James Brown

Not sure if this topic belongs here or in GRD. Feel free to move as necessary.

A recent Reasonable Doubts episode brought up an interesting point that got me thinking. Check my reasoning here. A rough outline of the gospels would be as follows:

• Jesus chooses his disciples (Mt. 4, 9, etc.)
• (Presumably) Jesus teaches his disciples the gospel
• Jesus and the disciples, sometimes alone and sometimes together, preach the gospel in various locations (Mt. 10 and following)
• Jesus predicts his suffering, death, and resurrection (Mt. 16)
• Jesus and disciples enter Jerusalem, where Jesus suffers, dies, and resurrects (per the story) (Mt. 21 and following)

Assuming the above chronology is correct (and please mention it if it isn't), then the following questions are raised for discussion.

1. What, exactly, was the gospel that Jesus and the disciples preached in Step 2? As near as I can tell, it can be boiled down to "Repent and be baptized, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." That's not a particularly Christian message, is it? They certainly couldn't be preaching like they did in Acts, a la "You crucified Jesus, an innocent man, so feel guilty and follow our teachings."

A Christian might argue that they were preaching the future events of Passion Week and how important they will be. But if that is the case, then

2. What were the disciples' response to Jesus prediction of his crucifixion? They have no clue. They argue against him. They deny that such a terrible thing would ever happen. This is strong evidence that when Jesus taught his disciples the gospel, there was no mention of him dying. Otherwise, why would they be so taken off guard when Jesus brings it up on the outskirts of Jerusalem?

Assuming the above is true, then I conclude the disciples changed the gospel from Jesus' original. What they preached post-resurrection is far different than what they preached beforehand. If so, did they improve what Jesus taught them? Or did Jesus not know about his crucifixion from the beginning?

show_no_mercy

There's a hypothesis that Paul is the first Christian to preach the crucifixion of Jesus as any sort of "good news" (gospel). The Jerusalem church, who only followed the teachings of the human Jesus, did not believe his crucifixion was good news. Thus the gospel narratives are a molding of two different types of Jesus believers: those who followed the teachings of Jesus (the good news of the coming kingdom of god, the Son of Man [not Jesus himself] who would restore the kingdom, etc.) and those who worshipped the crucifixion of Jesus (the gospel).

Subsequently, the gospel narrative of Mark was written to discredit the Jerusalem church, with the disciples not understanding Jesus' message.

Elijah

The good new relates to the resurrection of the dead believed by some of the Jews at the time and how anyone can get a call up on that day just by believing in Jesus as the messiah.

Worried about death and oblivion??? Well, Good News! There is a Way that you don’t have to worry about death anymore because if you believe in Jesus as the messiah, when he is resurrected again on the new day, he will resurrect all those who were a part of his vine.

mg01

One view is that Jesus, John, and later Paul, were apocoliptists. Their message was based on a reinterpretation of the prophets in scripture and an extension of Jewish apocalyptic movements. In this view, the world was soon coming to an end where the heavenly "Son of Man" would judge the wicked and reward the righteous by granting entrance to the "kingdom of god" (Matthew uses "kingdom of heaven"). When the kingdom never came, the message began to be reinterpreted in various different ways.

jakejonesiv

Hi James,

That is a great question. It really doesn't make sense. Jesus sends out his disciples to preach, but they never understand anything he taught. :huh:

They don't understand that he is to die and rise again, they don't understand that he can feed the multitudes (or what this means), and they are just as stupid the second time!

The disciples intractable stupidity is more obvious in Mark. Matthew waters it down a bit.

Jake

aa5874

And this stupidity displayed by the disciples is even more puzzling when the authors of the Jesus stories should have already had in their possession or should have been aware of the Pauline writings where it was explained decades before that Jesus died and resurrected to save mankind from their sins.

This is the Pauline writer.

1Cor 15:17 - And this is Jesus.

Mr 9:31 - Not even the Jesus in the Synoptics knew the reason why he should die and resurrect. Jesus never told his disciples but Paul was preaching the reason all over the Empire and put it in writing.

The authors of the Synoptics made Jesus look stupid , once he was fabricated after Paul.

ChristMyth

I've always assumed that what Jesus and co. taught was a return to an authentic form of Judism. His death and subsequent Res. was added later by people like Paul and the authors of the gospels who interperted his death as something more than it was.

Of course I could be wrong.

DCHindley

Isn't that what Richard Horsley thinks too?

If I recall correctly his term for what Jesus advocated was "prophetic renewal movement" (Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1985)

DCH

Elijah

I don't know what would be the "good news" about a reform or correction of Judaism... especially for the Gentiles that became Christian.

Deus Ex

The good news for the gentiles was that you did not have to cut the end of your penis off to join the Yahweh club. Or maybe that was just Paul's good news.