Why were the Gospels written down?

[angellous_evangellous]

As I pointed out on the other thread, this is the Achilles Heal of the argument:



Because of the slow rate of dissemation and publication, it is impossible that Luke copied Josephus. They would have had to have been written down at almost exactly the same time, and Luke-Acts is quoted in literature before Josephus.

For example:

Gospel of Luke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most scholars place the date c 80-90.[60][61] The terminus ad quem, or latest possible date, for Luke is bound by the earliest papyri manuscripts that contains portions of Luke (late 2nd/early 3rd century)[62] and the mid to late 2nd century writings that quote or reference Luke. The work is reflected in the Didache, the Gnostic writings of Basilides and Valentinus, the apologetics of the Church Father Justin Martyr, and was used by Marcion.[63] Donald Guthrie claims that the Gospel was likely widely known before the end of the first century, and was fully recognized by the early part of the second,[64] while Helmut Koester states that aside from Marcion, "there is no certain evidence for its usage," prior to ca. 150.[65]

Even if we take the most extreme view - that only Marcion used Luke in 150 (which is very late, because Marcion was excommunicated in 144CE, so he had Luke-Acts between 100 and 144 because of his father's teachings). Josephus died in 100CE. So his works had to have widely circulated and be accepted as authoritative for the author of Luke in spite of the fact that writings circulated slowly.

On top of this, Marcion was in Sinope (!!!!) - and there needed to be a slow process of publication for Luke, too. So we need years between Josephus and Luke, and then years between Luke and Marcion (for Luke to become authoritative for people in Sinope).

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You might want to read about Acts and Josephus to learn something about how your "history" book was written.

I've provided the earliest citation of Luke-Acts (as late as 150CE), demonstrating its popularity.

Can you provide the earliest quotation of Jospehus, which was not widely read (especially by Jews!) immediately after its publication?

[Hint: It's a good deal later....]

So I'll stand by this assessment:

Yes, I do, and for a few good reasons.

First of all, one has to consider WHEN THE WORKS OF JOSEPHUS WERE WIDELY KNOWN.

And, one has to consider when Luke-Acts was read and quoted by early Christians.

The idiot {Carrier} who thinks that the author of Luke-Acts both knew and relied on Josephus is completely pulling the argument out of his ***. Of all the lying, two-bit crappy **** that passes as research, this takes the cake.

 

[Autodidact]

Except it appears to be made up. If they lost a teacher that mattered so much to them, then why is the entire crucifixion scene constructed of verses taken from the "OT"? Actually, one has to look into the construction of the gospels to see how they were put together and what their sources were, it's most revealing.

The way I see it, they were playing telegraph, plus a lot of motivation to exaggerate, copy, and make stuff up. That's for the 40 years or so after Jesus died. But what I'm saying is, they're sitting around for 40 years discussing something, and I think the something that sparked that discussion is that they mourned the loss of the their teacher. In the next round of re-telling He becomes an angel, the next the Son of God, the next God and His son, etc. But I'm guessing that at the core there was an actual guy who said some things that blew their minds and changed their lives.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Well, the best answer is that they had people in their communities who could tell their stories that served as authorities (ie, Paul and other Christian missionaries).

Something just occurred to me: wouldn't this then have implications for dating the Gospels?

If the early Christians didn't feel the need to put the Gospel story to paper while they had Paul and the other Christian missionaries you referred to, then wouldn't this tend to put their date of authorship somewhere after (but not too much after) these people died?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Something just occurred to me: wouldn't this then have implications for dating the Gospels?

If the early Christians didn't feel the need to put the Gospel story to paper while they had Paul and the other Christian missionaries you referred to, then wouldn't this tend to put their date of authorship somewhere after (but not too much after) these people died?

Precisely.

 

[dogsgod]

There is no conflict whatsoever. There is no attestation to Acts until long after Josephus' writings existed. The author of Luke used Mark and Q, as well as some epistles as sources and if you had read the link I referred to there is too much information and particulars only known from Josephus that rules out coincidence. How does one explain to a fundamentalist that The Bible is not a history text? It may read like history, but it's pseudo-history written for propaganda purposes.

 

[logician]

There is no conflict whatsoever. There is no attestation to Acts until long after Josephus' writings existed. The author of Luke used Mark and Q as sources and if you had read the link I referred to there is too much information and particulars only known from Josephus that rules out coincidence. How does one explain to a fundamentalist that The Bible is not a history text?

It seems to me that nothing can be proven, everything is conjecture, i.e. "it must have been so" with no real evidence whatsoever to support it.

 

[dogsgod]

It seems to me that nothing can be proven, everything is conjecture, i.e. "it must have been so" with no real evidence whatsoever to support it.

True enough. It can be shown how these writings were constructed, and the sources used, yet the fundamentalist expects us to accept them at face value.

 

[dogsgod]

The way I see it, they were playing telegraph, plus a lot of motivation to exaggerate, copy, and make stuff up. That's for the 40 years or so after Jesus died. But what I'm saying is, they're sitting around for 40 years discussing something, and I think the something that sparked that discussion is that they mourned the loss of the their teacher. In the next round of re-telling He becomes an angel, the next the Son of God, the next God and His son, etc. But I'm guessing that at the core there was an actual guy who said some things that blew their minds and changed their lives.

The way you see it is entirely based on the assumption that there is an historical person embedded somewhere in this mythology, much like assuming an historical Clark Kent.

 

[Autodidact]

The way you see it is entirely based on the assumption that there is an historical person embedded somewhere in this mythology, much like assuming an historical Clark Kent.

Believe me, before I learned about the subject, I knew there was no such person--because of my background. To me, the history tends to indicate that there was. This was a wrenching blow to my world view. I believe the majority of scholars in the field see it the same way.

It's a conclusion, not an assumption.

What I'm saying is--something happened...what? It appears to be partly/largely fictional, but based on something.

Of course, none of this gets you to Biblical Jesus by any means. Just a teacher of the era. But for Constantine (not to mention Paul) none of us would have heard of him.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

There is no conflict whatsoever. There is no attestation to Acts until long after Josephus' writings existed. The author of Luke used Mark and Q, as well as some epistles as sources and if you had read the link I referred to there is too much information and particulars only known from Josephus that rules out coincidence. How does one explain to a fundamentalist that The Bible is not a history text? It may read like history, but it's pseudo-history written for propaganda purposes.

You've got it backwards. Luke-Acts was in the possession of Marcion in Sinope in 150. Josephus wasn't quoted in any material until the fourth century CE.

That means that:

1) THERE ARE NO EXTANT COPIES OF JOSEPHUS THAT EXIST THAT ARE DATED BEFORE THE FOURTH CENTURY

2) LUKE-ACTS APPEARS IN CHRISTIAN TEXTS EXTANT A HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE THIS TIME. NOT QUOTES. FULL TEXTS.

I suspect that you didn't even read the link yourself, otherwise you would know that I was quoting from it.

Carrier does say "IF THIS IS TRUE, THEN..."

AND NOT

"This is absolutely true," because he knows damn well that if he's arguing that Luke used Josephus, Luke is the only writer who quoted Josephus in almost 250 years.

 

[logician]

"But for Constantine (not to mention Paul) none of us would have heard of him."

Uh, the supposed Paul never heard of such a man.

 

[Autodidact]

"But for Constantine (not to mention Paul) none of us would have heard of him."

Uh, the supposed Paul never heard of such a man.

I'm saying if not for Paul and Constantine, Jesus would have died an anonymous death.

 

[dogsgod]

I'm saying if not for Paul and Constantine, Jesus would have died an anonymous death.

Paul knows nothing of a Jesus of Nazareth. We first read about a Jesus of Nazareth in the gospels which weren't written until after Paul's death.

 

[logician]

Paul knows nothing of a Jesus of Nazareth. We first read about a Jesus of Nazareth in the gospels which weren't written until after Paul's death.

Timing is everything.

 

[dogsgod]

timing is everything.

lol




.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I'm saying if not for Paul and Constantine, Jesus would have died an anonymous death.

I'm not so sure, at least with respect to Constantine.

The Christian church was already worldwide by the time of Constantine.

The Coptic Orthodox Church was already strong, and had an independent history from the Roman Church and its various splits and the Reformation. Likewise, the Chinese Orthodox Church, though small, has an ancient and independent history as well.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You're killing me, Oberon.

 

[Oberon]

You're killing me, Oberon.

A simple *bump* would have sufficed...

 

[Oberon]

This popped into my head the other day. I wonder if anyone here can shed light on it:

Apparently, the Gospels were handed down through an oral tradition for decades and decades. Then, they were written down. But why were they written down? And why then?

It seems that oral tradition was working for them (or was it?); why the decision to change things?

I think there are a number of factors which played a role.

1) Yes, the early christians were a primarily oral and illiterate culture. But they were also oriented towards texts (jewish influence). Most Jewish communities had at least someone who could read scriptures, and more was continually being added to both the oral torah and to written jewish texts. The epistles and then the gospels were extensions of this tendency to write down material considered religious and important.
2) Long before Herodotus, the Jews began to record "histories" of sorts. They never developed the craft to match some of the best among the Greeks and Romans, but they did write histories. The early Christians had both Jewish and Greco-roman influence when it came to their tradition, which made them all the more likely to write down the life of their founder.
3) Unlike Judaism and most Greco-roman cults, early christianity was a missionary faith. The jews never really concerned themselves with proselytizing, and although gerco-roman myths travelled everywhere, worship and cults were local phenomena. The christians were concerned with spreading a faith rooted in a historical tradition and figure, and they used writing as a technology to better their ability to spread their faith
4) From Paul's persecution of the church to the fall of the temple to roman persecution, the early Christians were a persecuted lot. I think the fact that elders dying both form old age and from execution combined with the growing need to spread the "gospel" to motivate various early christians to record their oral traditions.
5) We just got lucky.