What Is The Setting For The Last Supper? John 14:31

[Duncan]

In John 14:31 Christ tells his Apostles to "Arise, let us go hence."  but where was John 15-17 given? it seems after he gave those words he was arrested

[Robert F. Smith]

You seem to be asking two separate questions: (1) what is the setting of the Last Supper?  It meets most of the criteria of a Passover meal, the Seder.  (2) what  is the setting of Jn 15 - 17?  Since none of the Gospels seems to be arranged in a strictly sequential or chronological fashion, I don't know where to place such discursive material.  Perhaps this was material he covered while walking with the Eleven from what is now known as Mt Zion (where the Upper Room was located) en route to the gate leading to the Kidron Valley, and the Garden of Gethsemane.

[Duncan]

You seem to be asking two separate questions: (1) what is the setting of the Last Supper?  It meets most of the criteria of a Passover meal, the Seder.  (2) what  is the setting of Jn 15 - 17?  Since none of the Gospels seems to be arranged in a strictly sequential or chronological fashion, I don't know where to place such discursive material.  Perhaps this was material he covered while walking with the Eleven from what is now known as Mt Zion (where the Upper Room was located) en route to the gate leading to the Kidron Valley, and the Garden of Gethsemane.

 

yeah, true, hmm, interesting! it seems kind of disjointed, like me post!

[danielwoods]

In John 14:31 Christ tells his Apostles to "Arise, let us go hence."  but where was John 15-17 given? it seems after he gave those words he was arrested

John 18:1 "When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.

2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas came to the garden..."

 

 

This seems to pinpoint their location to be near the Kidron Valley. 

[mfbukowski]

John 18:1 "When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.

2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas came to the garden..."

 

 

This seems to pinpoint their location to be near the Kidron Valley. 

Yep.

 

Duncan you yourself said that it seemed to be just before getting arrested.  The order of events was: 1- Seder, 2- Garden, 3- Arrest and subsequent events.

[Duncan]

Yep.

 

Duncan you yourself said that it seemed to be just before getting arrested.  The order of events was: 1- Seder, 2- Garden, 3- Arrest and subsequent events.

 

well, where was John 15-17 said? it seems disjointed, Christ says to his apostles in v31 to go (somewhere)  and then he talks about I am the vine and things like that and then he gets arrested

[Nevo]

In John 14:31 Christ tells his Apostles to "Arise, let us go hence."  but where was John 15-17 given?

 

Apparently, the first part of chapter 15 took place in a vineyard, and then the remainder of chapter 15 and chs. 16–17 took place in some sort of cave:

 

Edited June 23, 2015 by Nevo

[Duncan]

 

Apparently, the first part of chapter 15 took place in a vineyard, and then the remainder of chapter 15 and chs. 16–17 took place in some sort of cave:

 

 

I wonder why they would leave the room they were at? 

[Calm]

They felt it helped digestion to go for a walk afterwards?  It was warm inside and a beautiful evening?  They just liked the outdoors?

[danielwoods]

well, where was John 15-17 said? it seems disjointed, Christ says to his apostles in v31 to go (somewhere)  and then he talks about I am the vine and things like that and then he gets arrested

 

John 18:1 explains it. They left after he prayed... the perception of time is difficult because there are 3 chapters of material, but it doesn't take that long to linger in the foyer and talk for a bit. 

[Nevo]

I wonder why they would leave the room they were at?

 

A number of scholars have suggested that 14:31 was the original ending of the farewell discourse, and that the material in chs. 15, 16, and 17 was added at a later stage of composition. John 14:31 ("Arise, let us go hence") seems to parallel Mark 14:42 ("Rise up, let us go"), which immediately precedes the arrest in the garden. Thus, writes NT scholar Andrew Lincoln: "What looks like an awkward piece of editing in adding supplementary material after this point may not originally have been thought to be so out of place. Once it is realized that . . . the narrative is basically following the Markan outline, then Mark 14.43 — 'while he was still speaking' — may have been seen as allowing for Jesus to have spoken further words after his 'Rise, let us go' in 14.42, and these are then supplied in abundance by the fourth evangelist" (Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John [bNTC 4; London: Continuum, 2005], 399).

 

For a more conservative take, here is the respected evangelical NT scholar D. A. Carson:

 

The major structural challenge of the entire discourse is occasioned by the closing sentence of 14:31: ‘Come now; let us leave.’ What is the relation between the material before and after that break?

(a) Several harmonizing suggestions have been put forward. The most common response throughout the church’s history has been that the first two chapters, John 13–14, are set in the upper room, while chs. 15–17 continue the dialogue along the road to the Mount of Olives, culminating in the prayer of John 17. Most contemporary scholars dismiss this option: it ‘seems incredible’ (Barrett, p. 454), it is ‘hardly to be countenanced’ (Beasley-Murray, p. 223). If a reason is given for this judgment, it is the wording of 18:1: ‘When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. The natural way to take this, it is argued, is that Jesus and his disciples left the upper room. In that case, why the exhortation of 14:31? Are we to think of Jesus and his disciples standing around for three more chapters before they left? Indeed, this is almost as common a solution in the history of the church (cf. Meyer, 2. 235–237). Other proposals are often less convincing. It appears unjustified, with Dodd (see notes, below), to render the last clause of 14:31 in such a way that only a spiritual meaning is intended: ‘Up, let us march to meet him [i.e. the prince of this world, 14:30]!’

(b) Various displacements of the text have been suggested, all of them with this in common, that 14:31 now comes much later in the discourse (Bernard: 13:1–31a; 15; 16; 13:31b–38; 14; 17; Bultmann: 13:1–30; 17; 13:31–35; 15; 16; 13:36–14:31), thereby easing the perceived clash between 14:31 and 18:1. But these suggestions of displacements, like those put forward regarding John 5–7 (cf. notes there), introduce more problems than they resolve. John 14 is particularly full of questions by the disciples, but these questions become less intelligible if we are to suppose that the material of John 15–16 comes before them. Moreover, it has often been noted that 14:16–17 reads like the introduction of the sayings about the Holy Spirit, the ‘Paraclete’. These two verses are somewhat incongruous if they succeed all the other passages in the discourse about the Paraclete.

© Some have suggested that John 14 or John 13:31–14:31 constitutes the original record of a discourse, and that the Evangelist then gives his own meditations upon it in John 15–16. If so, it is hard to understand why he did such a botched job in his final editing. Moreover, there is another weakness in this theory that the next option brings out.

(d) Another common hypothesis today is that John 14 or John 13:31–14:31 constitutes one version of a dominical discourse, and that John 15–16 (some say John 15–17) constitutes a second version. Neither is more primary than the other; they are simply alternative accounts and reflections. The evidence for this view (it is argued) lies in the common themes of the two sections: both parts talk of the departure of Jesus to the Father and of his coming again (14:2–3, 18–20, 22–23, 28; 16:5–7, 16–22, 28; 17:11, 13), of the revelation of the Father (14:9; 17:6, 26), of prayer in Jesus’ name (14:13–15; 16:23–24, 26), of Jesus’ relation to the Father (14:6–7, 9–11, 28; 15:10, 23–24; 16:15; 17:1–2, 4–5, 8, 10, 21–26), of keeping Jesus’ commands (14:15, 21, 23; 15:10, 12–14, 17), of the Paraclete (14:16–17, 26; 15:26–27; 16:7–15), and of the judgment of the prince of the world (14:30; 16:11). The very fact that so much of the same ground is covered calls in question the third option (above), that makes so much of chs. 15–16 secondary, and favours the ‘two version’ theory. Of course, this means that the Evangelist was pretty clumsy at 14:31b, when he joined the alleged two versions together. That is why many scholars plump for the third option, but suggest that the Evangelist finished his work at 14:31b, and a later redactor put in the rest of the material. Presumably it is permissible to credit the redactor with clumsiness even when one is reluctant to charge the Evangelist with this crime.

There is no way of proving to the satisfaction of everyone the rightness or wrongness of any particular ‘solution’. The multiplication of sources and redactors ought to be treated with particular suspicion: most writers will frankly acknowledge that their roughest drafts are their first, and that successive polishing, by the original author or someone else, reduces the number of apparent aporias and enhances the smoothness. The only time this is not so occurs when the final editor is notoriously incompetent. Incompetent or not, there is precious little evidence in the text, solid evidence, that interpreters two thousand years removed from the events may seize on to distinguish believably amongst five layers of tradition and redaction (so Brown).

 

The interpreter’s first job is to make sense of the text as it stands. Not only the witness theme but also numerous bits of incidental evidence suggest that much of the Gospel depends on eyewitness memory (cf. Introduction, §§ III, IV). If we take these bits at their face value, 14:31b appears, on initial reading, to be a momentous instance of personal recollection: little of theological value turns on the words ‘Come now; let us leave’; their inclusion can be justified only on the grounds of an incompetent editor or simply on the grounds that personal memory of the events recalled them that way (but cf. notes below). The memory was strong enough that no attempt was made to expunge the words, despite the little they add to the immediate context. If one discounts the suggestion that the Evangelist felt he had to include words like those found in Mark 14:42 (‘Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!’—uttered in Gethsemane), and simply put them here because he couldn’t think of a better place (as if this part of John were slavishly following Mark!), one can nevertheless imagine at least two plausible scenarios.

 

First, it is possible that Jesus and his disciples did not in fact leave until after John 17. Anyone who has frequently invited home ten to twenty graduate students (as has the present writer) knows how common it is, after someone has announced it is time to go, for another half hour to slip past before anyone makes a serious move to leave. There is no concrete evidence against this view; the link between 14:31 and 18:1 might be taken to support it. The troubling question is why the Evangelist should have bothered to report 14:31b at all. Apart from appeal to the power of memory, it might be argued that the decision to record a delay in departure is the Evangelist’s attempt to depict yet again Jesus’ profound love for his disciples (cf. 13:1), his concern to drill into them certain stabilizing truths that would see them through the crisis ahead (cf. 14:29), his desire to place before them, through his final prayer (Jn. 17), the cosmic sweep of the tragedy and triumph about to befall.

 

Alternatively, one could imagine Jesus and his disciples actually leaving at this point, and continuing their conversation in the narrow streets of the old city. Some have suggested a pause at the temple; others have ventured that the presence of vines along the way, or of frescoes of vines at the temple or on the gates of the wall,24 might have triggered ‘I am the true vine …’ In this case, the departure in 18:1 is most likely departure from the city. Lest this approach to the interpretation of 14:31b sound like the desperate expedient of an unteachable conservative, it must be pointed out that Haenchen, who can scarcely be called a conservative, thinks 14:31b pictures the disciples leaving (even though his approach to 18:1 is rather independent, 2. 128, 164), and does not see in 15:1ff. the beginning of a new farewell discourse or of a new version of the one farewell discourse.

— D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (PNTC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 476–479.

[Duncan]

 

A number of scholars have suggested that 14:31 was the original ending of the farewell discourse, and that the material in chs. 15, 16, and 17 was added at a later stage of composition. John 14:31 ("Arise, let us go hence") seems to parallel Mark 14:42 ("Rise up, let us go"), which immediately precedes the arrest in the garden. Thus, writes NT scholar Andrew Lincoln: "What looks like an awkward piece of editing in adding supplementary material after this point may not originally have been thought to be so out of place. Once it is realized that . . . the narrative is basically following the Markan outline, then Mark 14.43 — 'while he was still speaking' — may have been seen as allowing for Jesus to have spoken further words after his 'Rise, let us go' in 14.42, and these are then supplied in abundance by the fourth evangelist" (Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John [bNTC 4; London: Continuum, 2005], 399).

 

For a more conservative take, here is the respected evangelical NT scholar D. A. Carson:

 

 

 

There's Pepsi all over my computer screen because my head just exploded! WOW!!! Thank you!!!!!

[Calm]

Your brain is made of Pepsi?

[Duncan]

Your brain is made of Pepsi?

 

and snips and snails and puppy dog tails!

[Robert F. Smith]

I wonder why they would leave the room they were at? 

The Upper Room on Mt Zion is at the southwest corner of the city of Jerusalem.  It is quite a distance from there to the Kidron Valley and the Garden of Gethsemane.  I have walked it many times.  They had to leave the room in order to walk the distance, and Jesus even tells them, "Let's get up and go!"  You can imagine them walking in silence, or the rabbi teaching them as they went.  You can do whatever you like with the text, even taking it as an out of order insertion by the redactor/editor.

[Duncan]

The Upper Room on Mt Zion is at the southwest corner of the city of Jerusalem.  It is quite a distance from there to the Kidron Valley and the Garden of Gethsemane.  I have walked it many times.  They had to leave the room in order to walk the distance, and Jesus even tells them, "Let's get up and go!"  You can imagine them walking in silence, or the rabbi teaching them as they went.  You can do whatever you like with the text, even taking it as an out of order insertion by the redactor/editor.

 

like a field trip kind of