[geoduck14]

Thanks!

I am a Christian (though, that term has many inaccurate definitions). I'll look through the Wikipedia article.

You mention that the Gospels don't agree on anything except the basic narrative. We actually only need a small number of facts to agree. The Wikipedia article you linked confirms Jesus was real and he was crucified. His crucifixion fulfilled a lot of prophesy in plenty of scripture.

Jesus' resurrection is pretty hard to prove (there is no body!), but we see ancillary evidence: His followers gave up their lives for what Jesus taught. Luke-Acts was written "shortly after" the resurrection, when eye witnesses were still alive. Thomas ran off to India and started a church "before" early Christians had a chance to "fake" evidence

I agree with you that passion alone is weak- every (most?) religion has zealots. The 4 Gospels and Paul's account are first hand accounts. They heard directly from Jesus who claimed to be God. Jesus might be crazy, but the original Apostles watched Jesus ascend into heaven - and then they died pursuing what Jesus taught. Paul was passionate about persecuting Christians (note the misplaced passion!), but then Jesus visited him directly and redirected Paul's passion and faith.

People have definitely died for lesser causes. People have definitely pursued petty fights - but the decision of Jesus isn't petty - it is quite literally a decision that defines what happens after our short life here on earth.

I appreciate you sharing the Wikipedia article. I'll read through it so I can better understand you and people like you. I wholeheartedly believe that the God of the Universe made you and loves you - and I want to show you that same love.

[geoduck14]

One theory presented is that Matthew and Luke were largely based on Mark. And that Mark was written by people "not with first hand account" (also, not Mark).

My take:

Mark has plenty of references to Jewish law - it was almost certainly written by someone with a strong Jewish background.

The names of the people in the book of Mark are "normal" names for people during the time of Jesus. A study got what amounts to a census during the time and location of Jesus - they documented the most popular names - and these names aligned with the names contained in each of the Gospels. This means that the person who wrote Mark was probably near Jerusalem during Jesus' time

The Gospels reflect personal differences in the authors... I haven't seen this yet in the Wikipedia article, but i expect to see it: Luke was Roman trained. Matthew, Mark, and John were jewish trained. Luke's account of the times when Jesus died are shifted by 6 hours. This is important. Luke believes that the day starts at midnight (like most Americans). Mark believes the day starts at sunset (like most Jews).

Mark and Luke had distinct authors.

I'll keep reading.

Thanks!

[geoduck14]

I dove into a bit of a rabit hole. I'm not sure I'm at the end, but I'll pause here and write my findings.

There are some arguments that Mark was the "source" of Matthew and Luke. And that Mark was based on "Q source". Nether of these assumptions are "earth shattering" or even disruptive. I maintain that these 3 gospels were written by 3 different people- and they likely referenced "existing documents"(for instance, any records of Jesus' birth, likely were based on interviews with Mary or Joseph). Perhaps "Q source" was the source - perhaps not. Either way, all 3 gospels had 3 different authors. And all 3 were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

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I also saw remarks about "Jesus having his divinity a secret until after his death. And Early Christians making up Jesus' claim to be God". This is totally bogus.

All 4 gospels repeat that Jesus claimed to be God. They have stories where Jewish leaders "tried to kill Jesus - because he claimed to be God". He was eventually tried for claiming to be God. There are also lots and lots of old testament prophesy that Jesus quotes pointing to Him being God. Yes, His disciples were surprised when he died, and again when he was resurrected. (Oh, BTW, the first 2 people who discovered his empty tomb were women, counter cultural at the time) - but His plan to die and be resurrected was a complete secret from even Satan himself.

[Archelaos]

One of the most interesting findings of biblical philology was the reconstruction of a "fifth" gospel, called "Q" (from the German word for "source": "Quelle") in the early 1800s. The reconstruction works as follows: We can observe that Luke and Matthew have a lot of passages in common with Mark, and if we only look at these passages, the order of the stories is (with very little exceptions) in Luke and Matthew the same as in Mark. Luke and Matthew each have stories that are neither included in one of the other two gospels; these passages we can leave aside for our reconstruction. And Luke and Matthew have quite a lot of passages in common that are not included in Mark. When we look only on those latter passages, we can make two very interesting observations: a) These passages are either just sayings of Jesus or short narratives culminating in such a saying. b) The order of these passages is (also with very little exceptions) the same in Luke and Matthew.

This observation allows us to conclude with high confidence that this passages constitute a "hidden" intependant gospel, that Luke and Matthew used together with Mark (and their individal traditions) as a source.[1] And we have also a very early Christian example of this literary genre of a collection of sayings ("Logiensammlung") in the (non-cannonical) Coptic Gospel of Thomas.[2]

Another remark in this context: That the different gospels (including, but not limited to those that become later cannonical) contradict each other one way or the other was noticed very early. There had been an attempt to construct a single sanitized gosple by Marcion of Sinope around 130-150, which was more or less a condensed version of Luke. It is interesting that such an attempt to propagate a single gosple as the only binding one was strongly opposed by many and resulted in a canonization of a multitude of four gospels and the popularity of many others for centuries. This diversity of "witnesses", characteristic for especially early Christianity stands in strong contrast to the historically rather naive biblical literalism (biblicism) of 19th century to contemporary Evangelicals.

[1] This was only a very brief summary, neglecting a lot of the scholarly discussion around it. For a somewhat more detailed introduction you may have a look at the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas

[geoduck14]

>That the different gospels (including, but not limited to those that become later cannonical) contradict each other one

Can you please share more about this? I haven't seen any credible contradictions among the Gospels - but I keep hearing credible people reference it.

[Archelaos]

A very clear difference, for example, exists between by the two versions of his genealogy in Matthew 1:2-17 vs. Luke 3, 23-28. The Wikipedia article on the "Passion of Jesus" has a section about the "differences between the canonical Gospels": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_of_Jesus#Differences_b... Also the narratives about his resurrection differ in the details. And there are a lot of minor differences between individual stories. The "famous" Lord's Prayer is only included in Matthew and Luke, not in Mark and John. The version from Luke is shorter, especially in some early manuscripts (later manuscripts seem to have included the "missing" parts from Matthew and harmoniszed the versions).

If you want to study the differences between the gospels you may use a so-called "synopsis", that presents equivalent text passages from the different gospels next to each other. For example this color-coded one, that make it easy to spot differences: https://sites.google.com/view/biblestudyresources/gospels/co...

Another interesting difference in the New Testament concerns the text of the Acts of the Apostles. To quote from Wikipedia: "There are two major textual variants of Acts, the Western text-type and the Alexandrian. The oldest complete Alexandrian manuscripts date from the 4th century and the oldest Western ones from the 6th, with fragments and citations going back to the 3rd. Western texts of Acts are 6.2–8.4% longer than Alexandrian texts, the additions tending to enhance the Jewish rejection of the Messiah and the role of the Holy Spirit, in ways that are stylistically different from the rest of Acts." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_the_Apostles#Manuscrip...

[geoduck14]

Thanks! The differences in lineage aren't a problem. Don't assume that the lineages ate supposed to be complete. I've studied the lineage in Matthew more than Luke. It appears that the people listed in Matthew are listed for specific purposes:

Include 3 specific women in the list.

List non Jewish heritage -and the specific number of "jewish" relatives necessary to make Jesus a "full blooded jew". This is important as it reflects the Jewish nature of the authorship of Matthew

Having different versions of the Lord's prayer isn't a problem either. Perhaps one author didn't find the entire prayer important enough. Or didn't find it important enough to include at all. This is what you would expect if 4 friends were writing down a single event they all attended.

The same goes for differences in the death and resurrection. In fact some of the differences are explained by the different background of the authors - which you would expectif there are different authors.

Also, two versions of Acts that are different by 8.4%? Really? Does it change the gospel? If not, then does it matter?

[krapp]

> I appreciate you sharing the Wikipedia article. I'll read through it so I can better understand you and people like you.

Read it because you want to understand what the evidence shows about the authorship of the Gospels and their historicity, even in general terms. But please don't be one of those Christians who sees non-believers as a puzzle-box to be solved, and read it because you want to find the one rhetorical trick or gotcha that will convert me. You can't understand anything about me, much less "people like me" based on a Wikipedia article. I am a whole-ass complex person with a unique personal history, circumstances and outlook, not the straw mass of generalities, biases and stereotypes you have labeled "non-believer" in your head.

If you want to be a witness, live as Jesus said, by example. "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Stop trying to score Jesus points on people.