For witnesses Mark in his gospel recounts what Peter related to him, then John the beloved of the Lord¹ gave in his gospel his testimony.Mark has this:21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”).
Simon is a witness to the crucifixion of Jesus whose information made it into the text of Mark.
The fourth gospel has this:25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
The fourth gospel at John 19:17 contradicts Mark, saying that Jesus carried his own cross. Underneath this contradiction are two different memories of the same event, one where Simon was forced to carry, and one where this disciple of Jesus was not there to see that.
Mark doesn't have anything about arrangements for the mother of Jesus to be taken into this disciple's care, but of course that disciple would remember this.
On the available evidence of the circumstances of how they are mentioned, it is most likely that Simon and this disciple are historical people. This means that we have two witnesses to the crucifixion of Jesus behind Mark and John.
It's not surprising then that the historian Tacitus also treats his execution as a historical event in Annals 15.44 and that Paul knows a brother of Jesus as mentioned in Galatians 1:19. Nor is it surprising that Jews regarded Jesus as a historical person, as found in Matthew 28:15, in Celsus, and Sanhedrin 43a.
Likewise consistent with this is the fact that stories about Jesus were transmitted orally, as attested by Papias and Luke 1:1-4. Oral tradition is found as early as the letters of Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:10, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.
It's kind of cool that we have these kinds of sources we can think about and consider, but there's no great significance to the historical existence of Jesus. It's just a fun subject if you can approach it that way.
John saw both Jesus and later Simon carrying the cross, for he had 'accompanied Him to the Kranion and the Golgotha', before he went and brought the Virgin Mariam to the crucifixion².
Actually, Paul in Galatians 1:19 knows as a witness, not 'a brother of Jesus'³ but 'James, the Lord's brother'¹ — 'the Lord's brother' being a surname or a descriptor alike Joseph,' the Carpenter' or Simon 'the Canaanite', or (as an example) of course the original John, 'the Blacksmith', in the distant family tree of those that are named 'John Smith' today.
So the three pillars James, Peter, and John are witnesses to the historical existence of Jesus.
¹Assumption of the Virgin, the sons of Zebedee, John (beloved) and James,(the Lord's brother). ²Lament of the Virgin. ³The James Ossuary, 'James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus'
(read up and edited)
Statistics: Posted by Trees of Life — Sun Jun 09, 2024 10:35 am