Who Wrote The Gospels?

[headinhands]

"Matthew contains 606 of Markâ??s 661 verses. Luke contains 320 of Markâ??s 661 verses. Of the 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce, Luke reproduces 31; therefore there are only 24 verses in all of Mark not reproduced somewhere in Matthew or Luke."

A good diagram here

head but I did know and you were referencing something I said. Although what I said was not as straightforward as you suggested....as I said earlier:

Add message | Report | Message poster capsium Fri 11-Apr-14 10:15:01
Talking of dichotomous views consider my two earlier statements:

They had a ghost writer (?)

I do believe the Gospels were written by the disciples* and don't know why you think it is obvious or unlikely that they didn't write them

I surprise my self sometimes...

*there were more than 12 disciples.

I was born in England head.

Oh, a Fred about a Fred, that'd explain it!

Are you interested in the writing of the Gospels more widely? I did my theology degree at Oxford and one of my tutors, a world expert on the development of the Gospel tradition, used to throw into his lectures 'if you believe in Q' in a sort of nudge-nudge, wink-wink way. Probably still does...:)

Nah, more a thread about a single post because the other thread wasn't about the post that started this.

'defend your faith, you terrible Christians, you'

Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, it's not my religious beliefs that claim humans to be horrible wretches whose transgressions are so appalling that the sacrifice of a god was required to atone for them. I think humans are, on the whole, an ok bunch.

Moreover, I don't think the Christians here are terrible people. I think the god they purport to follow is a terrible moral example. The differing opinions on slavery give me hope that Christians follow their own (and superior) sense of morality rather than taking it from an old book. The question is, if your own morality is superior to your god's, why worship that god at all?

I suppose I meant the disciples named in the NT and those who witnessed him first hand. Sorry it sounded like you weren't aware how much later they were written and how much they copied from one another.

But I did know and didn't. I knew about the early writings found concerning Christian belief and some of the contents etc.

However I still think there is some mystery regarding authorship. I believe them. So I don't think they were faked, even if they were written from an older oral tradition, which I do not believe is conclusive. I still believe they have integrity. Even with all the Gnostic texts and other writings concerning early Christian belief, I still believe they have integrity.

Hence the reference to there being a ghost writer!

Howard why do you care what I think concerning the nature of God, if you believe God to be a human construct? Also why would you prefer my 'construct of God' to be cruel in nature? Rather than kind? Am I not allowed to have ownership over my own 'construct'?

I can see your line of thinking, but again, without wishing to be antagonistic, it seems a bit simplistic to me to say that everything in the Bible is either absolutely 100% true and therefore the God of the Bible is a monster (why are there as many atheist biblical literalists as there are religious ones? Genuine question), or it's a load of Bronze Age guff (btw nothing in the Bible was written in the Bronze Age). Talking about the morality of God, if is to have any sense to it at all, has to move beyond this pointless dichotomy.

This is normally where atheists accuse Christians (I.e me) of not playing the game, being clever-clever liberals, cherry picking etc etc ad nauseam. But you'd use a bit of nous and as much scholarly background as you could to decipher any other ancient text, so why should the Bible be
any different?

In fact if you believe God to be a human construct, and a cruel one at that, what does this say concerning the human psyche?

why should the bible be any different

So it could be distinguished from other texts I guess. The same way you think the Christian faith is, to some extent, distinguishable from other faiths.

why do you care what I think concerning the nature of God, if you believe God to be a human construct?
Because I care about people and I am deeply interested in what they believe and why.

Am I not allowed to have ownership over my own 'construct'?
Oh, absolutely. What fascinates me is where people purport to follow the Bible and then exhibit a stronger morality than the god of that very same Bible. I think that's a good thing, but for some reason some people seem to be surprised when this is pointed out.

But I do realise that I might have got it wrong in that for some reason I had you mentally tagged as someone who believes in the Bible and the messages it contains. If I have that wrong then please forgive my error.

In fact if you believe God to be a human construct, and a cruel one at that, what does this say concerning the human psyche?

I think it says volumes about the society that constructed it. The stories of the Bible and the morality it portrays makes an awful lot more sense if you look at it as simply a product of the time(s) in which it was written. The Abrahamic god didn't ban slavery because the people at the time thought slavery was fine. The Abrahamic god was fine with a woman being forced to marry her rapist because that was what those ancient societies required. The Abrahamic god was willing to kill loads of children because, for the society that constructed it, that seemed a justified and fair punishment.

I think the world's morals have (largely) moved on a long way since then hence the disparity between the god of the Bible's morality and the morality that the vast majority of the people who now claim to follow that Bible. It's good. But hopefully at least some of those people will realise that, as they're making their own morality anyway, they can leave the Bible behind entirely.

No, Head, what I mean is, why should a different approach be required to try and understand the Bible? Take slavery as an example. You quoted a verse of Exodus upthread to do with slavery. If you, or I, or any intelligent person wanted to try and understand that properly, surely what she would do would be to establish to the best of scholarly knowledge where and when that text was written, what the social conventions regarding slavery were, what the laws were across various ancient near east people groups and then what the actual practices were (two potentially entirely different things), and how the legal system interacts with religious belief. At least that's what I'd do, rather than just say that God must be a bastard, which is the thing that seems a bit unenquiring. And if I wanted to examine slavery in other ancient texts, I'd be asking exactly the same questions. That's how the Bible shouldn't really ve treated any differently. The later question then becomes how we relate to the text now, but to answer that properly I think that I need to understand what the text actually is on its own terms first. Does that make sense to you?

I don't want to leave the Bible behind though. It connects me to my past, I find the accounts deeply moving, poignant. It is relevant now, see reference to the psychological theories on free will.

As someone who was getting lost, in choosing my own morality, disillusionment , analysis paralysis and relativism, Christ centres me. I get positive direction and Hope.

I'll catch up on the rest later, but saintsalive You said that if someone sins then they are by definition not Christian.

Since just about everyone sins that means there are few if any christians.

I can't see any other way to interpret what you said. At a stretch you may have meant just the sin of suicide, but that doesn't really fit and on what basis would you just pick that one anyway and not murder, rape and so on.

Howard did you read the psychology article on perception?

What doesn't make sense holo is the learning and the schooling and the context that's apparently only ever needed to interpret the horrible bits. You never hear people demanding such requirements when reading the nice bits. 'It says he loves you but it doesn't actually mean that'. You have on this thread people asserting how we mustn't judge god and how superior he is and then we have a text that places him at best equal to the barbarism of the world of that time. You don't have a problem with thinking Jesus was ahead of the game with his teachings although I believe they are not particular to, and predate Christianity.

Howard if you care about people and are deeply interested in what they belief and why, are you interested in the positive effects of their beliefs, as they report them?

Do you trust people's abilities to recognise the positive effects in their own lives?

Or do you believe you know more about this, the effects of belief on their individual lives, than they do?

Well tbh Head, that's not quite true. There have been lots of books written about, eg, New Testament ethics and what exactly the nature of God's love as described in the Gospels is. In academic circles these questions ate as valid as the ones I suggested earlier wrt slavery. Which cones back to the question of who's asking what, and why? People who aren't academic theologians (I.e. Most people!) dwell more on the things that cause them confusion or distaste, which may be why the slavery question seems more urgent than the love one. That seems pretty much human nature to me, to question that which causes distress or confusion - what do you think?

Howard And I put construct in inverted commas. I don't believe God is a construct. This belief is a choice. I choose to believe, in Faith.

So why? Because I choose to. Why do I choose to? Because I prefer the Christian belief system and it's implications.

holo with regards to distaste I see it as something not to ignore. I can't accept your claim that the bible is the word of god/depicts d
god when he appears so bloodthirsty/barbaric/human. Let alone the fact that there's no evidence for it. if I found out my husband had murdered a room of babies I would need a lot of convincing that doing so made him morally superior to me.

I think there's a very good reason why humans would dwell on such a contradiction in information being presented. It's survival I guess. If it walks like a duck and all that. The point was not that humans dwell on violence in the OT but that context is only ever banged on about when it's a despicable verse. If it seems loving it is loving, if it seems violent it's love disguised or something.

No evidence for what, Head? Am slightly confused by your post.

Do you personally believe that everything tthe Bible says about God is actually, factually true, and therefore you're rejecting that God as he must be a monster? Is that it?

I think that's a 'cart before the horse' as I didn't appreciate the extent of the horror in the OT until after I had rejected faith in the biblical god on the lack of proof. Maybe that's part of it, a 'hey, look at this'. Would it have swayed me sooner? I don't know. I did stumble on horrid stuff from time to time never mind the well known stories like Noah.

I think the well known incidents of god drowning people etc almost fly in under the radar because they are so familiar so a fresh account of god killing people might jolt someone. I don't know. What's the worse that can happen?

Sorry holo no evidence for an interested god in general.