Booker
All-Pro
Offline
...
As discussed, the Gospels are indeed considered anonymous – unlike published histories of the time, none of the authors identify themselves, their credentials, their sources, nothing. They also recount fanciful, supernatural events for which there is not a single shred of independent confirmation of from non-Christian sources. These are facts, and this is why it is important for apologetics to argue that the Gospels, even if they’re not eye-witness accounts, are at least independent accounts passed down orally. The long accepted or promoted view was that their similarities were reason to believe they recounted the same story, and their differences were due to different perspectives of the witnesses. When you actually examine what is now known, though, those claims start to break down.
The Gospel of Mark is widely accepted as being the first Gospel, and Matthew and Luke are known to have copied extensively from Mark, word for word in many instances (and from what I’ve read it’s much more apparent in the original Greek, as English translations often vary how they translate repeated words and phrases so as not to be monotonous).
Logically, if the latter two are copying from the first, then they’re not independent, and they’re also not passing down oral history – they’re rewriting/redacting a prior story. They didn’t just keep what they liked, they intentionally changed what they didn’t; sometimes feats are inflated, (Jesus cured two blind people instead of one; Jesus rode not just a single donkey, but a donkey and a foal when he entered Jerusalem), or where they disagreed with Mark’s theology or story they freely changed the narrative to fit their own.
Additionally, either Luke copies from Matthew or they have a common literary source apart from Mark that they both copy from but fail to credit. The “Q” theory was created to account for this, but Q is completely hypothetical – there are arguments for it, but there’s no real evidence or references to support that such a document actually existed. The simpler argument is that Luke, in addition to copying from Mark, also copied from Matthew.
Additional evidence to support that Luke is responding to Matthew comes from their competing sermons, using Jesus as their mouth piece. Matthew presents “the Sermon on the Mount” to explain the theology he wishes to promote while Luke counters with “the Sermon on the Plains” to explain his -- but neither appear in Mark, which was the main prior source of both, suggesting they're simply the work of the later authors. Likewise with their competing and non-compatible nativity stories -- according to Matthew, Jesus would have been born no later than 4 BC, but according to Luke he would have been born no sooner than 6 AD.
With John, whole chunks of the narrative are rearranged – the Temple cleansing, for example, is reversed from occurring at the end of Jesus’ ministry and here occurs at the beginning. But there is evidence of literary allusions used by Mark also appearing here, documenting potential literary dependence upon Mark as with the other Gospels.
John was also arguably a response to at least Luke, and this is apparent from the dueling Lazarus stories. The name of Lazarus appears only in these two Gospels, but for different purposes. With Luke, a character named Lazarus appears in a story used to demonstrate that if people aren’t convinced by the words of Moses and the Prophets “they will not be convinced even is someone rises from the dead.” The Gospel of John famously ups the ante and has Jesus literally raise someone from the dead named Lazarus. This is not coincidental, it’s clear evidence of a literary response, thus indicating dependence.
Back to Mark. If the other Gospels are dependent upon Mark, where does it come from? As I referenced in a previous post, Mark is believed to have been written following the Jewish Wars. Arguing against it being the being the product of oral history are the facts that it makes heavy use of literary allusion to the Hebrew scriptures, rewriting stories with Jesus at the center, and is highly structured in its format, suggesting that the author was highly educated and had scriptures available to pull passages from.
As I mentioned, a great example of this is the Crucifixion scene, which pulls from Psalms 22, or the fig tree/Temple scenes, which pull from Hosea 9. If you go to the very beginning of Mark, though, he makes what he’s doing very apparent from the start with his description of John the Baptist, which parallels the description of Elijah from Kings. He's recasting Elijah and Elisha as John the Baptist and Jesus -- literally rewriting Kings around Jesus -- and by his description of John the Baptist he want his audience to understand this.
There's a lot more that could be said, particularly about the silence of Paul in regard to the Gospel narratives, but I'll leave it there. Examining the Gospels with a critical, non-apologetic lens you find anonymous stories of unbelievable occurrences written long after the events they describe that are not independent, as they clearly copy and respond to each other, and are non-corroborated outside of Christian literature, while the oral history claim is again dubious due to the structure and literary dependence upon prior writings. Critical reflection upon all of these facts leaves, at least in my view, no logical reason to view them as anything more than damn good creative writing -- but of course feel free to disagree
.
Peace.
Brennan, I wanted to get back to you with a more detailed (i.e. tldr) response than I provided last night. As far was why I find this important, when you examine the issue and logically follow where it takes you, in my view it devastates the value of the Gospels as reliable witnesses to really anything. I surely don't expect to convince you, but hope to simply to explain where these lines of thoughts come from; and while you won’t likely hear anything about this in church sermons or Bible study groups, these issues are all known academically.
As discussed, the Gospels are indeed considered anonymous – unlike published histories of the time, none of the authors identify themselves, their credentials, their sources, nothing. They also recount fanciful, supernatural events for which there is not a single shred of independent confirmation of from non-Christian sources. These are facts, and this is why it is important for apologetics to argue that the Gospels, even if they’re not eye-witness accounts, are at least independent accounts passed down orally. The long accepted or promoted view was that their similarities were reason to believe they recounted the same story, and their differences were due to different perspectives of the witnesses. When you actually examine what is now known, though, those claims start to break down.
The Gospel of Mark is widely accepted as being the first Gospel, and Matthew and Luke are known to have copied extensively from Mark, word for word in many instances (and from what I’ve read it’s much more apparent in the original Greek, as English translations often vary how they translate repeated words and phrases so as not to be monotonous).
Logically, if the latter two are copying from the first, then they’re not independent, and they’re also not passing down oral history – they’re rewriting/redacting a prior story. They didn’t just keep what they liked, they intentionally changed what they didn’t; sometimes feats are inflated, (Jesus cured two blind people instead of one; Jesus rode not just a single donkey, but a donkey and a foal when he entered Jerusalem), or where they disagreed with Mark’s theology or story they freely changed the narrative to fit their own.
Additionally, either Luke copies from Matthew or they have a common literary source apart from Mark that they both copy from but fail to credit. The “Q” theory was created to account for this, but Q is completely hypothetical – there are arguments for it, but there’s no real evidence or references to support that such a document actually existed. The simpler argument is that Luke, in addition to copying from Mark, also copied from Matthew.
Additional evidence to support that Luke is responding to Matthew comes from their competing sermons, using Jesus as their mouth piece. Matthew presents “the Sermon on the Mount” to explain the theology he wishes to promote while Luke counters with “the Sermon on the Plains” to explain his -- but neither appear in Mark, which was the main prior source of both, suggesting they're simply the work of the later authors. Likewise with their competing and non-compatible nativity stories -- according to Matthew, Jesus would have been born no later than 4 BC, but according to Luke he would have been born no sooner than 6 AD.
With John, whole chunks of the narrative are rearranged – the Temple cleansing, for example, is reversed from occurring at the end of Jesus’ ministry and here occurs at the beginning. But there is evidence of literary allusions used by Mark also appearing here, documenting potential literary dependence upon Mark as with the other Gospels.
John was also arguably a response to at least Luke, and this is apparent from the dueling Lazarus stories. The name of Lazarus appears only in these two Gospels, but for different purposes. With Luke, a character named Lazarus appears in a story used to demonstrate that if people aren’t convinced by the words of Moses and the Prophets “they will not be convinced even is someone rises from the dead.” The Gospel of John famously ups the ante and has Jesus literally raise someone from the dead named Lazarus. This is not coincidental, it’s clear evidence of a literary response, thus indicating dependence.
Back to Mark. If the other Gospels are dependent upon Mark, where does it come from? As I referenced in a previous post, Mark is believed to have been written following the Jewish Wars. Arguing against it being the being the product of oral history are the facts that it makes heavy use of literary allusion to the Hebrew scriptures, rewriting stories with Jesus at the center, and is highly structured in its format, suggesting that the author was highly educated and had scriptures available to pull passages from.
As I mentioned, a great example of this is the Crucifixion scene, which pulls from Psalms 22, or the fig tree/Temple scenes, which pull from Hosea 9. If you go to the very beginning of Mark, though, he makes what he’s doing very apparent from the start with his description of John the Baptist, which parallels the description of Elijah from Kings. He's recasting Elijah and Elisha as John the Baptist and Jesus -- literally rewriting Kings around Jesus -- and by his description of John the Baptist he want his audience to understand this.
There's a lot more that could be said, particularly about the silence of Paul in regard to the Gospel narratives, but I'll leave it there. Examining the Gospels with a critical, non-apologetic lens you find anonymous stories of unbelievable occurrences written long after the events they describe that are not independent, as they clearly copy and respond to each other, and are non-corroborated outside of Christian literature, while the oral history claim is again dubious due to the structure and literary dependence upon prior writings. Critical reflection upon all of these facts leaves, at least in my view, no logical reason to view them as anything more than damn good creative writing -- but of course feel free to disagree
.Peace.
but I sincerely hope you get your employment situation resolved quickly. As much as I enjoy our interactions, you take care of you first.
