24: The Gospel of John

Here we go again, but now we’ve reached the “maverick gospel,” the Gospel of John. Unlike in the synoptics where Jesus likes to keep his Messiahship a secret, in John the guy cannot shut up about himself. He’ll blab about how he’s the Son of God to anyone who’ll listen. Add in a few “signs,” some anti-Semitism, and what may be the biggest dick move in entire New Testament, and you’ve got the fixins for a real good time.

27 Responses to “24: The Gospel of John”

  1. Citizen Wolf says:

    Praise be to Odin. A new podcast.

  2. I make no apologies for my horrendous Australian accent.

  3. Citizen Wolf says:

    Not to worry, I won’t say anything about the accent because I wasn’t actually there when you did it. I was only an ear witness.

  4. I remember in my high school youth group (where I played a mean keyboard in the worship band), we read the different variations of the events surrounding the crucifixion. And the message of the day was how the different accounts proved the gospels were true, because uh it proved the gospel writers were human and if they were lying they’d y’know meet up and get their stories straight.

    Obviously the most logical explanation.

    I thought about this recently because I’m taking an online class for shits and giggles on Alexander the Great, and there are also conflicting accounts on how many troops were at a battle, whether he went in at night or morning, etc. Kinda like the gospels. Y’know the conclusion we came to? Writers embellish and make shit up.

    Oh hah just kidding! I mean all the history writers of everything ever are correct even if they directly conflict each other because no one before Nixon had something worth covering up or spinning their way! Fucking Nixon, ruining the completely innocent and never-lying history of mankind.

  5. Great podcast! It’s almost as if you were theyah. What about those gospels that didnt make it into the Bible? Id llove to hear Chuck and Matt discuss some of those.

  6. Loved the Ham parody; also, the Australian accent was perfect! I should know, I’m from Australia.

    Also, no I’m not. Also, the accent was terrible.

  7. Excellent podcast ladies!

  8. Excellent podcast! It tickled me wibble wobble… or not. I like Justin’s idea. How about something on the development of the biblical canon with a look at what didn’t make it?

  9. I was in stitches with the “CSI: Kentucky” bit, especially the Ken Ham parts. “How did you know? You weren’t theah!”

  10. I like the bible study stuff. I also like Matt. I think the episodes like the Norse mythology and Ham on Nye are a good way to break up the bible study stuff, so you don’t get too bogged down. The bible should have a warning label about overdoses.

  11. omg guys…they are making a movie out of the epic d&d chick tract
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk2Pr9jXCr8

  12. Yay Bible studies. All that shit time i spent in Sunday school being bored, it could have been fun, l ike this. More, please. And the good thing about it is that you will never run out of material, the bible is loooong.

    Also, please do First Samuel; It is hilarious.

    Also, fake accents are disrespectful. Can’t you be more serious, like Robert Price?

  13. Can I get a moment of silence for Fred Phelps? Is his death a judgement from gawd? Maybe, because we haven’t killed enough gay people, gawd has decided to take Fred Phelps away from us. Makes you think… about sucking a cock if you’re a guy because maybe Michele Bachmann is next…

  14. Please tell me you have a transcript or just a script of CSI: Kentucky I can share on the internetfacetwitwebs! Please? Pleeeeeeeease?

  15. Here you go. Some of it got lost in the endless editing, but this was the original script, written by Matt:

    This week on CSI Kentucky….

    Ham: alright boys, what ave we got ere?

    Cop: looks like a homicide, detective. Got an anonymous tip phoned in, found the body in the back room.

    Ham: let’s have a look then.

    Cop: here he is, the victim died from severe trauma to the spine. As you can see, he was stabbed directly in the middle of his back. Pretty much rules out self inflicted.

    Ham: whoa whoa whoa, crikey, who’s the homicide detective bloke here, you or me?

    Cop: I’m just saying clearly it looks like a murder.

    Ham: ah yes, but ow do you know? Were you there? Did you observe the murder? There could be any sort of ways for this to have happened.

    Cop: look, there just isn’t any other way to get a knife stuck straight into the middle of your back…

    Ham: well, lets do some police work then. That’s me, ken ham the observational police work guy. What have we got then? A middle age white male spread eagled across the kitchen table with both hands and feet tied to the table legs and a note written on the wall in the victims blood which was found to contain spinal fluid so must have come directly from the singular knife wound in the back. And it says “the bastard deserved to die ” and it’s signed Maria, and his wife’s name is Maria and there’s a history of domestic violence reports from this address about a these two and he has been arrested twice for spousal abuse and she filed a restraining order against him. And that’s all on record.

    Cop: Right, like I said. Clearly a murder.

    Ham: but you weren’t there so you can’t know. You see, what people don’t understand is that you can’t know about these things unless you can observe them. You see, that’s observational police work, what you’re doing is merely historical police work and you can’t rely on that. I mean, maybe this man was a contortionist and committed suicide.

    Cop: yeah, uh even a very flexible person couldn’t apply enough pressure to drive a knife into their spinal column…

    Ham: oh krikey! Look, I’m the detective bloke ere, I’m from Australia we call men blokes and penises wibble wobbles. What you don’t understand is that you just assume he was murdered because its physically impossible to kill yourself in this fashion, but you don’t know, because you weren’t there and you have to know so much to make a determination, you got to know about contortionist, knives, bone structure. You got know about metals, and alloys and other things of that nature. What we need is an EYEWITNESS!

    Cop: detective, what the fuck are you talking about!?

    Ham: you see you asssssuuuuuuume he was murdered simply because there is no alternative explanation that makes sense and fits the evidence but you can’t just say that because you weren’t there so you can’t know.

    Cop: well, if I can’t know then what I am doing here?

    Ham: I don’t deny there’s a knife sticking out of his back. You see, you secularist cops and us creationist blokes have the same set of data, we just interpret it differently. As you know we live in an amazing universe and we look around at all this stuff, and it’s amazing and wonderful and it fills me deep down and we would say yeah, that fits with observational police work, but the universe is so large and you know how large it is and the universe shows us how large it is. Wooow. What an amazing thing. What a god!

    Cop: look asshole, it’s obvious he was murdered.

    Ham: really?

    Cop: yes!

    Ham: were you there?

    Cop: there’s a fucking knife in his back! And it has the name ‘Maria’ inscribed on it!

    Ham: look, I’m not denying any of that. But you have to remember, we weren’t there! And all those police records are just historical documents and you can’t trust that because that’s historical police work and you can’t rely on that because you weren’t there!

    Cop: well maybe detective hams the motherfucking observational police detective bloke asshole wibble wobble would like to enlighten the rest of us dumb idiots!

    Ham: all righty then. Here’s what must have happened according to the evidence we have and can rely on. Look, there’s a banana peel on the ground right over there. And we had a thunderstorm this afternoon. It’s obvious: he came in the house wet and ionically charged after having been struck by lightning. This electro magnetized his body and when he entered the kitchen he slipped on the peel fell spread eagled on the table and his magnetized body sucked the knife right into his back instantly killing him. Boom!

    Cop: um, yeah. That genius and all but two things. One, that doesn’t explain why he’s tied to the table and two, that’s my banana peel. I dropped it there when I came in.

    Ham: Hmm, good point. Could have been a botched abortion! Serves him right, the tosser.

    Cop: Jesus Christ, are you fucking insane!?

    Ham: ah, finally now you’re on the right track!

    Next week on CSI Kentucky…

    Cop: pretty grisly murder suicide scene in there, where’s the homicide detective?

    Ham: ere I am

    Cop: fucccckkkkkk!

  16. Chloe, that trailer looks AWESOME

  17. Yes! Thank you for posting the script!

    *high-five butt-slap combo*

  18. Chuck,
    I really liked your analysis of John. What did you use to prepare for this episode? Ehrman, Price, Loftus, etc. that are on the “reading” page? Something new?

  19. Yeah, mostly Ehrman’s “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium” and these lecture series from the Teaching Company:

    The New Testament by Ehrman
    Jesus and the Gospels by Luke Timothy Johnson

  20. I used chuckapedia to prepare.

  21. Discord.agent says:

    No one asked you, Matt.

    They already made a movie out of Chick Tract, it’s called God’s Not Dead. I’ve only seen the trailer and read the plot description, but it certainly seems like someone decided to make Jack Chick’s world of the imaginary into a reality. Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) plays a philosophy professor that is angry at God and knows he doesn’t exist. He threatens to fail his students unless they write down “God is dead” but one boy refuses to compromise his faith. The professor challenges him to prove God exists. The boy must argue God’s existence, and he must debate the professor at the end of the semester.

  22. Going to the AA convention? Nice. Did you see the SLC Comic Con is happening at the same time? You might have to spend an extra $35 and walk a block north to the Salt Palace. Sadly (not really), Kevin Sorbo is not on the guest list (Google can find the full guest list for you) however, several TNG folks will be there along with less respectable folks like Denise Crosby and Kerry Jackson. I’m kidding, Kerry… but not kidding about Denise.

    Oh, yeah, and the podcast about the Australian homicide detective was good.

  23. Silverharbinger says:

    I’ve decided to withhold judgement on whether or not the synoptic gospels are completely inconsistent until I’ve read the bacon gospels. I heard from my pastor (butcher?) that everything makes much more sense when the book of nitrates is fully understood.

    Good luck with your future podcast on presuppositionalism. I’m guessing that will be the episode where you both reveal you have found god, because without that you can’t even know presuppositionalists exist! 😉

  24. Oh oh please do your next podcast on Baha’i Faith (Bahaism)! There isn’t a lot of of independent discourse about it.

  25. Haha a wibble wobble , thanks for the Aussie accent . Just remember to make it more nasally next time for some authenticity! Thanks for the laugh.

  26. The intro music is fucking awful