It's a historical fact that the gospels weren't written til AFTER christs alleged death and resurection. there are many logical arguments for and against the reliaability of the various gospels.
Jessica[}:)]
Jessica[}:)]
quote:
Originally posted by Berserk
This post is inspired by Adrian's post on the reliability of biblical tradition. Outside the New Testament, our most important connection to the eyewitnesses of Jesus is Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in what is now Turkey (60-130 AD). Papias knew apostles and those discipled by them. He learns from them that Mark was Peter's interpreter in Rome and that, after Nero kills Peter, Mark shapes Peter's teaching materlals into a Gospel. So when you read Mark, you are essentially reading eyewitness testimony. When Mark was young, the first church met in his mother's house (Acts 12:12).
Papias also learns that the apostle Matthew collected Jesus' sayings. It seems that Matthew composed the most comprehensive sayings source Q (from the German "Quelle" meaning "source"). We no longer have Q, but Q is used in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark in John. Most of Jesus' sayings in Matthew are derived from Q. Papias says that Matthew composed a sayings collection, not a Gospel! The Gospel bears Matthew's name because of confusion over this point.
Some have made the absurd claim that since Q is just a sayings collection Jesus never performed any miracles. But Q is just a Wisdom collection and this literary genre does not even allow the inclusion of miracle stories! We don't scold poetry anthologies for omitting discussions of quantum mechanics! Before there were Gospels, there were separate collections of sayings, miracle stories, and controversy stories as well as separate birth, Passion, and Resurrection narratives. In general, the integration of these sources caused the original sequence of events to be lost. Matthew and Luke use Mark and Q as sources for their Gospels.
Luke the physician was Paul's travel companion. Luke composed both the Gospel that bears his name and the Book of Acts. His Gospel begins with his claim that he has researched "eyewitness" testimony (1:2-3). When did he do this? In the Book of Acts he informs us that he travelled with Paul to Jerusalem and consulted with Jesus' brother James and other apostles (21:18).
In the Gospel miracle traditions, additional evidence for eyewitness testimony can be detected in embarrassing details that seem unlikely to be invented. For example, in the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26), the man still has blurry vision after Jesus lays hands on him: "I see people, but they look like ealking trees." The man needs a second session with Jesus to complete the cure. If this were legend, the legend would surely portray God's Son as doing the job right the first time. Matthew and Luke are apparently so offended by this initial failure that they omit the story. More striking is Mark's admission that in Jesus' home town, He "COULD DO NO miracles there" because of their mocking skepticism. Matthew changes "could do no" to "did not do many" to soften the obvious implication that Jesus tried and falied to heal there (13:58); and as the commentaries explain, a later scribe adds an awkward "escept" clause to Mark to minimize the damage. In my view, the willingness of Mark (or rather his source, Peter) to admit that Jesus bombed in his home town makes the other miracle stories more credible.
It would take too long to explain the case for John's derivation from eyewitness testimony. So I'll leave that for another post.
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