Sheshbazzar

Yeah. Too bad Paul didn't read it before he wrote his own far different version of his history.
Seems none of those old time gospel boys could ever get their shit together enough to tell the same story.

MrMacSon

The subsequent collators & editors did a superficial job, too.

MrMacSon

Pauline theology may have begun to prevail later: in the 2nd century

Adam

Fortunately, if John A. T. Robinson is right, the whole New Testament was written before 70 CE. The sources for the gospels certainly were.

Diogenes the Cynic

In a manner of speaking, yes. It's an attempt to harmonize the Hellenist, Pauline movement with the original Jewish Palestinian movement, largely creating a fictive narrative that Peter came around to see that Paul was right all along. The book is written by a Pauline Christian trying to make the original apostles into Paulinists themselves. In terms of real history, that's almost certainly complete bullshit and Paul's own letters show a clearly antagonistic relationship and claim explicitly that the Jerusalem cult still followed Jewish law. Nothing in Paul's own words ever says they stopped.
Because that is Luke's chronological order, and while Paul may have had a bigger historical impact, there's no question the Lukan author saw Jesus as more important theologically, though.

Speaking of the ascension, though, I think it's significant that Paul never mentions such an event and seems completely unaware of it. He does not say anything about an ascension occurring between the "appearances" to the Cephas et al and the appearance to himself. What this strongly suggests to me is that Paul was unaware of any claims of an intervening interlude of a physical "resurrected" Jesus BEFORE an ascension. I think that for Paul, the resurrection WAS just an ascension. An apotheotic event. I think the physical interlude was added later to combat Docetism.

outhouse

Or much later

Early on he was viewed simply as a important martyr.

Toto

John A.T. Robinson was probably wrong on this issue. He has failed to move the consensus on the dating of the NT. The hypothetical sources for the gospels cannot be dated, so I don't know where that certainty comes from.

aa5874

The whole New Testament is not just the Gospels.

There is no actual evidence at all that the whole New Testament was composed before c 70 CE.

1. No author of the very New Testament claimed that they wrote before c 70

2. Non-apologetic writers did not acknowledge any writing in the New Testament before c 70 CE.

3. No New Testament manuscripts have been found and dated to c 70 CE or earlier.

MrMacSon

What 'sources' for the gospels?

aa5874

The writings under the name of Paul have virtually ZERO attestation by authors in the Canon so are most unlikely to be credible.

Essentially, writings under the name of Paul do not represent any period of the actual history of the Jesus cult.

If the Pauline writer was actually the foremost and first evangelist who preached Christ crucified and resurrected and was the the first to have documented his teachings then we would expect the other authors of the Canon to have acknowledged Paul and his letters.

The authors of the Canon instead showed or implied that it was the story in gMARK that represented the teachings of the Jesus cult.

There are very few details of the Jesus story in the Pauline writings yet the Pauline writers' post resurrection visits are far more than in gMark which mentions none.

The Pauline post resurrection visits of Over 500 PEOPLE must have or was most likely composed after gMark who knew NOTHING of post-resurrection visits.

The claim in Galatians 2, that Paul was commissioned to preach to the uncircumcised and Peter to the circumcised must have or was most likely composed after gMark who wrote NOTHING of the Great Commission.

The claim in the Pauline writings that the Ritual of the Eucharist was to be carried out and in remembrance of Jesus must have been composed or was most likely composed AFTER gMark who wrote NO such thing.

It is the Pauline details of Jesus that were either not used or not corroborated by the other authors of the Gospels and the Canon.