Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl00680)

Hello Jerry,

I said:
>Could you give the references in gospels that prove that
>synoptics and John'gospel has a "decided discrepancy" about
>duration of Jesus'ministry? I couldn't find such discrepancy.

You said:
>Since HPB doesn't back up her statement with examples,
>I suspect that it was a common and accepted notion among higher
>criticism biblical scholars in her day.

It`s clear that sinoptics and John`gospel aren`t in contradiction
about one or three years of duration of Jesus ministry,  as HPB suggests.

I reproduce a catholic text, that you can find at Internet
http://www.csn.net/advent/cathen/08377a.htm
at this site http://www.csn.net/advent/ you can find many useful historical
references and papal documents!

<p><b>(3) The Public Life of Jesus</b>

<p><i>(a) Duration of the Public Life</i>
<p>There are two extreme views as
 to the length of the ministry of Jesus: St. Irenaeus (Contra Haer.,
 II, xxii, 3-6) appears to suggest a period of fifteen years; the
 prophetic phrases, "the year of recompenses", "the year of my
 redemption" (Is., xxxiv, 8; lxiii, 4), appear to have induced
 Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Philastrius, Hilarion, and
 two or three other patristic writers to allow only one year for the
 public life. This latter opinion has found advocates among certain
 recent students: von Soden, for instance, defends it in Cheyne's
 "Encyclopaedia Biblica". But the text of the Gospels demands a more
 extensive duration. St. John's Gospel distinctly mentions three
 distinct paschs in the history of Christ's ministry (ii, 13; vi, 4;
 xi, 55). The first of the three occurs shortly after the baptism of
 Jesus, the last coincides with His Passion, so that at least two
 years must have intervened between the two events to give us the
 necessary room for the passover mentioned in vi, 4. Westcott and
 Hort omit the expression "the pasch" in vi, 4 to compress the
 ministry of Jesus within the space of one year; but all the
 manuscripts, the versions, and nearly all the Fathers testify for
 the reading <i>"En de eggysto pascha heeorteton Ioudaion"</i>: "Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews,
 was near at hand". Thus far then everything tends to favour the
 view of those writers and more recent commentators who extend the
 period of Christ's ministry a little over two years.

<p>But a comparison of St. John's Gospel with the Synoptic Evangelists
 seems to introduce another pasch, indicated in the Fourth Gospel,
 into Christ's public life. John, iv, 45, relates the return of
 Jesus into Galilee after the first pasch of His public life in
 Jerusalem, and the same event is told by Mark, i, 14, and Luke iv,
 14. Again the pasch mentioned in John, vi, 4 has its parallel in
 the "green grass" of Mark, vi, 39, and in the multiplication of
 loaves as told in Luke, ix, 12 sqq. But the plucking of ears
 mentioned in Mark, ii, 23, and Luke, vi, 1, implies another paschal
 season intervening between those expressly mentioned in John, ii,
 13, and vi, 4. This shows that the public life of Jesus must have
 extended over four paschs, so that it must have lasted three years
 and a few months. Though the Fourth Gospel does not indicate this
 fourth pasch as clearly as the other three, it is not wholly silent
 on the question. The "festival day of the Jews" mentioned in John,
 v, 1, has been identified with the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of
 Tabernacles, the Feast of Expiation, the Feast of the New Moon, the
 Feast of Purim, the Feast of Dedication, by various commentators;
 others openly confess that they cannot determine to which of the
 Jewish feasts this festival day refers. Nearly all difficulties
 will disappear if the festival day be regarded as the pasch, as both
 the text (<i>heorte</i>) and John, iv, 35 seem to demand (cf. Dublin Review,
 XXIII, 351 sqq.).

Abrantes