Is the Gospel of Matthew a clever fake ?

by wobble 99 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  PSacramento

  John at least in some form could date prior to AD 70 but its lengthy discourses, realized eschatology, and high christology fits better with a date towards the end of the first century AD, and the appendix certainly recommends a date after the passing of the generation contemporaneous with Jesus (ch. 21 however is probably a later addition to the gospel).

  I agree, I think that core of John was probably written before 70AD, but edited at least a couple of times before the finished Gospel, Probably because JOhn has SO MUCH material in it, it makes sense that a couple of editions would be circulating.

  a feasible hypothesis is that it is pre-Christian in origin, composed as a midrash of Daniel (this would account for the many literary parallels with certain sections of 4 Ezra). Some have suggested that its original setting was the Caligula controversy of AD 40; this better fits the features of the apocalypse than the situation in AD 66-70. So it is noteworthy that the redactions that make it better fit with the situation in AD 70 are to be found in a later gospel dependent on Mark, namely Luke, and not in the Markan text as we have it.

  Interesting theory, I have also read that Mark was composed at various stages and that, liek John, it was "edited" together in its somwwhat final stage.

  The fact that we have two different endings does tend to suggest at least two verisions of Mark's Gospel that were circulating.

  The fact that WE KNOW of these two endings and that they are dicussed and debated ( for sometime now) show, as an example, that these "conteoversies" are nothing new.
• 

  Leolaia

  I agree, I think that core of John was probably written before 70AD, but edited at least a couple of times before the finished Gospel, Probably because JOhn has SO MUCH material in it, it makes sense that a couple of editions would be circulating.

  Aside from the appendix in ch. 21 (and allied redactional passages in ch. 5-6), the main problem with the gospel is the disarray in order between its chapters. It is difficult to understand how the text came to be so dislocated.

  The fact that we have two different endings does tend to suggest at least two verisions of Mark's Gospel that were circulating.

  The problem with the ending is one of the thorniest in gospel studies. My own opinion is that the original ending is missing, just as the original beginning of Mark is missing as well (one plausible explanation is that the gospel was composed in a codex notebook and the outermost leaf had separated from the binding and became lost before the gospel was copied). It is noteworthy that Matthew and Luke diverge at exactly the points at which Mark presently begins and ends (i.e. at 16:8).

  As mentioned above, there are some rather heavy redactions in ch. 9-10 of Mark, both in terms of additions and omissions. This leaves some rather awkward seams in the text, such as this passage: "And they came into Jericho. Ø And when he was leaving Jericho..." (10:46; this seam is resolved in both the Matthean and Lukan redactions), which skips over what happened in Jericho and inexplicably shifts the subject from plural to singular at the same point. Also there are indications that a pericope was deleted in ch. 12 between v. 12 and 13 (only to reemerge in a variant form as an erratic boulder interpolated into ch. 8 of John). If the letter to Theodore attributed to Clement of Alexandria is genuine (and there is a lot of disagreement on this issue), then that would constitute further evidence of another edition of Mark.
• 

  GromitSK

  It occurs to me that even if we were able to speak to the apostles directly (assuming they even existed), and hear their reports of what they saw or think they did, we would be taking their evidence on trust wouldn't we, as we would be hearing the matter 2nd hand?

  Suppose one accepts the Gospels were written by those who claim they saw the reported events, even that takes us one step away from the events again. We would not be in a position to determine the character of the apostles and so form a view of their evidence. We would not know what had been omitted from the reports (I understand there were a number of 'Gospels' whittled down in Constantine's time?).

  As it stands, it seems to me that there isn't even any way of knowing for sure whether the books were even written by the people to whom they are ascribed. Therefore they are of provenance unknown or at least uncertain as far as I can see. To my simple eye, attempting to prove they are true or "God's word" looks like an exercise in futility and would not be acceptable to anyone other than a person inclined to want to believe them in the first place.

  Paul's writing's are even worse since they were written by someone who never even met the person he is claimed to represent. Even if one accept's the writings are the genuine article.
• 

  PSacramento

  Aside from the appendix in ch. 21 (and allied redactional passages in ch. 5-6), the main problem with the gospel is the disarray in order between its chapters. It is difficult to understand how the text came to be so dislocated.

  And yet it is "poetic" in its language and that poetry is fairly consistent, I think it may be a case of writings that were put together and the order was, well, muddled up.

  If the letter to Theodore attributed to Clement of Alexandria is genuine (and there is a lot of disagreement on this issue), then that would constitute further evidence of another edition of Mark.

  Indeed, perhaps the complete one and the mark we have may have been a "rough" draft or "notes" even.
• 

  PSacramento

  Paul's writings aside, sense they were, if one is inclined to believe it, divine inspiration.

  The accounts of the gospels are as historicly valid as any other ancient manuscript of biography or writing.

  That isn't the issue, the issue truly is does one BELIEVE what is written in them, not whether they are valid or uniform of consistent because, compared to other writings of those times, they certainly are.

  It boils down to content and whether one is disposed to believe that the writers were indeed inspired by God and whether what they wrote ( and was copied) was real.
• 

  Terry

  This is a most fascinating exploration of how the Matthew Gospel was actually pieced together over time

  Changes to Matthew - Part 1 of

  Changes to Matthew - Part 2 of 2
• 

  notverylikely

  The accounts of the gospels are as historicly valid as any other ancient manuscript of biography or writing.

  Except for the parts that aren't, bro :)
• 

  Terry

  Denial

  Anger

  Fear

  Bargaining

  Acceptance

  Each person is somewhere on that ladder.
• 

  GromitSK

  The accounts of the gospels are as historicly valid as any other ancient manuscript of biography or writing.

  The major difference is that they are presented by some Christians as a moral authority resting on divine inspiration. It is one thing accepting Josephus' account of happenings at the time or Samuel Pepys for that matter which may or may not be accurate but in the end have no or few implications for those alive now, isn't it another to accept as 'god-sent', unverifiable, apparently supernatural elements such as talking bushes (I know its OT), shepherds 'buzzed' by angels, stars moving and portable astrologers (the Magi) and so on and so on mixed up with centuries of intervention by probably one of the most brutal and sophisticated political regimes in history (the organised Church)? Given that even many non-religious historical documents are products of their time and subject to the political and philosophical inclinations of the authors this sounds like 'game over' to me for the Gospels as any form of authority to run one's life (and others).
• 

  Leolaia

  The accounts of the gospels are as historicly valid as any other ancient manuscript of biography or writing.

  Which would mean that they would contain a lot of creative composition, as the amount of ficiton in ancient biography ranged somewhere between that of historiography and the novel. But the gospels are different from ancient biography in one crucial respect: they heavily utilize non-biographical sources (namely, the scriptures of the OT) as primary source material about their subject, and this use is facilitated through a creative, midrashic process of interpretation. This means that the OT (as well as existing haggadaic stories based on the OT) had a structuring influence on the plot, dialogue, and characters in various gospel narratives. This makes such stories much more suspect in terms of historicity, to the extent to which they were shaped by material that originally had nothing to do with the subject of the biography.