.  It's part of my RIP KIRBY COMMENTARIES which hit a religious off-ramp requiring a lengthy digression (about a year or so now) into the "Song of Deborah" (Book of Judges) with the November 8, 1950 strip.  Which then dovetailed with John's Gospel, which then dovetailed with my commentaries on Gertrude Stein's THE WORLD IS ROUND and BLOOD ON THE DINING ROOM FLOOR, finally circling back to John 19. So this is, really, the 17-page punch-line.

I can't imagine anyone would be interested, but you did ask about Bible Commentaries. 

You could maybe run it a page a week on sequential Sundays.  "T.L.:D.R."
DAVE SIM (YAWN) ON JOHN 19!"

Grab a Bible and follow along!

13 Feb 18 pg.2

[the "eventual" part being, I infer, the essence of the problem.  "If ever him I am willing to be remaining what toward you?": the Johannine Jesus says to Peter when asked by Peter about John. This was inferred, incorrectly as it turns out, to mean that John would live until Jesus returned. 

So the longer John lived, the last surviving individual who had actually known Jesus, the more imminent the return of Jesus must have seemed  -- and the more problematic Jesus not returning before John died would prove to be. By the end of the first century, decades after his crucifixion, decades after the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans, all of the Synoptic Jesus' predictions of the imminent end times would have been wearing thin, jeopardizing the foundations of Christian faith.]

During what I infer was John's initial habitation at Ephesus, I think that's really all any Christian generally knew about John (or the Johannine Jesus or his teachings for that matter): he was the one who was supposed to live until Jesus returned.

Well before John had been exiled to Patmos, I infer that it had been firmly "established" by the Church  that there was only one Jesus, the Synoptic Jesus. So everyone in any position of influence in the by-then burgeoning post-apostle generation of Christianity would have inferred that it had been the Synoptic Jesus who had said that John wasn't going to die until Jesus returned.

(Why I believe that's all that any Christian knew about John, I'll be getting to in a minute.)

The inescapable and existential double-bind problem that John posed for the Church by his continued existence…

(the longer he lived, the more imminent Jesus' return would have seemed to be and the more linked to John's lifespan Jesus' return became the more of a blow to Christian faith was going to be experienced if John died before Jesus returned)

...was I infer, dramatically worsened when -- instead of quietly dying on a remote island "out of sight, out of mind" -- John experienced the epoch-transforming Revelation.

Next Time: 13 Feb 18 pg.3!