My focus is on the story of Lazarus, which in the Gospel of John involves a spectacular miracle accomplished by Jesus. According to John’s gospel, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. But I will suggest that the same plot elements, and the same vocabulary, appear elsewhere in the New Testament, except that they manifest in totally different genres and settings. The obvious question is: which came first? What evolved into what?Also, I have updated yesterday's PaleoJudaica post on the 1300-year-old silks from China.I’ll offer three possibilities. A parable was repurposed as history. Or, a historical episode morphed into a parable. Or, and I will argue, most likely, both history and parable grew out of a homily or sermon – in fact, one of the very earliest Christian homilies of which we have record.
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