In what Order were the Gospels were written?

[James82]

Bingo! For the last year or so I have been saying that Q and ‘Markan Priority’ are bunk scholarship, and that we should look to some of the original Church Fathers and witnesses in regards to who wrote what and when.

Although the Fathers are not comprehensive in this regard, surely they are more trustworthy than 19th Century German Protestants…?

 

[FishyPete]

Bingo! For the last year or so I have been saying that Q and ‘Markan Priority’ are bunk scholarship, and that we should look to some of the original Church Fathers and witnesses in regards to who wrote what and when.

Although the Fathers are not comprehensive in this regard, surely they are more trustworthy than 19th Century German Protestants…?

i for one agree with you!

 

[FishyPete]

Right.
All the Kings of Israel were “anointed” with oil–hence the phrase “anointed one”.
They were expecting a new “King” and ruler–a fighter.
(Are they still?)

.

They weren’t expecting a human king. That’s silly beyond belief. The gospels clearly speak of the Son of God.

it’s a ridiculous idea.

The gospels all present a divine Jesus Christ one with the Father.

 

[FishyPete]

Right.
All the Kings of Israel were “anointed” with oil–hence the phrase “anointed one”.
They were expecting a new “King” and ruler–a fighter.
(Are they still?)

.

To further prove that your assumption is incorrect can you possibly imagine the laughable state of a human king with a rag tag bunch of fishermen being an army? lol. too much.

They expected a divine Messiah to deliver them and to restore the kingdom, not a man.

Laughable. sorry.

 

[FishyPete]

Right.
All the Kings of Israel were “anointed” with oil–hence the phrase “anointed one”.
They were expecting a new “King” and ruler–a fighter.
(Are they still?)

.

Our Lord was a king of Israel, but he was no human king and they didn’t expect one either. What they didn’t understand was that Jesus was for everyone.

HOWEVER the writers of the gospels ALL knew Jesus was divine for all.

 

[FishyPete]

Right.
All the Kings of Israel were “anointed” with oil–hence the phrase “anointed one”.
They were expecting a new “King” and ruler–a fighter.
(Are they still?)

.

What they were expecting was a divine Messiah who would bring down the full force of Gods fury on his people’s enemies.

The writers of the Gospels knew different by the time they wrote their accounts.

 

[FishyPete]

Right.
All the Kings of Israel were “anointed” with oil–hence the phrase “anointed one”.
They were expecting a new “King” and ruler–a fighter.
(Are they still?)

.

i just realized we a speaking of two different groups. my argument is that the literal writers of the Gospel knew who Jesus was as we know who Jesus was. There can be no argument on that.

 

[Neofight]

They weren’t expecting a human king. That’s silly beyond belief. The gospels clearly speak of the Son of God.

it’s a ridiculous idea.

The gospels all present a divine Jesus Christ one with the Father.

Actually she’s spot on. As much as the gospels present Christ as God , the fact remains the people in those times, despite his many signs, could not see the truth.

And when dealing in issues of theology, as opposed to doctrine, ridiculing the ideas of others is not productive. If you are not receptive to the ideas of others you will never gain new insight, wisdom, or knowledge.

 

[FishyPete]

I think Neofight is correct on this.

.

Right about what?

 

[FishyPete]

Actually she’s spot on. As much as the gospels present Christ as God , the fact remains the people in those times, despite his many signs, could not see the truth.

And when dealing in issues of theology, as opposed to doctrine, ridiculing the ideas of others is not productive. If you are not receptive to the ideas of others you will never gain new insight, wisdom, or knowledge.

miscommunication reigns.

of course you are right. The gospel writers knew the truth by the time they wrote.

 

[FishyPete]

Actually she’s spot on. As much as the gospels present Christ as God , the fact remains the people in those times, despite his many signs, could not see the truth.

And when dealing in issues of theology, as o7pposed to doctrine, ridiculing the ideas of others is not productive. If you are not receptive to the ideas of others you will never gain new insight, wisdom, or knowledge.

by the way this line of thought is not what i originally asked about.

 

[Neofight]

Our Lord was a king of Israel, but he was no human king and they didn’t expect one either. What they didn’t understand was that Jesus was for everyone.

HOWEVER the writers of the gospels ALL knew Jesus was divine for all.

The king of Israel (and Judea) always was, a would have been expected to be quite human. This is why Christ never claimed to be Israel’s king, rather what he says was that he was indeed born a king…and his kingdom was not of this world.

 

[Neofight]

To further prove that your assumption is incorrect can you possibly imagine the laughable state of a human king with a rag tag bunch of fishermen being an army? lol. too much.

They expected a divine Messiah to deliver them and to restore the kingdom, not a man.

Laughable. sorry.

Laughable? Disagreement is one thing, but insult in hardly good for discussion.

 

[FishyPete]

Laughable? Disagreement is one thing, but insult in hardly good for discussion.

There was a miscommunication. That’s it.

sorry to all.

Please get this thread back on track.

 

[FishyPete]

Laughable? Disagreement is one thing, but insult in hardly good for discussion.

miscommunication was that I thought you said that the gospel writers themselves did not understand that Jesus was God or divine. I get the Jews of the time didn’t understand or they would have never killed him.

Anyway please get back to original topic. thanks.

 

[Contarini]

Well, this post gives some insights into how Mr. Keating can maintain the absurd “spiral argument” which claims that one can establish the full historicity of the Gospels by purely historical means without an appeal to faith:shrug:

Instead of making a solid argument against Markan priority, he assures his readers that it’s “going to be junked”–that it’s going out of fashion.

He’s wrong. Just plain wrong. The number of mainstream scholars who dispute Markan priority has in the past 50 years gone from practically none to a significant minority. Of course if that trend were to continue, eventually Markan priority would be abandoned. But that’s not how scholarly trends work.

This is just wishful thinking.

Edwin

P.S. This article, also by Keating, is much more reasonable and simply gives his reasons for rejecting Marcan priority. I find it quite helpful.

 

[Contarini]

From the Catholic Answers front page:
Was Matthew’s Gospel first written in Aramaic or Hebrew?

catholic.com/quickquestions/was-matthews-gospel-first-written-in-aramaic-or-hebrew

What matters here is that Catholics respect and pay attention to the writings of the Early Church Fathers. We do not relegate history to the trash can, then resurrect and reconstruct what we wish based on our own whims.

The Early Church Fathers recorded that Matthew wrote first, in Aramaic. That is why the gospels in the New Testament are ordered Matthew - Mark - Luke - John.

The scholars tell us that Matthew’s Greek gospel was a document completed after Mark’s gospel, and draws on it for certain accounts. That is not an unreasonable conclusion, but it does not negate the testimony of the Fathers that the VERY first account was Matthew’s Aramaic account.

I tend to agree with this theory, but I’m not an expert in this field. I would further add that this patristic claim could potentially address the “Q problem.” That is to say, Matthew may have been the author of what we now call “Q”–a collection of Jesus’ sayings such as the Sermon on the Mount–and both Mark and the author of the Greek text we now call “Matthew” may have drawn on it.

But the bottom line here is that the Church doesn’t dogmatize on the matter. The only point here that is a matter of faith is that all four Gospels are, in their essentials, historically accurate–they tell us faithfully (though no doubt with a good deal of editorial arrangement, commentary, rewriting, etc.) what Jesus said and did.

Edwin

 

[FishyPete]

I tend to agree with this theory, but I’m not an expert in this field. I would further add that this patristic claim could potentially address the “Q problem.” That is to say, Matthew may have been the author of what we now call “Q”–a collection of Jesus’ sayings such as the Sermon on the Mount–and both Mark and the author of the Greek text we now call “Matthew” may have drawn on it.

But the bottom line here is that the Church doesn’t dogmatize on the matter. The only point here that is a matter of faith is that all four Gospels are, in their essentials, historically accurate–they tell us faithfully (though no doubt with a good deal of editorial arrangement, commentary, rewriting, etc.) what Jesus said and did.

Edwin

You always post such great posts. thanks for that.

 

[Contarini]

I don’t think it matters as far as weight goes. Some believe St. Luke’s accounts, whatever language or dialect they were written in, were most accurate but I’d say the more accounts the more credible the event.

By the way, I thought dialect was more of a difference in speaking thing, not so much writing. Like you have today’s English spoken in many dialects and some of them less understood than others. I imagine during Christ’s time, when people didn’t have books, internet, jets, cars, etc, every town, would have its unique dialect; I don’t think it’s enough to say Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek or whatever. Doesn’t have much meaning if two people speaking Greek can’t understand each other.

Dialect can be written as well as spoken. The reason you associate dialect with spoken language is that written language is often more standardized. Those who are educated enough to write at all have often been educated in a standard, literary form of the language. In modern times in particular (especially the 19th century with the rise of nationalism), there have been serious efforts by nation-states to force children to abandon their traditional dialects and write “proper” English or French or German or whatever. (The French were particularly coercive in this respect–Germans have I think always been more respectful of dialects.) So one possible way of distinguishing a language from a dialect is that a language has a standardized written form, “correct grammar,” etc., and a dialect doesn’t. But the terms are fluid and dialects may certainly be written.

Ancient “koine” Greek was, by definition, not very standardized (“koine” means “common” and distinguishes the “trade language” of the Eastern Mediterranean from the literary Greek that highly educated people would have used). It was obviously standardized enough that people from different regions could understand each other, but people wrote with their own local quirks, often influenced by their native language (so in the NT we find “Hebraisms” and “Aramaisms” in certain books, and this gives us clues that the author was Jewish, and/or that the text preserves a pretty literal translation of what Jesus originally said in Aramaic).

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Mathew 26:53: “Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels?”

How many humans can make that claim?

A human being sent by God with an important mission could quite conceivably have the right to call for angelic “backup” if necessary.

Note: I’m not denying the divinity of Jesus, of course. I’m simply saying that this passage in itself doesn’t establish that divinity.

Now why would Jesus call God Father? I think that’s a much stronger argument, if that’s what you’re talking about. Not entirely conclusive, since after all He told His disciples to do the same thing in this same Gospel. . . .