Understanding Gospel

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First post by Newbie. THank you for the opportunity to post a few nagging questions. Truth in posting: am no longer RC, but AC [or Episcopalian if you like]

Serious query. On what level do we understand the Gospels?

It is not a literal understanding in light of the numerous discrepancies amongst the author—or, perhaps it is to be takent literally, Aftr all, if Resurrection is not factual, what matters.

I don’t want to clutter thid board with polemics, and I am wondering how folks understand this topic.

I, fo one, am struggling with Luke.
 
One of the posters here made a great point not to long ago. We strive to understand the Gospels (or any book of the Bible) in a literal, but not literalistic way. The example given was the statement “It’s raining cats and dogs.” Say people 2000 years from now found a book from our time, and read that statement. In trying to understand the passage, the literal appraoch would be to find out what the author meant by it. They may look to paragraphs immediately before and after the particular line, and look for other instances of that phrase in the text. They may also consult other texts and see how the phrase was used in them, and thus find out the author was describing a particularly strong rainstorm. Thus concluding that the authors were using a metaphor to describe a deluge.

A literalist interpretation would focus on the words themselves, and lead to the conclusion that cats and dogs were falling from the sky.

The point is, I think we should all strive for the literal meaning of the text.

By the way, if the original poster reads this, sorry for the butchering I gave your insightful analogy. If I messed it up too much, please correct me.
 
Since Jesus sometimes spoke in parables we know that not everything in the Gospels is to be taken literally. On the other hand, the Gospels are the inspired word of God and therefore are inerrant. It isn’t that there are contradictions or problems with any of scripture. Instead, it is a case of our having problems in understanding.

Scripture also is to be understood on several levels.
We need to first look at the literal sense of scripture, that is the immediate intent of the sacred author. Beyond that we look for the spiritual sense. In this we see the allegorical, moral and anagogical.

Since all of this can get rather heady, the best thing to do is start talking about what bothers you. You can read bible commentaries and they can be helpful, but in them you will find many differing views. So how do you know what to believe? Stick around these forums and you will get some good help.
 
Here’s what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about the Gospels, emphasis added:

125. The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures “because they are our
principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our
Saviour”.
126. We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels:
1. The life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the four
Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on
what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and
taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken
up."
2. The oral tradition. “For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles
handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller
understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and
enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed.”
3. The written Gospels. "The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels,
selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either
orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained
with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the
form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the
honest truth about Jesus."
 
I thank each of the respondents for his/her reply.

Each of the Evangelists has a different slant, and each uses differing details to ‘paint the picture.’ Frequently, details in one Gospel are at odds with others, and I am tempted to say the only real agreement is on Resurrection. In other words, each narrative leading to Easter differs on details—e.g. did the Holy Family go to Egypt or not? But, in the end, they agree on Resurrection and IMHO, only Resurrection matters.

Query: do I over simplify?
 
The gospels should differ slightly from one another because they were written by different individuals and were actually written to different audiences. Eye witness accounts always vary slightly. One of the apostles might include something that another does not. Or maybe they talk about the same event but they differ in a few details. This does not mean that one of them is mistaken or that their versions are at odds with one another. When different individuals speak of the same events they will sometimes emphasize different things and do so for any number of reasons. This is usually not a problem. If the gospels were “exactly” the same there might even be reason to question the veracity of the facts as presented. One could argue that the narratives were contrived and the witnesses compared their accounts to make them the same so as to add plausibility to the miracles and life of Jesus.

The important thing to remember is that the gospels don’t really contradict one another. For example, the telling of the “Flight into Egypt” is not refuted by one of the other gospels. No gospel refutes the feeding of the five thousand. No gospel refutes Jesus or Peter’s walking on the water. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

I hope this helps.
 
Thank you, Pax.

We seem to agree that all roads lead to Rome, but that scenery will change from road to road. While there are discrepancies from Gospel to Gospel, such details are unimportant within the overall context of Resurrection, just as a story about the American Revolution might differ among four narrators. However, all narrators of AR would agree that Cornwallis surrendered to GW in 1782. That is not to say the least common denominators are the only factual elements in the gospel narrative, butI am wanting to conclude that the historical reality of a singular quote or incident is somehow less than when all four ‘report’ the same thing.

Incidentally, I am grateful for the opportunity to post
“like this.” I have found few places like this-----it ‘ain’t’ Yahoo [which offers a fine fine message boards of a different sort.]
 
so is it possible that the Gospel writers put words in Jesus’s mouth?
 
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Brown10985:
so is it possible that the Gospel writers put words in Jesus’s mouth?
Click to expand...
No, more likely that they quoted what He said, but disagreed with exactly all of the details of whom he was speaking to. They were trying to tell us what he said, not get the specifics of time and place exactly so (which town was he in; was it before or after this or that occurance; was it early or late in His ministry). Their sense of biography was somewhat different from ours. They were telling the Good News; not writing a documentary on Him.
 
It’s a bit of a leap to maintain the Evangelists were even attempting to quote Jesus, 50—80 years after Resurrection. Transcripts no existen; no interviews with Dan Rather or Barbara Walters.

For me, Gospels are prospectuses, with each ‘writer group’ attempting to put the preachings, death & resurrection in terms appropriate to each audience. In this framework, what difference does it make whether or not there was a flight to Egypt; whether 4000 or 5000 were fed; whether the cock crowed 3x etc. From a cynical historical perspective, only Resurrection matters, and news of that must have been astounding to Romans (Mark), Jews (Matthew), Greek speakers (Luke) and future Episcopalians (John.)
 
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