Vatican forgives John Lennon

[klonk]

lol. I love that movie.

Remember Jesus and Buddah never wrote anything - all we have is scribbling of what people thought they meant several years after they had turned to dust

This is an oft-bandied factoid, but in the case of the Christian gospels, at least, it will not wash! There is every reason to accept the canonical gospels as what the church has always said they are, documents close in time Jesus' earthly ministry. Internal evidence leads to that conclusion. For example, Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. The destruction happened in 70 AD. The gospels report the prophecy but not its fulfilment. They certainly would have mentioned the prophecy was fulfilled...unless you want to ascribe to the gospel writers a willful intent to deceive, by cooking up a story after the fact, to make it look of early date when it was not. But I don't sense deceptiveness in their writing, so the obvious conclusion is that the canonical accounts of Jesus' life and ministry date from before 70 AD. That falls easily into the lifetimes of many who would have heard and known him.

There is textual evidence too, suggesting a first century origin, but that is rather an involved field. But now that you know it is out there you can research the matter for yourself...if you care to. Anyhow, most Christians, and some of us are mighty tough-mineded and critical, accept the gospels as what they are on their face, period accounts. (We only argue about what they say and mean. )

[GrahamB]

As far as I'm aware serious academic research doesn't place any of them as being written during his lifetime. Beyond that I'll leave it to serious historians to argue about. I'm not a historian.

Anyway, that wasn't my point. My point was that the man himself never wrote anything. I don't think you can argue with that.

[Ian]

As far as I'm aware serious academic research doesn't place any of them as being written during his lifetime.

Correct. The earliest NT sources are Paul's letters, which were written more than 20 years after Jesus' crucifixion, but they say little about Jesus' life.

The four Gospels were composed later on, but drawing on earlier material. Mark is the earliest surviving Gospel, dated at around AD 70.

All four Gospels and Paul's letters were written in Greek (with some Aramaic) and translated multiple times to arrive at what you see in bookstores and churches today.

Also lost is the rich oral tradition of early Christian communities. Until around AD 135, that was the preferred means of passing on knowledge of Jesus. Only a tiny proportion of what was originally recorded has survived.

[klonk]

You can go round and round about theories about the dates of the gospels, but note that Acts was obviously written before the Temple was destroyed (Paul speaks there). And Luke says he wrote the Gospel of Luke before he wrote Acts. Why would that be in there if it were not a) true or b) an intentional fabrication to establish an early date---but what would be the motive for doing that?

[GrahamB]

You can go round and round about theories about the dates of the gospels, but note that Acts was obviously written before the Temple was destroyed (Paul speaks there). And Luke says he wrote the Gospel of Luke before he wrote Acts. Why would that be in there if it were not a) true or b) an intentional fabrication to establish an early date---but what would be the motive for doing that?

Oh, boy.

G sits back and cracks open a beer.

[Steve James]

Hmm, I think Graham's point is just that the Gospels and New Testament were not written by Jesus. He did not, afawk, write anything down; and, none of the NT was written in His lifetime --i.e., before the crucifixion. Well, the four Gospels all record the crucifixion and what happened afterward. Similarly, Buddha's sutras were recorded by his followers.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

It's irrelevant when the gospels were written. The q'umran findings confirm a lot of things and destroy a lot of other ideas flat.

what's important is only relevant to the believers and that is simply do you? or don't you?

the rest is following the tenets laid out by the gospels.

[Doc Stier]

The four Gospels were composed later on, but drawing on earlier material....the rich oral tradition of early Christian communities.....that was the preferred means of passing on knowledge of Jesus.

The Oral Tradition referred to by Ian was not lost, but in fact was and is preserved and greatly treasured within Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Tremendous efforts were made to do so from the earliest times, simply because the vast majority of people who had personal contact with Jesus (Yeshua) were illiterate, and wouldn't have been capable of reading any transcript of His teachings in any event.

The preserved Oral Tradition is also how virtually all of the special sites associated with the life of Jesus and the major events of His public ministry were located, in many instances even several hundred years later. In a similar way even today, local historians and special interest groups everywhere preserve information about notable historical locations, famous historical people associated with the sites, and make an ongoing effort to preserve such information and sites.

Why then should it be so difficult to accept that people who had been profoundly influenced by their contacts with Jesus and by witnessing the events of His life would remember what they heard and saw, and would tell others about these things? This is the living Oral Tradition!

Doc

[DeusTrismegistus]

Within 50 years after Jesus death their were many different versions of the Gospel of Matthew. There are also Bibles like the Young's that go back to the oldest texts available for any given book and translate it literally from the original language. So the whole translation train thing is a thing of the past especially for religious scholars. Last I heard the oldest Gospel was 50 years after the crucifixion, but there are many versions of the Gospels dating from that time period which most scholars agree indicates multiple copies of older documents. Most scholars believe there is a single source Gospel that the three biblical Gospels were based on. I don't think any scholar actually thinks Jesus wrote any of the Gospels himself, so I am not sure why that is being argued about? As for the age of the Gospels most religious scholars agree that the earliest must have been written before the oldest we have discovered, which would be before the temple was destroyed.

[Chris Fleming]

You can go round and round about theories about the dates of the gospels, but note that Acts was obviously written before the Temple was destroyed (Paul speaks there). And Luke says he wrote the Gospel of Luke before he wrote Acts. Why would that be in there if it were not a) true or b) an intentional fabrication to establish an early date---but what would be the motive for doing that?

Word up.

Martial artists will fight over when such and such master created such and such style, with almost no writing (or actually none at all) to back any of it up, and yet people will in essence claim that the Bible was all made up based on some theory on who wrote what and when, regardless of all the materials there are to look at. Funny thing, that.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

worthy of note is that there is way more to the bible than what we see in it's current compilation.

the many other gospels for instance and literally tons of other volumes that were not included. for whatever reason.

[Ian]

God damn it... don't get your collective panties in a bunch.

Graham made a comment, I made a comment. Did anyone say your shit is fake? I think the only thing we said was none of that *stuff* was written while Jesus was alive.

Ligthen up.

[GrahamB]

But Ian... how should we lighten up? You must show us the way!

[Ian]

[Chris Fleming]

God damn it... don't get your collective panties in a bunch.

Graham made a comment, I made a comment. Did anyone say your shit is fake? I think the only thing we said was none of that *stuff* was written while Jesus was alive.

Ligthen up.

And I made a comment too. LTFU.