How did the Apostles remember what Jesus said?

[Kaben123]

As the title says, how could the apostles remember with precision what Jesus said, when they wrote the gospels? Did they write things down as he spoke which they kept? Were they helped by God in some way, or what is the explanation of this?

 

[bogeydogg]

19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

First off the only Apostles to produce Gospels were Matthew and John. Mark was a disciple of Peter and Luke was a disciple of Paul. The other NT writers did write “Gospels” per se.

However the Apostolic writers, which do include John Mark and and Luke, wrote from memory, from tradition handed down from the Apostles and from Christ Himself and by being carried along by the Holy Spirit. God Himself assured the accuracy of the signatories by His Spirit and the Church has carefully preserved what they wrote so that we can be sure that we have an unpolluted Bible to day.

No matter what the critics say.

God Bless

 

[trinichiqn]

Jesus’ disciples have been preaching the “Gospel” even before the “Gospel” existed. Jesus sent them out to preach the Good News (which is what Gospel means). So exactly what they had been preaching and teaching, telling to all they encountered, everyday it would be pretty easy to remember and write it down after all didn’t they just tell that crowd yesterday and the one this morning and it’s exactly what they were going to tell the next crowd tomorrow.

 

[steve53]

Ever met a person who has a photographic memory?

I have. And it is amazing. They don’t forget ANYTHING.

No reason to think there weren’t a certain percentage of people in every generation who had this skill. Maybe John and Matthew did, too.

 

[Luvtosew]

Ever met a person who has a photographic memory?

I have. And it is amazing. They don’t forget ANYTHING.

No reason to think there weren’t a certain percentage of people in every generation who had this skill. Maybe John and Matthew did, too.

It seems we all remember special events in our lifes like it was yesterday, so I imagine thats how they remembered.

 

[Hboggs]

It seems we all remember special events in our lifes like it was yesterday, so I imagine thats how they remembered.

Sometimes I can’t remember yesterday, but I can remember every detail of something that happened 40 or 50 years ago.

 

[COPLAND_3]

Don’t forget the Holy Spirit’s involvement in inspiring the hands of the Biblical authors. No matter how good or poor the memories of the writers had, the Holy Spirit has ensured us infallible writings.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Jews were great at memorizing Scripture and teachings. It was part of their culture and they have been trained from a young age to memorize teachings, especially since most of them cannot write and things are just explained to them by rabbis. Wasn’t it during the Babylonian exile that the Jews were not able to bring the huge and heavy manuscripts that contained the scriptures and so the Levites just put together a copy from memory in Babylon. When they returned to Jerusalem they retrieved the original manuscripts and found that their copies were about 99% identical.

 

[patg]

As the title says, how could the apostles remember with precision what Jesus said, when they wrote the gospels? Did they write things down as he spoke which they kept? Were they helped by God in some way, or what is the explanation of this?

First, there is no proof or need to believe that “the Apostles” wrote the gospels. The church only says that the gospels are of “apostolic origins” which can mean many things. It is highly unlikely that any of the 12 wrote a gospel - a concept explained well in the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels (available online). The gospels don’t contain precise quotes from Jesus (or even approximate statements), they contain what was preached to teach who he was.

 

[NHInsider]

We sometimes think of the Gospels as if they were newspaper accounts, and then when we learn that they were written long after the events, sometimes by people who were not there, we get very concerned about their “accuracy.”

First, to address the question of authorship and sourcing, which has been raised here:

All of the four canonical Gospels were based on eyewitness accounts. (After 150 years when scholars for the most part doubted this, scholarly theory is swinging back to this conclusion which was, of course, the position of the Church since Eusebius.)

Oversimplified explanation: Matthew and John were compiled by scribes within their communities, probably toward the ends of their lives and with their direct (name removed by moderator)ut, based on what was, by then, decades of apostolic proclamation of the Gospel. (Keep in mind that writing was a specialized skill in that era, it is not a contradiction to say “Matthew is the author but he didn’t write the words.”) Mark was composed by Mark at the request of those who had been evangelized by Peter and with Peter’s approval. Luke explicitly explains that he set out to research and write a an authentic account because there were so many variations floating around, so his gospel is a compilation of numerous accounts, some eyewitness and some handed on.

Each of the Gospels was compiled for the same reason: to preserve authentic apostolic teaching as the eyewitnesses died off. At the same time, each was compiled for somewhat different audiences, and with somewhat different purposes - for example, Matthew’s gospel is heavy on “Messianic fulfillment” references that were important for a primarily Jewish-convert community. John’s gospel begins, of course, with John’s teaching on Jesus as the Divine Logos and includes a large number of “signs” of Jesus’ divinity - by the time it was written there were already heresies roiling about the nature of the Incarnation - and also multiple gospel accounts in circulation, so that he did not feel it necessary to include narratives of events that were already well-known. Etc. They shaped their accounts to support their purposes - choosing what to emphasize and what to leave out, what order to put the events in, which people to mention (Luke, for example, has lots more women in his account - possibly to “balance” what had already been recorded, possibly because his overall focus is on the “universal” nature of Jesus’ ministry (remember that Luke learned from/traveled with Paul), possibly just because women live longer and so when he was doing his research there were more of them left to interview . . .)

Now, to the specific query, which has to do with Jesus’ words as recorded. Each gospel is, in essence, a summary of Jesus’ ministry. It is not a blow-by-blow account of those three years. (Just think about how long such a document would be.) We know that Jesus went from village to village, proclaiming the good news, healing, teaching, comforting, feeding the people, challenging the powerful and the self-righteous, etc. Think about that. He didn’t give one teaching in one town and a different one the next week in another town. He couldn’t just refer the next audience back to the tape or the Youtube video of “Lesson One.” His message was consistent. He responded to the needs of the people he encountered - but those needs would not be dramatically different from one village to the next. In every community there would be cripples, beggars, lepers, etc. So both His teachings and His miracles were undoubtably repeated many, many more times than what we have recorded in the gospels.

People get tied in knots over the difference between the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke) because it appears to be a contradiction. But really, Jesus didn’t give that talk once. He probably gave it a couple of hundred times! Like any good speaker, He would have adapted his standard “stump speech” to the responses of the crowd, but He would not have been making up new material on the fly - especially if the “material” was the Gospel - the Good News of salvation. So when the gospel writers put their accounts down on vellum, what they were recording were effectively “typical” accounts, not necessarily “specific” examples.

And from this you can then come around to the original question here - how did the apostles remember Jesus’ words? They had heard His teachings over and over and over. Like campaign workers and reporters in the US this year, they could probably recite those speeches from memory, even knowing where the pauses would fall and where the audience would respond. Beyond that, Jesus had, in fact, trained them to go and proclaim “the gospel” during His ministry - see, for example, Luke chapters 9 and 10. And then, after the Ascension, they went out and proclaimed it, over and over and over in cities and towns throughout the Mediterranean region - and their assistants/scribes/entourage heard it over and over from them. By the time they started writing things down, they were working from their own memories, but their memories were well-trained. And also subject to vetting/condemnation by others if they had chosen to invent things. (Which is why so many of the “gospels” compiled during the first couple of centuries were NOT included in the canon and were, in a few cases, condemned as heretical.)

So - no, for the most part no one was “taking notes” when Jesus was talking - but that doesn’t mean the words we have preserved can’t be trusted.

HTH

 

[Evan]

I followed Fr Bob Spitzer and heard his homilies, classes and retreats when he lived here in Seattle and taught at SU. I heard his talk concerning the 4 levels of happiness about 4 times a year. (although at that time he was using greek and latin terms for the 4 levels).

He has now published a book (Four Levels of Happiness). If we consider this his ‘sermon on the mount’ I could (and have) give a good rendering of what the levels are, the consequences of adhering to them or disregarding them, the interrelation between the levels, etc.

The teachings we read were not spoken one time, but probably 2 times a week for 3 years. By that time, the apostles had the teachings pretty well tided down in their minds.

Add to that, they lived in an illiterate culture. You remembered who owed you what so that when the wheat harvest came in you could collect from the farmer, when the fishing day was over, you could collect from the fisherman, when the pottery came out of the kiln you could collect from the potter, etc. You remembered or you went out of business.

 

[ChadS]

Also, lets not forget that when we ask questions like “how could the apostles remember what Jesus said?” we’re asking that question from a 21st century perspective. We live in a culture where we are bombarded with sights, sounds, images and words. In the first century and even earlier they lived in cultures where everything and anything was passed down in oral tradition. Stories and lessons were repeated and told again and people remembered what they heard. They had very little, if anything, in a written form to help them along. It was much more important that it was remembered accurately.

ChadS

 

[Frankenfurter]

Even with modern computers, the best code system is actually the Navajo language. You can ‘store’ information in the minds of people with an oral culture more effectively than actually writing it down.

One might think that a digital recording of what Jesus said would be more accurate.

But as you know digital information can be easily spoofed, corrupted, photo-shopped, etc.

So the key is information security.

I trust the oral memories of these ancient folks more than I would a modern news report.

 

[Abu]

Patg #9
First, there is no proof or need to believe that “the Apostles” wrote the gospels. The church only says that the gospels are of “apostolic origins” which can mean many things. It is highly unlikely that any of the 12 wrote a gospel - a concept explained well in the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels (available online).

Such fantasizing is quite false – no real Catholic, or Christian, would subscribe to such obvious error – no scholarship of any kind there. Why should we have anyone posing as “Catholic”, spouting irresponsible falsehoods with not a skerrick of evidence?

The Magisterial teaching that there were eyewitnesses to the Gospel events is ridiculed by some who are unable to produce any facts but who rely on the poor scholarship which misuses the historical critical method.

But, Quadratus writes (circa 123 A.D.) that in his day there were still persons around who had been cured or raised from the dead by Jesus – prime witnesses. [Eusebius, *Church History, 4.3, 1.2; See Free From All Error, Fr W. Most, p 12].

As a companion of Christ, Saint John wrote: “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by on, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.’ (Jn 21:25).

The reconstituted Pontifical Biblical Commission does not now have the same authority as the Pontifical Biblical Commission up to 1964.

In 1911 the PBC issued the decision that Matthew is the true author of the Gospel published under his name; the Gospel was originally written in Hebrew before the destruction of Jerusalem. [See *What Does The Church Really Say About The Bible, Edith Myers, The Wanderer Press, 1979].

Not only are the facts of Jesus miracles recorded by His own Apostles who were present – Saints Matthew and John were companions of Christ, and Saints Mark and Luke lived in constant contact with His contemporaries.

Even Adolf von Harnack, a rationalist historian of high repute among Rationalist and Protestants, wrote that the Synoptic Gospels were written before 70 A.D. – before the fall of Jerusalem, and accepted the tradition that St Luke derived his information on the infancy of Jesus from Mary His Mother. Theologische Quartalsch, Tubingen 1929, IV, p 443-4].
[See *Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, The Saint Austin Press, 2001, Sheehan/Joseph p 89, 93].

In counseling exegetes and teachers of biblical studies the Commission states: “Let him always obey the Magisterium of the Church.”

 

[patg]

Such fantasizing is quite false – no real Catholic, or Christian, would subscribe to such obvious error – no scholarship of any kind there. Why should we have anyone posing as “Catholic”, spouting irresponsible falsehoods with not a skerrick of evidence?

I hope every Catholic subscribes to statements by the church’s most respected scripture scholars and Pope Paul VI before they accept untenable statements such as the above from a random internet poster.

None of your “examples” are more proving of anything, being second hand, third hand, generalizations, or simply unreliable. If what you say is so clearly obvious, the whole matter could be cleared up by a very simple dogmatic statement and a claim of heresy against the PBC and Pope Paul VI. Of course you’d also have to throw in Raymond Brown, John Meier, Joseph Fitzmyer, Ronald Witherup, and countless others (but then they have written in the last 50 years so their nihil obstats and imprimaturs are easly ignored)

 

[cornbread_r2]

As the title says, how could the apostles remember with precision what Jesus said, when they wrote the gospels? Did they write things down as he spoke which they kept? Were they helped by God in some way, or what is the explanation of this?

Related question: How could they know about things they weren’t even present for such as the conversation between the Maji and Herod or the words Jesus spoke at his trial or the conversations between the Jewish leaders and Pilate?

 

[Abu]

Against the integrity of the Gospels

Patg offers “……Raymond Brown, John Meier, Joseph Fitzmyer, Ronald Witherup, and countless others”

In fact, the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the 1964 Instruction warned that “There are others who have as their starting-point a wrong notion of faith, taking it that faith is indifferent to historical truth, and is indeed incompatible with it. Others practically deny a priori the historical value and character of the documents of revelation. Others finally there are who on the one hand underestimate the authority which the Apostles had as witnesses of Christ, and the office and influence which they wielded in the primitive community, whilst on the other hand they overestimate the creative capacity of the community itself. All these aberrations are not only opposed to Catholic doctrine, but are also devoid of any scientific foundation, and are foreign to the genuine principles of the historical method."

The PBC teaches that preachers should “shun what is merely newfangled or what is insufficiently proved”, and for writers, “When they narrate biblical events they are not to introduce imaginary additions at variance with the truth” and “they should keep altogether clear of the precarious fancies of innovators.”

In Divino afflante Spiritu, after referring to Vatican I’s solemn affirmation of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, Pius XII recalled the continued undermining of that doctrine which prompted his predecessor’s intervention in 1893:

”Subsequently, however, certain Catholic writers dared to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture to matters of faith and morals alone, relegating everything else, whether of a physical or historical character, to the status of “obiter dicta” which (so it was claimed) are in no way connected to the faith. But since this was opposed to [the First Vatican Council’s] solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, which insists that the biblical books, “entire and with all their parts,” are endowed with such divine authority as to enjoy freedom from all error, Our Predecessor of immortal memory Leo XIII responded in the Encyclical Letter *Providentissimus Deus *… by justly and fittingly striking down those erroneous opinions, while at the same time laying down very wise precepts and norms for the study of the Divine Books.” (My emphasis). [See LT61 - THE ENCYCLICAL SPIRITUS PARACLITUS IN ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT - Part II].

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) in Biblical Interpretation in Crisis, delivered in New York City on January 27, 1988: “As to the ‘scientific’ and ‘historical’ character of the historical-critical method, the Cardinal remarked: “Now, at a certain distance, the observer determines to his surprise that these interpretations, which were supposed to be so strictly scientific and purely ‘historical,’ reflect their own overriding spirit, rather than the spirit of times long ago. This insight should not lead us to skepticism about the method, but rather to an honest recognition of what its limits are, and perhaps how it might be purified.”

In his address of October 14, 2008, to the constituents of the Fourteenth General Congregation of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict XVI commented on the need for critical analysis of the biblical text to be thoroughly informed by the hermeneutics of faith, as called for in *Dei Verbum *of the Second Vatican Council. Catholic form-critics do not deny their faith; they simply do not use their faith when they are doing their form-critical thinking. Often they strive to put their form-criticism aside when they are saying their prayers, but they also often preach and think about results of this method which tend to call into question the theology that they have learned. And that is a big reason why this dualism of exegesis and theology must be overcome, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “for the life and the mission of the Church, for the future of faith.”
[See LT143 - Regarding Pope Benedict XVI's Address on Biblical Exegesis and Theology of 14 October 2008]

 

[PJM]

=Kaben123;8963208]As the title says, how could the apostles remember with precision what Jesus said, when they wrote the gospels? Did they write things down as he spoke which they kept? Were they helped by God in some way, or what is the explanation of this?

**John.14: 26 **“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

**Acts.20: 28 **“Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God [SINGULAR] which he obtained with the blood of his own Son.”

Romans 13: 2 “Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

**Matt.10: 2 **“The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zeb’edee, and John his brother;”…

**2Pet.2:1 **“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.”

John 20:19-22 "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. **Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” ** [with His Authority and His Godly Powers] And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.

WHILE EACH AUTHOR SPOKE WITH HIS OWN WORDS; HE WAS NEVERTHELESS INSPIRED TO SHARE THE EXACT AND PRECISE MESSAGE GOD WANTED HIM TO TEACH AND SHARE.

**MATT. 28: 16-20 **"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

John 14:16-17 [Jesus Speaking]…“And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.”

AND BECAUSE OF THESE TRUTHS we can be assured of this TRUTH

2Tim.3 Verses 16 to 17 “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”.

God Bless you,
Pat

 

[grannymh]

As the title says, how could the apostles remember with precision what Jesus said, when they wrote the gospels? Did they write things down as he spoke which they kept? Were they helped by God in some way, or what is the explanation of this?

Fro the answer, please read the Gospel of John, Chapter 14.

 

[pungi]

It is quite difficult to believe the authenticity of the Gospels, following the reason that they were compiled years after Jesus had ascended to Heaven. In some cases, some, or all the Gospels, have accounts dating back to the birth of Jesus - yet it’s widely known that none of the Gospel writers “was present” during Jesus’ birth [note that although some of Jesus’ disciples could have been older than Jesus, like Matthew the Tax Collector, this whole precise account about Jesus’ birth could not have been well acquainted to them], and this bears a cloud of questions as to how the writers of the Gospels could have come to compile a comprehensive narrative of the account of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, comprise of two, Matthew and John, who were disciples of Jesus, and the other two, Mark and Luke, who were disciples of Peter and Paul respectively. Putting a very close look on these four biographers, Matthew was a civil worker in the Revenue Authority of the Roman Government. This kind of work denotes that Matthew was obviously a literate man who knew how to keep financial records, ledger accounts, etc., so he possibly could have utilized his “skills” to keep orderly accounts of each and everything that Jesus said or did. Mark, a disciple of Peter, could probably have compiled Jesus’ biography from Simon who was re-named Peter by Jesus. [Peter(English), which when called in Greek is “Petro” and in Latin(mainly Spanish) “Pedro”. In Portuguese (also a Latin language), a stone is called “pedra”. So Peter means “The Rock” as attributed by Jesus to symbolize the foundation of His Church.] This Gospel by Mark could have been approved by Peter, who knew exactly what Jesus had said or done. The other possibility is that Peter might have been illiterate, so he used Mark as his Secretary to write the Gospel - which Mark, at the end, managed to promulgate as his Gospel - perhaps under the authority of Peter.

Luke, a disciple of Paul, compiled the Gospel according to Luke. He also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, which means that although he was mainly attached to Paul in his ministry, he also must have had links with Jesus’ disciples whom he used as a pool of his research. We find this from the first words of his Gospel account: **Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things or which have been accomplished among us. Just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.] **This proves that Luke narrated his account by researching among “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses of the word”, and these were the disciples of Jesus.
John, could have written his Gospel on his own, perhaps some time after the other Gospels had already been written. I say so because John’s Gospel has a number of accounts that are not found in the other three Gospels, for example, the account of Jesus changing water into wine at a wedding party; the beheading of John the Baptist; Jesus walking on the sea; the death of Lazarus; and many more. He perhaps might have wanted to diversify the biography of Lord Jesus as other biographers had omitted these accounts.

But now, one great question comes: how possibly could all these writers have remembered the words spoken by Jesus and what he did? One possibility is what we have already outlined above: that maybe Matthew kept notes and minutes of whatever was happening, and these records became the center of reference to whoever needed any information. Maybe other disciples like James, John, Andrew and others, also kept notes. But should we crack our heads to find out how the disciples wrote their Gospels?

Surely, and certainly, the writing of these Gospels should have been influenced by some divine power as an inspiration. The disciples could not just have “remembered” whatever they wrote, but possibly received some spiritual guidance. In the Gospel of John 14:25-26 reads:
These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

The above statement spoken by Jesus himself, underlines the whole topic.

People may ask, and people may wonder, but the truth is that the Holy Spirit was the medium of guidance in the compilation of these Gospels.

Gondai Moyana