How do you all here envision how the gospels were written? Did each author sit down and write out the story as he remembered it or it was told to him? Is it a pastiche of previous narrative traditions sewn together by subsequent redactors and editors? What leads you to hold your specific opinion?
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06-01-06, 10:55 PM
Insaf
I believe that in some cases the assumed author of the Gospels was not the writer of Gospels. Perhaps it was written by scribes over a period of time.

For example, Gospel of Matthew was not written by Mathew himself. This can be analyzed from the following verse,

Mathew 9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him(Matthew), Follow me. And he(Matthew) arose, and followed him.


If Mathew was the writer of Gospel of Matthew, why did he write as a thrid person?

Moreover we have no Gospel signed/authorized by its author. Perhaps this is the reason why many bibles versions say "Gospel according to Matthew" instead of "Gospel of Matthew".

06-01-06, 11:03 PM
Insaf
Plus I believe that some of the bible writers were also involved in a little PLAGARISM!

Compare
2 Kings
19:1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.
19:2 And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.
19:3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

With
Isaiah
37:1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.
37:2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.
37:3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

06-02-06, 02:47 AM
tsaeb
Insaf: Maybe God has multiple personalities. Maybe God stutters. OK, bad jokes, bad jokes.

06-02-06, 03:02 AM
FredPuli

quote:
Originally posted by Insaf:

For example, Gospel of Matthew was not written by Mathew himself. This can be analyzed from the following verse,

Mathew 9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him(Matthew), Follow me. And he(Matthew) arose, and followed him.


If Mathew was the writer of Gospel of Matthew, why did he write as a thrid person?



It is common for writers of history to write in the third person. It doesn't matter whether they are Matthew or Julius Caesar. But you might think that such a clue just might have been spotted by biblical scholars over the centuries. The words 'according to Matthew' are of no significance . They indicate that the story is the same story told by different people. If we had three witnesses to a car crash, A, B and C, they would give an account of the same events. When we described the narrative of their written statements we would say " according to A the crash was ..." " according to B the crash was.." and so on.So each account would be described as " the car crash according to..." etc

Three of the gospels follow the same basic story so closely that you can set the texts alongside one another, read across them and get the exact same sequence and events. It's tempting to think that they are all from one source, one writer, who has been copied.

06-02-06, 07:23 AM
juanruiz

quote:
It's tempting to think that they are all from one source, one writer, who has been copied.



The first three gospels, often called the Synoptics, do have many narrative similarities. Bibilical scholars propose that Mk was one of the base texts of Mt and Lk, which did, however, make some changes and additions. The same sayings of Jesus in Mt and Lk not found in Mk are attributed to a hypothetical work called Q. Material unique to Mt and to Lk is thought to come from at least one other source each known only to them.

06-02-06, 05:33 PM
bik74

quote:
Originally posted by juanruiz:
How do you all here envision how the gospels were written? Did each author sit down and write out the story as he remembered it or it was told to him? Is it a pastiche of previous narrative traditions sewn together by subsequent redactors and editors? What leads you to hold your specific opinion?


I dont have much knowledge about it, but what I would like to know is why they were in Greek ? Should'nt the language of Christ (peace be upon him) and the disciples be hebrew or aramic?

06-02-06, 06:14 PM
GarColga

quote:
Originally posted by bik74:

I dont have much knowledge about it, but what I would like to know is why they were in Greek ? Should'nt the language of Christ (peace be upon him) and the disciples be hebrew or aramic ?



Jesus and the disciples almost certainly spoke Greek. There were large Greek cities within easy distance wherever they were.

We know for a fact that the New Testament writers quoted from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. A majority of the Old Testament quotes cited in the New Testament are taken directly from the Septuagint.

Greek was the 'money language' of the day, much as English is today.

06-02-06, 06:18 PM
newnickname
'Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) conquered the Middle East in about 332 B.C. or over 300 years before the time of Jesus Christ, so the common language of the conquered peoples inherited by the Latin speaking Romans was the "koine" form of Greek, as we read in ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA (vol. 1, p. 576, 1973):

"Alexander's short reign marks a decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia ... it spread Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Near East and created, if not politically, at least economically and culturally, a single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common civilization and the Greek "koine" as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree the fruits of Alexander's achievement."

This led to the translation of the Old Testament into Koine Greek (as opposed to classical Greek of the philosophers) in the Septuagint (LXX) in Alexandria in the middle of the third century B.C. This is affirmed in the Interpreter's DICTIONARY of the BIBLE (Vol. R-Z, p. 277, Abington:1962):

"NT Koine is not simply the everyday Greek of an Eastern people in the first Christian Century; its religious vocabulary derives ultimately, not from the Greek world, but from the Hebrew world of the OT through the medium of LXX Greek."

The situation in NT times was similar to what we have today, but with different languages. The Jews used the ancient Hebrew when reading their prayers and scrolls in the synagogue, but needed a modern Koine Greek translation to understand what they were reading. Most quotations in the NT from the OT are from the Greek LXX which explains some of the differences in wording between the Hebrew and the Greek in our present day translations.

The Jews of NT times spoke Aramaic at home and in conversations. Aramaic was similar Hebrew and Arabic. (al-Rahmaan, al-Rahiim, in the Fatiha of the Quran were probably derived from the Aramaic language). In business life and official writings they used the common Koine Greek that all peoples in the area used for hundreds of years. They actually thought and talked in at least two or three languages as people do today. The Roman occupiers of the Holy Land at that time spoke Latin and Greek. Evidence of the three languages used in that time is found in the New Testament itself in the Gospel of John 19:19-20 (NIV)

"Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, The King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek."'
The Language of the New Testament

06-02-06, 06:25 PM
bik74

quote:
Originally posted by newnickname:

They actually thought and talked in at least two or three languages as people do today. The Roman occupiers of the Holy Land at that time spoke Latin and Greek.


That is believable. Considering that the arabic language spread over entire Middle East after Muhammed (peace be upon him), we know instances during the holy prophets life where the arab people freely cummunicated with the then 'non arab people'.

06-03-06, 08:24 AM
juanruiz

quote:
I dont have much knowledge about it, but what I would like to know is why they were in Greek ? Should'nt the language of Christ (peace be upon him) and the disciples be hebrew or aramic ?



Because the followers for whom the gospels were intended were not those of Palestine, but rather areas well outside it where Greek was the predominant language.

06-06-06, 09:03 PM
philalethist
Why question the composition of a good cookie. Just eat it. Jeremiah 15:16 KJV

06-08-06, 05:21 AM
tsaeb
Yummy! However, I am frequently deleting the cookies on my computer.

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