Simon Magus

I have been investigating the historical Jesus for a few months now, and have read widely amongst the orthodox and apocryphal writings.

It was not long before I found out that the orthodox gospels, as they have come down to us, are really highly politised accounts of the events surrounding the life of Jesus that were knocked together by a bunch of Romans.

My question is > has anyone here attempted to recategorise the orthodox, apocryphal, and Nag Hammadi writings according to their worth? By which I mean, does anyone here have their own virtual "canon" of writings deemed highly likely to be accurate? Does anyone have a list of writings deemed "highly likely to be dodgy?" I think there should also be a category for artistic merit. If NT scholar's were to produce their own canon and thence "Holy Bible", what would be included and for what reasons?

Basically, is the entire field of NT scholarship driving towards some practical conclusion or not?

Peter Kirby

Well, if you look at The Five Gospels by the Jesus Seminar, most of the authentic Jesus material occurs in Matthew//Luke parallels (Q) or in Thomas//Synoptic parallels. In addition there are the nice parables in Luke and a few items in the Gospel of Mark. John and the apocrypha are assigned marginal value. The Gospel of Thomas has been hailed as a "fifth gospel," though it is treated more like a fourth synoptic gospel, with the Gospel of John being neglected as far as sayings go.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Do scholars drive toward particular conclusions? That seems to imply that they have made up their mind prior to assessing the evidence.

Simon Magus

No that is not so, Vorkosigan. In the scholarly community it is perfectly acceptable to expect conclusions to be drawn after the available data is collected. There is probably enough data in to start making some preliminary conclusions.

P Kirby > I agree on the Gospel of John issue. Why are parallels considered more safe than solutions to the synoptic problem? It seems distinctly possible to me that parallels occur when one gospel writer copies the "good bits" out of another gospel before adding his own "good bits".

I agree that GThomas can be classified as synoptic with the orthodox synoptics and so can GPeter. I think any proposed solution to the "synoptic" problem ought to include an account of these two gospels, even if either is thought to have a late dating.

The other interesting fact I find is that GThomas and GPeter are synoptic with the orthodox synoptics but not with each other: Hint Hint.

Peter Kirby

Of course, the Gospel of Peter is not complete in the Akhmim fragment, which begins in the passion narrative and breaks off in the midst of recounting an appearance. There may well have been sayings of Jesus recounted in the lost portions of the text; it is even possible that the Gospel of Peter is actually the same as one of the other fragmentary gospels, known only from patristic quotes or bits of papyri.

best,
Peter Kirby