Duvduv

I am starting to compare the use of Tanakh prophecies in the four gospels. We can assume that all the authors had access to all the same Tanakh books, and yet only GMatt liberally uses them to refer to Jesus in all aspects relating to "fulfillment" of messianic prophecies.

GLuke uses far fewer, mostly relating to the birth and genealogy of Jesus.

GMark uses none except for the one story that all four have, i.e. the curing of the blind man connected to Isaiah 29, which is not really related to the messiah anyway.

GJohn has only four references of prophecies, i.e. the issue of being pierced, the distribution of the clothes, no breaking of bones and being hated.

It would seem peculiar that all four authors had access to all the literature to build their case that Jesus of the gospel was fulfilling the Tanakh prophecies, and yet only GMatt seeks to do this often. It's not necessarily a question on GMark for reasons we have discussed, but for GLuke and GJohn, it is a question since they DO make some reference to prophecies.

In light of this, I wonder why GJohn and GLuke choose only a few secondary references from the prophetic books rather than the more obvious ones that they find in the same Jewish texts as GMatt (Isaiah, Zachariah, Malachi, Psalms).

Sarpedon

There was a prophesy about the dividing of the clothes? Huh. I always wondered why on earth anyone would want 1/4 of the clothes of the guy who had been beaten and whipped all night.

Juststeve

Duvduv:

If you don't read Hebrew I would suggest you get a good English/Hebrew translation from a Jewish publishing house, JPS for example. You will find a lot of the prophecies lose their luster when you eliminate mistranslation of Hebrew to English. If you then read the Tanakh carefully and in context almost all of the rest disappear.

As to why did the Gospel writers twist the prophecies? Because they wanted to make them seem to apply to the man Jesus. It would have been easier if Jesus was invented. They could have invented a Jesus who fit the prophecies without the obvious twisting.

Steve

Duvduv

Yes, I do know Hebrew. But what you are addressing was not my point. My point was that all the gospel writers had access to the same books and verses in Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew, and yet GLuke and GJohn do not invoke the major references invoked by GMatt to underpin their claim that the HJ fulfilled prophecies. I wondered why GLuke and GJohn do not invoke the verses invoked by GMatt which one would expect them to use whether or not they had access to GMatt.

Of course in the case of GJohn we don't need to ask about the ones related to the birth of the messiah, etc. ALTHOUGH it is worth asking why the author of GJohn wouldn't throw in a nativity story just for good measure since he already invoked psalms and Zachariah for other elements of the Christ story.

I was thinking that it was possible that in GJohn and GMark these elements were never added simply because neither author viewed Jesus as the fulfillment of the Tanakh Davidic messiah prophecies. Yet then WHO was GJohn's Jesus that he was fulfilling Zachariah 12 and psalms 22, 34 and 69?! And WHAT did GJohn and GMark think about the prophecies concerning the Davidic messiah in the prophets??!

And why does GLuke not include the fulfillments mentioned by GMatt?!

Juststeve

Duvduv:

Perhaps the answer lies in the intended audiences of the Gospels. It is usually postulated that the Gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish audience and it tries to make its point by referring to supposed prophecies.

The Gospel of John describes Jesus not as the Messiah but as God himself. His nativity is not important to John since he regards Jesus as pre-existent. Why would he bother to make up a nativity story?

Mark doesn't talk about the nativity because he doesn't have any information on the subject. If he were just making things up perhaps he would have, but he didn't

In Luke and Matthew we have two different creative solutions to the same problem. Some thought the Messiah would be from Bethlehem, although that is not at all clear in the Hebrew. Everyone knew Jesus was from Nazareth. Matthew and Luke get Jesus of Nazareth born in Bethlehem in two very different ways.

Just thoughts.

Steve

Duvduv

Steve, I see your point, but other side of the coin is what those authors thought about the prophecies of the Davidic messiah if they did not relate to their Jesus by excluding them

And certainly GLuke should have had something to incorporate from the prophecies used by GMatt.

And yet to top it off, even GMatt does not even invoke Isaiah 53 to say "...in fulfillment of the prophecy......"

And even GJohn has room to include a reference to the precursor (Baptist/Elijah) from Isaiah 40 and Malachi 3 in
Matthew 3, 11; John 1:2 and Luke 1:17.

outhouse

the problem your having

is in understanding we have roman authored works, not jewish ones.


matthews sect as already noted by steve, may have had a stronger adherence to jewish customs while still being roman.



most of this early sect the writings surround were god-fearers, that is, romans worshiping judaism but not converting completely. this gave all the early scribes artistic liberties, and the fact we see these legends unfolding, layered like a onion, building more and more mythology over what was known through oral tradition. YES we know the mythical history grew with time and its evident in all the gospels and even paul

Duvduv

Perhaps it's easier with hindsight to see the allusions they could have come up with as compared with GMatthew and that they really wouldn't have been as obvious as one might think. And one could argue that GMatt was overdoing it in many cases applying something to the messiah story from psalms or Isaiah that isn't even there.

When reexamining the sources I find that GMatt refers to verses in psalms that are either expressed by the author (i.e. King David) himself or said in the first person by a prophet in the books of the prophets, and GMatt applies them to Jesus.

Besides the birth issue (which one would argue would be the most important one), GMatt gives attention to the betrayal and suffering of Jesus, evoking the theme from psalms and Isaiah.

GJohn does invoke some Jewish prophecies but could have made more mileage by including a birth story. I suppose it is entirely possible that a later author added the few prophecy elements into the story such as that his bones would not be broken (psalm 34), that his clothes would be distributed (psalms 22), that he would be hated (psalms 69) and would be pierced (Zechariah 12).

But yet without any birth story in GJohn or GMark to evoke prophecies, what did the original authors think was the connection between Jesus and the Davidic Messiah??

And even GLuke and GMatt overlooked Isaiah 53.

outhouse

fiction to meet the biblical mythology needed

aa5874

Let us TEST your statement.

Who made up the story that when Jesus was baptized there was a Holy Ghost bird and a voice from heaven???

Who made up the story that Jesus walked on water in gMark??

Who made up the story that Jesus Transfigured in gMark??

Who made up the story that Jesus FED 9000 men in gMark??

Who made up the story that Jesus Instantly healed the deaf and dumb in gMark???

Who made up the story that Jesus Cured the blind with SPIT in gMark??

Who made up the story that Jesus Cursed a Tree to make it die in gMark??

Who made up the story that Jesus was Raised from the DEAD IN gMark??


Stories in gMark were obviously MADE up.

Once it is ADMITTED that stories in gMark were MADE up then NO argument can be made that any isolated story was NOT Invented without any external corroboration.

You claim is erroneous. The very authors of the Jesus stories and the Pauline writings SHOW that NO-ONE was aware of the Activities of the supposed Jesus in Nazareth.

Virtually everything about the supposed Jesus happened OUTSIDE Nazareth.

In gLuke, Jesus was supposedly in Nazareth for about 30 years, yet we have virtually NOTHING about the Acts of Jesus in Nazareth in ALL the books of the Canon.

The supposed Paul did NOT write about Nazareth or Jesus of Nazareth.