My opinion is that all the apostles were “educated”, in some form or other. If a fisherman, like Peter, could write as well as he did, we stand in wonder at what he, John and Matthew produced, not even to speak of the Letters (James, Paul, etc.).
Please consider that Mark and Luke perhaps used the stories from some of the apostles in their Gospels. Those apostles had hope of others hearing their stories.
There is no evidence that any apostle took a pen to paper at all- they operated in oral tradition. In those days the paper they used didn’t have the shelf life modern paper has so the never ending battle with mother nature recommissioning scribes, risking something each time a copy was made, became one hurdle. The combination of recording 12 separate eye witness accounts speaking hebrew/ aramaic recorded by the hand of unknown parties translated by unknown parties into greek, further repeated by scribes and translating to latin… there’s a whole lot of potential for trouble at every step in the process. IMO the solo scriptura stance is more a firm statement of honoring the monumental endeavor (all the kings horses, all the kings men pulling together in allegiance to the truth) than it is about enforcing rigid standards of literalism. Once that Bible is written, printed, and made available, someone using it disrespectfully is all on the recipient abusing that gift to humanity.
I think of Peter the rock sort of like a cop having to manage 12 eye witness testimonies trying to make earthly sense of something that completely blew all their socks off. Each of which puts their own spin from a different angle. Each of them had their own personalities in the way as well. Who was the most committed to telling the whole truth nothing but the truth? I don’t think it’ wise to rank them as if competitors but I do judge them based on a few criteria that may seem a bit odd. Being a woman I tend to be a student of men’s feet
. That said:
Who was the hot head among them trying to run with the ball before they had a clue?
Who had to be corrected again and again and again?
Who received the most rebuke (Jesus was very firm telling them to sit down at times)? Were the seemingly silent apostles not paying attention, did the lesson go over their heads, or were they too star struck/ humble?
In an era when might made right, did the alpha personalities run roughshod over the best students?
How much of their speech was tailored to suit an audience to make their point? By this I mean we can use modern day preaching as an example where things go wrong. In American history southern baptists might have been the champions of black emancipation if only they didn’t tailor their message to suit plantation owners.
Which brings me to this…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas It is believed that Thomas was evangelizing to a Syrian audience, if these writings are genuinely belonging to Thomas, which is seriously in doubt. Original poster Tim- I sincerely hope you’re doing your homework about this.
The below example of the work truly sounds like gibberish, mingling in occult philosophies, so I can see why it would be rejected even if the reasoning behind that rejection was limited to negative characterizations without a full body explanation for the rejection. “One of the three wicked disciples of Manes” has no meaning to people in 2011. Who in main stream society knows what makes a Mane wicked? Who knows evil when they see it if many have spent their lives trying to be good and simply don’t think that way (like a criminal)?
youtube.com/watch?v=50aNiSrfj0k
Also interesting to note that in each region where this gnostic flavor was most potent there seems to be a corresponding decline/ arrested development/ corrosive force of said civilization. They failed to thrive. Coincidence or natural byproduct of the philosophy? Food for thought. Due caution is warranted.
