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Old 12-05-2008, 03:07 AM   #1
Anthesian
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Default The Four Gospels

I have been asking around about something my New Testament professor said. He stated that there is a good chance that, based on historical chronology and authorship investigation by scholars, the four gospels may not have been written by their supposed authors. He also went on to say that when you take out the menial stories that don't really say anything about Jesus in the gospels you find 4 different stories about who Jesus was.

Has anyone heard anything about this? I'm trying to get in touch with Bart Ehrman at UNC Chapel Hill so that I can talk to him about this.
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Old 12-05-2008, 03:26 AM   #2
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Yes, people have heard of this.
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Old 12-05-2008, 03:32 AM   #3
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Yes, people have heard of this.
Great simplicity. I ask under what circumstances did you hear it.
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Old 12-05-2008, 04:04 AM   #4
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Great simplicity. I ask under what circumstances did you hear it.
The significant amount of liberal biblical scholarship posits this premise, but given the problems with establishing anything biblical, no conclusions have been reached. What are you looking for?
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Old 12-05-2008, 04:48 AM   #5
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when you take out the menial stories that don't really say anything about Jesus in the gospels you find 4 different stories about who Jesus was.
I don't mean to sound cheeky, but I don't understand why this would lead anyone to believe that the books were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They are four different people, each with a different perspective, who I assume were familiar with what had been written previously, and sought to add to that. For example, my dad, my brother, my daughter, and my BFF would each give a different account of who I am and what I did with my life.
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Old 12-05-2008, 04:51 AM   #6
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The significant amount of liberal biblical scholarship posits this premise, but given the problems with establishing anything biblical, no conclusions have been reached. What are you looking for?
I agree. Essentially, I'm trying to recognize and understand the effects of a possibly fabricated story this is 2000 years old.

Is the abstract idea we call 'faith' enough? Faith lacks physical merit. I'm okay with that. Is it possible that we allow a possibly fictional story to dictate the way we live our lives?

The idea of a 'testimony' which is based solely on that warm fuzzy feeling in our chest isn't enough either. It isn't a blanket that keeps us warm but a blanket that clouds our vision of a possible truth instead of supposed known truth.

To the point...What if Jesus isn't who we have been told he was? I'm not trying to create doubt. I will leave that up to the individual. But what does this mean for Christianity? What course do we choose if this is true?

Or is Nietzche right when he stated that the only true Christian died on the cross and the rest are all hypocrites? Does this mean that Christianity died with the supposed son of God?

These are just things I have been thinking about from my NT class and my philosophy class.
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Old 12-05-2008, 04:58 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by ute4ever View Post
I don't mean to sound cheeky, but I don't understand why this would lead anyone to believe that the books were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They are four different people, each with a different perspective, who I assume were familiar with what had been written previously, and sought to add to that. For example, my dad, my brother, my daughter, and my BFF would each give a different account of who I am and what I did with my life.
It is because of the timeline of the appearances of the 4 Gospels.

Christ dies in 30 C.E.
Paul starts in 48 C.E.
Mark 65 C.E.
Temple destroyed
Matthew/Luke 85 C.E.--Luke could have been 135 C.E.
John 95 C.E.

These are the times that the gospels were written. However, the deaths of some apostles and disciples date some time before their gospels, epistles, etc.
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Old 12-05-2008, 10:40 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Anthesian View Post
It is because of the timeline of the appearances of the 4 Gospels.

Christ dies in 30 C.E.
Paul starts in 48 C.E.
Mark 65 C.E.
Temple destroyed
Matthew/Luke 85 C.E.--Luke could have been 135 C.E.
John 95 C.E.

These are the times that the gospels were written. However, the deaths of some apostles and disciples date some time before their gospels, epistles, etc.
The problem is that although a lazy consensus exists for the supposedly appearance based upon comments of supposed contemporary events leads scholars to conclude different timelines for the gospels, I've seen very wide guesses on John from the fifties to the traditional nineties, and Mark is sometimes traced back to the fifties, with Luke and Matthew being in between.

And then we have the Pauline epistle problem. So it's really fancy guesswork.
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Old 12-07-2008, 07:37 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by Archaea View Post
The problem is that although a lazy consensus exists for the supposedly appearance based upon comments of supposed contemporary events leads scholars to conclude different timelines for the gospels, I've seen very wide guesses on John from the fifties to the traditional nineties, and Mark is sometimes traced back to the fifties, with Luke and Matthew being in between.

And then we have the Pauline epistle problem. So it's really fancy guesswork.
I understand what you mean. I have been reading the Pauline letters and I have decided what I consider to be authentically Paul.

Authentic:
1 & 2 Corinthians
Philipians
Galatians
Philemon
Romans
1 Thessalonians


Fraudulent:
Ephesians
2 Thessalonians
1 & 2 Timothy
Titus
Colossians

The tone and attitudes in the fraudulent letters are very different from the authentic. I spoke with Dr. Metzger at Princeton about this. He agrees with some of my assumptions. The only authentic letter,IMO, that he disagrees with is 1 Thessalonians. He thinks it is fraudulent as well.
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Old 12-07-2008, 08:49 PM   #10
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They also say the Iliad and the Odyssey was not written by Homer, but by another author of the same name. We know nothing about Homer, incidentally, but that he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey.
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