IamJoseph

Big time alarm bells went off. Every nation's divine emperor balked. This saga continues today. The Mosaic laws were seen as a kill joy for some.

Newfie

I'll stick to the gospels. Does it come down to this: Either you stick with the fundamentalist doctrine that the bible serves as a complete unit that does not contradict itself, in which case it stands alone as a source. Or do you go with a more scholarly approach and treat the individual books that make up the canon as separate sources, accept that they do contradict themselves, and that they can be compared with outside sources such as the gospel of Thomas on an equal level?

If anything, it's the insistence that the bible is infallible and outside of all the other works that could have been accepted as canonical that hurts it's case for historical value. The fact that many competing contemporary works were lost or intentionally destroyed also does the historical value of the bible no favor. It is the Church that has set the bible apart from the surrounding world, not its critics.

sschlichter

What is the relevance on the church's view of the bible to the actual historical value of the bible. What is true about the bible is true no matter what the church says about it or how it groups it. Explain to me the relationship between the actual historical value of the bible and what the church says about it.

Why, it they are individual sources, does that necessarily imply that they contradict? Why can't individual sources exist that do not contradict. Why would there individuality have any bearing on whether they contradict or not?

Indvidual books written by individual people, quickly transmitted, copied, and distributed to Christians, wherever they could be found. Other books, not viewed as authentic were not universally accepted and were not copied and transmitted universally. Your analysis of the historical value of the books should not be dependant on the churches view of canonicity. Likewise, my view of canonicity does not rob each book of being an individual witness.

sschlichter

I am sure you are aware that you did not answer the actual question. The God of the Old Testament dealt with Abraham via a covenant. Later, through Moses God presented the law. How does this change differ from the change that you found unacceptable posited by christians?

show_no_mercy

It's pretty well known that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke didn't like his version and edited it (Thomas probably comes from that same school of thought too since Matt, Luke, and Thomas share a few pericopes). So no, each gospel is not an "individual witness". They were polemics against each other.

This assumed harmony of the gospels itself is Church tradition, and doesn't seem to be the case in early Christianity.

sschlichter

this claim is well known. the underlying premise is conjecture and the conjecture has no bearing on that fact that each of the gospels are individual witnesses written by individual authors even if you beleive they are polemics against each other. binding them together physically does not change the number of witnesses.

The harmony of the gospels was accepted by the early church but this is a moot point and has no bearing on the number of witnesses.

show_no_mercy

Your claim has been well known for 2,000 years. Your underlying premise and conclusions are based on conjecture and the proto-Catholic church's desire to be the one, true "universal" (catholic) church. The existence of a multitude of "Christianities" in the 2nd century completely contradicts your claim of harmony.

The earliest sort of "harmony" of the fourfold gospels is Justin Martyr in the mid-2nd century. If you believe differently, I ask that you present some evidence of a "harmony" of "gospels" prior to Justin.

bacht

The question is what do the gospels witness to? A case can be made that the four canonical gospels are markers of developing Christian doctrine rather than useful reports of events in Pilate's time. If Paul's letters are the earliest material in the NT then we really have nothing reliable for the period before him. Most commentators accept that the earliest gospel(s) are post-70, with Paul's first writings appearing circa 50 ce.

If the gospels are really proto-catholic propaganda then how useful can they be for non-Christian historians?

sschlichter

my claim is that there must have been different witness for JM to harmonize or to find un-harmonious. I am not making an argument for the quality of the witnesses. I am simply making the argument that they are distinct witness and the claim of the bible being a single testimony is false.

sschlichter

I agree that is the important question.

I think many modern commentators use the date of AD70 simply because they rule out the possibility that Jesus could have predicted the future. I do not beleive there is an evidence (internal or external) that would pin the gospels to the year AD70 besides this assumption.