The Bible and Western Culture - Part 1 - John: The Unbroken Net of Scripture

[Music] the gospel of john is a singular gospel it is separate separate from the synoptic gospels the content of the story and the kind of jesus story that is narrated in the gospel of john is very different from the sort of presentation of jesus that we get in the synoptics the gospel of john is generally thought of as the most spiritual of the gospels the most abstract in some respects the most difficult to interpret it's thought to have been written around the year 90 probably after the synoptics have reached their first formulation and traditionally it was written by the disciple john in ephesus but of course it turns out that we don't know very clearly who the author is or what the provenance is it turns out though that the gospel of john was among the most influential of the early christian writings many of the creeds of christianity which were later developed are a product of gleaning from the gospel of john john is the abstract gospel john is the gospel which shows us what i would describe as the mystical aspect of jesus which separates it in tone and also separates us in character from the synoptics as a whole now john also influenced the development of gnostic christianity which is one of the great sort of religious dead ends in the western tradition the orthodox interpretation of christianity that emerged in subsequent centuries was met with resistance and there was a gnostic tradition a tradition of esoteric knowledge within the christian tradition which derived many of its sources many of its ideas from the gospel of john because of the abstract and symbolic and difficult nature of the text so although john himself or at least the author who wrote john also wrote the epistle of john and the epistle of john is a sort of reaction to the emergence of gnosticism which his gospel actually helped generate but beyond that the gospel of john is intended as a sort of synopsis or summation or finishing off of the gospel stories and it is self-consciously trying to construct a sort of a of a fugue a spiritual unification of the great themes that are presented to us in the synoptic gospels now the sources of the gospel of john are larger and more extensive than those for the synoptics simply because of the question of time certainly john had access to the q document certainly had access to an oral tradition and he is able to glean important ideas from the synoptics themselves but in addition to that he has access to a to a source of information about jesus that the synoptics did not have which is one of the reasons why the gospel of john is unique in the same way that the synoptics are thought to be the product of the q document a hypothetical document reconstructed by scholars on the basis of certain similarities in the text scholars currently hold the view that the gospel of john has access to something called the signs gospel which is like q a hypothetical document but which is not merely a fantasy on the part of scholars it is a document for which we have a fair amount of indirect information now the science gospel would be a hypothetical record of jesus's doings particularly his miracles it will not be like q or the gospel of thomas a saying's gospel rather than saying that jesus said this and jesus said that and jesus said the other which is what we believe q was like what the science gospel would be is a series of jerry's uses as miracles so he heals the uh the lame man he gives eyesight to the blind and he feeds the five thousand and he walks on water and he calms the sea the idea being that the science gospel just shows the miraculous events in jesus life it tries to emphasize the divinity of jesus the humanity of jesus's deed is played down in the gospel of john it's the divinity the mystical aspect of this gospel that has always been most intriguing it is generally thought of as the most difficult to interpret it is because of this abstract quality that it is quite difficult to get a handle on now what mar what john is trying to do is bring together the gospels and create something like a spiritual fugue of gospel themes weave them all together so that they form a hole that is bigger than the sum of their component parts and john does this in spades he does this perhaps more successfully than any of the other gospels from mark i would say john borrows the idea of eschatology because mark is the eschatological gospel but what's different in when we make the transition from mark to john it's not just 20 years of historical time the eschatology and mark is imminent the end of the world is at hand the kingdom of god is at hand we expect it to happen any day what john does is move the eschatology from imminent to continuous it turns out that we are going to twist and alter the idea of eschatology and reformulate our understanding of the end of the world the end of the world may be something very different from what we thought the end of the world would be we may not have realized when we're reading the synoptics how rich and deep and full of suggestive pregnant connotations this end of the world concept is so i'll come back to that in a little bit but what i would emphasize is that it shares with john shares with mark this emphasis on eschatology what it differ the way it differs from mark is that the eschatology is rendered personal rather than historical it may be treated as an individual as well as a collective matter this is one of the great spiritual breakthroughs of the gospel of john now in addition to the borrowing eschatology from mark from matthew john pulls the idea that there is a direct continuity between jesus and the traditions of jewish religion particularly he emphasizes the epiphany that moses has on mount sinai remember when yahweh reveals himself to moses and he says i am who am or i am that i am the simple awesome dreadful presence of yahweh is summed up in i am you can't attach any predicate to yahweh all we can say about yahweh is i am well it turns out the gospel of john is shot through with i am statements jesus is always saying i am the truth and the way the truth and the life i am the light of the world i am i am i am hearkens back to that dreadful i am that moses encounters on sinai so the idea that jesus is the new moses and that the gospel message is continuous an extension of the jewish tradition which we get in matthew is reconfirmed in john spiritualized and made more abstract so there's considerable borrowing from both mark and matthew and it's these i am statements that market that mark jesus as being continuous with both moses because he god reveals himself to moses through the vehicle of this i am utterance but also he's the other half of the epiphany as well he is also yahweh in other words moses hears from yahweh i am jesus utters the statement i am so not only is he like matthew the new mosaic lawgiver he is also like the other half of the epiphany that moses had he is also the yahweh half both god and man simultaneously there is some very delicate balancing of symbolism here which we will repay you your very close reading it's hard to get it first but the the balance between both halves of the epiphany between the god and the man is very prominent in this gospel so what we see then in this pulling together is a sort of borrowing without diminishing and he wants to have his cake and eat it too he wants all the tensions in the in the early gospels to be resolved in this one final perfect revelation now in addition to the idea of continuity with judaism that we get in matthew or eschatology that we get in mark what john borrows from luke is the universality of the covenant and the universality of the covenant and the idea that we are moving from the old chosen people to a new chosen people which is the entirety of the world potentially which is the whole set of christian believers is a recapitulation of that universality that we see in luke the triumph of the spirit the logos because jesus is described here as the word the logos the eternal word the triumph of the spirit or logos is what makes jesus the light of the world the world cannot withstand the light of god of jesus's moral teaching and the universality of it is affirmed at the same time the continuity with judaism is a firm that we get in mark or in matthew so we are getting actually quite a remarkable symbolic tour de force here which self-consciously borrows from the gospel traditions and turns them into something more than they had been prior now in addition to looking at borrowings that we get from the synoptic gospels it's also worth thinking about some of the symbolism in mark or in john john's symbolism is generally acknowledged to be the deepest the most difficult most recondite of gospel symbolism and it's the abstract nature of the words that are used for example john describes jesus as the logos which means word or speech or reason it has a number of translations from greek to english the idea though is that the word is sacred do you remember professor ford's argument about the sacredness of names and the magic powers of names in the traditions from of the hebrew bible well the same kind of conception of the power of words invests the idea of jesus's logos with the sort of abstract but cosmic significance he is the universal word the universal utterance perhaps we would want to connect the idea of jesus as the divine word with the polyglossia that the apostles get or that the disciples get during the pentecost the divine word the universality of communication the undoing of all barriers between people all of those are gestured at in describing jesus as the divine word and it's unique to john to describe jesus as the logos the synoptics don't get to that level of symbolic depth now there are great many other references which jesus makes to himself all these i am statements i am the way i am the truth i am the life all of which connect back to the sort of stories that are told because john is very careful about the kind of of message or representation that he makes of jesus unlike the synoptics the gospel of john has virtually no parables in it there are miracles and there are signs probably derived from the science gospel but parables in the usual sense of teaching stories or an earthly story with a heavenly message we don't see that especially emphasized in john it is very very little of it his intentions are greatly different we have all the jesus parables or all the really important ones already in the synoptics he's looking for something bigger he has a greater set of symbolic concerns now something that is worth your consideration and should be noted in in your reading of the gospel of john but actually also in your reading of scripture as a whole is the importance of numerical symbols numbers are magic not just words in other words while there is a certain degree of word magic and sacred words in the tradition of biblical religion that goes back to genesis number magic is at least as important in the traditions of biblical religion and so whenever you see a quantity specified for anything in your reading of scripture stop and underline it it means something you are being told some special esoteric message when we get to any sort of quantity remember that in the ancient world all of knowledge is one kind of messy bunch of ideas astronomy and astrology are still still the same discipline back when this book is being written and mathematics and magic are still the same discipline so it should come as no surprise then that the numbers that get introduced in the gospels and also in the hebrew bible have symbolic significance far beyond what you might have expected for example the book of isaiah has 66 chapters well six is a very negative unworthy number in the gospels and two is the number that symbolizes society two sixes society is in a very evil state as a matter of fact all of the numbers have or virtually all of the commonly used numbers in the bible have such symbolic significance have you noticed that the bible seems to gravitate towards threes and sevens and twelves and forties it's not just that the world parses itself like that i'm sure that 13 things occasionally occurred in biblical times that we occasionally saw 39 instead of 40 but 40 is a symbolic number 12 is a symbolic number seven is symbolic and for that reason we are not being given a naturalistic rendering of the jesus story we are being given a network of symbols it's not until you recognize that the appearance and reality are quite different and the depth goes much further than you might expect that you really begin to appreciate the gospels in particular the gospel of john let me briefly state what some of the correspondences are between the numbers it may help inform your reading particularly the gospel of john but of scripture as a whole the number one god yahweh is the unique monotheistic entity one is always associated with god two on the other hand is always associated with society if you go back say to the book of deuteronomy you will find that the number of witnesses necessary to prove a charge against a malefactor is two one witness will not be enough two is always the number of society think of adam and eve in the garden of eden two is connected with the human social world three on the other hand is a heavenly number a divine number it's the trinitarian number had you noticed that there's a lot of triads a lot of three of things that cruises right through particularly the gospel of john but all the gospels this is not accidental anytime you see three of something heavenly references are being made it is always celestial now four is the number of the earth four is car is consistent with the four points of the compass the four directions it is consistent with this worldly things it is symbolic of this world of space and time whenever you have four of something you have the human world when you have three of something you have the celestial domain the jump from three to four is not merely the addition of an integer it is a symbolic transformation whenever you see such a transformation stop and reread the passage it will be a very great help to you the number five is the number of man two arms two legs and a head whenever you see five of anything imperfection and humanity is always being suggested the number six is evil it is incompleteness it is moral corruption whenever you see six something bad is going to happen in the bible when you see three sixes the intensification of 666 as it's referred to in the book of the apocalypse the number symbol symbolism is very deep we have an extreme celestial example of evil in other words what we have is the number of the beast the number of the antichrist it's not that john pulled the number 666 out of his head it means something well seven is the number of perfection had you noticed that seven is the edition of three and four it's the addition of heaven and earth well it turns out then that perfection is seven that's why we get seven of things in many cases whenever you see an example of seven of something happening in the gospels some union of heaven and earth is occurring at the symbolic level do not overlook that it makes all the difference 12 is the number of harmony 12 tribes of israel 12 apostles 12 is a very complete number when judas is commits suicide and the the number of jesus followers is reduced to 11. they have to get another one why because 11 is not an auspicious number 12 is the number of complete is the number of harmony and that's what we will need in order to complete the group of jesus followers and 40 is the number of completion finishing think of 40 years in the desert in the book of exodus think of jesus wandering 40 days in the desert as he purifies himself prior to being tempted by satan 40 is not just one more than 39 40 is the number of the completed task and that makes all the difference if you ever see 40 of anything in the bible something is being completed do not think it is one more than 39 or 1 less than 30 than 41. mathematics was not could be done like that then but it had a much greater meaning the symbolism is where it's really at in biblical numerology now let me give you some examples well i already talked about the 12 apostles representing the 12 tribes of israel right we get that harmonious connection of the plurality how about the idea of feeding the 5 000 with five loaves and two fishes five loaves a very human number two fishes the number of society jesus is feeding all of human society had it been four loaves and three fishes it would mean something entirely different right i would emphasize and i cannot emphasize too strongly that you cannot read scripture too carefully it is all music and no noise if you thought the number of fishes and the number of lows was a throwaway line nay you are not reading deeply enough all of these things have symbolic consequences within the gospel of john there's a very there are a number of very fine examples of numerology one of the most interesting is the miracle of lazarus lazarus is raised from the dead how many days is lazarus in the tomb well they really don't need to tell you because the whole point of it is that you're going to get eternal life if you are faithful and you believe in jesus but since they do want to give you the numerical number or the numerical symbol they say lazarus was in the tomb for four days four is a very earthly number it must have been a very earthly death and when lazarus is resurrected he's not given eternal life he's just given more of the same old human life why because he was in the tomb four days jesus on the other hand is not in the tomb four days he's in the tomb three days and when he is resurrected then we have the number of heaven and the number of heaven means that this life will be qualitatively different from the renewal of life that lazarus got if you thought that the number of the days was just insignificant there was merely a detail no there's no such thing as a mere detail in the bible the bible is all music no noise if you are running through passages that don't seem to mean anything go back and read them again you will find that you are overlooking things that you would prefer to be able to glean out and you will be able to clean them out if you work on the symbolic rather than the literal level the most rewarding and useful way is to move from the surface to the depth from the externalities to the internal facts of the gospel and there you'll find an almost infinite amount of richness if you know what alcibiades says about socrates at the end of the symposium where he says when you remove the image of the seder we we find inside of little images of the gods perfect golden images well what we find when we remove the skin of appearance from the gospel messages what we see are aspects of the divine which are hidden and yet meant for our discovery so there is no book that will repay a careful reading the way a reading of the bible will do not overlook anything there is nothing there which should be overlooked now the final and big example of numerology the most important and intractable example of numerology in the entire biblical tradition as far as i'm concerned is chapter 21 of the book of john lowering of the net bringing up of 153 fishes so far as i can tell there are no other references to the number 153 in the bible i looked it is the kind of thing that definitely means something it's something deep and profound but it is a very difficult question to tease out i will try towards the end of my lecture to take a stab at undoing the the chords of symbolism which bind us and prevent us from getting access to this message but that final chapter chapter 21 of the book of john is arguably the most difficult chapter in all of the new testament it is gnostic it is full of deep and esoteric symbolism and it is obviously a later edition it's the second conclusion to the gospel of john as if it needed more than one well there's a great deal of number magic going on there and you should read the final chapter the concluding chapter in john read it 10 times before you develop any opinions about it it is very very difficult it will repay your careful concern now let's take numerology even further not only do we have numbers explicitly mentioned which have symbolic reference in the gospel of john but the number of times things happen make a big difference in the gospel of john in the first case we see that there are signs because remember the gospel john is borrowing from the signs gospel which is a kind of precursor to john before jesus's death and resurrection there are six big signs and it's not that anything could happen six times and happen accidentally not in the bible if there are six signs and particularly as is in the case with the gospel of john each one of these six signs is balanced by an i am statement in which jesus reveals some new aspect of his personality and each of these six signs corresponds to a six i am statements just be and that these conclude these signs these six uh the set of six conclude just before the death and resurrection of jesus the symbolic implications are obviously enormous remember that six is the number of evil it is the number of moral corruption if we have six signs and six i am statements that are given to this world prior to the death and resurrection of jesus what he what is being gestured out here is the idea that the human world is corrupt prior to the death and resurrection of jesus the condition of mankind is unredeemed and we won't get that seventh sign which is of course a very auspicious biblical number until we come to the last chapter of the gospel of john and the seventh sign is this miracle of the dropping of the net at jesus's command and the bringing up of the 153 large fishes so clearly the fact that there are six signs and six i am statements prior to the death and resurrection of jesus and then he resurrects himself comes back reveals himself to his disciples and then performs one more miracle to turn the six into seven the symbolism is very deep and it is this that binds what appear to be the disjointed elements of this gospel together and it's important to emphasize that if you do not do the symbolic reading of john it's very trying to get through it all kinds of strange stuff happens in the jesus narrative in john that doesn't happen in the other gospels for example there's a there's not a very continuous narration of what jesus does in the gospel of john this constant constant movement back and forth from galilee to jerusalem to galilee to jerusalem and to the journey on the way for one the most striking example of this is that the high point of the synoptic gospels or one prior to the death and resurrection of jesus the high point is the journey to jerusalem and chasing the money changers out of the temple because he is cleansing the tradition of yahweh's religion it has tremendous symbolic repercussions in john it doesn't happen that way there's a symbolic necessity for jesus to go to jerusalem to cleanse the temple to drive the money changers out of the temple but in the gospel of john it happens almost immediately it's in the third chapter so so we are bouncing back and forth from scene to scene john touches all the symbolic bases but he does it in a very different way and in a very with a very different set of intentions from the synoptic evangelists they're writing to get the jesus message across to particular audiences in particular ways john is sort of i might say that he's batting cleanup for the evangelists he's the final batter he's the the long ball hitter and he's going to give us this this symbolic synthesis that brings it all together part of the symbolism will be verbal the word other symbolism will be numerical all the sixes and sevens and threes and forties other parts of it will be involved in the manipulations and the alterations he imposes on the jesus story that he borrows from the synoptics now the first part of the gospel of john might be thought of as the word made flesh the there's a great prologue which is the first 18 verses of the first chapter and what happens in the beginning is that it seems that this is a hymn perhaps from the religion from the particular christian tradition that the evangelist came from and the hymn involves an articulation of the names of god there's all kinds of sacred name magic going on in the in the first chapter of john jesus is called the word the son the messiah the king of israel the son of man the son of god the christ now jesus most all in most of the gospels jesus usually calls himself the son of man and that's a very enigmatic statement we are kind of used particularly if you're if one is uh accustomed to reading the gospel stories we're accustomed to seeing jesus or hearing jesus described as the son of man but if you pause to think about it it's quite enigmatic to be called in the same chapter of the same book the son of man and the son of god it's clear enough how he could be the son of god well because he is another incarnation of yahweh one of the aspects of the divinity but to call him the son of man is very difficult rather more enigmatic what does he have to do with people he's perfectly morally virtuous so unlike us one way of trying to solve this problem looking at this name magic would be to handle it like this the son of man might be thought of as the perfect human being in other words jesus would be the only person that ever realized the potentials of humanity he's what we would be like if we weren't so corrupt and wicked so in other words we are not quite human jesus points the way to real humanity and that's what the son of man title means so he is the the one who realizes the potentials locked within human beings he is the one who undoes the narrow shackles of egoism towards some larger cosmic relationship with the divinity the son of man symbolism runs through the gospels it is more important in the synoptics than in john but since jesus calls himself on a couple of occasions the son it's pretty clear that he wants to have it both ways simultaneously the son of god and the son of man all of this connects back to the num to the word magic theme now jesus meets a considerable amount of opposition he uh cleanses the temple early because it's very clear that he's imposing this new order early in the narration that we get from john and the final part of or the part that connects the passion and death of christ to this early hymn and the set of word magic themes might be thought of as the word made flesh jesus the logos goes and performs these signs the parables are left out for the purposes of john performs these signs and makes the corresponding i am statement i am the way the truth and the life i am eternal life i am the light of the world a whole complex of related images and metaphors are linked together using these i am statement as the bridge between the six early signs and then moving on towards the seventh and final sign now once we get to the concluding part of the gospel when we get to chapters 13 to 20 god's glory is revealed and this is also a big departure that we see in the gospel of john that isn't found in the synoptics in the gospel of matthew jesus's death is awful it is gruesome and it is bloody all of the system optics share a certain fascination in the awful details of the crowning with thorns and the scourging it's not represented that way in the gospel of john the gospel of john jesus's death and resurrection is glorious it is the glorified resurrected body that john always has in the back of his mind he downplays the gruesome elements that are so luridly detailed in the synoptic gospels in john getting nailed to the cross is the app the apotheosis is the wrong word it is the the high point the turning point the ultimate event in the human world and although suffering and death are entailed in it those are minor merely human details the important thing is that jesus the christ is resurrected and that means that we are all offered the chance to participate in eternal life we are all offered illumination from the light of the world this account of the suffering and death and resurrection of jesus is fundamentally different from the tradition we get in the synoptics john is trying as bigger fish to fry he is trying to take it to in it to another level and in fact i would say that john succeeds now here's where the post script chapter 21 in john is so important it appears that this was a later addition it is likely that some other group or some other redactors of the john tradition tacked chapter 21 on it already has a conclusion it really doesn't need a second conclusion but this second conclusion this chapter 21 is loaded with symbolism number symbolism word symbolism all kinds of symbolism and it connects to the story of the net so it is worth us having a look at think about it this way what happens is this the disciples are out fishing jesus has resurrected himself and he displays himself to the disciples and they see him on the shore and he asks have you caught any fish and it turns out they haven't the fishing has been bad so jesus says throw your net out on the other side of the boat and they do and as a result of obeying god's command they pull up as many fish as the net can hold and what is stressed here is that the net remains unbroken it is capable of being filled to completion to finish it is filled with as much of the fish in this case the spiritual food of life as can possibly be held in a human net and peter's net turns out to be more than simply a device for catching fish it is a metaphor or a symbol i would be inclined to say that it is not merely symbolic it is a meta symbol chapter 21 of the gospel of john this image of the net refers back to the whole gospel tradition the gospels taken together offer us an unbroken net of images and this unbroken network of metaphors and images which contain the spiritual food of life which do not break under the stress but contain as much as any human thing can possibly contain this is what the seventh sign is all about and this is why it is tacked on to the end of the last of the gospels if you read attentively and carefully and with the proper frame of mind the gospels will teach you how to read them they are in a unique and peculiar way a self-explanatory text it's just the sort of explanation that is involved requires a very considerable degree of application and symbolic play you have to be flexible do not think that two plus two is four two plus two may be something else they're not doing that kind of linear logical analysis when you get to the symbolic level then and only then can you begin to read the richest and most important parts of the gospels in this case i would say the gospel of john now i have read quite a bit of commentary trying to give you an explanation of what 153 means i have to admit that the numerology involved in 153 makes particle physics look simple makes brain surgery look like a walk in the park there is an amazing amount of ink that has been spilled trying to explain these 153 fish obviously there are some resonance which are immediately connected first of all the fish is the symbol of jesus ichthus is the symbol of jesus and the early christian movement the fact that it's the net is as full of fish as you can possibly get suggest to us that the spiritual food of life in its completeness is being offered to us but in addition to that it turns out that certain biblical scholars in working on this number 153 have concluded that it is a borrowing from an earlier pythagorean tradition of number magic and of course pythagorean magic goes back a very long way in the history of the ancient mediterranean and from that even back to earlier strata of human history and i won't give you the details because the just the graph and the explanation of what the 153 amounts to that's a lecture by itself the best analysis i've seen given of it goes about 30 pages 30 pages trying to explain what 153 means and the graph for it is amazing it's rocket science it's really hard but i'm quite confident that if all the other numbers in the bible mean something they can't be finishing off the gospel of john with 153 fish capriciously arbitrarily the evangelists don't work that way now sk to cut to the chase my understanding of 153 or the best explanation that i've gotten is that it is triadic symbolism i know that that may sound esoteric and it is esoteric and the construction is quite complex i will i can refer you to the source if you are interested but for now for the purposes of our discussion let's assume that it does refer to a triadic set of distinctions originally the triadic distinction was between the three levels of the cosmos but in the context of the gospels it seems to me that the triadic distinction has to refer back to the trinity and to the importance of three as a heavenly number so let's assume that 153 fish are in a very elaborate and complex way triadic symbolism well it turns out that the triadic symbols that run through the gospels and in fact run through the whole bible are changeable or transformable one into the other and once you realize that these symbols these triads flip one into the other into the other then you are beginning to scratch the surface of the network the unbroken network that the gospels are let me give you some examples in the at the time the gospels are being written physical understanding of the physical world is fairly primitive one of the usual parsings for the world or the world of space and time many would be in any way would be into animal vegetable and mineral now suppose we were to take those kind of rough and ready rather primitive and archaic categories and go back and look at the gospels will we find jesus represented under the guise of animal vegetable and mineral indeed we will if you go back to the gospel of luke you will find that the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and that's a very mineral sort of a reference it will turn out that minerals figure quite heavily and i'll try and explain to you why i think that that mineral symbolism is quite important that this foundation will harken back to the book of exodus where we get water from the rock rock symbolism but we don't just have mineral symbolism we also have animal and vegetable jesus tells his disciples if i remember correctly that i am the vine and you are the branches doesn't jesus describe himself as the true vine it turns out that that's the vegetable symbol for jesus and his community i am the vine you are the branches it's quite clear what the animal symbolism will be jesus is the lamb of god whose blood is poured out for the rectification of a corrupt world animal vegetable and mineral this triad covers the entire domain of space and spatio-temporal things as far as the ancients are concerned jesus permeates the universe but we're just getting started with that triad let us consider liquids and how they symbolize jesus because they will be keyed into this triadic symbolism of animal vegetable and mineral it turns out that in the book of exodus in the foundation which is connected to the idea of a cornerstone turns out that when the jewish people need help because they're wandering in the desert and have no water it turns out that the water of life is given to them when they knock on the rock water is connected to rock and rock is connected to foundation and the foundation of the jewish of the biblical religion is the connection to yahweh connected with the vine is another liquid you may have heard of it it's wine and wine symbolism runs all through the gospels think of the last supper it also turns out that connected with the lamb and with the animal symbolism is another liquid blood and blood of the sacrifice both of the old testament animals and of the new testament christ again connects water to rock wine to the vine blood to the sacrificial lamb of god so it's not merely these triads are three of things they all connect one to the other i am the vine you are the branches it also turns out that in the gospel of john first miracle he does remember that first sign it's the miracle of cana he changes water into wine and you know what he does at the last supper changes wine into blood it would seem that we can transfer one set of symbols to the other that the transformation of these triads is the unbroken network that the gospels contain secretly hidden within them i'm not finished with triads how about the temptations of jesus each of those the the temptation of changing these stones into bread stone once again the idea of having the kingdoms of the world bowed down to him and the idea of having of of jesus being protected and throwing himself off the temple in jerusalem each one of those temptations is keyed into these images animal vegetable mineral and also keyed into these images connected with liquids the christian virtues faith hope and charity well it turns out that yahweh and faith in yahweh is a sort of foundation to biblical religion jesus offers an unredeemed world hope for the second coming of christ and for the final apocalypse and charity is what will sustain jesus church in the time between when between jesus being going back into heaven and the second coming of christ so we're going to have a connection between the christian virtues between the temptations of jesus between the typical liquid metaphors used to represent jesus between the things used to represent jesus and in addition to that to the ages of human history remember the gospel of luke broke the ages of human history down into the the age of the covenant between abraham and yahweh the age of jesus and then the age of the church well it turns out that when yahweh gives water out of the rock to his people as a sort of foundation of biblical religion and faith being the virtue connected with yahweh it will turn out fortunately for us that that represents the age of israel symbolism revolving around wine and vines and symbolism involving hope and the kingdoms of this world all connect to the age of jesus the central part of human history and the final set of symbolisms the idea of the lamb of god the age of the church the age of the church church tends out to be the age of blood the age of blood is the blood is represented in the blood of the martyrs that we see in for example saint stephen being stoned in the beginning of the acts of the apostles so if we can take for as a matter of assumption the idea that 153 is triadic and i think that's a justifiable defensible proposition it's not defensible within the parameters of the few minutes that i have here but let's take that assumption i think that i can within the parameters of time that i have here give you good reason to believe that the gospel message is a carefully nay perfectly constructed set of metaphors and that is what the unbroken net of peter is and that's what the seventh sign is the bible itself the living word of god that contains within it the spiritual food of life is the final seventh sign and that's why it is the last chapter in the last gospel it is a spiritual and symbolic and metaphorical fugue it's like the end of one of the great works by bach all themes are resolved all ambiguities melt into one unified revelation and the unified revelation is that there is an infinite amount of fish in the net an infinite amount of spiritual food i would be inclined to say that the infinitude of the unbroken net and the infinitude of 153 fish is best represented in the one parable or the one miracle that is found in all four of the gospels because of all the stories of jesus jesus's miracles and his signs and his wonderful doings there's only one jesus story that makes its way into all four of the gospels and if such a self-conscious and carefully symbolic writer as john were to include only this one sign that's included in the other synoptics clearly this is the most important sign for john it is a way for us to think about the whole message of the gospels the one sign that is found in every oh the one miracle sign that is found in every gospel is the feeding of the five thousand people with the loaves and the fishes and this infinitude of spiritual food that is gestured at in this story the idea that there is no number of people that will exhaust god's spiritual resources and spiritual plenty the enor the infinite magnanimity and generosity of god is reflected in the fact that john decides to include that one parable and it is particularly represented in the idea that the net is filled to the breaking point with all the fish that it can possibly contain read the gospels carefully appreciate the symbolism and the dramatic and intense poetry but do not ever think that you have gotten to the bottom of the gospel message in fact there is an infinite meal an infinite amount of spiritual food which you will find to be inexhaustible the net is infinite the contents are infinite as well what the scriptures offer us is an introduction or an access to an infinite amount of spiritual life formulated in a network of metaphors

Channel: Michael Sugrue

Views: 5,446

Rating: 4.9183674 out of 5

Keywords: Michael Sugrue, Dr. Michael Sugrue, Lecture, History, Philosophy, Western Culture, Western Intellectual Tradition, Bible, John, Unbroken Net of Scripture

Id: s43Dj2eYo_U

Length: 44min 58sec (2698 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 11 2020