Ben C Smith

We do have data. It is not very clearcut data, but it is data nonetheless.

The ignoring or distortion of Christian conflicts is not all that surprising, is it? The apparent ignorance of the epistles is more substantial.

Ben.

show_no_mercy

Ancient authors wrote about themselves and their exploits in third person but they also identified themselves in their writings. The difference is that the gospels are anonymous and in third person, not just in third person.

aa5874

After reviewing the Synoptics, I have found no known case of authors writing in the third person.

The authorship of gMatthew is unknown, therefore it cannot be assumed that the author wrote in third person.

And further, if it is assumed that one of the disciples called Matthew wrote gMatthew, there is only one single verse in the entire text, where the author referred to himself in the third person, instead of the first person.


Matthew 9:9 -
If gMark is examined, it is found that the author did not write in the third person at all. The author simply did not make any reference to himself at all anywhere. Or if the author did refer to himself in the third person, it cannot be known since authorship is unknown.

If gLuke is reviewed, it would be noticed the opposite is true, this author, though unknown, did write three verses in the first person and never wrote any passage referring to himself in the third person.

Luke 1:1-3 There are no known case of the authors of the Synoptics writing in the third person.

It is quite the opposite.

The author of gLuke did write only in the first person wherever he made reference to himself.

Johnny Skeptic

In the NASB, Matthew 3:13 says "Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him." In your opinion, is the verse first person, second person, or third person?

Consider the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew

Johnny Skeptic

Where do you get first person out of any of that? Regarding "Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses," that does not suggest that the author of the book of Luke was an eyewitness, only the people who provided him with information.

Johnny Skeptic

Why should anyone assume that? Consider the following from the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004:

"Early Christian writers believed this book to be the earliest of the synoptic Gospels (hence its position at the beginning of the New Testament) and attributed it to Saint Matthew, one of the 12 apostles. They believed that he wrote the Gospel in Palestine, just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. Although this opinion is still held by some, most scholars consider the Gospel According to Mark the earliest Gospel. They believe, on the basis of both external and internal evidence, that the author of Matthew used Mark as one of his two major sources and a hypothetical collection of Jesus' sayings called Q (from Quelle, German for “source”) as the second. They doubt, moreover, that the apostle Matthew wrote the book."

Johnny Skeptic

Message to aa5874: Will you please give us some examples in Matthew, Mark, and Luke where the authors claimed that they saw Jesus perform miracles?

aa5874

The Synoptics are not autobiographies of the authors themselves, they are about some creature called Jesus.

And there is a difference between writing in the third person and being an eyewitness, the OP is about writing in the third person.

The Life of Flavius Josephus by Josephus is an example where the author wrote about himself both in the first and third person, i.e. many times referring to himself as "I" (Josephus) and other times as "he" (Josephus).

Ben C Smith

Aa5971, it would help tremendously if you made clearer that you mean that the synoptic authors did not write about themselves in the third person; everybody could agree with that (except for those who cling to Matthean authorship of the first canonical gospel, as you correctly noted).

Johnny, that is what aa5871 evidently means here, though (s)he is not being very clear about it.

Johnny, the pronouns us and me, which I have boldfaced above, are first person pronouns. If you are merely saying that Luke is not here claiming to be an eyewitness, that is super, and almost everybody will agree with you. But he is writing in first person.

Johnny Skeptic

Thanks, I should have made my intention more clear in the opening post. My intention was to show that the authors of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not claim that they saw Jesus perform miracles, if that was the case, which would mean that their evidence regarding the miracles was second hand, and therefore is much less reliable than it would have been if they had claimed to be eyewitnesses.