Religious foo: not-so-special gospels

[alpharaposa]

Last night, collinsmom called me because she was working on a paper and needed to talk to somebody. Not necessarily to get help, though I was happy to offer what I could.

She was working on something for a class on the New Testament, and was telling me about this theory that was being debated in class. This theory stated that three of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were all written off of one big document, and that's why some passages are so similar.

She said, and I agreed, that when different people see the same events and get a chance to talk about it with each other afterwards, the accounts are going to have similarities. There will also be differences- after all, they came from different backgrounds. There's at least one person in my friends list who works in insurance, and she sees car accidents far differently than most of us who haven't.

I find it fascinating, all the different theories that scholars and pundits can come up with to make the gospels less special. There's the one that states that none of the gospels were written until a handful of generations after the fact- an idea which has gained a lot of traction in popular thought. This theory being debated in collinsmom's class would essentially make all three of those gospels secondary accounts instead of primary sources. In fact, it seems that all of these theories do just that- they contradict the idea that these are eyewitness accounts of things.

And what does that do? It places in room for whoever's favorite method of making things less true. If what you have are a collection of stories written a hundred or more years later, then you can argue that the virgin birth didn't really happen, and was just added as a product of local mythology to give legitimacy to the cause. (What cause that might be is a bit addled- after all, the early church went out of its way to leave Caesar up to Caesar, and only got involved when Caesar suddenly was one of their own.)

If your stories are all secondary accounts from one source, then you only have to disprove one source or say that one author got it wrong to argue for your favorite change in the story. Again, it makes it easier to say that, while the stuff in the Bible is a good story, there's no reason to go around taking any of it for, ahem, 'gospel truth'.

What does that give us? Well, it gives us a whole bunch of people who can feel good for 'knowing better' than us poor yokels who actually believe what's there. They're special; enlightened. It's similar to what the gnostic texts do- allows a bunch of people to feel that they have the real truth, rather than what everybody else knows. It's an appeal that works well in our modern thinking, and worked well in the past, if the pages and pages of argument expended and still available to be read are any measure.

All this runs contrary to the very gospels themselves. Here is a big, amazing, wonderful story, and one of the things we are told is to tell it to everybody. There are no secrets here- and the story itself needs none to be special. These are events that changed all of creation. You can't top that.

And yet, people try. They marginalize what's there, or they comb the pieces, looking for ways to be bigger than the biggest thing that ever happened.

Go figure.

collinsmom, if you want to quote any bit of this for your paper, you've got permission.

Comments

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well come now, the Gospel of Thomas is a
collection of sayings of Jesus rather than
a narrative...does it not make sense that people
wrote down Jesus sayings ,as I made notes on
L Reid's lecture the other day and presented
an approximation of what he said, and then
formed them into collections which in turn were
used as sources by the authors of the Gospels--
perhaps in some cases the same persons who had
made the collections?
and how does that reduce the authority of the thing?
it does mean that we do not probably always have
exact words, obvious anyway when we are given two
versions with verbal difference by two evangelists...
we have what we are inteded to have is the sufficient
I should think answer, as St John says not everything
but a verbal icon of the life of the Lord etc.

well people draw the lines in the sand at different
places and it is not wrong...I recall a discussion with
goldhands who sadly seems to be writing less
where you expressed similar strong dissent from this
criticism.
But at least at this point does not the collection of
sayings make sense to one?

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Thomas is fascinating and strikes me as far more authentic than, say, John. As I'm sure you've learned, however, most Christians believe that the Bible is absolutely perfect as-is, and no good could ever come of anything the Romans didn't rubber-stamp into it hundreds of years after Jesus' death.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

happy to meet you, and if you want to exchange friends
(I see we have some in common) it is fine...
but hold on there. "most Christians..."? Most Christians
accept Biblical criticism and indeed even in the early
church within the limits available the book was studied
as to its sources,authorships and history...far the
most Christians(including Catholics and Orthodox first of
all) use these studies and finds it strengthens our
sense of the Book as being that of a whole people on
their pilgrimage from the beginning until...well indeed
it goes on yet the journey and of course ,I do not
know what church you are in or perhaps none, but it is
at the heart of the journey of all peoples...so
we are within the Book already really...
rambling...but just to respond to thought that most
Christians reject Biblical studies ...

and in fairness our host here also did not say anything
extreme...and I think agrees that written sources can have
gone into the making of the Gospels.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

You are right - "Most Christians" is probably a hasty judgment, though it has sadly been my experience. One of the largest roadblocks I've found when discussing any issues of this sort is the belief that the Bible, as we have it, is precisely what we are meant to have.

Glad to meet a fellow reader of Thomas. :)

meant to have.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

But that is another question....it seems
to me it is the Bible we are meant to have.
if we were meant to have another we would
have another...
large questions here...but it comes down
to Reality being one and somehow on course...
but this does not mean that it is a literal
dictation of words spoken, St John himself
at the end says well if we wrote everything
the world would be full of the books but
I have made a sort of verbal icon of what
I saw and knew...
this is what historians always do of course.
Thomas is a fine text, much of it incorporated
in the Gospels, some that is not has its own
value slightly to one side perhaps...
there are many other fine writings from that
time I would commend the Odes of Solomon
early church baptismal hymns
scroll down here to 34 perhaps which I like
especially
http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/odes.htm
there are people now who try to imagine all of
this rich life as being somehow something they
can set up over against Christianity as they
think they know it, but it is very simple--
these are hymns used at baptism in ordinary
churches of the first time...
well enough...but thanks for the conversation and
the meeting yours
+S

misidentification sorry!

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

sorry I thought the post was from
aefenglommung. with whom I
have exchanged many more notes than with you
so I felt freer in expressing a small disagreement
than I would not having corresponded much with
you and of course the discussion with
goldhands was not with you...
sorry!
but anyway the thought that it is rather
natural to take notes of a speaker immediately
or from memory and then collect and circulate them...
and blessin's and Hi to you!
+Seraphim

Re: misidentification sorry!

[stryck.livejournal.com]

I don't mind the comment! Though, if you're going to be talking about details of how the gospels were put together, I'll have to yield to aefenglommung's scholarship over my own. I've never taken an actual course, so what I know comes from those who have.

Certainly, I imagine that folks wrote stuff down and passed them around to an extent, but I find it hard to imagine that three of the gospels were cribbed (in whole or part) from one 'master document'. That's a bit more of a stretch, especially since at least Matthew and Luke were eyewitnesses to a lot of what's recorded.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well I think the master document refers
to the so called "Q hypothesis" that
there was one big colleciton of sayings
of Jesus(called just to call it something Q)
but in fact such a thing has not been found
on the other hand Thomas does include a good
many verses used in Matthew and Mark and Luke
so it could be ,not Q exactly but perhaps one
of several collections.
but Im not a scholar in this field myself...
or uh, in any other really. :)
+S

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Yes, I believe that's it.

If there are lots of little records of what was said, it adds legitimacy to the gospels- it shows that lots of people saw the same things. However, to say that the gospels themselves took what they have from one big source detracts some of the legitimacy, because that one source could be wrong.

A lot of wrangling between blogs about news stories comes from the lack of multiple sources. When they trace a story back, they'll find that all the details come from one guy, or one unnamed source. However, if a story turns out to come from multiple places or have lots of people willing to stand up and be named as saying it was so, then it's likely to be accepted as the truth, even if it's a truth that those particular blogs are unhappy with.

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

"Q" stands for "Quelle", German for "source", and its existence is by no means proven. There are a number of other theories extant as to how a significant amount of material came to be shared. In the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, I think the Gospels were written in canonical order.

Moreover, a single-source hypothesis does not necessarily relegate the Synoptics to the 2nd century. Recall that all the apostles were together in Jerusalem for a considerable time (including at some points Paul, who is said to have been a major influence on Luke's writings). There is every reason to believe that they shared their reflections on the Lord's life and sayings, and developed a common oral record, which would later form the basis of the written Gospels.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

I wasn't trying to link the 2nd century stuff to the Q theory, I was mulling over how they can be used to do similar things when arguing.

The implications over these theories can get nasty, especially if they get picked up by folks with axes to grind.

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

Well of course, anyone can pick up any theory about anything and use it as a bludgeon. There are Christians that do this too, as well as anti-Christians.

[collinsmom.livejournal.com]

I quoted what you said over the phone, not from your post. I agree with [Bad username or site: prester scott @ livejournal.com] that the apostles were together in Jerusalem for a considerable time and they shared their reflections.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Looking at the history of what we now have as the Bible it certainly would take a huge leap of faith (one word for it) to believe that every word there, and not one more or less, belongs in it. There are so many hands on it, so much translation, and so much politics involved that it seems pointless to argue, of what we have, what should and shouldn't go where, and what the source was. So much was destroyed at the time it makes one weep.

The Jehova's Witnesses that come to my door and try to explain to me why every single word makes sense just make me want to cry - they twist themselves into logical pretzels with almost no effort. Just get them started on the slaughter, rape, and pillage of the Canaanites to see what I mean. What do people who "Know" the bible, or related texts, know? They know those texts - all the work of Man.

It is entirely possible to be a devoted follower of Christ and recognize very little of what is found in the "Christian" Bible.