Diogenes the Cynic

The appendix is definitely (and explicitly) a separate author from the bulk of the text, so that's two right there.

It's also pretty much universally believed in scholarship that John had a layered authorship in other ways, with discourses and other material (the "Logos" preamble, for instance) having been added to a "signs gospel." I'm not aware of any New testament scholar (aside from fundies) who think that John does not have layered authorship.

Diogenes the Cynic

Consensus scholarship also agrees on at least four different authors for the Canonical Gospels - those authors being conventionally referred to as "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

aa5874

Please give the information to outhouse. It is most likely that gJohn of all the Canonised Gospels is LATE and TOTALLY unattested Fiction.

No other Canonised Gospel claimed Jesus was God and the Creator.

Diogenes the Cynic

Whether it has multiple authors (which it does) has nothing to do with its dating or authenticity. Yes, it is late and it is fiction. It also has multiple authors.

spin

Just out of curiosity, by "fiction" do you merely mean 1) simply "not-real" or 2) deliberate fabrication with the awareness of the material not directly mapping any reality? Is myth "fiction" according to your usage? Do you see a meaningful distinction between the Jesus-as-myth and the Jesus-as-fiction crowds (and the Jesus-as-fiction-created-out-of-myths crowd)?

Diogenes the Cynic

I do not think the Gospels were written either as deliberately constructed myth or as intentional deceptions, if that's what you mean.

Yes. myth is a form of fiction, but myth is not the genre of the gospels, which are a kind of sui generis in a lot of ways, but are closer to midrash than anything else.

I think the narrative aspects of the Gospels, for the most part, represent authors trying to write hagiographic midrashes about a figure they had little or no real biographical information about, and so they looked to the LXX and basically made pictures out of clouds, imagining they could perceive or infer prophetic information about Jesus in Jewish scripture. I assume they also imagined they were guided by inspiration (well, maybe not Luke, he seems a little more cynical to me - like a guy working for a commission). In other words, I don't think they were lying, so much as deluding themselves about what they imagined they saw in the Tanakh.

outhouse

thats how I see it roughly.

they believed much of what they wrote, but at the same time they had way to much artistic freedom which they exploited to meet their personal needs and Gjohn is a great example of this.

yes there is fiction, but its not complete fiction. as eluded to in your statement above I agree with.

Adam

The simple facts do not support your Vork/Wallack/Solo line. John 6:21 merely says that they got where they were going, which likely corresponds with Capernaum from verse 17. It nowhere says whither they they intended to go.

Adam

Not so fast. Unitary authorship is a mainstay of smug conservatism whether Protestant or Catholic, yet agrees on a late date for gJohn of 90-100 CE. Radical critics accepting unitary authorship dated it even later, dismissing it as fiction. That "tradition" apparently continues with aa and the mythicist contingent here on FRDB.

Multiple authorship can arrive at the same dates as above (Brown and his school, mostly Catholics, still like the conventional 90-100 CE, and Teeple pushes it all into the 2nd Century). But multiple authorship can also be used to argue that the underlying sources are early, particularly the Passion Narrative. Thus multiple authorship can support both authenticity and early dating--of the sources at least. My argument in several threads still remains unrefuted.

aa5874

Please, you are NOT doing history you are making baseless presumptions that CONVENIENTLY match what you Believe about your Jesus.

First of all you cannot just IMPOSE what you believe without a shred of evidence.

The Gospels are MYTH Fables written in the 2nd century at least 115 years AFTER the supposed birth of the Son of God, the Water walker, who transfigured and Resurrected.

Come on, Diogenes. Are you now claiming that the Gospels are historically accurate when you have already admitted they are not reliable???

Have you NO idea that you may have been duped into believing the Jesus stories which you have admitted are NOT credible???

What credible source of antiquity mentions an OBSCURE HJ of Nazareth???

NONE, ZERO, NIL, NOTHING.

Please Identify and corroborate any parts of the Canon that is historically accurate with Jesus , the disciples and Paul.