dog-on

Can a strong argument, for the origins of Christianity, be made based on the following sequence of writings:

1. Mark
2. Paul/ur-Luke
3. Matthew
4. Luke/Acts

The premise being that Mark was originally a drama that became theologized (Paul/ur-Luke) and only later became historicized (Matthew/Luke/Acts)?

This could explain some of the allusions in the epistles to Christ Crucified, as well as the obvious problem of going from a full-blown spirit god (in Paul) to something seemingly much less (in Mark). Only later would Matthew flush out the birth, since Mark seemed to be saying that Jesus became the Christ at his Baptism.

Luke/Acts may well be a response to the Marcionites.

What evidence do we have that would negate the possibility of such a sequence.

Riverwind

Who would have read such a "drama"? It would have been offensive to Romans, Greeks, and Jews....

There is nothing in it to suggest that it was a "drama" but everything to suggest that it was a "theologized" history of a man who was quite important to a certain group of people.

dog-on

What do you mean by "everything to suggest"? What, in particular?

You really think this would have been offensive to Romans and Greeks? Why?

I can understand the Jews feeling "offended" by it.

Riverwind

The fact that it reads more like an unpolished account rather than a polished and coherent "drama".

Yes, I do. Can you name any plays similar to the account of Jesus that involved barbarian "criminals" as saviors? I say "criminals" because, having been crucified on a cross, this is the only way that Romans and Greeks could have seen him.

Such a drama would have made little philosophical sense to Romans and Greeks of the period.

Gospels as "drama" just makes no sense to me. It seems totally anachronistic and absurd to even propose.

dog-on

Maybe I should have said Comedy...

Passion play does, however, ring a bell.

Riverwind

I assume, by this, that you simply mean a play to be performed in front of people. It makes little difference, as the gospels don't really fit any molds that I am aware of that would have appealed to Romans and Greeks.

A "passion play" would be called anachronistic. In any case, it's based on the gospels anyway.

Here's a question, though. When was the first "passion play"?

dog-on

In reference to the Christian passion, I guess, when Mark was written and first performed.

Jedi Mind Trick

I'm no expert, but I would have to agree with Riverwind. I think that there was a real historical person whose story got embellished. I also think that the real Jesus would likely not approve of what has become of his name.

Doug Shaver

I agree that Mark was a work of fiction, but I have seen no cogent argument for its predating Paul.

pavlos

quite simply, No.
you will find most answered here,
by Diogenes the Cynic
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=117382

but this is in regard to acts and luke

Luke/Acts are late documents
Some of the reasons why G.Luke/Acts is dated fairly late, and NOT by someone who knew Paul, are as follows :
* Its infancy interest, pushed back to the birth of John. One is reminded that in the Book of James (the Protevangelium), half a century or more later, this infancy interest is pushed still farther back to the nativity of the Virgin herself.
* Its resurrection interest, including a whole series of appearances, visits, eatings, penetration of locked doors, protracted through forty days. This is in marked contrast to Matthew's (which was probably also Mark's) account and is much nearer to the second-century representations of Jesus' long post-resurrection conversations with the apostles, e.g., the Epistle of the Apostles, ca. A.D. 150.
* Its doctrine of the holy Spirit, which pervades both volumes. The holy Spirit is to come over Mary, 1:35; it fills Elizabeth, 1:42, and Zechariah, 1:67. It came down upon Jesus, 3:22; he was full of the holy Spirit, 4:1. It is on almost every page of the Acts, the whole narrative of which seems to float upon a sea of it. Luke evidently has a definite and developed doctrine of the holy Spirit, which was the fruit of no little religious reflection.
* The interest in punitive miracle, a feature conspicuous in the Elijah-Elisha cycles of Kings but wholly wanting from Mark and Matthew. It marks the opening scene of Luke (Zechariah is struck dumb) and plays a prominent part in the Acts: Ananias and Sapphira are struck dead, 5:5, 10; Elymas is struck blind, 13:11; compare 12:23. In this trait we are on our way to the fondness for punitive miracle in the infancy gospels of the second century, which also found it edifying, e.g., the Gospel of Thomas.
* The passing of the Jewish controversy; this interest, so acute in Paul's day, has become a dead issue when Luke is written.
* The interest in Christian psalmody. Luke preserves hymn after hymn, 1:42, 46, 68; 2:14, 29-the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Nunc Dimittis. Nowhere else do we find any such early interest in Christian poesy, except in Eph. 5:14 and in the arias, choruses, and antiphonies of the Revelation. Already that liturgical endowment, which Walter Pater once said was one of the special gifts of the early church, was beginning to appear.
* Church organization; the Twelve appear in the Acts as a sort of college of apostles, stationed in Jerusalem, watching over the progress of the Christian mission. With them are associated the elders, 15:2, 6, 22; 16:4, etc. Paul is represented as appointing elders in each church, 14:23, so the presbyteral organization is recognized as established, though Paul himself in his list of types of Christian leadership in I Cor. 12:28 says nothing about elders. The office of deacon is also traced back to the earliest days of the church and given added dignity and luster by the story of Stephen, chapters 6, 7. Luke's account of Ananias and Sapphira shows an interest in church funds when he wrote the Acts, and the story of Dorcas sewing for the poor, 9:39, also points to a considerable degree of organization. The point made here is not as to the fact of such embezzlement or charitable doings in the church, but of the writer's interest in recording them. Here belongs also the emphasis upon baptism as a condition of church membership, forgiveness, and salvation that is so characteristic of the Acts. 2:38; 8:12, 36; 9:18; 10:47; 16:15, 33.
* The Speaking with Tongues; this was simply ecstatic utterance with Paul, I Corinthians, chapters 12-14, but in the Acts it has come to be a miraculous endowment with the power to speak foreign languages, Acts 2:4-11.
(The alleged silence of Luke about Paul's death)
* Paul is dead; that he is still living when the curtain falls upon the Acts in 28:30, 31, is outweighed by his farewell to the Ephesian elders, 20:25, with its solemn declaration that none of them would ever see his face again, underscored by its repetition in 20:38: "they were especially saddened at his saying that they would never see his face again." Such presentiments are remembered and recorded only when they have proved true.
* Paul has risen to hero stature. He is not only dead; he has become a hallowed memory. He is no longer a man struggling and grappling with difficulties, as in his letters; he has become a heroic figure and towers above priests, officers, governors, and kings. This is simply the retrospect of history. Lincoln rose in a generation into a heroic figure, very different from the man his contemporaries knew. The manner of his death no doubt contributed to this, but Paul's death too made its contribution to the reverence in which he came to be held, for he was probably the first of the Roman martyrs. Time has to play its part in the development of these attitudes. The success of the Greek mission naturally drew attention to the figure of the leader of that movement.
* The emergence of the sects; men of their own number were appearing and teaching perversions of the truth in order to draw the disciples away after them, 20:30. Apart from this reference to them in Acts the first we hear of the sects is in Eph. 4:14; compare 4:3-6, and in the Revelation, where the mysterious sect of the Nicolaitans is mentioned with abhorrence, 2:6, 15. Early in the second century the Docetists appear (cf. I, II John, Ignatius), then the Marcionites and Gnostics, and then the Montanists. Here, again. Acts seems to belong to the time of Ephesians and the Revelation.

(Edgar Goodspeed, The Work of Luke, pg.192-193)

Acts MSS highly variant
Also note - Acts is the single most textually suspect book of the whole NT - it comes it two different versions, one considerably longer (about 10%) than the other. Manuscripts of Acts shows the most variation of ANY NT book.
Regarding historicity, while Acts is accurate in places, its reliability (and G.Luke) as history is hotly disputed, as there are many apparent errors :
* Luke 2:2 and 1:5 is wrong about Quirinius,
* Acts 5:37 is wrong about Judas the Galilean,
* Acts 10:1 is probably wrong about the Italica cohort,
* Acts 5:34-39 is probably wrong about Gamaliel's tolerance,
(from Brown's NT commentary, Doubleday, 1996, page 321)

Also, Acts does not seem typical of histories of the day :
"Acts does not match the pretensions of contemporary historiography either in style or subject-matter"
(Oxford Bible Commentary, OUP, 2001, pg. 1029)

Of course, some parts of Acts are transparent mythology, such as the Pentecost stories.
The date of G.Luke/Acts is problematic, scholarly opinion varies from late 1st century to early 2nd century. Of particular interest the argument that Acts depends on Josephus (c.96) :
Luke and Josephus (2000) by Richard Carrier