Re: Matthew, Mark. Luke, and John.

Fordtunate Son

All-In [29874]

TigerPulse: 100%

Posts: 8844

Joined: 10/31/10

Re: Who really wrote the gospels?

Mar 25, 2024, 3:50 AM

Good video. I learned quite a lot in 20 mins.

The most interesting part to me actually the very final part...why do they even have names at all?

For instance, we access information all the time without the need for authorship. When I need to fix something, I just go on YouTube and find a video. I don't really care who made it, I just want the information.

So to give them names at all does seem to be an appeal to either authenticity, or credibility. And one only needs credibility if one is being challenged, perhaps by another source, apocryphal or even heretical.

It's easy to forget that we are reading a very select set of works that have been chosen for us in the Bible. They may be highly accurate, or they may be inaccurate, but they are chosen, to the exclusion of other works, by someone, or some group. I haven't had time to get into Gnosticism or other early sects yet, but it was a long hard 300+ year fight to hone the message between communities and churches who just saw things differently.

Not all of those differences are radical, but even today, look how many denominations we have, and even some huge divides over important theological issues like faith vs. works, or purgatory, or relics, etc. I used to have a lot of fun debates with a guy whose favorite saying was "There's only one true church, and it didn't start with Martin Luther," lol. And that's not even touching on how the Muslim world sees Jesus, either.

What I find as interesting as who specifically may have written the gospels, is the slight differences between them, and what that might indicate about who they were written FOR, or about the community, rather than the person, who used and circulated them.

I've said elsewhere that to me, Mark feels like simplified version of Matt, or Matt an expanded version of Mark...I can't tell which. Luke feels different enough to be stand alone, and John is just a whole other beast all together, having a philosophical and 'Greek' feel to it far beyond the other 3 gospels.

I thought the video did a nice job of researching the history of WHY it's thought that the authors are who they are, calling back to some pretty obscure, but pretty important church fathers that aren't very common knowledge today. Those guys are important, because as the video showed, it's as much because of them, as the gospels themselves, that we see gospels in the light we do. They were the ones largely deciding what was 'legit', or not...for good or bad. A nice find.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

The KJ translators used every bit of information previously known to man to form the KJB. That includes ~ half a dozen previous translations along with the ancient scrolls and documents.

You understand the concept of man-hours? If two guys spend 10 hours painting a house it's said to have taken 20 man hours (m-h) to paint that house. The estimates of the time spent on the KJB is 350 (m-y), that 350 man years.

The qualifications of those scholars are beyond those of anyone living previously or since. After 30 years of avoiding reading anything about the Bible I decided to read a few books on the translators to look into their credentials, histories and lives.

Some interesting facts about them. To be included in the text each word had to be approved by each of the members in one of the several subgroups. Their work went to other subgroups for oversight. If any words or phrases were deemed necessary some additions might be included but all additions were italicized.

One of those scholars was reading, writing and speaking fluent latin before he reached the age of 7 yo. All were scholars and most were ministers which were head of colleges at one time or another in their lives. The central focus of the lives of each of them was education. All spoke at least two of the three languages require to do the work. Latin, Hebrew and Greek were their passions.

As far as the other questions how about laying them out with examples, FROM THE KJB, and I'll provided what I know satisfies me. I give no guarantee that anything I will say will satisfy you. Frankly, I don't respond to you for your benefit but that a younger in the Lord than me might read your words and get confused.

Shoot!

Who really wrote the gospels?

Matthew, Mark. Luke, and John.