Originally Posted by mullerb

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.

Originally Posted by mullerb

To Duvduv,
As I wrote, at first, each congregation was functioning from one gospel. So there was little or no comparaison. Afterwards, when 4 gospels were declared sacred by Irenaeus, the attitude of Christians then towards the 4 gospels, with their differences and contradictions, would be the same than for Christians nowadays, whatever it is.

Originally Posted by mullerb

to Duvduv,
Eusebius reported on the Christians being concerned by the two different genealogies from early on:
'History of the Church', I, 7 "Matthew and Luke in their gospels have given us the genealogy of Christ differently, and many suppose that they are at variance with one another. Since as a consequence every believer, in ignorance of the truth, has been zealous to invent some explanation which shall harmonize the two passages permit us to subjoin the account of the matter which has come down to us, and which is given by Africanus [160-240 CE], who was mentioned by us just above, in his epistle to Aristides, where he discusses the harmony of the gospel genealogies. After refuting the opinions of others as forced and deceptive,..."
You can read the rest in http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm Chapter 7
Considering the above, I do not see why other contradictions in the gospels would not cause discussions, with some fix up offered by apologists, such as Africanus, or verbally, by some church elders, if that became an issue causing disbelief in their congregation.
Most Christians then did know how to read, so they were not doing comparative studies and therefore asking questions about conflicts from one gospel to the next.

Originally Posted by mullerb

To Duvduv,
As I wrote, at first, each congregation was functioning from one gospel. So there was little or no comparaison. Afterwards, when 4 gospels were declared sacred by Irenaeus, the attitude of Christians then towards the 4 gospels, with their differences and contradictions, would be the same than for Christians nowadays, whatever it is.

Originally Posted by aa5874

The claims by Irenaeus about the Four Gospels have been rejected by Scholars. The dating, chronology and authorship of the Four Gospels as stated in "Against Heresy" is NOT credible, hence Against Heresies is least likely to represent the attitude of Christians in the 2nd century.

"Against Heresies" has at least two distinct authors.

Originally Posted by Duvduv

I have read that it appears that the author of GJohn did not have access to GMatt and GLuke but only to GMark.

If that is so, then why are there so many stories in GMark that do not appear in GJohn, including the Last Supper? Did he have his own "traditions" that he consider to prevail over anything he saw in GMark, or accepted only those things in GMark confirmed by his own other tradition?

The primary common events in GMark and GJohn are:
The Baptist
The Centurion healing
Nazareth
The Blind Man
Who is Jesus
THe Entry to Jerusalem
The Moneychangers
The Temple thrown down
The Betrayal, Crucifixion, Empty Tomb and appearance before the 11 disciples.

Originally Posted by outhouse

Lets fix some of the misinformation floating around.


First, lets put J into context.

It was written in 3 parts by 3 diferent authors or groups of authors in a Johannine community over a long period of time.

It was written more for their part of the movement as it was growing for them at that time. It was written for a semi christian movement's audience more so then the roman audience of Gmark.

There were many competeing versions within oral tradition and that is why you see simularities between the two.


What ive seen in this forum is a misunderstanding of how prevelant oral tradition actually was back then.


Its very possible luke and matthew didnt copy from mark but just included these same oral traditions to their work from what was floating around in oral tradition. Great chance Q was only oral tradition.

at a 90% illiteracy rate, these guys were pro's well practiced at remembering word for word of these different traditions floating around.



Take into account, we are talking about a movement, a movement that at that time had no single direction