Duvduv

Because I think that if people were thinking about salvation based on a messiah and redemption in those days they were taking it pretty seriously.

Toto

Fiction is serious business.

Sheshbazzar

I wouldn't express these variations as simple 'creative imagination'.
The Gospel texts were not all composed at the same time nor by the same writers.
Each was composed during a specific epoch of time and its selected content was directed at the perceived needs of a certain audience and demographic.
Religious and philosophical views were rapidly evolving and syncretizing, and the texts needed to evolve in stages to grow and to adapt to the changing views and theological understandings of a rapidly evolving new form of religion.

It was not as though only these texts came into being to shape what was to be believed, but what was popularly believed became the active force in shaping the progressive variations on the content of the NT texts.

No miracles, Divine revelations, or supernatural interventions at work, simply a grass-roots sociological movement as several disparate cultures and religious traditions were forced through displacement and absorbtion to become merged and syncretised following an Imperial war that disrupted and displaced an ancient culture.
The resulting 'new' religion was a natural result of this cultural collision, a mish-mash of conflicting ideas, ideals, and traditions that took time to sort out, to be rearranged, and to finally settle down into new patterns and norms of thought, belief, and practice.

Duvduv

So are you saying that rather than reflect the views of several sects, the 4 texts reflect the evolution of a single sect from "Markian" finally settling on the "Johannian" ideas which is why the heresiologists were so concerned about holding tight to the four gospels?

mountainman

See Edward Gibbon on "Primary" and "Secondary" causes. Creative imagination in any age often has underlying motives (e.g. gold, power, influence, authority, etc). Identical word-for-word accounts, such as that found in "The Acts of Pilate", might look suspicious, especially if there were four of them.

This whole problem (Apostilic agreement in the gospels) was solved by Eusebius, who seems to have published the "Ammonian Canon Tables" with the Four Gospels. These canon tables tell everyone all that they really need to know, in regard to the sayings and events agreed to in 4, or 3, or 2 apostles, or whether they were unique.

Sheshbazzar

No, I wouldn't go so far as to say 'a single sect', rather a simple majority from a variety of 'Chrestus'/'Christos' sects, the finished product at each stage being a compromise of traditions that would serve to appease and mollify the greatest number of adherents.
That is why these 4 Gospels attained and held their ascendancy while countless other variations fell by the wayside.

To that majority, which identified itself as being orthodox and catholic, all of these iterations of THE Gospel had been 'recieved' and were equally valid, to be recounted and cherished.
As this orthodox catholic majority strengthened itself and absorbed more and more members from the fringe groups, it increased itself in power and asserted its authority over the myrid details of acceptable belief and practice for inclusion into their orthodox version of the catholic faith, to that point when the many (majority) were able to claim to be THE Orthodox and Catholic Communion of THE Faith, and thus totally marginalize any and all other claimants. Powerful words used to establish powerful and enduring claims.
(invalid though they may be)

Sheshbazzar

Along this line, it was a matter of Catholic authoritative choice to place 'The Gospel which is According to Matthew' as being the first of the four, and to elevate Sunday observance, while forbidding Sabbath keeping, as an expression of their claim to holding an absolute authority that could, at -their- will, even abrogate the explicit commandments of their G-d. And that Christians fell into line, only confirmed that they did, indeed, posses enough authority to overrule even G-d himself.

aa5874

Well, the fact that there is the "Amomonian Canon Tables" is a very good indication that Eusebius or the Church did NOT write ALL the FOUR Gospels.

It makes NO sense for Eusebius or the Roman Church to write ALL Four Contradictory stories and then try to harmonise them after exposing the Gospels to ridicule.

Duvduv

So from that early they were already considered equally received and valid despite all the contradictions starting with the birth stories all the way to the crucifixion, and no one would blink an eye....??

Bernard Muller

For what it is worth, here is what I think happened:
A gospel would be written (in secret) by a elder/presbyter in a Christian community (mainly to have an immediate effect of the congregation or group of congregations). Of course, by some device, the gospel would be said to be written earlier than any others the community might have known about (except maybe for gJohn). Also, that gospel would be trumpeted as being fully true, while the others were not. The new gospel would be mostly to address the doubts, disbeliefs, crises, issues, questions, etc. in the community at the times, which other gospels, if known, were not doing. But after making a splash for maybe a few weeks, doubts would be raised about the authenticity of many passages and, likely, the identity of the author might have been guessed. The net result would be the gospel was eventually disused in the community it was intended for. But some Christian traveller, passing through that city, would have learned about the gospel, read it and thought it would be of benefit for his own community, itself in turmoil. He would copy it and introduce it to his congregation.
Any new gospels were certainly not evenly distributed. Some would be received, read by some elders, and then decided as no good and discarded. Then the congregation would keep the gospel they adopted earlier. Some gospels were truncated and modified. Anyway it looks that most community had, at any point in time (end of first, most of 2nd century) only one reference gospel if any.