renassault

So you think 1st century literature, and yes the Gospels are first century literature if you know anything about what you and mountainman have called "the baptismal font" scholarship, was influenced by 20th century fiction, which doesnt even resemble anything like the Resurrection narrative. Here is a theory of my own:

The origin of Patcleaver and mountainman's ideas about Christianity:

1. Just like other conspiracy theorists, patcleaver and mountainman refer to non-conservative biblical scholarship by some epithet like the above because of the inadequacies of their position: example: T. Thomson in his view that David never existed called those who interpreted the Mesha Steele to read David to be (something like, I forgot the exact phrase) "Christian literalists".

2. The theories don't arise from any solid facts; only the imaginative redating of scrolls not by anything aside from "Oh some other scroll was dated to 1000 years earlier, all the rest must be false". There is something called internal evidence.

renassault

Not even Bauer and his infinite criticisms allowed him to reject the "hauptbriefe" or the four letters: 1, 2 Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians as Paul's, although he strangely accepted Revelation by the Apostle John. But Galatians mentions Peter, James, and John as Apostles. Doubtlessly, the rest are historical figure, as is Christ (Galatians 3:13, 4:4).

Do you expect an about the author page?

So does Josephus when he writes about himself. He does add the phrase, "the author of the book after his name," as does the author of John's Gospel after the phrase the beloved disciple. Highly likely the beloved disciple is John the Apostle, as can be seen from the authoritative way in which 2, and 3 John are written, whose linguistic affinities with 1 John and the Gospel likely make the author one for all four.

John does. The Synoptics are different, since they are based around the same sources. It can speak for both authenticity and against, moreso for, as the many forgeries which would have done so for versimilitude (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas 1:1).

You expect Christ just finished being baptized and started out for the mountain?

It is, but you need to ask the question why, and by whom. Because you should know bias is not nonexistent in this field.

Seems someone has read Kuemmel, whose comment about errors in geographical mistakes were simply not true (or it was in the case of John's Gospel). To claim the Gospels would have been written in Aramaic when Christianity at that point (c.55-65 at earliest) was predominantly Gentile, is crazy.

It's irrelevant. Judea wasn't exactly the focus of historians at this point.

What's more likely is if he meant that Matthew wrote what is referred to today as Q. However the idea that Papias meant a sayings source instead of a Gospel is seriously challenged, so he may have meant the Gospel, which would certainly make him wrong. It is speculated whether the reference in 1 Peter 5:13 is what Papias based Peter and Mark's relations on. Tradition is can only support an opinion so much. The internal evidence is what counts, and if you have shown that the internal evidence cannot be by an eyewitness (which you haven't), then no amount of tradition will be adequate enough (at least not from what we find in comparison back then) to turn the opinion otherwise, and the same conversely.

The tradition is likely before Irenaeus as the Muratorian canon attests, written around the same time. It's not exactly bad scholarship to claim Luke was the author based solely on the texts; it's simply not scholarship. It is bad scholarship to claim that is bad scholarship. Also, they may have known things we don't today. If Luke really was the author or not would be irrelevant as to the reliability of the contents, because they would have to be examined. That Luke likely used more than the sources of Matthew and Mark is evident by the large amount of special tradition the Gospel has.

In the Synoptics it says Jesus explained things privately to his disciples. That the Gospel of John's tradition does not post-date the Synoptics is evident by the numerous instances where the author, had he known the Synoptics, would most likely not have made (e.g. placing the cleansing of the Temple in the beginning of Christ's ministry, and not the end). The Greek is simplistic, that much I think you can read scholars' opinions for yourself.

If anything the lack of ascription to any of the Apostles (John's Gospel's beloved disciple remains unnamed but is likely a real person presumed (Christ's mother is also unnamed there) and is likely the Apostle (the only important Apostle not named I believe)) speaks for the authenticity because later forgeries make sure that they have the authoritative signature you are talking about (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Judas).

spamandham

It would be possible for Luke to be recording oral stories (let's not get in the habit of calling fables history), if we did not already know he based his Gospel on written works - specifically, Mark and either Matthew or Q (take your pick).

Now you might try to argue that the eyewitness he refers to is the Gospel of Mark - and indeed that may very well be what he meant - but we know Mark is not an eyewitness account either, because, it's absurd.

aa5874

So, either the author of John, the authors of the Synoptics or all the authors of the gospels are giving erroneous information about the cleansing of the Temple.

This may be an indication that the gospels are fiction, there are blatant contradictions by those who should have been with the so-called Jesus.

Huon

You suppose that the Gospel of John's tradition does not know the Synoptics. What if the Synoptics tradition did not know the Gospel of John's tradition ? What if these two traditions were independent of each other ?

bacht

Yes, I remember "Chariots of the Gods", those were the days of Carlos Castenada and Cheech & Chong too.

The problem is that if we only have text to work with then we can't really be sure of anything. Of all historical evidence, literature must be one of the easiest to manipulate?

If we're reduced to contrasting Christian writers with other literary witnesses then we have to consider agendas and biases. Catholic scribes wanted to present the NT texts as being connected to the first generation apostles. Thus the dating and author ascriptions were pushed back as far as possible into the "heroic age" of Christian origins.

There is also precedent in the Jewish tradition for pseudepigraphy and outright invention. The story of Esther is probably an edifying fable, and Ruth could have been a response to Nehemiah's marriage restrictions.

NT writers make extraordinary claims, why shouldn't they be expected to produce extraordinary evidence? [cheesy but still true]

show_no_mercy

AFAIK, while Irenaeus was alive - which is mid 2nd century.

show_no_mercy

Probably pertinent to this discussion of the historicity/eyewitness testimony of Luke is in the II Library - Luke more than likely knew Josephus and probably copied from him

Johnny Skeptic

But one need not necessarily try to fill in the gaps. An agnostic approach is reasonable. It is frequently difficult to find out beyond a reasonable doubt what happened thousands of years ago. For instance, in "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that in 100 A.D., there were 7,530 Christians in the entire world. In contrast, "World Christian Trends," which is a conservative Christian publication, estimates 800,000, or over 100 times Stark's estimate. That disparity is proof enough of the difficulty in learning about what happened thousands of years ago. If a God inspired the Bible, it is obviously his plan that verifying Bible history be needlessly difficult and contentious, not to mention many other kinds of history.

patcleaver

You do not know what a conspiracy theory is. You are simply attempting to smear me with the epitaph of conspiracy theorist. Your just a ranting mouth without any substantive arguments for your discredited beliefs.

Writing a fictional story like Harry Potter or the books of the bible is not a conspiracy.

If someone wanted to write fictional letters of Paul for the entertainment of their family and friends, I do not see anything conspiratorial or anything wrong with that at all.

The problem is ignorant people hundreds or thousands of years later claiming that these stories are true, when they have no evidence at all that they are true, and there are piles of evidence that they are just fictional stories.

The internal evidence of fictional books containing impossible stories is that they are fictional. The internal evidence of the books of the bible are that they are fiction. Why don't you believe the obvious internal evidence?