aa5874

I hold the view that the author of the Gospel called Mark was NOT the first author of the Jesus story to have been written.

Justin Martyr's "Memoirs of the Apostles" appear to have been written before any of the "named" Gospels as found canonised.

Justin Martyr mentioned the Memoirs of the Apostles around the middle of the 2nd century or about 30 years before Ireneaus mentioned the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

It would appear that by the time gMark was wrtitten it was already known, believed or circulated that a supposed character called Jesus was the Son of God.

It must be noted that the Gospel called John, considered to be the last written Gospel, is also incomplete. The conception and ascension of Jesus are completely missing.

Now, quite curiously, Irenaeus claimed gMark was being used by heretics who did not believe Jesus was divine, yet the very first verse of gMark shows quite the opposite.

It would appear to me that the named Gospels as canonised are all after the writings of Justin Martyr or after the middle of the second century or written after the Memoirs of the Apostles as mentioned by Justin.

aa5874

It was Constantine that made it possible. Before Constantine Jesus believers were regarded as atheists and cannibals. See the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Origen.

Now, with Constantine, Jesus believers called others atheists and persecuted without fear.

Constantine SAVED the name of Jesus and his believers.

Petergdi

But Paul does not call the resurrection of Christ the gospel.

While Paul only rarely quotes Jesus, there is a remarkable commonality between what Paul taught and what Jesus taught. The differences between Paul and the others appear to stem from a problem which Jesus never thought through : what do we do about the gentiles?

Peter.

aa5874

But, isn't your chronology a bit mixed up. If Paul was assumed to be the first to write about Jesus or that Paul's heavenly Jesus was first, then there would not be any teachings of an actual Jesus that Paul would have to ignore.

Paul would be the sole EARTHLY representative of the
HEAVENLYJesus.

It would be the authors of the Gospels who did not give a FLIP about Paul and his heavenly Jesus. They never mentioned Paul and a heavenly Jesus. And in the 2nd century, based on Church writers, Paul's writings were either ignored or mutilated.

Deus Ex

I disagree:http://www.metalog.org/files/paul_p.html


The supposed incarnation of God never thought about what to do with the rest of us that are outside of his chosen tribe? :constern02:

Deus Ex

I was assuming an historical Jesus for the sake of the discussion. If the gospels represent the actual words of a flesh & blood Jesus, then Paul does not seem to care much about what his messiah actually taught.

show_no_mercy

Of course there's commonality - the gospel writers wrote after Paul.

According to Paul's letters, the good news is the coming kingdom of God where all of those asleep in Christ will be awakened to live in this new kingdom. The linchpin of this entire scenario is Jesus' resurrection. Since Jesus was the firstfruits of this resurrection, if he really wasn't resurrected then Paul's churches are worthless. So this upcoming kingdom really hinges on Jesus' resurrection, and Paul's churches' faith in this resurrection, which is why it's the good news.

Of course, if you read Paul's letters with the bias of the later written gospel narratives, then...

Petergdi

I am singularly unimpressed. The writer seems to have invested a great deal of effort into finding discrepancies, apparent discrepancies, and things which can be presented with some ingenuity to look like discrepancies. But the writer seems to have made no effort at all into understanding Paul. Anyone who supposes Paul disparages the OT or that he requires less than a wholehearted commitment to righteousness is either willfully misreading Paul or is blindly following someone else's willful misreading of Paul.

Why would you expect him to? He was fully human and not omniscient.

Peter.

Petergdi

This is important to Paul, but is it what he calls the "euanggelion"?

The central fact that made the gospel possible is Christ's obedience. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the evidence that the Gospel is true and that God really has made it possible for us to become children of God and joint heirs with Christ.

The resurrection of Christ is a necessary consequence of the good news.


The original readers did not read the letters in isolation. They had heard teaching about Jesus and the good news before receiving the letters.

Peter.

spamandham

I think it helps to start by dismissing with the notion that Mark is intending to record tradition or history. A better understanding, IMHO, is that it was part of the process of inventing Christianity, even if it turns out to contain some historical aspects.

So why would the author end with just an empty tomb, witnessed by a few women who never even told anyone about it?

All we can do is speculate, some possibilities:

1. People wanted to venerate the tomb. "Where the hell is the tomb!?" Well, there is no tomb, and that's why no-one can remember where it is.

2. The author wanted to make a mockery of some contemporary resurrection story. "They say he was resurrected, but really all they got is an empty tomb and some gossip spread by women."

3. The author wished to pawn his own empty tomb off as "the tomb" for the purpose of charging pilgrims to see it. "See everyone? The story I've been telling you about this hole in the ground is true afterall."

4. The author is revealing secret knowledge. A clever reader would realize that if the women never told anyone, then the story of the resurrection could not have been spread. Yet it was. Therefor, the resurrection has a hidden meaning - it does not refer to the actual bodily resurrection of a person named Jesus of Nazareth.

5. It was a cliffhanger, but the follow-on story has since been lost.