The gospel of John..

[jeremyp]

However, pseudoepigraphy was a fairly standard practice across the known world at the time

Nope. Forgery (for that is what pseudepigraphy really is) was considered as bad then as it is now. Of course, the gospels are not pseudepigraphy. None of them claim to have been written by anybody in particular.

so it doesn't mean that one or more weren't written by people who could or would have known Christ, especially when one remembers the mostly commonly attributed authorship dates, especially Mt, Mk & Lk.

Thirty - forty years after the crucifixion. That's a long time for an ordinary person in the first century. I'd say the evidence is against the authors having known Jesus.

Too many pople assume that, if the Gospels weren't written by the named authors, they must have been written by preople who had never met Jesus - a belief that I hope I have shown to be not necessarily correct.

Possible is not the same as probable.

[jeremyp]

Because that's where the available historical evidence points

Actually, no.

[Hope]

I think that's unfair. The pseudoepigraphical nature is used to undermine claims of 'eyewitness' testimony. The contents of the New and Old Testament aren't disputed because the authorship isn't clear, but because the contents range from the grotesque to the impossible, with little to no evidence for almost all of it.

O.

O, the thing with pseudoepigraphic material is that it isn't necessarily non-eye-witness (for instance, there are scholars who regard Mark's Gospel as material dictated by Peter, an eye-witness), but not written by the person named (though, again, Mark might well have been an eye-witness, as well as the scribe - if the idea that he was the young man in the 'background' of the events is true.)  Remember also, that whilst Jesus had 12 named disciples, he clearly had other followers (there is reference to 70 of them on more than one occasion) and some of them might well have authored the documents we refer to as the Synoptic, or even the 4, Gospels.

AS for your use of the terms 'grotesque' and 'impossible', the latter is only the case if Jesus wasn't God - something that no-one has ever managed to prove to be the case.  As for the latter, what bits of the Gospels fit that definition?

[Hope]

Nope. Forgery (for that is what pseudepigraphy really is) was considered as bad then as it is now. Of course, the gospels are not pseudepigraphy. None of them claim to have been written by anybody in particular.

Sorry to disappoint you, jeremy, but many of the greatest scientific and philosophy minds never wroite anything, with the materials that are associated with them being written by their followers/students/schools.  Not only was this common, it was regarded as perfectly legitimate.
 

Thirty - forty years after the crucifixion. That's a long time for an ordinary person in the first century. I'd say the evidence is against the authors having known Jesus.
Possible is not the same as probable.

Ye  we know that there were people who lived for 60 or 70 years, even back then.  It wasn't impossible.  However, that is why I have argued that those who wrote the material might well have done so at the dictation of original eye-witnesses.

[Gordon]

Ye  we know that there were people who lived for 60 or 70 years, even back then.  It wasn't impossible.  However, that is why I have argued that those who wrote the material might well have done so at the dictation of original eye-witnesses.

'Might well have' doesn't mean 'actually did' though, so that uncertainty alone raises risks: so  how could you meaningfully exclude the risks that some of what you regard as sacrosanct scripture contains mistake, exaggeration or lies?

[Nearly Sane]

'Might well have' doesn't mean 'actually did' though, so that uncertainty alone raises risks: so  how could you meaningfully exclude the risks that some of what you regard as sacrosanct scripture contains mistake, exaggeration or lies?

Surely that is true of any eye witnesses anyway?

[Gordon]

Surely that is true of any eye witnesses anyway?

Yep - we even saw these problems with the police accounts of the Hillsborough disaster, so it isn't just a problem with ancient accounts: people are fallible, which includes both early Christians and 20th century police officers. 

[Outrider]

O, the thing with pseudoepigraphic material is that it isn't necessarily non-eye-witness (for instance, there are scholars who regard Mark's Gospel as material dictated by Peter, an eye-witness), but not written by the person named (though, again, Mark might well have been an eye-witness, as well as the scribe - if the idea that he was the young man in the 'background' of the events is true.)

It's possible that one, or maybe two, of the actual eyewitnesses might have had input, but highly unlikely given the timings and the lifespans at the time. That eyewitness testimony would have been highly contaminated by the time the accounts were put into writing, decades after the alleged facts.

That wasn't my point, though, my point was that the arguments against the gospel accounts didn't rest on them not being by the people claimed, but their contents being implausible tales of magic and derring-do.

Remember also, that whilst Jesus had 12 named disciples, he clearly had other followers (there is reference to 70 of them on more than one occasion) and some of them might well have authored the documents we refer to as the Synoptic, or even the 4, Gospels.

Again, the statistical chances of more than one or two of them surviving for the forty years required to be present at the writing of the earliest New Testament works, having been adults at the time of the events, is extremely slim. That's disregarding what the intervening time would have done to their memory of the events.

AS for your use of the terms 'grotesque' and 'impossible', the latter is only the case if Jesus wasn't God - something that no-one has ever managed to prove to be the case.  As for the latter, what bits of the Gospels fit that definition?

It's not our obligation to disprove god. You need to give more than a book of stories to justify those claims, or we would be out looking for the skeletal remains of the Cyclops and the corpses of his giant sheep because they were mentioned in the Odyssey. IF god was real, those magical events might become plausible - and the improbable lifespans of the apostles, too - but that circular reasoning isn't going to hold; you can't use god to validate the claims and extraordinary events you are using to validate the claim of God.

Which bits of the Gospels fit the definition of grotesque and impossible: casting demons into pigs and running them off a cliff, turning water into wine, curing leprosy with a touch... the first three that came to mind, I'm sure it wouldn't take long to find others. In the main, you can google 'New Testament miracles' for a comprehensive list of impossible things in there.

O.

[jeremyp]

Sorry to disappoint you, jeremy, but many of the greatest scientific and philosophy minds never wroite anything, with the materials that are associated with them being written by their followers/students/schools.  Not only was this common, it was regarded as perfectly legitimate.

You are bullshitting again. This is completely wrong. I suggest  you read "Forged" by Bart Ehrmann so you can get a clue.
 

Ye  we know that there were people who lived for 60 or 70 years, even back then.  It wasn't impossible.  However, that is why I have argued that those who wrote the material might well have done so at the dictation of original eye-witnesses.

Again you fail to understand the difference between what is possible and what is probable.

[Red Giant]

If the Church had the writings of eye-witnesses, it's hardly likely that it would have forgotten who wrote them and attributed them to somebody else.

And if it thought that Mark was only writing up the teachings of Peter, the Gospel would have been attributed to Peter.  As Hope says, that sort of thing was common enough - but tradition doesn't then lose the name of the master and keep the name of the pupil.

Matthew is clearly a compilation of existing written sources and the writer has nothing to add from his own knowledge.

Luke's preamble claims that the book is a product of research, not the testimony of any particular eye-witness.  At the same time, the writer claims to be giving a truer version than the others in circulation, including Mark at least.  Clearly the other writings weren't then viewed as definitive.  If the Church already believed it had the authentic teachings of Apostles in writing, how could Luke claim to supplant them?  The book could only be seen as a fraudulent attempt to start a breakaway heresy.

Then of course there's the problem that Paul never seems to be aware of the existence of any eye-witnesses, let alone any authoritative gospels.  Scribblings probably did exist in his lifetime, but nothing he took seriously.  It was only after the first generation were dead that people could no longer separate truth from fiction.

[Hope]

John shows a lot of evidence of having been edited. What we have now is certainly not the original.

Yet that in no way acts as evidence for the claims you made in the post my question was in reponse to - so I repeat it: "Do you have any evidence that supports any of what you have written?"

[Hope]

Yep - we even saw these problems with the police accounts of the Hillsborough disaster, so it isn't just a problem with ancient accounts: people are fallible, which includes both early Christians and 20th century police officers.

But you are comparing chalk with cheese, Gordon.  As has been pointed out before, retention rates of spoken information differ dramatically between societies that are predominantly based on a written language and those that are based on an oral one.  I think one of the criticisms about the Hillsborough accounts was that the accounts were written after the events, or at least indicate non-contemporary amendments.

[Hope]

If the Church had the writings of eye-witnesses, it's hardly likely that it would have forgotten who wrote them and attributed them to somebody else.

And if it thought that Mark was only writing up the teachings of Peter, the Gospel would have been attributed to Peter.  As Hope says, that sort of thing was common enough - but tradition doesn't then lose the name of the master and keep the name of the pupil.

RG, as I understand it, the idea that Mark is Peter's Gospel by dictation dates from the early Church.  Perhaps the 'losing' has been the fault of more recent generations?  It needn't have been attributed to Peter - after all, by the time it was written, Christians and the apostles especially were not persona particularly gratia amongst the Romans.

Matthew is clearly a compilation of existing written sources and the writer has nothing to add from his own knowledge.

The only written sources that we KNOW existed when Matthew was written are Mark & probably Luke.  Not only does it include some items not included in either of these - such as the genealogy of Jesus - it is also written for a very different audience to the other two - it has far more reference to and explanation of Jewish thinking than either of the other two.

Luke's preamble claims that the book is a product of research, not the testimony of any particular eye-witness.  At the same time, the writer claims to be giving a truer version than the others in circulation, including Mark at least.  Clearly the other writings weren't then viewed as definitive.  If the Church already believed it had the authentic teachings of Apostles in writing, how could Luke claim to supplant them?  The book could only be seen as a fraudulent attempt to start a breakaway heresy.

Perhaps you could provide the reference that leads you to the conclusion I've italicised.  Remember that Theophilus, the person the book is addressed to could be an specific individual or could be code for people who regard themselves as a 'friend of God'.  Perhaps as importantly, Luke wrote in a refined form of Koine Greek, suggesting that the material was written to 'refined' - ie influential - people.

Then of course there's the problem that Paul never seems to be aware of the existence of any eye-witnesses, let alone any authoritative gospels.  Scribblings probably did exist in his lifetime, but nothing he took seriously.  It was only after the first generation were dead that people could no longer separate truth from fiction.

Why is Paul not being aware of any authoritative gospels a problem, RG?  After all, almost all the epistles that are legitimately ascribed to him pre-date any of the written gospels referred to earlier in the post.  However, he often refers to teaching that had been doing the rounds for longer than he'd been a believer. 

[jeremyp]

As has been pointed out before, retention rates of spoken information differ dramatically between societies that are predominantly based on a written language and those that are based on an oral one.

As has been pointed to before, your assertion that the early Christians reliably communicated their oral histories to each other is wholly without foundation and what evidence we do have shows that they were quite happy to play fast and loose with their sources in order to make a point.

I think one of the criticisms about the Hillsborough accounts was that the accounts were written after the events, or at least indicate non-contemporary amendments.

And these are the least of the problems that the gospels exhibit.

[Gordon]

But you are comparing chalk with cheese, Gordon.  As has been pointed out before, retention rates of spoken information differ dramatically between societies that are predominantly based on a written language and those that are based on an oral one.

So you say: so please explain on what basis the recounting of the Jesus story involving early Christians and over decades has been directly studied - a time machine perhaps? I can't see that you can ever know this with any precision but I can see why you stick to the notion: so I'll ask again - how have you meaningfully excluded the risks of mistake, exaggeration and propaganda in the NT accounts?

I think one of the criticisms about the Hillsborough accounts was that the accounts were written after the events, or at least indicate non-contemporary amendments.

Exactly the same could be said about the NT accounts - would you not agree?. 

[ippy]

So you say: so please explain on what basis the recounting of the Jesus story involving early Christians and over decades has been directly studied - a time machine perhaps? I can't see that you can ever know this with any precision but I can see why you stick to the notion: so I'll ask again - how have you meaningfully excluded the risks of mistake, exaggeration and propaganda in the NT accounts?

Exactly the same could be said about the NT accounts - would you not agree?.

All of our police carry notebooks with numbered pages and they are encouraged to take and keep notes at the earliest opportunity on each occasion, even so the available evidence for the happenings on the day at Hillsborough still managed to be a mess of information.

Wouldn't the middle east 2000 years ago have been far worse, where the littercy levels, just for starters, would be at  concidderably lower level, than they are at the present day?

ippy

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wouldn't the middle east 2000 years ago have been far worse, where the littercy levels, just for starters, would be at  concidderably lower level, than they are at the present day?

ippy

Would they be? Aren't you just saying that the world then was like the worst of this world now?

Wouldn't Jews have been literate enough to read and understand their own scriptures?

I think your argument comes from a perspective of man's forward march..........people are I think a lot less rounded than they used to be a few years ago......But that's a secular humanist education for you.

[Hope]

So you say: so please explain on what basis the recounting of the Jesus story involving early Christians and over decades has been directly studied - a time machine perhaps? I can't see that you can ever know this with any precision but I can see why you stick to the notion: so I'll ask again - how have you meaningfully excluded the risks of mistake, exaggeration and propaganda in the NT accounts?

Studies of modern oral communities have indicated that those risks are moderated by the fact that the communities' stories are told in very strict formats and patterns, that people learn and retain - see http://bit.ly/1NjowHK

Exactly the same could be said about the NT accounts - would you not agree?.

Except that 'exactly the same' is not strictly an appropriate phrase.  In the former, it was people communicating orally (in a largely one-off style) in a literary context, with all the problems that involves for retention of information: in the latter, it was oral communication in a largely oral context, with the information probably not being heard for the first time by the eventual document-author. 

[Hope]

Wouldn't the middle east 2000 years ago have been far worse, where the littercy levels, just for starters, would be at  concidderably lower level, than they are at the present day?

ippy

ippy, the majority of inhabitants of 1st century would not have been able to write much beyond their names: their culture was largely oral rather than literary.  The problems that faced the police after Hillsborough - who had been brought up in a highly literary tradition - would therefore not have applied in 1st Century Palestine.  The oral tradition had a whole host of mechanisms that allowed individuals to learn, remember and recount stories word for word over time that we have largely lost in our literary culture.  One small, but good example where the oral works well, even today, is when a parent reads the same bedtime story to a child who doesn't read, but who listens closely and learns the text by heart.  As soon as the parent makes a mistake or changes the wording, they are quickly corrected by the child.

[Hope]

Wouldn't Jews have been literate enough to read and understand their own scriptures?

OS, the Jewish education system divided practical skills and literary skills.  Most children would have attended what we would probably call 'primary' education where the focus was on learning practical skills such as how to count large numbers, doing calculations for things like building and carpentry, basic scriptural knowledge - probably largely orally - and basic writing skills.

It was only the few who would then be taken further into the scriptures, who would learn to read and write properly, be able to study and dissect the written Scriptures.  1st century Jews  were largely oral rather than literate.

[Red Giant]

RG, as I understand it, the idea that Mark is Peter's Gospel by dictation dates from the early Church.

Eusebius said he found it in Papias, though he covered his back by not being very nice about Papias.  But the idea went out of fashion after Papias, if not before - other writers didn't pay much attention to Mark.  It would have been very inconvenient to the orthodoxy for Mark to be the teaching of the number 1 Apostle, because so many key doctrines aren't in it.

The only written sources that we KNOW existed when Matthew was written are Mark & probably Luke.  Not only does it include some items not included in either of these - such as the genealogy of Jesus - it is also written for a very different audience to the other two - it has far more reference to and explanation of Jewish thinking than either of the other two.

Those parts are from the other written source, probably written early and translated from Hebrew.  Also the source for the Temptation, march of the zombies etc, not in Mark, and not exactly convincing as eye-witness reporting.  More a work of fantasy.  An eye-witness might have thought the reality was good enough without having to gild it with stuff like that.

Perhaps you could provide the reference

Luke 1:1.  The writer doesn't say, well I've looked into all this and everything in the other books is true.  He implies the need for a more reliable book as clearly as he dares.

Why is Paul not being aware of any authoritative gospels a problem, RG?  After all, almost all the epistles that are legitimately ascribed to him pre-date any of the written gospels referred to earlier in the post.

You can't have it both ways.  People who say the Gospels were written by Matthew etc date them earlier.  The people who give the usual dates also say we don't know the authors.

[Hope]

Those parts are from the other written source, probably written early and translated from Hebrew.

And that source would be ...?  I appreciate that modern scholars have proposed the existence of an older document that the 3 Synoptic Gospel writers drew on, but since there is no physical evidence for such a document (something that one would expect that the church would have ensured survived), it becomes a moot point. 

Luke 1:1.  The writer doesn't say, well I've looked into all this and everything in the other books is true.  He implies the need for a more reliable book as clearly as he dares.

I can see where you're coming from, but you would seem to be stretching the language he uses extremely tightly in order to reach that conclusion.

You can't have it both ways.  People who say the Gospels were written by Matthew etc date them earlier.  The people who give the usual dates also say we don't know the authors.

The earliest date I have seen for any of the Gospels (Mark) is 55AD; the most widely accepted dates are as follows: Matthew - between 70 & 110, Mark - between 60 & 70, Luke - between 60 & 90 and John - between 80 & 95.

The letters generally agreed as having been Paul's own are Romans (57-58), Corinthians (57 - at least the first letter), Galatians (45-55), Philippians (57-62), 1 Thessalonians (50) and Philemon (56).  Of the others Colossians (60) and 2 Thessalonians (50-54) are the only ones that scholarly opinion on their authorship is divided pretty equally on.

As you can see, there doesn't appear to be any attempt by anyone to have it both ways.  Perhaps you believe that the scholarly consensus is wrong.  If so, where's your evidence?

[Red Giant]

And that source would be ...?  I appreciate that modern scholars have proposed the existence of an older document that the 3 Synoptic Gospel writers drew on, but since there is no physical evidence for such a document (something that one would expect that the church would have ensured survived), it becomes a moot point. 

A sanitised version did survive, incorporated into Matthew.  The original was used by the Jewish church and therefore heretical.

The earliest date I have seen for any of the Gospels (Mark) is 55AD; the most widely accepted dates are as follows: Matthew - between 70 & 110, Mark - between 60 & 70, Luke - between 60 & 90 and John - between 80 & 95.

But the people who think Matthew was written by the Apostle will say his Gospel was the first, and give a much earlier date, usually in the 30s, and deny that he copied from other sources.

[Outrider]

But you are comparing chalk with cheese, Gordon.  As has been pointed out before, retention rates of spoken information differ dramatically between societies that are predominantly based on a written language and those that are based on an oral one.  I think one of the criticisms about the Hillsborough accounts was that the accounts were written after the events, or at least indicate non-contemporary amendments.

Firstly, no, you've made the claim and it's been repeatedly pointed out that oral traditions transit concepts relatively well, but neither details nor precise claims.

Secondly, the Hillsborough accounts problems, in the main, were a result of deliberate misrepresentation to fit a pre-determined narrative, and entirely plausible explanation for the New Testament work.

O.

[Outrider]

Studies of modern oral communities have indicated that those risks are moderated by the fact that the communities' stories are told in very strict formats and patterns, that people learn and retain - see http://bit.ly/1NjowHK

But those same studies show that the claims and formats mutate until they stabilise in a fixed format. So whilst, eventually, there might have been a reliable story to pass down, in the early stages it would have undergone many revisions.

You should also couple that with the fact that the level of detail that can be conveyed by these practices is considerably less than we see in just one of the gospels, let alone all of them.

O.