Doug Shaver

I don't believe the authors were trying to trick anyone, if that's what you mean.

But I do believe they were writing fiction. From that perspective, your question makes as much sense as asking whether Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables in good faith.

Chili

I would spell Gospel with a capital G long before I would spell protestant with a capital P. I do it to be polite but since it is not the name of a religion I am not sure if it should ever be spelled with a capital p.

The Gospels seem to work best in the Rich man and Lazarus parable where the scraps that the rich may rejected is the bread of life for Lazarus. IOW they will send one the wrong way if we gluttonize on bible passages which then is why I have always maintained that the Gutenburg press is a giant yeast factory and that the best thing that ever could happen in N. America is to gather all the bibles from North to South into a windrow from East to West and burn them from West to East.

After this Lazarus will get his snippets of truth from the pulpit where they are the only words spoken in English to be pondered on the way home (because they do not make sense on their own).

The real problem is that the Gospels describe the when, where, how and why of life in Purgatory and that is no-no for the learned rich man.

Oh, and the next thing they should do is make Sunday the seventh day of the week and so put God last in their life instead of first so he can come like a thief in the night.

Was it not MacBeth who kept this candle by his bed all night so he could have one eye asquint to this and was it not him who wanted to be "king herafter?"

mountainman

We try and read historical documents in an historical context but in the case of the gospels we have no collaborative historical context in any evidential sense at all for the first century. The gospels are undated and unsigned and the historical context is provided by Eusebius, who packaged the gospels as an editor for the first official version of the NT Canon and Gospels in the Constantine Codex.

Neither do they present history. The gospels are reliant upon the assertions of Eusebius in his "Church History" by which we are to presume that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul wrote the literature attributed to them. This is their "packaging". Without the Eusebian packaging and historicizing there would exist no other specific frame of reference by which the gospels could possibly be related to any form of history we ar capable of corroborating.

Eusebius is not known to be reliable.


You must be clear that this is an assumption without evidence.


If we were to follow your assumption this follows.

As we are both aware, Christians are in denial of the Agbar Correspondence, the Letter exchanges between Paul and Senecca, the Testimonium Flavianum and the outright fraudulent misrepresentations of Constantine at his Oration at Antioch. The arguments that there exists no deception are in denial of the evidence.


Again, your assumption does not correlate to any evidence.

I do not hope to prove anything. I am interested in peoples' assumptions. I am aware that peoples' assumptions without evidence are simply that, but I am not so sure that they themselves understand this.

Further as the evidence suggests that the first editor of the gospels is an unreliable and totally dishonest mercanery writer the question as to whether the authorship of the gospels was in good or bad faith would appear to be a forthright and honestly skeptical question that needs to be asked.

Finally, I am interested in how other people think on this issue.
The options have been designed to provide for various modes of thinking.
Personally, for example, I have absolutely no idea how you can support your own idea above.
Yes, you can state it and announce it, but I dont see any evidence for it and to a great
extent it appears as something which is "unfalsifiable".

mountainman

Am I to assume you believe not in any historical Jesus but a fictional Jesus; or that these fictional gospels were commandeered by the state church at a later age and falsely presented as historical? You are aware I hope that Eusebius categorically presents the historical context of the authorship of the gospels in his history.


Victor Hugo's codex was not canonized by fourth century "Christian Fathers" as the Holy Writ of the orthodox state Christian religion. These people - the fourth century "Christian Fathers" - then wrote "Ecclesiastical Histories" which implicitly presented the "Good Faith" of the Gospels was not to be questioned. That the "Good Faith" was essentially unquestionable.

Almost 1700 years later we are finally in a position to question the "Good or Bad Faith" of the original authorship without being accused of inhuman heresies and tortured by the delgates of the Christian Church for "unhuman behaviour".

If the gospels were fictions written as fictional history then (IMO) they cannot have been written in good faith since they have compomised the historical truth to which an historian is bound in "good faith". And if they were fictions not written as histories then they are IMO of considerably lesser value to humanity than Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings".

Sheshbazzar

Almost every rational Biblical scholar admits that the NT writings were not written contemporary with the alleged events, but were first written down anywhere from 20 to 300 years latter.
Yet these writings are alleged to accurately and faithfully present the exact words of private conversations, sayings and situations, that according to the details given within the plot line, were not even heard, observed, or witnessed by any contemporary witnesses, much less by these gospel writers so far removed in time.
This presents a serious credibility problem. When the writers for example composed the alleged conversation that takes place between 'Jesus' and the devil on 'the pinnacle of the Temple', or on 'the exceeding high mountain', or while the disciples were asleep in the garden of Gethsemane. Who was present to hear, or to record these words?

It seems evident to me, that the first person to put these words into 'Jesus' or the Devil's mouth, whether in making-up, ad-libbing, or composing the tale, whether as an oral recitation, or a literary composition, had to be aware that he was pulling the conversation 'out of his hat', or even if it was claimed to be 'revealed' to them by 'divine revelation', that these bits were at that time known by the speaker or writer to not have been formerly known to any other human witness.
That composer would be aware of being the first 'reporter' (or originator) of the alleged conversation, even if he claimed to have recieved it by a revelation directly from 'Jesus'.
According to the text, NO human witnesses were present, therefore someone at sometime becomes the individual responsible for first composing of the plot-line and its words.
In my view, that individual, no matter how 'in the spirit' he claimed to be, invented the story and the accompanying dialog and in so doing was NOT acting or 'reporting'_ 'In Good Faith'.
He (or she) was fabricating scenarios and conversations to suit his religious imaginations and predilections.

_Exactly as it is still shamelessly carried on by Pentecostal Preachers to this day.
Need a 'good story" for your Sunday Sermon? No problem, simply make one up;
"Brothers and Sisters, let me tell you this here story 'ah. One cold rainy night I was driving down this stretch o' highway'ah... and I saw this man a'walking'ah.......
an'ah he said to me.....blah blah blah"
Used to sit through this kind of crapola entertaining, 'testifying' an 'witnessing' by the hour. And although the intentions might be good, I don't buy it. Not it, nor its source anymore.

spamandham

As is usually the case, the poll reflects the author of the poll more than anything else, but the third option is closest to my position.

I think the gospel authors were not involved in an explicit conspiracy, but nor were they trying to diligently record history. They were writing an origins story, and they knew it. But so did their readers (originally anyway). In a sense, both the readers and writers were co-conspirators, because both were interested in the story more than reality. This is how the pre-scientific world thought, as best I can tell, and is also how the modern world works among those who are neither innately skeptical nor trained.

It's difficult for those of us used to objective thinking to really appreciate such a mindset.

Loomis

What about Bingo? :frown:

Bingo. Bingo the Clown-O?



Bingo never existed.

Are they acting in good faith? :constern02:

Are they trying to trick you? :constern01:

Are they liars?

Gosh, no one can pull the wool over your eyes.

Your opinions are valuable and make this forum worth coming back to. Keep up the good work. :wave:

mountainman

Do you mean to say you think that they were writing a Legendary Myth which in anyones mind might appear as a fiction? Can it be said that if they were not writing history, then they were writing fiction?

Are you alluding to a collaborational play? Since when does the audience get any of the credit for a production? What do you mean?

How does this relate to the gospels?

I dont understand it. Can you elaborate?

mountainman

Compliments of the seasons Sesh!
Selling "Good Faith" is not what it used to be
Lenny Bruce says people are leaving the Church and turning to God.

mountainman

Nice one Loomis. Welcome back to the circus maximus. The juggling "Acts" are next. Jesus Bingo Christ does have a certain ring to it ....