FoE

This has probably been gone over here before but i was wondering if anyone that met Jesus wrote anything about him?

CX

We might never know. It could be that such writings existed but have been lost to history. It is possible that a so-called "sayings source" underlying GMt and GLk was written by the apostle Matthew in Hebrew, but there is very little reliable evidence for that claim. Of Jesus' apostles probably only Levi, called Matthew, the tax collector, would have been literate. It his highly likely that Jesus himself was not literate.

FoE

Thank you! I am trying to hammer this home on another board, but they've brought up someone called Kahlil Gibran and i am unaware of him. Any insights on his writing?

CX

Hmmm...Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese poet, novelist and Painter. He was a mystic and his best known work is The Prophet. His stuff is mostly WooWoo newage (rhymes with sewage) type pseudo-philosophy. You can probably find the text of it online. The poetry is beautiful and he was quite an accomplished writer and painter. In general though people to use him as a reference in philosophical debates are some flavor of newage.

What this has to do with the NT I ahve no idea. Paul's letters make up about half and he certainly never met Jesus in his lifetime. Even accepting at face value the attribution, GLk and Acts were written by a disciple of Paul who also never emt Jesus. GMk was written by a kid the Apostle Peter took under his wing (according to Papias, Mark jsut wrote things down based on what Peter had told him, but not in the right order). The catholic letters, except for 1,2&3 John and 1&2 Peter were written by people not associated with Jesus' original ministry. So we have 5 catholic letters, 2 gospels and Revelation. That's 8 out of 27 books which are attributed to people who knew Jesus (though arguably James is written by Jesus' brother who though not a part of Jesus' ministry takes some prominence in the early Jerusalem congregation and undoubtedly would have known Jesus, assuming he actually wrote the letter).

The problem is that in the case of the Gospels they are all anonymous and the attributions are late (2nd century) and by people with an agenda. Revelation doesn't talk about Jesus per se and is most likely not by John, son of Zebedee, but some other John. I'm not sure what the concensus is on the Petrine catholic letters, but most scholars conclude that the Johannine letters are written by the same person that wrote the gospel, usually said to be Presbyter John who figured prominently in the church in the late 1st and early 2nd century, but who was not John, son of Zebedee.

beachbum

CowboyX I have a question.

You refer to GMk and GLk which I presume to be Mark and Luke of the NT. What is the significance of the 'G'?

Thanks from Stan the wondering beachbum.

Vorkosigan

Gospel

CX

Turton is right. It's academic shorthand. GLk is an abrevatiation for The Gospel according to St. Luke. Whereas ALk refers to the author of that gospel (since we don't know if it actually was Luke, Paul's beloved physician). All the gospels and their authors are referred to in this way by scholars. Scholars also sometimes refer to HJ, the historical Jesus (who is not necessarily the same as the Christ of the gospels).

beachbum

turton and CowboyX

Thanks for clearing that up for me

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: beachbum ]</p>