The gospels have defined proposals, they are not mere literature narrating a historical event about Jesus, they have a purpose, means and end.
Matthew for example, they have long narratives of Jesus; he introduces the law in a proactive way and shows Jesus as a Jew, a follower of such, but being a Lord superior to the law. The genealogy follows the line of Hebrew customs, brings the genealogy of paternal identity, begins with Abraham, the “father” of the Hebrews, who carries into history the historical responsibility of preserving the word of God and ends with Joseph, “husband of Mary, of whom was born JESUS, who is called Christ.” Preserving the throne of King David by following his firstborn.
Matthew takes care to present Jesus as the Messiah promised by the law and prophets without provoking resistance. As the reading progresses, he presents Jesus as King; King of a people who were waiting for Him, but who did not recognize Him.
Frames It is different, he writes to the Romans, it is a pragmatic, quick gospel, it excludes long speeches, it removes a huge amount of miracles, it barely brings up the subject of the law or Jewish culture; it has no genealogy, Jesus presents himself as the one who came to serve, being God, it is the Gospel for the “shock” of life, always working around the thesis: “Jesus, the son of God.” His parables are synthesized, it brings a propositional sequence of the resurrection of Christ that no other brings, trying to show the true side of the story of the tomb of Christ which the Romans tried to discredit.
Lucas He is a scientist, a historian, and even says that he took great care with all the facts, taking care to separate the truth from stories; He has a historical chronology of events like no other, he preserves entire speeches and cuts others, it seems like top quality journalistic material that was concerned with reliable sources.
Its readers and purposes are the Greeks, therefore its genealogy begins with Adam, referring Jesus not as the lineage of a Davidic throne, not to a patriarch of a nation, it shows Jesus as the messiah of humanity, including the Greeks and all their Hellenization, his genealogy is that of Mary.
Now John goes further, John transcends flesh and blood, has no human genealogy whatsoever, he begins by saying that Jesus was the Word who was with God from the beginning, he arrives by taking Jesus out of the history of men and placing him in past and future eternity. Either you believe that He is God or a Palestinian madman; It is a gospel with a strictly spiritual proposal, historical chronology is left aside, inverting almost every sequential process of Jesus' life (except death and resurrection), historical chronology serves no purpose in John. He traces a spiritual genealogy of Christ, and a chronology that immerses Jesus within a universal purpose.
The proof of this (besides the genealogy in God) is that he inverts the episode in the expulsion of the merchants from the temple, in John it is at the beginning, already in chapter two, while the other gospels bring it at the end. And of course, there were certainly no two events like this, if it were at the beginning of Jesus' ministry it certainly would not have lasted three years, because the religious and political denunciation of the time was extremely terrifying for the Sanhedrin.
Chronologically, it is part of an irreversible process, of someone who goes to Jerusalem and dies. And John places the episode right after a wedding, and says that this is how Jesus began his miracles in Cana of Galilee. A wedding to address a new dispensation installed following the expulsion of religion from the temple; John uses hyperbole to show his purpose: “If I wrote down all the miracles that Jesus did, the books of the whole world would not be able to contain them.” And continues: “But these I have written, that ye might believe, and believing, have life in Him.”
With this in mind, we must ask ourselves what our hermeneutics are today? Our greatest ignorance regarding biblical texts is not due to not knowing the Greek-Aramaic of the gospels; but almost always due to not knowing the historical concept or only knowing the literary historical concept. I limit the revelation of the Spirit regarding the Word when I cling to my historical ignorance, I limit the revelation of the Spirit when I cling only to historical knowledge; revelation comes in knowing, discerning and being revealed by the Spirit. I seek historical-literal-geographical-textual knowledge, but I cannot cling only to that. marriage is growing in Grace and knowledge.
Only John could receive the revelation of the Apocalypse.
In the Beginning, He, the logos, and the logos, He, for Elohims, and the logos, He, Elohims.
No date that matters,
Fabiano Moreno.