The influence of Hellenism on Christianity is a topic we had plenty of reason to get into when we were working on Mormonism. The LDS claim that post-NT Christianity was seriously Hellenized, whereas we can still discern the pure non-Hellenized (or not much Hellenized) message in the NT, if we have J. Smith to help us. Rather amusingly, we have also seen Earl Doherty claim that the Pauline letters are overflowing with the Hellenism of a Platonic nether-Jesus who never walked the earth. Want to upend the Christian church? Take a pinch of Hellenism, or take a whole lot. Either will make the broth rancid, or so the story goes.

For yet another take, we have the vision of the Secular Web's James Still, who we haven't bothered in a while. He has an interesting work on Hellenism in John. Is the premise right? If we only want to say, there is obvious influence of Hellenism in the NT, the answer is "sure there is" followed by "and so what if that's the case"? Hellenism was an in-thing in the Roman Empire. Everyone succumbed to it. They spoke and wrote Greek; even the ruralest, redneckiest Galileean probably found work in Sepphoris or Tiberias and had to know enough Greek to ask where the bathroom was at the burger joint. How about philosophy? Maybe, but be careful: Just because an idea is found in Hellenism does not make it Hellenistic, any more than the Golden Rule coming out of a Jewish context makes it uniquely Jewish. There are parallels in other cultures (mostly expressed in the negative, i.e., "Do NOT do to others...") and no one needed a jab from the Jews to come up with these. Let's not confuse common property with that which is specific.

With these caveats in mind, we move now to Still's claim that John offers a "fully-formed Hellenized Jesus has emerged to become an equal with God." He boldly dates John to 120 CE (in spite of the 125 AD Rylands fragment) based on this, but one wonders whether the evidence really points to this. "Even the casual reader of the four gospels can easily discern the jump between the Synoptic tradition with Mark through Matthew and the apocryphal John." Really? The same Matthew who has Jesus referring to himself as the Wisdom of God? The same Mark that has Jesus walking on water, which the OT says only God can do? Someone is reading a little too casually, perhaps -- or maybe the word is not "casually" but "casualty." And apparently there was a jump backwards from the earlier Paul to Mark as late as Still would presumably date it?

"We see in John a desire to use Greek pagan concepts and philosophies as a tool for communicating Jesus as the Logos to a Christianized Gentile audience. John's Logos would not be understood by Jews and his book would only be familiar to someone practiced in the pagan mystery cults that flourished in the Hellenistic world." Indeed. Tell that to Philo of Alexandria, or the authors of Sirach, 1 Enoch, or the Wisdom of Solomon. What pagan mystery cult were these fellows in? Jews would have no problem at all getting what John was saying. Still charges that Philo "worshipped the Greek gods too" -- this is an interesting claim which could use some documentation. Maybe the other fellows did, too, in secret. But let's see how this is worked out further as proofs:

Yahweh, however, was much different in that he was easily accessible and constantly busied himself with the details of everyday Jewish life. Yahweh could be experienced and explained in traditional human terms: fear, envy, hope, and of course, revenge. When the Israelites needed a victory on the battlefield against their enemies, Yahweh, the "god of war," was there to assist them and even to plan battle tactics with them. He promised unending war with the Amalekites that would last "from generation to generation" and that he would be with them always in their battles. Yahweh was the opposite of the philosophic construct of the Greek Unknowable; he was nearby and could be reached easily just by calling out to him.

Still's picture here is grossly simplified. Yahweh was "easily accessible"? In what way? By prayer, no different than in the Gospel of John, in which He is called more than anywhere else by the familial term "Father". "Constantly busied"? How many times in 1500 years did Yahweh involve in "the details of everyday Jewish life"? Did He do the shopping or the dishes? In fact, a long view tells us that Yahweh "busied" Himself very little over the course of 15-20 centuries with the people of Israel. It's all in the OT, but not the thousands of days and years when He did nothing at all. Yahweh was not unknowable? True, but that does not mean, "not transcendent." "And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." (1 Kings 19:12) "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me..." (Is. 46:9) "Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan against the habitation of the strong: but I will suddenly make him run away from her: and who is a chosen man, that I may appoint over her? for who is like me? and who will appoint me the time? and who is that shepherd that will stand before me?" (Jer. 49:19) "And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the LORD our God." (Ex. 8:10) The element of transcendence -- be it in power, or comprehension -- is already known in the OT and did not Greeks to put it there. Not that it would need them: A god would be either knowable or unknowable, or somewhere between; no culture could decide otherwise if it had gods to begin with. We would hardly deny that Philo and others went the way of the Greeks after a fashion. But on the ladder of Hellenism neither he nor John even approached the highest step, and Hellenism was not the first to use the ladder in the first place.

Because of Philo's allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, Moses, when descending Mount Sinai with Yahweh's Torah is depicted as experiencing Yahweh's energy and we are told that the people who saw Moses were 'blinded' by the energy of God's presence which still emanated from Moses' face. In the New Testament, Philo's Logos ushers in a new way of thinking about Jesus, leaving behind the Messianic messenger of the Q source and the early Synoptics.

Granting all of this, it nevertheless remains that Philo also agreed that the OT recorded literal historical events. These interpretations made the OT palatable to Greek tastes, a sort of Grecian formula, if you will. Yet we find no such allegory in John at all. There is a difference of degree -- and Still's further attempt to read in John a sort of "gnosis" bent is no better than the attempt of others to find Gnosticism in Paul: like those, Still starts with the gnosis so that he may end with the gnosis, and crooks the text accordingly.

We are told, "The Hellenization of Jesus is complete in John. Jesus' eschatalogical, or end of the world, message is removed and Jesus instead comforts those who have vigilently [sic] awaited his second coming..." Still is confused here, and in later comments about "the long overdue wait and tardiness of the apocalypse": about the eschatology of the Synoptics anyway; there is no "end of the world" message but an "end of the age" message, as in the end of the age of the law in 70 AD. Beyond that we still have a picture at least of final judgment and resurrection (John 5:25-9) that would make a Hellenist with a hatred of matter turn pale.

Essene influence is suggested for John, and maybe there was some. The idea, though, that the Essenes themselves were in some sense Hellenized, or learned baptism from a mystery cult, is fairly silly -- it remains oblivious to the point of Semitic totality and at any rate, where then did other Jews get proselyte baptism? What of the symbolic connection of water and purity that is inevitable wherever we go? Ezekiel 36:25-27, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Was Ezekiel a Hellenist or a mystery cultist? "Other similiarities include the numerous allegories between the 'light' and the 'dark.' We are told that the 'light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not' in John 1:5 and later..." Did John need the Greeks or Philo to tell him about this sort of allegory? Ps. 27:1 "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" Ps. 107:14 "He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder." Sorry, operator, but that connection has already been made. And it's a natural one around the world. John using light as a metaphor makes him no more Hellenistic than Dagwood Bumstead getting a lightbulb over his head when he thinks of a new sandwich. Metaphors of light, darkness, and journey are no more than we would expect in any religious setting -- or even in settings other than religious ones. And Still is apparently the only one who thinks this is news, or would be to Christians.

Reference is made to Mithraic liturgies and eucharists, the former rather amusing since Ulansey says we have no surviving Mithraic literature -- better call him and let him know you have some -- and there was no eucharist in Mithraism. (See here for more -- any link drawn between the two faiths is certifiably bogus.) Then quoted is another confused person who says:

To his interlocutors in the story, Jesus reveals little other than their ignorance. He leaves them baffled, confused, and angry while he moves on, serenely untroubled, through the highly charged atmosphere that he has created. ...Jesus is not quite human. He does not laugh; he does not appear to suffer; he remains impassive through all the confrontations that he provokes with both Jews and Romans, until he accomplishes his goal: the cross. He dies only when he knows all that has been fulfilled, expiring in complete control and saying only, "It is finished."

"Baffled, confused, and angry" -- that's quite a laundry list, but where's the beef?

John 3:21b And Nicodemus threw up his hands and saith, "You make no sense!"

John 4:26b Then the woman saith, Will you please stop speaking and riddles and get to ye point?

Our commentator here seems rather to be imposing his own bafflement, confusion, and anger on the text. The only place I see this is John 6:52 -- and in that episode, Jesus has a set of dim bulbs on his hands who do leave angry when they DO get the point, not when they don't. Everyone else, though, doesn't seem to have a problem, other than enemies who try to stone him as we might expect. No laughter? There wasn't much to laugh about, was there? (John 13:45, "And Nathanial saith, That was not a duck, that was my wife.") No suffering? What about the crucifixion, the blood? And this in the one Gospel that tells us, "Jesus wept." Back from Still, here's more funny stuff:

John was written for the Greek Christian of the beginning of the second century. These recent converts were more educated, wealthy, and despised the Diaspora Jews who resided in their cities and who enjoyed the respect of Rome. John removes the offensive references to Jesus as a Jewish Messiah that are particular to the earlier gospels, in order to present the Logos in more palatable form. In so doing, John creates a simulacrum that is barely human. The earlier Synoptic traditions are emphatic in presenting Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, descendent of David, and eschatological messenger of the end of the world where God collects his Chosen People. John removes the unpleasantness of Jewish genealogy as well as all references to Palestinian and Davidic descent.

Removed those references, did he? John 1:45, "Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Those educated, wealthy etc. folks would have preferred Sepphoris any day; Nazareth was Hicksville, first century AD. What about fulfilling prophecy in the crucifixion? (Sorry, but the offense of the cross was never palatable to any ancient person; making the Logos a victim would only have been even more absurd -- see here.) We could put up some more, but why bother? This is nought but Still hoping no one checks behind his facts again. Other points we may reply to by noting that John was meant to complement Mark (see here). And we have the usual psychoanalysis:

John feels that to inform us of the particularly human trait of birth, even if virginal and thus not actuated by lust, would not be fitting of a God who is the Word. Human characteristics that Mark informs us of, such as the need for cleansing through baptism (1:9) or the Temptation (1:13), are conspicuously absent from John.

As always one wonders how Still knows that John or any writer "feels" anything; since he does not know John from Adam, this is merely the theory begging after facts. As for cleansing by baptism: since John's gospel clearly alludes to this episode (1:30ff), John apparently wasn't too concerned about this. Temptation? Three episodes in John mirror the Temptation narrative (see here). Still needs to acquaint himself with a broader range of scholarship than Robert Funk.

And so it is from one of the Secular Web's leading denizens. This is apparently the best that lot can do, and little wonder I'm running out of targets from that quarter.