Questions about the Gospels (Help)

[theseed]

I need some apolgetic help supporting the validity of the Gosepls:help:

http://www.christianforums.com/t87471

[JVAC]

Let's see,

There is the Gospel of Jesus according to St. Luke, who was to have been a disciple of St. Paul himself. The author of the Gospel wrote both the Gospel according to St. Luke and the Book of Acts (according to the first sentences in the respective texts) This is confirmed by the we sections of the Acts text. This establishes and confirms St. Luke's validity.

The Gospel according to St. Matthew is up in the air, I have heard that it was most likely written by a Jew in the city of Antioch about 70 AD (nuts to CE). This is assumed from quite a lenghthy analysis of text, context clues, etc. Yet the validity is still pretty high because it is basically 95% the same as St. Luke's account.

Next we have St. Mark's Gospel, which is almost unanymously considered the first Gospel. This was the source used by St. Luke and St. Matthew, however, I don't know too much about the origins of this Gospel.

St. John's account is widely disputed to be anywhere from 45AD to 85AD, I here many more people opining it to be later, but I myself to to think of it as earlier, but that is a subject for some other thread. John's Gospel is associated with the Epistles of John, because it is written in the same style and shares other commonalities. This Gospel is generally considered to be written by St. John the Apostle because, his brother James was killed earlier, and besides that through textual analysis, John avoided using his own name in the Gospel. Peter is out because he is mentioned, thus the only one from the inner three is John. And the writer Theophilus of Antioch, who was a student of St. Polycarp, which was a close friend of St. John, acredited the Gospel to him.

Maybe I can get more later, but that is as much as I can think of now.

[theseed]

Thanks JVAC, this helps some.

[theseed]

Paul was on the Sanhedrin that condemned Christ was he not?

[JVAC]

I can't confirm or deny it but I do know he had authority from the High Priest. hmmmm, maybe if you could provide a little more information on your debate, I could look up some better information.

-James

[JVAC]

Ok, I know that Paul didn't condemn, Jesus. However, the Sanhedrin did. So he didn't have an active role in killing Jesus but he did have a big part in Persecuting his Church.

[theseed]

Here is the mess that I got myself into, here is the link for the debate.

http://www.christianforums.com/t86989

In particular, we were talking about Mark 14, our debate is towards the bottom of the thread.

[theseed]

I got a post in the Christian Apologetics forum that I should not throw my perals before swine. I see their piont. And that is what that verse is about.

Matthew 7
6 "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

[theseed]

Somebody pointed out to me that each of the Gospels are not just one man's contribution of what happend. For example, it John 21, it says that "we" can varify that the beloved disciples Testimony is true. And for Luke, he was careful in interviewing people, as a physcian would be.

[theseed]

Ok, I know that Paul didn't condemn, Jesus. However, the Sanhedrin did. So he didn't have an active role in killing Jesus but he did have a big part in Persecuting his Church.
But he was probably there if he was a member? Or at least could have been. It was the high priest that tore his clothes and gave the final word for Christ to die.

Also, I need to know why they did not stone him. Does it have to do with the Passover?

[JVAC]

I'll look into it, but in the meantime, if you want, you can join us Lutherans in "Liberated Lutherans" for the festival of the Conversion of St. Paul. I am still working on this guacamole in my lap.

[JVAC]

But he was probably there if he was a member? Or at least could have been. It was the high priest that tore his clothes and gave the final word for Christ to die.

Also, I need to know why they did not stone him. Does it have to do with the Passover?
Acts 22:3 tells us that he was trained under Gamaliel, who was a very promonent teacher. Furthermore, Acts 26:4-5 tells us that Paul was a very strict pharisee. Gal 1:14 tells us that he was well trained in Judaism and very zealous. Acts 7:58 is when he comes into the picture however and from that point it gives us no allusion to the Sanhedrin only that the people laid thier clothes before him (respected), and he bears the power of the High Priest.

The reason he was not stoned is because the people of Jerusalem and the greater area of Judea, Galilee and Samaria, regarded him as a prophet. If they would have stoned him the people might have risen up against them. They rather would get Rome against him, and have the hate be directed to Rome.

[Polycarp1]

"The Synoptic Problem": The close similarities not only in content but in the language used between Matthew, Mark, and Luke, make scholars think that there was some interplay between them, with one author borrowing from another. Although ancient sources say that Matthew wrote first, it would not make sense for Mark to clip off the Nativity story and the Passion narrative, tack on a different Passion narrative, edit out the long passages of Jesus's teaching, and insert the "Messianic secret" passages that are exclusive to him. Then there's the problem that Matthew and Luke have near-verbatim parallels on the teachings -- but set in entirely different points in the MML narrative of events.

To account for this, some writers have suggested a mysterious "Q" source (from the German quelle, "source") of Jesus's teachings, and proposed that Matthew and Luke used a combination of (a) Mark, (b) Q, and (c) their own individual sources. However, with one exception there is no evidence beyond those similarities that Q ever existed.

That exception is Papias's comment on Matthew having "written out the logia of the Lord in Aramaic." Logia is a Greek plural of logion, a word related to logos, "word," and usually taken to mean "saying, oracle, word in the sense of utterance." The apocryphal "Gospel of Thomas" is such a collection of logia, though usually considered an unorthodox one.

The problem is that Matthew as we have it is not a collection of logia but a narrative -- "The Life and Teachings of Jesus the Promised Messiah" might be how Matthew would title it if he were writing for publication today.

The solution to this, which I have seen in several sources and came up with independently before finding or being sent to those sources, is this:

1. Matthew puts together a collection of Jesus's teachings, no longer extant.

2. Mark writes out his Gospel, based largely on the reminiscences of the recently dead Peter. (This per Papias.) His purpose is to show Jesus as the Son of God and to fill the need for a sequential account of His life.

3. These two documents circulate through the early churches.

4. Luke begins his researches, intended at separating the wheat from the chaff on all the stories about Jesus that are circulating, some accurate and some wildly arcane. (One apocryphal Gospel a the story of Jesus's boyhood where a playmate of his kills a sparrow. Jesus picks up the sparrow, restores it to life, and causes the boy to fall dead.)

5. Some person, probably in Antioch, takes Mark and the Matthew-logia book, and comes up with the idea of fitting them together. As was considered entirely proper practice in the First Century, he reconstructs five long discourses of Jesus on specific subjects, at points Jesus was known to have taught on those subjects, by extracting the material on those subjects from Matthew-logia, inserting them and the remaining teachings at the appropriate points in the Mark narrative. He portrays Jesus as the promised Messiah, the fulfillment of prophecy. His book becomes known by Matthew's name, since he was the source of the teachings contained in it.

6. Luke independently uses Mark as the frame story, but researches out where Jesus probably taught the different logia which he has from Matthew's collection and from other research, and fits them into his story at those points. Luke is known to have becomes friends with Mary the mother of Jesus, and presumably got the Annunciation, Nativity, and Visit to the Temple stories from her, along with some other material. Luke stresses Jesus as a compassionate teacher and healer.

7. As time passes, the "Matthew logia" book is pretty well discarded, since its contents are incorporated in two narrative gospels. "Matthew" becomes the name of the gospel containing all the logia; Luke, which contains most of them and separate exclusive material, is known by its author's name already. Mark remains in circulation, since his narrative has a special focus not shared by the two men who used his version as a framework for their own.

[theseed]

Thanks Polycarp1, this his helpful. I remember learning about Q.

[theseed]

Acts 7.57; stoning stephen was illegal, because there was no procurator to give persmission. It was murder no matter how you look at it. And the Roman authority was usually given supersedance though. If I understand this pictorial dictionary right :)


Some think Paul went to Arabia to think out his coversion (Acts 9.20-23; Gal. 1.17)