Doug Shaver

But he was a tax collector who became a believer. From the Christian perspective, anyone who becomes a believer becomes one of The Good Guys, no matter what he did before his conversion.

Of all the apologists who have urged me to read Lee Strobel's books, none of them so far as I can remember has failed to mention that he is a former atheist. Apparently, that is supposed to make whatever he has to say about Christianity more credible than it otherwise would have been.

robto

Koester mentions this possibility in his Intro. NT, but all the other references I've seen are dismissive. It's not clear to me why - no one seems to discuss it, they just make bald assertions.

IMO, Papias's statement that people "translated it as best they could" implies that he knew SEVERAL versions of the Logia in Greek.

Carin Nel

Is this a loaded question?

Firstly, I'll quote from the King James Version of the Bible:
Mathew: Authorship of this Gospel is traditionally ascribed to St. Matthew, a tax collector who became an apostle of Jesus and brother of James.(Luk. 6:16) Herman N. Ridderbos in his book Matthew, and Francis Write Beare in his book The gospel according to Matthew don't agree with the traditional view that Mathew is indeed the author. This forum is also still speculating and I'm waiting for the outcome!
Liberal scholars would date it between the years 80 and 100 A.D and traditional, while a minority of conservative Christians argue for an even earlier date, as seen in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia: "Catholic critics, in general, favor the years 40-45..." Augustine believed it was much earlier and it was the first of the four gospels to be written.

Mark: According to Augustine Mark seems to have followed closely after Mathew like someone following on his footsteps and abbreviating him. He has said nothing with John alone, very little by himself, a few with just Luke, but much more indeed with Matthew, and just as almost many things too in the same words, agreeing either with him alone or with the others.
Augustine of Hippo (Africa), 354-430 wrote, "the four evangelists Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, well-known throughout the entire world (and perhaps they are four because of this, since there are four parts of the world, through the whole of which, they have proclaimed, in a certain manner by the very sacrament of their own number, that the church of Christ has spread) are regarded to have written in this order: first Matthew, then Mark, third Luke, and last John." According to Augustine only Matthew is regarded to have written in the Hebrew language, the others in Greek.

Luke: Luke was an educated Greek, a doctor by profession. He wrote Luke and Acts which together account for two-fifths of the New Testament. He covers the period from the birth of Christ into the first thirty years of the story of the early church, a period of 60 years. His writing gives a historical context for the rest of the New Testament. There are numerous instances where he refers to rulers and historical events in his two books. These can be tested from other sources. Archaeological and other discoveries have proved him to be correct. Some examples are: reference to Philippian rulers as praetors, his choice of the word proconsul as the title for Gallio in Corinth, his describing of Publius as "the leading man of the island" in Malta, and his usage of politarchs to denote the civil authorities of Thessalonica. (He gets no less than fifteen Roman governor titles right.) Only one other document in existence that gives similar detail as to what sailing was like in those days. The eminent Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White said of Acts:
"Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must now appear absurd".
Luke never knew Jesus personally, but he makes two specific claims: to have obtained his material from eyewitnesses and to have done his homework. He says the things he records were given to him "by those who from the first were eyewitnesses" and "I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning" (Luke 1:1-4). He spent time in Palestine about 27 years after Jesus was crucified. Many of the people who had known Jesus, including some of his inner circle of disciples, would still have been around. One of these was James, Jesus' half brother, born to Mary after Jesus. James was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem at this time. Later, about AD 61, he was martyred, according to the Jewish historian Josephus.
There are two sections in Luke that seem to have a very distinct"eyewitness" feel about them. The first is the section dealing with the events surrounding the birth and childhood of Jesus, told from Mary's point of view. The second is the story of Cleopas and his friend (maybe his wife) meeting with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus in chapter 24.

It is interesting that twice in the early chapters we read something very personal about Mary. "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) and "his mother treasured all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51). How did Luke know that? What is more natural than that it was Mary who told him the story?

John: We have the plain statement at the end of the gospel concerning "the disciple that Jesus loved" that: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24). This is probably an editorial comment added by someone closely associated with John.
John wrote in 1 John 1:3, "What we have seen and heard [concerning Christ], we proclaim to you also." (Bold letters mine)
Much information about John and testimony to his work and authorship
has come down to us through three of his pupils, Polycarp, Papias, and
Ignatius, who became leaders in the churches at Smyrna, Hierapolis, and
Antioch. Unbroken tradition affirms John to be the author and internal evidence proves it.
Some Biblical historians disagree whether there is enough external evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that John is indeed the author of the Gospel of John as well as 1, 2, 3 John and Revelation.No less than 19 comparisons between statements of 1 John and the gospel of John prove that they had the same author.
According to tradition 1 John was written from Ephesus about 80 - 95 A.D.

Peter, the apostle of Jesus, was universally accepted by the early church as the author of 1 Peter. It is probable that James, the brother of Jesus (born to Mary after Jesus), who became the leader of the church in Jerusalem till his martyrdom about AD 61, was the author of the letter that bears his name.

Many scholars accept that Jude was also a brother of Jesus, as Clement of Alexandria stated, and which he himself appears to claim in recording that he was a brother of James. If these views are correct, then we could not get closer to Jesus himself.



Archibald Rutledge has written:

For more than 30 years it was my chief business in life to study and try to teach literature. To anyone earnestly so engaged there naturally comes a certain ability to distinguish the genuine from the spurious, the authentic from the invented. Every time I read the Gospels I am pressed more deeply with the conviction that the narratives concerning Christ do not belong to the realms of fancy, tradition or folklore...The incidents are such that they could never have been invented; and their effect on the world for 2,000 years has been such as no inventions could have produced. These stories possess that patent transparent validity that belongs only to truth.

C. S. Lewis, who was professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Cambridge, wrote of his conversion to Christianity in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy:
"I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste...nothing else in all literature was just like this...And no person was like the Person it depicted; as real, as recognisable, through all the depths of time, as Plato's Socrates or Boswell's Johnson, yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god. But if a god-we are no longer polytheists-then not a god, but God. Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, Man".

http://www.christianity.co.nz/eye-6.htm - ( Extracts from article by Dick Tripp " Eyewitness Testimony" )

Sources:
1.Stephen C. Carlson, Monday, October 18, 2004 - The Synoptic Problem Website
2. http://www.leaderu.com/offices/rusty...ml#text2#text2 - Article- Rusty and Linda Wright
3. http://en.wikipedia.org
4. Dake's Annotated Reference Bible
5. Spirit- Filled Life Bible
6. http://www.christianity.co.nz - Eyewitness Testimony in the New Testament Article by Dick Tripp (Anglican Clergyman with experience in parish ministry in the Diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand. He has an MA in Theology from Cambridge.)

Regards

Carin

Joe Bloe

Why would it have to have been an intentional fabrication? Why couldn't it have just been an honest mistake? Couldn't it be that they really believed what they were saying, but they were in error?

Jack the Bodiless

Carin Nel:

That seems to be a rather verbose way of saying "I agree that Mark and Luke were not eyewitnesses, I prefer to believe that John's claim is valid, and for religious reasons I'd prefer to disregard Biblical scholarship and claim that Matthew was written first and by Matthew himself, even though I have no evidence to support my position".

You can spare us the canned summary of the traditional myth of Biblical authorship. We are already familiar with it. And you've provided it already, in the first post of this thread.

Carin Nel

Your conclusion is incorrect and I regard both, especially Luke as a very credible eye-witness.
Does anyone else agree with Jack and think that my position is vague or unclear?

Regards

Carin Nel

Diogenes the Cynic

Your position is clear, it's just wrong.

What was Luke a witness of? Why does he himself say that he wasn't a witness?

Carin Nel

Sorry, my mistake, Luke was not an eye-witness. I should not have mentioned him in the first place as a first hand eye-witness. ( I did not consentrate..was in a hurry!) Luke never knew Jesus personally, but as I said before, he makes two specific claims: to have obtained his material from eyewitnesses and to have done his homework. He says the things he records were given to him "by those who from the first were eyewitnesses" and "I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning" (Luke 1:1-4). He spent time in Palestine about 27 years after Jesus was crucified. Many of the people who had known Jesus, including some of his inner circle of disciples, would still have been around. One of these was James, Jesus' half brother, born to Mary after Jesus. James was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem at this time. Later, about AD 61, he was martyred, according to the Jewish historian Josephus.

Regards,

Carin Nel

Diogenes the Cynic

Luke does not say he got his information from witnesses. He says that others before him did. I just went over this in another thread and I'll repost what I said there:

Here is the Greek text (transliterated because I can't figure out how to code Greek font) of Luke 1:1-3:

Epeideper polloi epecheiresan anataxasthai diegesin peri ton peplerophoremenon en hemin pragmaton kathos paradosan hemin hoi ap archais autoptai kai huperetai genomeno tou logou, edoxen kamoi parekolouthekoti anothen pasin akribos kathexes soi grapsai, kratiste Theophile.

Translation (by me)

"seeing that many have taken it in hand to assemble an account of those events which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were witnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good that I also, having a thorough understanding of everything from the beginning, should write everything in order for you, most excellent Theophilus."

Verse 2 refers back to verse 1. It's the "many others" who Luke is claiming tried to write everything down "just as it was delivered to us" by the original witnesses. Luke is claiming that he has studied these previous accounts and is now ready to write his own.

To simplify Luke is saying:

"Since lots of others have tried to write these things down just as they were given to us by the original witnesses, I decided that it would be good for me to put it ll in order for you, Theophilus, since I have made myself thoroughly familiar with all of it."

He is not claiming to have spoken to witnesses. He is claiming to have investigated the writings of others who he believed to have spoken to witnesses.
Your evidence for this is what?
What is the basis for your claim that the author of Luke-Acts ever spoke to them?

Luke wasn't written until at least the 90's, BTW, and Acts is probably 2nd Century.

Carin Nel

I don't necessarily agree with your translation of the text.
"diegesin" as far as I know, means "narrative" and is only used here in the NT.
It could be that everybody talked about the things Jesus did, because it was so public and it was so accredited by thousands of witnesses, as to carry the fullest conviction of His divine mission and truth.
"..from the beginning" refers to the beginning of Christ's life (Acts 1:21-22)
"autoptai" , as far as I know, means :seeing with one's own eyes, as an autopsy.
It seems to me that Luke did speak to eye-witnesses and ministers; officers of the Word and servants of the Lord. ( Lk + Acts )
He wrote to "most excellent" -which was a title of social degree, not oral quality ( acts 23:26; 26:25) Theophilus - a common Roman name, used only here and in Acts 1:1. Josephus mentoned 2 men with this name wo were High Priests. He was a man "instructed in the life of Christ" (v. 4).



Certain historical references in Luke's writings allow us to date some of these happenings with a fair certainty of accuracy. It is almost certain that it was AD 57 that he arrived in Jerusalem and probable that he stayed in Palestine for the 2 years that Paul was imprisoned at Caesarea. During the 27 years after Christ's crucifiction when he spent time in Palestine, he could have met many people who had known Jesus personaly, as many of them, even from Jesu's inner circle, would still have been around. James, Jesu's half-brother and leader of the church in Jerusalem at that time wold have been one of those likely personal friends of Luke's.
In Luke 2:19 we ad some very personal things about Mary. Could it not be that Luke knew Mary, the mother of Jesus personally?

Luke was also a participant in the events of Acts 16, 20, 27 + 28 together with Paul. From these passages we know then that he first met up with Paul in Troas on Paul's second missionary journey and travelled with him to Philippi. He joined him again in Macedonia on his third missionary journey and travelled back with him to Jerusalem. Two years later he traveled with Paul to Rome.

It seems clear to me that Luke could easily have been firends with many witnesses of Jesus Christ.

Regards,
Carin