What a funny question, you may say. But the idea came as I was reading one of those chatty, popular articles you find in Christian magazines and on websites describing John as "one of the youngest of the disciples."
Now we know very little about the disciples. We know there was an inner group of twelve of them, and we know the names of at least ten of them (Was Levi another name for James the son of Alphaeus? Was Thaddaeus, or Lebbaeus, or Judas ('son of James'): one man with three names, or a lapse of memory, or a slip of the pen?) We know that Thomas was a twin, that Matthew was a tax collector, that James and John were brothers, that Thomas and Philip had a talent for asking difficult questions. We can build up a picture of Peter's bluff loyalty. But we do not know how old they were, or what they looked like, or how they dressed.
When we read a story, our mind rushes to build images of the events and the people described. With the Bible, we have the help of artists through the ages, who have illustrated some of the best-known passages: David facing up to Goliath, the animals entering the ark, the wise men bearing gifts, the Last Supper. These images can be both a hindrance and a help.
They are a hindrance because they give us a different picture from "what really happened." The twelve-year-old and the ogre, the tidy London boat-queue with giraffes, the three Turkish kings on camels, the thirteen men on one side of a long table stem from the imagination of their artist, not from the words of scripture. But this is at the same time a help, for the artists have shared with us their own interpretation of the inner meaning of the event - Goliath's pride, the wise men's humility, the awfulness of betrayal. There are even little details entirely from the artist's imagination which can provoke us to thought, like Titian's little dog lifting its leg against the open stable as the magi bring their gifts - incarnation brought down to earth!
And when we read a story, our mind tends to fill in the gaps with details of our own invention. The Bethlehem stories in Matthew and Luke must have been handed down to the writers: so they must have come from Mary (or, since they differ in detail, partly from Mary and partly from Joseph). Or must they? Peter had a mother-in-law, and so was older than the other disciples. Really?
John's gospel mentions Jesus going up to the Passover three times during his ministry, so his ministry must have lasted three years. How can we know?
Over the years, traditions have built up which we tend to take for granted. Are we sure that the third Gospel was written by a physician called Luke? That Mark was the young boy who fled naked in Mk 14:52? That "the disciple whom Jesus loved" was called John and died on Patmos at a ripe old age? That the "sinful woman" who washed Jesus' feet with her tears was called Mary Magdalene?
The Bible is not a newsreel. Its writers selected their details carefully, intending us to receive the message they wanted to proclaim, and not what we want to hear. We need to study what it tells us, not what we think it ought to tell us. There is a danger, for example, in putting narratives in different accounts together, as if they are one story seen through different eyes. But the evangelists are not "telling a story" - they are giving us a message: that God has worked through events in history, and is working even now. The message is not about whether the fish that fed the five thousand were carp or perch, it is not about which part of Egypt Mary fled to to avoid Herod's anger, it is not about Pilate's motives in releasing Barabbas rather than Jesus or how long it takes to walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
The message is that God cares for us, provides for us, suffered and still suffers for us, and walks with us. Compared with this overwhelming news, who cares whether Judas was in his twenties or in his eighties?
HD