What happened between Jesus death & the gospels being written?

by yaddayadda 52 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Terry

  # During the period when the Gospel writers wrote their accounts many eyewitnesses would still have been alive and would have objected if the Gospels were exaggerated in some way

  It was actually due to so many objections, arguments, debates and controversies that anything got written in the first place. The entire history of scripture is the result of arguments and disagreements!

  The copyist could change anything to make an argument more solid. The text is filled with such additions and so-called "pious fraud".

  It is agenda driven; this bible.
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  yaddayadda

  PeacefulPete, Can you please refer me to the authors or sources (not personal opinions of persons on this heavily biased website) that discuss "the complex redaction history of the Gospels and the preGospel sources of many of the "sayings" that you say exist. This is what I am seeking help on. I honestly want to get to the bottom of this for myself, as objectively as I can (I am aware of my own biases and motivations to either believe or let go of Christianity) so I can make as informed a choice as possible. I realise this is an enormous subject.
• 

  Leolaia

  yaddayadda....I think the Ancient Christian Gospels book will give you much material to consider on the complex redaction history of the gospels. You would see, for instance, how sayings that originally were independent were assembled together into dialogues, then added with interpretative glosses, and made into longer discourses...and you can find individual sayings floating around in different gospel traditions in very different narrative contexts...or drawn from oral tradition in different forms. And you can see evidence of different stages of a work... such as a pre-canonical version of Mark that was incorporated into Matthew and Luke, and later additions to canonical Mark such as the several different endings. And in the case of the narratives, you can see how they are composed through OT exegesis and how the use of these exegetical traditions is, for instance, more primitive in Barnabas (which does not yet cast them in a narrative) than in the gospel passion narratives. But you will also probably find many unresolvable questions in your review of the literature.

  I also forgot to mention Robert Funk's New Gospel Parallels. This two-volume work I have found to be indispensible in my research because it displays for any gospel passage all its parallels in the other gospels on the same page. You can see at a glance how Mark differs from Matthew or Luke from John in any given pericope or saying. And since it includes Thomas and a few other sources that utilize gospel traditions (such as Paul, James, 2 Clement, etc.), you can see how these traditions are related as well to the gospels. Volume 1 is of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and Volume 2 is the other gospels (John, Thomas, etc.).
• 

  skeptic2

  This is an interesting blog post that comments on the potential meaning of the lack of contemporary historical record, that you are referring to:

  Original blog post

  Laura Miller, writing in Salon, does an appropriately contemptuous takedown of Michael Baigent's recent reworking of his crackpot/jackpot Holy Blood, Holy Grail theory, which doesn't hold up even to mild scrutiny. (It works as bad fiction, but not as bad nonfiction. It's no wonder Dan Brown has made most of the money from it.)

  But when it comes to Jesus' existence, Miller blurs her eyes and displays nearly the same logical incoherence of which she justly accuses Baigent. Miller writes:

  There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus' existence, although this isn't surprising, since he wouldn't have seemed sufficiently important to the people who wrote those accounts. Most modern scholars, including the secular ones, believe that someone more or less like Jesus did really exist...

  These two highlighted statements pretty much contradict each other.

  The alleged historical figure was:

  "more or less like Jesus"

  but at the same time

  "he wouldn't have seemed sufficiently important"

  WTF? How does one achieve these two conditions at the same time?

  This remarkable-yet-unimportant historical Jesus apparently:

  -Did not perform miracles
  -Was not rumored to perform miracles
  -Was not followed by large crowds of people
  -Did not enter Jerusalem on a donkey (an extremely provocative action for a Jew)
  -Did not declare himself the Messiah
  -Did not disrupt the business of the temple
  -Was not tried by the Sanhedrin on Passover Eve
  -Was not tried by Pontius Pilate, who
  -Did not send him to King Herod, who
  -Did not send him back to Pontius Pilate, who
  -Did not set free a known killer of Romans in an attempt to save Jesus, and
  -Did not convict Jesus while Jerusalem was experiencing a near-riot

  Any of the above would have been remarkable enough for chroniclers of the time to note. If the Gospel narrative is even sorta true, this would have been one of the most remarkable Passovers in the entire history of Jerusalem. And if this narrative isn't even sorta true, did Jesus really exist? How could someone be "more or less like Jesus" while at the same time substantially not do the remarkable things attributed to Jesus?

  Add to this that the first records of early Christianity--at least its first forty years, probably more--also do not mention any of the above.

  -Paul writes 80,000 words without mentioning any of the above events
  -No writers of Jesus' time mention any of these events, either
  -The events start creeping into Christian tradition gradually over the course of decades

  Why would a reasonable person like Laura Miller conclude from this that the events substantially happened? Would it be news to Laura Miller that religions have been known to make stuff up?

  It's possible that the historical events claimed in the Gospels "more or less" happened, and that writers of the time didn't notice them, and that Christians for decades didn't think them important enough to include in their writings, and then the events were spontaneously "remembered" bit by bit with enough accuracy to be "more of less" true.

  It's possible. But it certainly isn't likely.

  What is likely is that Jesus didn't exist and that religious fanatics actually made stuff up. It's the one theory that you don't have to throw your brain out to believe.
• 

  Hellrider

  Any of the above would have been remarkable enough for chroniclers of the time to note

  Is that absolutely certain? And if so, could there be other reasons why the writers didn`t mention it? What if:

  - Jesus was an embarassment both to the roman authoroties of the area and also to the jews? There were no "historians" at this time, there were scribes, and they for an employer who wanted a particular product. If there were political (or religious-political) reasons for not mentioning him, then he would not be mentioned.

  - And: Were any of these (alleged) events;

  Did perform miracles
  
  -Was rumored to perform miracles
  
  -Was followed by large crowds of people
  
  -Did enter Jerusalem on a donkey (an extremely provocative action for a Jew)
  
  -Did declare himself the Messiah
  
  -Did disrupt the business of the temple
  
  -Was tried by the Sanhedrin on Passover Eve
  
  -Was tried by Pontius Pilate

  ..in a shitty little province that was constantly annoying and of little importance to the romans, important enough to be mentioned by the writers? Remember, the roman empire was huge at this time in history. I think battles with the germanic tribes, conquest of northern Africa, of Britain, not to mention internal conflicts in Rome were more than important enough to the writers to focus on, rather than oh-no-yet-another-self-proclaimed-oh-what-do-they-call-it-again - "messiah" in Palestine. There was no uprising. If the story is accurate, there were just a lot of people demanding his death and a few yelling for his release. No romans were killed, no jews even, except for one of those self-proclaimed Messiahs. And hence, why bother write anything about it.
• 

  Narkissos

  Re: yaddayadda's original post, I think there is much more to the origins of Christianity than the question of the "historical Jesus" or the development of the Gospels. Even if the latter is a very complex issue (cf. for instance http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/) which leaves little room for certainty about the former (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html), we are still left with an extraordinary amount of data on the diversity which made up the "early Christian" nebula. All which cannot be securely ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels must be ascribed to someone else, and whatever exceeds pure literary invention and development is evidence for multiple traditions from distinct circles: from Galilean wandering Cynic-like preachers à la Peter, from the James group in Jerusalem close to the temple, from the Baptist movement close to the Essenes, from the Hellenistic churches in the Greek Jewish diaspora prior to Paul (as reflected in the NT characters Stephen and Apollos, the Corinthian correspondence or Hebrews), from the Pauline movement, from the Johannine movement... There is a wide forest in the pre-Gospel period which can easily be missed for the elusive "Jesus tree".

  So I would definitely look for books which concentrate on the analysis of traditions and reconstruction of early Christian movements rather than focusing on "the historical Jesus" or "the formation of the Gospels". This is an approach I have enjoyed from European scholars such as Theissen, Vouga, Nodet, Taylor or Bovon, and must have some correspondence in the English-speaking world.
• 

  Joe Grundy

  As an outsider, and an intellectual pygmy in comparison with many of the posters on here, may I offer an experience and a suggestion?

  I was brought up in a non-conformist protestant religion which believed the Bible to be completely true and divinely inspired. As I got older, I began to question the huge gap between the end of the OT and the begining of the NT. I also questioned the image presented by the NT of Jesus living in a peaceful and fairly moderate land (there were a few clues otherwise, but they were glossed over) where there were a few Romans about and everyone was happy until Jesus upset the Jewish leaders (by blasphemy?) so they handed him over to the Romans who crucified him.

  And what a load of crap that false picture is! About as realistic as a portrayal of Nazi-occupied countries in WWII Europe as being places where there were a few German soldiers about and some dissidents and undesirables were shipped out by train.

  My suggestion - have a look at the history and books of the apocrypha - the Maccabbean revolts, etc. Put the NT in historical context. Look at the history of Qumran, at the Roman quashing of actual and potential revolts (was it 2000 crucifixions the NT mentions?).

  Then look at what was actaully happening there between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels. Consider Masada (thought until not too long ago to be mythical, just like Troy used to be). Consider the fall of Jerusalem in 70 a.d.

  Then consider whether Paul would have had much success in marketing his new religion (and new religion it surely was, he accepted as much) as one based on and grounded in Jewish religious belief to an audience in the Roman empire in the light of events happening at the time.

  And always remember - it is the victors who write the history.

  I offer no religious or theological references or arguments, just suggest that an understanding of the historical context may raise questions - it certainly did for me.
• 

  peacefulpete

  yaddayadda...The question you have is really beyond the scope of most books which deal with textual criticism, such as Bart Ehrman's books which many have enjoyed. While insight into the rocky past of the texts can be appreciated through manuscript comparison, the question about the texual history before the 3rd and 4th century extant versions requires more sleuthing and hypothesizing. Leolaia recommended an excellent set of books (though now expensive since out of print) In the same vein I will also recommend Alan's Synopsis of the 4 Gospels. Though not as inclusive as Funk's work it becomes very clear very fast that the books have a redaction relationship. What I've doen is undeline every word used in common between Gospels. Blue for those in two of the 4 and red for those in 3 or more. Most of the book is underlined. The motive and style of the writers now stand out easier. Why did the writer of Matt use the exact words as Mark until a point where his wording differs? If taking note of these many occasions a pattern developes and I learn about the author. Matthew therefore represents a redaction of Mark, Luke in turn likely had both an early form of Mark and Matt but felt the need to make his own texual adjustments. John's history is a bit more complex. Since Matt and Luke are themselves redactions of Mark then we can confidently say that the Gospels have an extensive redaction history without even getting into the additional sources unique to the three writers or the manifest retouching that each book experienced as it passed through sectarian hands. THis later stuff becomes a more involved matter of hunting down early witnesses to a varient wording, analysis of grammer, style, broken narrative and odd intrusive blocks. However the results of this analysis will always be in dispute without an actual manuscript no matter how logical or explanitory the reconstruction is. The book I alluded to in my earlier post is deep into the subjective end of things, but then your question requires we go there.
• 

  yaddayadda

  Thanks for the information. I see that I am going to have to do a lot of research on this.
  
  I can totally understand the sceptism about the miracles etc in the gospels. And it seems that the other synoptic gospels borrowed heavily from Mark.
  
  What seems strange to me about this whole affair is that, according to various scholars, the dead sea scrolls proved that the book of Isaiah had hardly changed at all in about 1,000 years of writing, and persons like Sir Frederick Kenyon and other eminent intellectuals conclusively state that the NT has not materially changed much in many hundreds of years (I've read critiques on Ehrman's latest book. He shows that although there has been a bit of redaction and revisionism, it is not as nearly as much or as significant as he is making out), yet the sceptics are saying that pretty much the entire gospels accounts are just myths, complete fictions, that they somehow magically appeared in a relatively short space of time in a culture where great care was taken by scribes to accurately transmit holy writings, where there was a strong tradition of systematic oral memorisation techniques, amongst a people who were just about the last people on earth to believe myths and legends that all their pagan neighbours believed. I am asked to believe this despite the fact that for long streches of many centuries it is clear that the scriptures did not materially change. It just seems just as much an article of faith to brand the entire gospel accounts as complete mythological fictions than to accept that much of them may indeed be true.
  
  Is it not the case also that the early church fathers going back to the second and third centuries quote extensively from the gospels as we read them today? Or have I got that wrong?
• 

  Stealth453

  I find this very hard to believe and because of this I find it very hard to believe that a Jesus every really existed.

  I'm with you on this one.