Amedeo

Nobody has ever claimed that those 4 people were the COMPOSERS of the 4 Gospels. The 4 texts are "according to" Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, although the texts do indicate that Luke and John were the composers/writers of their accounts [Biographies of Jesus the Christ].

By "composer" I do not mean "excogitator/inventor" of what is being written down. There are reasons to believe that the anecdotes (at least in their skeletal formats) about Jesus presented in all the Gospels are translations or renditions of anecdotes told in Hebrew or Aramaic. For instance, they contain some quotations of the original language(s), and some linguistic mannerisms are not in classical Greek. Furthermore, the textual identities in the 3 synoptic Gospels point to a Proto-Gospel (original compilation of the original anecdotes) from which Matthew, Mark, and Luke drew, rather than to their being original compilers.

We do not know who narrated the original anecdotes (in the Hebrew/Aramaic languages). They may have been told by eye/ear-witnesses, by people who fabricated stories, and by Jesus himself*** or some other rabbi who knew the Scriptures AND narrated events in Jesus life as fulfilments of prophecies. Elsewhere I explained the whole biography of Jesus the Messiah is constructed, accurately or not, out of Scriptural pre-figurations as to what the Messiah was to be. There is not one shread of evidence that Jesus the Messiah ever performed the miracles that he or others said that he performed, that he was born in the city of David [Bethlehem] at the time of the Roman census, or that he was born of a virgin miraculously impregnated by God (rather than by Joseph, son of David, while King Herod was alive).
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*** I remember that one of the apocryphal Gospels, which I read a long time ago, was written in the first person; that is, Jesus was the narrator of various things he did. He never wrote anything down, but apparently some ear-witnesses reported the speaking Jesus rather that saying something like, "Jesus went to Capharnum and this is what he did:..."

Riverwind

If you're speaking of the "contant objection" that I've spoken of twice, then you and others are still missing the point.

It was not out of character for the time period for Jews (and "Gentiles") to take such scripture and do exactly what the Christians did with it. They believed there was a "deeper, alegorical" meaning. Have any of you objecting to this actually read the pesher material of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Philo, Origen, etc.? If you had read them, you might understand that they were not "abusing" scripture, they were practicing what was quite normal in their world at that time. So, rather than mislabeling this as a "red herring", one might do well to read other texts from the time period and one will begin to understand the relevance.

Finally, who can say that they didn't find a "deeper" meaning to their texts? I certainly can't disprove it. I can disbelieve it, but I can't disprove it.

Riverwind

Definitely. I'd also ask whether you think it is possible that Jesus was intentionally attempting to fulfill the messianic prophecies as well? I believe so. The disciples, as you say, only began to understand and see this later on as they more closely examined Jesus' life and teachings.

rob117

Just because they approached texts like that doesn't mean the original authors intended for them to. They were living in a culture influenced by Greek philosophy and rationalism, and the allegorical interpretation of myth and prophecy that came with it. The Greeks did this to their own myths and prophets; it would only make sense for Hellenistic Jews to attempt it with their scripture.

Riverwind

We certainly can't say they didn't mean for God to use their texts. And, after all, they were "prophets", which means they were prophesying about the future and not their own times. This is one of the reasons that their texts were still read and attempts made to decipher them in Jesus' day.

I think Greek culture and hellenization certainly enhanced this aspect of their culture. However, the prophets wrote before Alexander the Great brought the Greek culture to the world and the Jewish prophetic texts were preserved for some reason before that time. I assume that they were preserved because they were felt to be prophecies of the future to which the people of Israel looked. It is a fairly natural thing for people, in general, to look for "deeper" meanings in sacred literature, and I believe this long predates hellenism.

rob117

Have you ever seen a prophet today with messages similar to those of Jeremiah who makes predictions about something 1000 years from now?

The institution of prophecy and the actual phenomenon of it are two different things. Normative theology says prophets are supposed to predict the future. People who actually claim to prophets, however, are generally not theologians, and care far more about the here and now.

You are right about the Hellenism; the Jews (and everybody else) interpreted ancient texts like this long before Alexander. The phenomenon was particularly prevalent in Greek culture however (look at how Herodotus treats Delphic oracles), and Hellenism may have encouraged people to do it more often and twist the original meaning even more than they would have originally.

-Jay-

Peter, to clarify:

Are you using the term "literary work" to imply that the writer would be creating a nonfictional (but reader-friendly) account and not something like (for lack of a better term) an encyclopedia article? I think that's what you're saying...

regards,

NinJay

Peter Kirby

I think so too.