Disciples with Pen and Paper?

[uther]

Here’s a quote from Woodrow Kroll of Back to The Bible Broadcast;

“So basically what we’re asking ourselves is this: Are these people who wrote down what they claimed to have seen–they went into the tomb; they saw the tomb was empty; they met Jesus after He was dead and they saw He was clearly alive again–are those eyewitnesses in a better position to know what the truth is, or are your friends in the 21st century in a better position to know? Is your university professor in a better position to know what the truth is, or would ***eyewitnesses who wrote down within minutes of the event ***be in a better position?”
(my emphasis)

Here’s a link;
backtothebible.org/back-to-the-bible-radio-program/why-is-believing-better-than-se-4.html

He was discussing the Resurrection and the veracity of the Gospels in this segment. I happened to be FM channel surfing at the time and recognized the name on the lead in, “Back to the Bible Broadcast”, having been raised in an evangelical Protestant home and recently become Catholic. So I stopped to listen for old times sake when I heard this quote. Frankly, it caught me by surprise. I don’t remember ever hearing in my youth this particular explanation of the authorship of Scripture.
Did he really mean to say what it seems that he is saying? If he really does think this, does he imagine the disciples following Jesus around like reporters writing down everything that he said? I wonder if there are many Protestants who think this as well. That would certainly explain in some measure their attachment to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

 

[tm30]

He’s nuts. They used laptops.

No, seriously. The letters of Paul are the earliest documents of the New Testament. The Gospels were written many years after the Ascension of Our Lord, and only two were authored by eyewitness Apostles.

 

[tm30]

only two were authored by eyewitness Apostles.

I take that back. The author of Mark was most probably Peter’s assistant of the same name. In which case, Mark is likely based on Peter’s eyewitness accounts.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

He’s nuts. They used laptops.

No, seriously. The letters of Paul are the earliest documents of the New Testament. The Gospels were written many years after the Ascension of Our Lord, and only two were authored by eyewitness Apostles.

That doesn’t mean that portions of the gospels might not have been written down earlier and then only later merged into a whole narrative. We can only speculate. Not everything that we would like to survive does in fact survive, and scholarship can only do so much.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Uther,

Strange indeed. No, Jesus was not called “Rabbi” for nothing. He followed the rabbinical method of oral teaching, which involved repetition and use of mnemonics.

Verbum

 

[uther]

He’s nuts. They used laptops.

No, seriously. The letters of Paul are the earliest documents of the New Testament. The Gospels were written many years after the Ascension of Our Lord, and only two were authored by eyewitness Apostles.

Exactly. It was understanding the sequence of these events and the subsequent (some 300 years later) establishment of the Canon that contributed in part to my own look at the early fathers and the surprise I felt when I discovered they were indeed Catholic in all the most significant theological and doctrinal ways.
So when I saw this comment I was really surprised, both from the stand-point of historical accuracy, and because even back when I was a youth among the Protestants I cannot remember ever hearing the suggestion that the disciples wrote things down within minutes.
Besides that, any serious Bible scholar, Catholic or Protestant will remember the Gospel of John chapter 14, verses 25 and 26;

*25 "I have told you this while I am with you.
26 The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name–he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you. *

So Jesus gave them His own assurance that when the time came they would remember all that he had taught, by the power of the Holy Spirit. That would seem to back up Verbum’s point that rabbinical teaching was oral, and that Jesus followed that tradition.