This post is a follow-up to Part 1 as two responses from Claude.ai summarizing Wheeler’s thesis (Part 1) and the next comparing it to the positions of Ehrman, Tabor, and Goodacre. Below that is a extract from Bart’s blog where scriptures are cited to show a belief at that time in existence before life and after life; i.e. Reincarnation.
Summary of Schaun Wheeler’s Two Replies
Context: Both replies come from a Biblical Studies Academy thread. Bruce Bergen asked why Jesus’s message seems to shift between the Synoptics and John (rebirth and going to heaven). Keith Myers answered that John is the most “Hellenized” gospel, since the Logos and the immortal soul are Greek ideas. Wheeler replied to Keith and then to Bruce’s original post (Wheeler’s replies, as reproduced on The Way, Nov. 9, 2026).
Reply 1: To Keith Myers (on John and Hellenization)
“Most Hellenized” is not a useful category. Greek ideas were already thoroughly absorbed into Judaism by Jesus’s day. When John sounds Greek, it is hard to tell whether the idea came directly from Greek philosophy or through Jewish writers who had already adopted it.
The Logos shows this.
- The term has Greek roots (Heraclitus, the Stoics), where it means an impersonal divine reason.
- John’s Logos is closer to Jewish Wisdom traditions: Wisdom present with God at creation (Prov 8, ASV) and Wisdom as a reflection of God’s light (Wisdom of Solomon).
- Philo had already used Logos for a mediator through whom God creates and relates to the world.
- No Greek philosopher would say the Logos “became flesh” (John 1:14).
- John’s light/darkness and truth/deceit contrasts also have parallels in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The immortal soul. Wheeler agrees the idea is mainly Greek in origin and had entered Jewish writing by Jesus’s time, but he says John does not teach it.
- John never describes anyone going to heaven at death and still expects resurrection “on the last day.”
- John’s claim that believers have eternal life and “will never die” is about a life that death does not interrupt, not a soul leaving the body.
- Luke comes closer to the idea, through the rich man and Lazarus parable and the promise to the man on the cross (Luke 16; 23:43).
Reply 2: To Bruce Bergen’s Original Post
Wheeler pushes back on the framing: the Synoptics do not share one message, and John is not mainly about going to heaven.
1. The Synoptics differ from each other.
- Matthew and Luke both used Mark and rarely depart from his order together.
- The Synoptics harmonize fairly easily, especially in event-by-event or theme-by-theme church teaching. John’s differences are more conspicuous (temple scene early, three Passovers, Jesus dying before the Passover meal, no words over bread and cup), which hides the Synoptics’ differences from one another.
- Example: the rich man’s question about eternal life (Mark 10:17–19 vs. Matt 19:16–17). Matthew shifts the weight toward keeping the commandments.
2. Each gospel argues its own thesis.
| Gospel | Thesis (per Wheeler) |
|---|---|
| Mark | Knowing who Jesus is does not make one a faithful follower. The disciples fail when discipleship gets costly, and the oldest ending leaves the message with the reader. |
| Matthew | Moses’s law stays in force as Jesus interprets it. All will be judged by whether they keep it, and being forgiven obligates one to forgive. |
| Luke | God is already overturning the social order, favoring the poor and outsiders and warning the comfortable. |
| John | Jesus brings the life of the age to come into the present. |
3. Personal response to Jesus matters in all the Synoptics.
- Mark: denying oneself and taking up the cross (8:34–35).
- Matthew: taking Jesus’s yoke (11:29), which Wheeler compares to the rabbinic “yoke of the Torah” and “yoke of the kingdom of heaven” (Mishnah Avot 3:5; Berakhot 2:2).
- Luke: Zacchaeus welcoming Jesus (Luke 19).
- The parable of the sower (all three) is about receiving or losing the message inwardly, and the “become like children” sayings (Mark 10:15; Matt 18:3) resemble John’s “born from above.”
- What the Synoptics lack is the language of Jesus dwelling in the believer, which Wheeler treats as a difference of expression rather than of teaching. He adds that John 3 means “from above,” and “again” reflects Nicodemus’s misunderstanding.
4. Heaven and the afterlife.
- Luke is the Synoptic closest to describing post-death destinations (Lazarus, paradise), though he never calls them “heaven” and the Lazarus story is a parable. Even so, it says more than John does.
- John 3 is the only place John uses “kingdom of God,” so being born from above is his way of talking about entering the kingdom.
- “Eternal life” is not John’s invention, since Mark uses “entering life” and “entering the kingdom” interchangeably.
- John’s “heaven” language is almost always about things coming down from heaven. In John 14, “dwelling places” and “make our home” use the same Greek word, and John 2 identifies the temple, “my Father’s house,” with Jesus’s body. Wheeler therefore reads the passage as less clearly about heaven than it sounds, though John does hope believers will be with Jesus.
5. Where John truly differs: timing.
- For John, eternal life begins now (believers “have passed from death to life,” and Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” in John 11). The emphasis falls on present life and divine indwelling rather than a postmortem place.
- His vocabulary reflects this: he never uses “repent” and uses “believe” almost three times as often as the Synoptics combined.
- Wheeler is not sure why John moves this way. The common explanation is the delay of the end, signaled by John 21’s correction of the rumor about the Beloved Disciple. But the Synoptics already contain present-tense language (e.g., the kingdom “has come upon you”), so John appears to develop something already present.
Conclusion: John is no more different from the Synoptics than they are from one another. All four make distinct arguments about who Jesus is and why he matters.
2nd Prompt – Provide a how his Synoptic “thesis” framing compares with redaction-critical work by scholars like Goodacre, Ehrman, and Tabor.
I [Claude] wrote this from my own knowledge of these scholars’ published positions rather than a fresh search. Works are cited by author and year, but I haven’t checked page numbers, so verify before relying on a specific claim.
Overview
Wheeler’s method is closest to composition or narrative criticism: read each gospel whole and ask what it argues. His Mark/Matthew example (Mark 10:17-19 vs. Matt 19:16-17) is classic redaction criticism, the discipline founded by Marxsen (Mark), Bornkamm (Matthew), and Conzelmann (Luke). The three scholars you named each overlap with him in different places.
Mark Goodacre: Overlap on Sources, Tension on Q
- Mark’s priority. Wheeler’s order-of-material argument (Matthew and Luke rarely depart from Mark’s order together) is the standard Lachmann-style case. Goodacre accepts Markan priority (Goodacre 2001).
- The Q question. Wheeler does not commit to Q, which fits both the Two-Source Hypothesis and Goodacre’s Farrer hypothesis (Mark → Matthew → Luke, no Q) (Goodacre 2002).
- Why it matters for Wheeler’s theses. If Luke knew Matthew, as Goodacre argues, then Luke’s differences from Matthew are deliberate editorial responses rather than independent shaping of shared material. That would make the Matthew-vs-Luke contrast sharper evidence for distinct theses. Under Q, the contrast is still real but harder to attribute to editorial choice.
- Fatigue. Goodacre’s work on editorial fatigue (2006) shows that Matthew and Luke sometimes lose track of their own revisions. This suggests some differences reflect inconsistency rather than a single governing thesis.
Bart Ehrman: Closest Match
Ehrman’s introductory approach in The New Testament: A Historical Introduction gives each gospel a distinct portrait, and his “horizontal” reading of parallel passages (Ehrman 2009) is essentially Wheeler’s method.
- Mark. Ehrman reads Mark as a suffering Messiah with a secrecy motif, and treats 16:8 as the original ending (Ehrman 2005), as Wheeler does.
- Matthew. Ehrman reads him as a Jewish gospel with Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of the law.
- Luke. Ehrman stresses the concern for outcasts and the poor, plus a notably calm Jesus in the passion compared with Mark.
- John. Ehrman sees a high, preexistent christology and present-tense salvation.
- Afterlife. Ehrman’s Heaven and Hell (2020) agrees with Wheeler that Luke’s Lazarus parable and the “paradise” promise are the Synoptics’ clearest afterlife glimpses.
- Where they diverge. Ehrman’s Jesus is an apocalyptic prophet (Ehrman 1999), and he typically explains John’s present eschatology as a response to the delayed end. Wheeler is more cautious, noting that the Synoptics already contain present-tense kingdom language.
James Tabor: Different Project
Tabor is mainly a historical-reconstruction scholar rather than a redaction critic.
- Matthew. Wheeler’s Matthean thesis (Torah remains in force) fits Tabor’s interest in a Torah-observant Jesus movement with James at its center (Tabor 2006).
- Luke. Tabor reads Luke-Acts as more Paul-oriented and Gentile-friendly (Tabor 2012). This overlaps with Wheeler’s Luke but emphasizes Pauline influence rather than social reversal.
- John. Tabor generally treats John as a late theological reshaping, though he takes some Johannine historical details seriously. Wheeler treats John as a thesis-bearing gospel and doesn’t rank its historical value.
- Key difference. Tabor asks “what is behind the gospels?” while Wheeler asks “what is each gospel arguing?” These are complementary rather than competing.
Where Wheeler’s Framing Is Contestable
- Mark’s thesis. The “discipleship failure” reading goes back to Weeden (1971), but others argue Mark presents the disciples more sympathetically (e.g., Malbon). Wheeler’s version is one reading, not consensus.
- Matthew’s law-observance. Scholars disagree over whether Matthew affirms ongoing Torah observance (Saldarini, Sim) or reinterprets it beyond ordinary observance. Matt 5:17-20 and the antitheses are the battleground.
- Luke’s reversal. Social reversal is a major Lukan theme, but Conzelmann (1960) framed Luke’s thesis as salvation history, and others emphasize the Gentile mission. Wheeler selects one.
- One thesis per gospel. Redaction critics often find multiple intertwined themes, and Bauckham (1998) argues the gospels were written for broad audiences rather than distinct communities, which complicates reading each as a single argument.
- Heading too far. Calling John “no more different than the Synoptics are from each other” is defensible on thesis grounds, but many scholars see John’s source-critical independence (and its chronology) as a real difference in kind.
Bottom Line
Wheeler’s approach is solidly in the mainstream of composition and redaction criticism. It matches Ehrman’s presentation most closely, depends on a source theory he leaves open (where Goodacre’s Farrer view would strengthen his Matthew/Luke contrast), and operates at a different level than Tabor’s historical reconstruction. His main vulnerability is compressing each gospel into one thesis when scholars often find several.
Works cited (from memory):
- Bauckham, R., ed. 1998. The Gospels for All Christians.
- Conzelmann, H. 1960. The Theology of St. Luke.
- Ehrman, B. 1999. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
- Ehrman, B. 2005. Misquoting Jesus.
- Ehrman, B. 2009. Jesus, Interrupted.
- Ehrman, B. 2020. Heaven and Hell.
- Goodacre, M. 2001. The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze.
- Goodacre, M. 2002. The Case Against Q.
- Goodacre, M. 2006. “Fatigue in the Synoptics.” NTS 44.
- Tabor, J. 2006. The Jesus Dynasty.
- Tabor, J. 2012. Paul and Jesus.
- Weeden, T. 1971. Mark: Traditions in Conflict.
Side-by-Side: Wheeler, Goodacre, Ehrman, Tabor
This is compiled from my [Claude] own knowledge of these scholars, not a fresh search. Where a scholar has not written much on a topic, I mark the cell as an inference. Verify specifics before citing.
| Dimension | Schaun Wheeler | Mark Goodacre | Bart Ehrman | James Tabor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary method | Composition/redaction reading: what is each gospel arguing? | Source criticism: who used whom (Goodacre 2001) | Historical-critical introduction plus parallel (horizontal) reading (Ehrman 2009) | Historical reconstruction of Jesus and his movement (Tabor 2006) |
| Central question | What thesis does each gospel advance about Jesus? | How are the gospels literarily related? | How do the gospels differ, and what did the historical Jesus say and do? | What lies behind the gospels, such as the Jesus/James/John the Baptist movement? |
| Source theory | Markan priority; Matthew and Luke both use Mark. Does not commit on Q | Markan priority; no Q, since Luke used Matthew (Farrer hypothesis) (Goodacre 2002) | Markan priority; Two-Source Hypothesis (Mark + Q) | Markan priority; generally works with Mark and Q (inference) |
| Mark | Faithful following fails under cost, and the oldest ending leaves the message with the reader | Primary source for Matthew and Luke; thematic reading is not his main focus | Suffering Messiah, secrecy motif, 16:8 as original ending | Earliest narrative source for an apocalyptic Jesus (inference) |
| Matthew | Torah stays in force as Jesus interprets it; judgment by obedience; forgiveness obligates | Expands Mark, and Luke is the editor responding to Matthew | Jewish gospel; Jesus as authoritative interpreter of the law | Fits a Torah-observant Jesus movement led by James (Tabor 2006) |
| Luke | God is overturning the social order, favoring the poor and outsiders | Writes with knowledge of Matthew and Mark, so differences are editorial choices | Concern for outcasts and the poor; calmer Jesus in the passion | Luke-Acts as Paul-oriented and Gentile-friendly (Tabor 2012) |
| John | Brings the life of the age to come into the present; a distinct thesis like the others | Open to John’s knowledge of the Synoptics (verify before citing) | Late, high christology and present salvation | Later theological reshaping, though some historical details are taken seriously (inference) |
| Afterlife / heaven | Luke is closest to a postmortem place (Lazarus, paradise); John emphasizes eternal life now plus resurrection “on the last day” | Not a focus | Agrees Luke offers the Synoptics’ clearest afterlife glimpses (Ehrman 2020) | Strong focus on resurrection and eschatology, less on an immortal soul (inference) |
| Why John’s present eschatology? | Unsure; develops present-tense kingdom language already in the Synoptics | Not a focus | Typically the delayed end of the world | Development of the movement’s eschatological expectations (inference) |
| Degree of John’s difference | No greater than the Synoptics’ differences from each other | Not framed this way | Treats John as a distinct portrait, with large chronological and theological differences | Treats John as a distinct late tradition |
| Historical Jesus | Not his focus here | Not his focus here | Apocalyptic prophet (Ehrman 1999) | Apocalyptic, Torah-observant Jesus with a dynastic movement |
Reading the Table
- Closest match to Wheeler: Ehrman, because both read the gospels side by side for distinct portraits.
- Biggest structural difference: Goodacre, because the source question changes how much of a Matthew/Luke contrast can be credited to editorial intent.
- Different goal: Tabor, because he asks about the historical movement behind the texts, not the thesis of each text.
Caveats
- Cells marked “(inference)” reflect my extrapolation from each scholar’s broader positions, not direct statements.
- Wheeler’s per-gospel thesis summaries are his own compression. Redaction critics often find multiple themes per gospel.
Works cited (from memory): Ehrman 1999, 2009, 2020; Goodacre 2001, 2002; Tabor 2006, 2012. Full titles are in my previous message.
I can turn this into a Word document or spreadsheet, or verify the “(inference)” cells with a live search of each scholar’s published work.
Another reply offered an excerpt from Bart’s blog, April 8, 2022, “that you might find relevant to [OPs] question.”. I include Bart’s comments below in number paragraphs without changing his text. The reason is to separate the examples into unique pieces that show a belief in an after and before life. Bart says: Voila. Reincarnation.
But There’s Not a Lot of Evidence. In fact, the evidence for it is sparse. That said, later interpreters have detected possible traces of the idea already in the New Testament.
- When Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am,” they tell him that some say he is John the Baptist come back from the dead, or Elijah, or one of the prophets (Mark 8:27-28). This may not mean everyone has had a previous life, but it does show that some people thought Jesus did.
- So too in the Gospel of John, the puzzled Jewish leaders ask John the Baptist: “Are you Elijah?” (John 1:21). He denies it, but it’s interesting that they thought it was possible.
- And even more interesting, if less obvious, later in the same Gospel, Jesus passes by a man who was born blind, and his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this person or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (John 9:2). It’s a revealing question: if the man was born blind because of his own sin, obviously he had to have committed the sin before his birth. Voila. Reincarnation.
