So i watchd a doc on the gospel of petey! And it was brought out that a tradition of the civilizations of the old is to look to these alostles as authoritative and some would write in a manner that siggested the higher ups ( matt, john, mark, peter) wrote it....if this is true then the gospels are just as accurate as the "lost" gospel of peter...whacha think? If true this truly jeopardizes the trub of the old testamentH
An important point i learnt from the gospel of peter doc
by Jon Preston 4 Replies latest jw experiences
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Tiktaalik
What do I think?
I think you've had a few too many.
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Phizzy
Read some Bart Ehrmann. " Misquoting Jesus " etc.
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Jon Preston
No tik its much worse than that....I posted from my phone :-O. Lol
Phizzy--thanks for that! Ill check it out.
I just thought it was interesting that some traditions back then were to write something and claim its from an apostle or someone in a leadership position. Im not saying its fact but it did make me raise an eyebrow.
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Phizzy
The Genre of Pseudepigraphy, writing under the name of someone else, was not unusual at all, before NT times, it is a common device in the O.T, Daniel for example, and after NT times, many such works circulated. Works supposedly by Aristotle, Pythagoras, even supposedly by fictional characters such as Orpheus exist.
In the case of this literary device as used in the N.T. Prof Ehrmann says such works are "fakes" and therefore fraudulent, most scholars do not feel as sensationally strong about it as that. (he does like to sell his books, so sensationalism is not foreign to his presentation).
Our own dear Leolaia disagrees with Bart on that. She feels, as do most scholars, that the intention of the writer was not to defraud, but simply to give authority to the work, thus attesting to the validity of the genuine works of the writer whose name is used, in the mind of the Pseud, and that most readers of the work would have recognised the genre for what it was.
We must remember too that the attributions we give to many of the books of the N.T , Matthew, Mark, John included, were added later, they are not overt internal claims of the book.
It is helpful to identify which books are by the claimed author and which are not and to pinpoint when they were written, this way we can see why the work was presented.
Much of the N.T was written post 70CE, and was to explain the lack of fulfillment of expectations, and to address the new problems of a growing mainly Gentile Church. Even the earliest Gospel, Mark, which may be pre-70CE, may well have been written because the original companions of Jesus were dying off by then.
The simplistic, face value view of the Bible as given by the WT and therefore held by JW's is far from the reality. "Who wrote what and when" are important questions if we wish to understand ancient literature, and the best consensus opinion on these questions is good to seek out. Not all scholars will agree on those questions.