The call

Neil "Vridar" Godfrey is translating (via Google) some German dood. Which is fine. Great, even. Although I am biased myself having (basically) scanlated Nöldeke and Kamen, some years back. We all can only hope that the translations are good enough.

Vridar has some questions about the initial call for disciples. First (okay, technically second): why is it that John head of the Baptist movement is proclaiming the arrival of one greater than he. Next (last of three): since when does sensei ask for followers. Imam Malik didn't want Shafi'i to hang around his majlis. "Club Mayhem" in Fight Club isn't fiction, here.

Tell you when the guru does call for help - it is when he is calling for volunteers. The Prophet Muhammad blurted out that the deen would be better off without so-and-so. Some Muslims duly ridded the deen of said turbulence.

"Well that just shows how Jesus is different" - nah. Not good enough, mate.

I will pipe in that sometimes the prophet does predict a later and greater man. The former prophet might think he's not fit to rule, himself; often prophets and seers were blind, in antiquity. I do not think that (say) Samuel calling out for a David is a mere trope. More: in the post-Jewish tradition, Moses himself (famously) did not enter the promised land. What's John even doing in the Jordan if not aping Moses. In our times Joseph Smith hoped for One Mighty And Strong. So that's an L for Bauer, and I'll say: a double L for Vridar, for Just Raising Questions that he should know to answer - in the negative.

On to the Gospels, I've said before they're not good as primary sources - but. I do take seriously cases for the sources of Mark and "John". Mark may be the direct hearer of an aged Simon Peter; at any rate, his gospel is the Petrine community's official rebuttal against what's now "John". That community, and perhaps Peter himself, had no motive to propose Peter as hanging around the Rabbi Jesus for enlightenment and healing, as so many other proto-Christians did. If Jesus took the initiative to select Peter, that supported the Petrine claim to Heaven's Key. Which is (through Peter's bishops) the Church of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria.

As I'm reading "John" 1:35f, in fact that's how it works. Andrew bar Yuhanan a Baptist, alongside a fellow Baptist, traipse after Jesus. This, Jesus then permits. Same for Andrew's brother Simon, whom Jesus will rename Cephas (=Peter). The first man Jesus picks out of the crowd is one Philip. This may or may not be Andrew's original companion. "John", I suspect, doesn't want us to think so; "John" may want us to see Philip as someone else, and Andrew's companion to be The Beloved Disciple.

It all seems on-brand for both texts. "John" starts closer to events, downplays Peter, and is (I must allow) more believable; but "John" has been ideologically corrupted on its way to our New Testament, for a start to insinuate The Beloved Disciple. Meanwhile here comes Mark to recast those events as to serve Peter. In, certainly, the wrong sequence. Papias wins again.