TomboyMom

And I'm too lazy to go back and do the reading now. In another thread, I was whining about the level of discourse in this forum being mostly above my head. Julian replied: O.K., could some members just run through for me the basic chronology, like:
Jesus is supposed to have lived from x to y. He had some apostles who never wrote anything, right? Then Paul shows up around z, and wrote something, which however, only contains something and not something else, and then we find the first fragments from someone, I think Mark, which say something about Jesus, but Mark was born after Jesus is supposed to have died, and then Mathew and some other guys wrote some stuff, which differs from Paul in some ways and is supposed to have copied Mark, and then it gets really confusing, and finally some church guys get together and decide which parts to put in the book, and threw out some other stuff, so we finally get the first new testament, in Greek, at about whatever year...something like that, only actually correct? And just as a favor to me, I would greatly appreciate it if understanding your posts did not require knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, or any other language not written in our alphabet. It would also be great if it did not assume that I have read a bunch of professors, either Christian or non, cuz I haven't. Thanks.

Julian

Nobody is quite sure. Probably born somewhere around 4BCE to 6CE or so. The gospels conflict on this point. He died sometime between 29 or 33 or so.

Of course, some people here claimed that he never lived at all.
Probably. Strict christian believers claim that the gosples of John and Matthew are written by followers, that Mark was an eyewitness and that Luke talked to eyewitnesses.

Most scholars hold to the view that his disciples wrote nothing and that the names were attached to the gospels in the second century and that they were not written by eyewitnesses.
Sometime around the 50s is when we date first first letters. Again, this is debated.
He says almost nothing about an earthly Jesus and seems to show little to no interest in such a person.
Mark is generally considered to be the first gospel, but he probably based his work on previous material which could be annecdotes, oral traditions and/or sayings gospels.
Well, the final formation of the canon is slightly more complex: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html

Other than that you are basically correct.
How was that?

Julian

TomboyMom

Thank you! I wish I could learn everything this easily. It makes it harder that I have never been Christian. O.K., so the first thing is Paul. He wrote only some letters? Epistles? Those = what part of the new testament? What part of what Christians believe about Jesus comes from Paul? Since Paul clearly wasn't there, why do Christians believe him?

Why do most scholars think Mark was first based on what evidence?

Are Mark et al. supposed to have at least talked to some people who were supposed to have been there?

So fundamentalist Christians say that John and Mark were among the disciples? Does it say so in their books? Why do they think so? Why do other scholars not?

Thanks again.

Julian

He wrote a number of epistles (fancy word for letters). They were eventually combined and inserted into the bible. There are a number of epistles attributed to Paul in the bible but only 7 of them are considered genuine although they contain sections which are probably not Pauline. The seven authentic ones are: 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philipians, Galatians, Romans, and Philemon.
We know next to nothing about the origin of the christian beliefs. When Paul came on to the scene there was already some christianity around. Unfortunately, we have almost no writings from that time period, except for the letters of Paul. We do not know what he contributed. We do know that his christology (knowledge of christ) was far more limited than what we later see in the gospels.
His books are in the bible (for modern christians). And he claims divine inspiration. And he was early.
That is a questions that begs a very large answer. I will resist.

It is generally known as the Synoptic Problem (The Synoptics are the three gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew) and many books have been written on the topic. There are many very good reasons for assuming that Mark was written first, most of them quite technical.

The method of copying is still being debated. Did Luke know Matthew? Was there a Q (a theoretical document of sayings)? And many others like that...

They (the evangelists) never claim to have done so, except indirectly Luke in his prologue. Christians (strict believers) definitely believe so. Most scholars do not.
Well, Matthew was supposed to be the tax collector talked about in Matthew who ends up following Jesus. Luke was a physician of Paul's, if memory serves. John was supposedly the beloved disciple mentioned in John and Mark was the young naked man who flees the arrest of Jesus or the secretary of Peter, depending.

Most scholars do not believe any of this. None of this is in the gospels. It is conjecture by 2nd century church fathers. There is no reason to believe that it is true since the gospels would be far more consistent had they truly been eyewitnesses. Besides, the gospels more or less contradict those claims when read while even half awake.

BTW, anyone else who lurk here and wants to ask basic questions and not have to read a long website or book to get their answer, feel free to join in. Also, anyone who is better informed than I, feel free to supplement the answers but the idea here is to keep them short and simple. And for lay-people.

Julian

No Robots

First rate. Thorough, concise, fair-minded.:thumbs:

Dean Anderson

That's a ridiculous theory. The Gospel of Mark couldn't possibly have been written by the young naked man who flees the arrest of Jesus!

Where would he have kept his quill and parchment?

Diogenes the Cynic

Julian hasn't left much to add but I will just clean up this one little detail:
Only John is alleged to have been a disciple. Mark is alleged to have been a secretary of Peter's. There is also an apocryphal tradition which claims he was the naked guy who ran away but even that character was not one of the traditional 12 apostles.

Amaleq13

FYI: Mark, Matthew, and Luke are called the "Synoptics" because they basically tell the same story while John diverges enough to be left out of that group.

When all three texts are set side-by-side, the majority of scholars agree that somebody was copying off of somebody and most of that majority concludes that "Mark" was used by both "Matthew" and "Luke" but that neither one knew how the other was rewriting it.

In addition, most of them also believe, because there are significant pieces of text (primarily sayings from Jesus) which "Matthew" and "Luke" have in common that is not in "Mark", that they conclude the two authors had another source they were also using independently that was basically a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. This is what is referred to as "Q" which is the first letter of the German word for "first", IIRC (Quelle?).

After that, you will find various scholars suggesting that the bits and pieces unique to each author can either be lumped together to form another one of their source-texts or represent some sort of unique material that either the author made up or had available from some other source.

What this all suggests is that, prior to the authorship of the four Gospels, almost everything they contain existed as independent texts which have since been lost.

Dean Anderson

Just to nitpick - "Quelle" is German for "source", not for "first".

Amaleq13

I don't consider it a nitpick but a necessary correction. Thanks. That's what I get for relying on memory.