IIRC the first cited Gospel was by the Marcion cannon. The Marcion cannon contained Paul's letter's (also their first historic mention) along with the one Gospel which was not sourced back to an apostle/disciple. Later church historians said that the Gospel in Marcion's cannon was an editted Luke. The implication here is that Marcion took out the stuff he did not like. An alternative may be that Marcion used an early edition of Luke, with was later editted to conform to consensus Christian theology. We can never really know either way for sure, since we lack originals in their entirity from that period. My best guess is that Mark was first. It is the shortest Gospel. It lacks theological elements that Matthew and Luke have, but these elements are arguably of lesser import. I don't completely buy the whole Markian Priority theory. The theory assumes that Mark did not change ater it was written. I think it is more likely that Mark had slight harmonizations added and is best thought of as in a state of flux until the late second century when the official cannon was set.
I think Mark is first, too. I'm just saying...the early church fathers quoted so extensively from the Gospels by the early part of the 2nd century, that you can check them against one another. it shows which gospels they were relying on to understand who Christ is....and it shows that there was consistency in their translations, even though the originals were all written in different languages.
I hardly know where to start with that question. I guess I could try to list a few (and I'll try hard to stick to strictly chronological issues). Most of my issues revolve heavily around Paul, which should not surprise you Max - you know that I think they are theology/catechism - not "inspired". Let me write you a better response when I get home and have access to my library. I can't remember details off the top of my head.
listen...no big deal. i was just curious. don't spend any time with it or go out of your way. needless to say, it's a subject i'm interested in, so i've read a ton on both sides of the fence of all this stuff.
Well, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are likely also fictious authors. My comment was not meant to be serious. Shoot, Judas hmself is likely a literary creation. That is an interesting tag commment wrt Judas being the only disciple who really understood Jesus. That implies the rest did not and would make their Gospels less than inspired We getting deep into heresy now. The wikipedia entry that I mentioned above Judas Iscariot has some good insight into why someone wrote the Gospel of Judas: The whole "Judas has suffered much more for the sins of humanity than Jesus" is a real pickle, especially since we are supposed to hate him for what he has done. What to do? Theological cleanup on Aisle 12.
I don't get it, just like I don't get people who hate jews because they say jews killed jesus. jesus was sent here to die right, someone was going to carry that out, right? what's the big deal if you're a christian. it was the plan all along.
we part ways right here. that's ok...it just makes discussion difficult. by 130 AD we have original documents of an early church leader named Papias talking about Mark as a real person and saying that he compiled his Gospel with help from Peter. i guess we've been down this road before...
IIRC the writings of early church fathers had quotes similar to Paul's writings. IIRC2 quotes from the Gospel only first appeared 150-200 CE.
It's interesting to me that you find this incontrovertible. Mark (IIRC) was an associate of Paul - and the gospel attributed to him was perhaps based on Peter's works. hmmmm I'll stop here before I go off on more wiley tangents about Paul's influence on the early church, gnostics, and other fun introspection.
i don't know about incontrovertible. i'm just guessing the guy in 130 AD had a better view of the logistics of it all than i do 2000 years later. that's generally how we understand all of history...religious or secular.
Well that's certainly a more appealing position to me. There is no hard proof of any particular author of the gospels or Q. Many of the time issues I mentioned revolve around how Paul influenced (or not influenced ) the gospels. It's certainly confusing that Paul's letters (most of them) were written prior to the gospels...
From wikipedia About the origins of the Gospels, Papias (according to Eusebius) wrote this: Thus, we don't have Papias original work; we do have Eusebius quoting Papias. But Eusebius calls Papias "a man of small mental capacity" (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.13) which might explain why Papias original work was not copied again and again, making it unavailable to us now. Eusebius is also not considered a reliable source. (IIRC he admitted he made things up to help the faith along.) This is not to say that Papias did not write the exact words that Eusebius faithfully quoted. Having Papias's original work would be more authortative though.
why is that confusing? there was clearly something that came before Paul. he says in various letters that he's passing on what was taught to him....and then cites to creeds that clearly precede his letters which speak to what people believed Jesus to be early on.
Hatred of Jews is biblically wrong. I've always been perplexed by the KKKs "Christian" stance of Jew hatred when Jesus was a Jew. The Jews are the people God made the covenant with - the gentiles were just grafted in. But I would state that this tries to make Judas out a hero which I don't believe he was. He was selling Him out. Otherwise, why take the cash? Judas took the cash to turn Jesus in. He turned Him in. He realized what a mistake that was - though it really wasn't a mistake for us. He tried to give the money back. They refused. He hung himself. Hero? Better than the others? I don't think so. Did God know Judas would do that? Yes. This may be the main reason he picked Judas to be a disciple. I'm just not seeing this act as a hero. Jesus is the hero. All other accounts point to Jesus and what He did. This one seems to point to Judas and clearing Judas' name.
The Gospel and the NT Epistles contain God's personal message to you. So you can know the truth about God and His Son Jesus Christ.
I thought the new find was a good read. A much better read than most of what I've read in the Bible. Maybe it's because of the modern translation not being influenced by the intervening couple of thousand years of "interpretation" of the gospels, as we know them today. I found it refreshing, and it also points in a direction my Dad believed, that we are descended from aliens that came from other worlds circling other stars. The Gospel of Judas could easily be seen as saying something of the sort, if one were interested in the possibility. As Spock would say... fascinating. Keep D&D Civil.
