The Gospel of Brian, or...
Apr. 12th, 2009 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furtech...Istanbul, Not Constantinople!
Despite my frivolous titling, this actually is a fairly serious discussion about the New Testament and the Gospels, so feel free to skip it!
This post was prompted by a thought-provoking LJ exchange (things like this are really what makes LJ work for me). What started as Broadway geeking wandered over to a short discussion of the Gospels.
To begin with, let me state that I consider myself a Christian and belong to a church. I think religion plays an important part in many lives and deserves respect; religious groups were incredibly supportive during the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII. My own church was very supportive during recent events in my life (though I, myself, am not very active in it). So this isn't meant to be a rant about Christianity nor a Bible-slam: don't take it that way.
This got me thinking about the Gospel of Judas that was recently in the news and while looking into that, I learned some interesting things about the Gospels. Coincidentally, the Discovery Channel aired “Biblical Mysteries Explained: the Lost Gospels” that evening!
I had grown up believing that the New Testament had been written just after the death of Christ. I never questioned as to who or how, though (I was just a little kid). Later, I learned that it had been compiled from the writings of the gospels of the Apostles. Again, I assumed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had written them.
As I got older and more cynical, I resented people who used the Bible to further their own agendas. As The Simpsons’ Chief Wiggum once said, “The Bible says a lot of things!”
And the Bible (both Old Testament and New Testament) does say a lot of things. Much of it was pragmatic and sensible in the days before refrigeration and modern hygienics and modern law. But for every quote that someone uses to further their cause, you can find another that contradicts it (or is equally nutty). The holy books could be the word of God, but they were transcribed by the hand of man— mortal and fallible.
What I recently learned takes that even further: the manner the New Testament was put together was capricious at best. I grew up naively assuming that the Bible was a book and put together by learned people at the time of Christ. Imagine my surprise to find out that this is nowhere near what happened.
People point to the Council of Nicea (under Roman Emperor Constantine) as the event that determined what became canon and went in to making what the New Testament is today. That seems not to be the actual situation: the “official” parts of the New Testament had been pretty much settled by most of the Christian church by that period, though there was still many disputes. The only Gospel that was not included (that Constantine liked) was the Gospel of Mary-- deemed to controversial because it was written by a woman; Constantine let it go in order to help Christianity succeed (according to accounts). There is a surprising amount of detail and record as to what happened at the Council of Nicea. The final, official decisions about what was “canon” actually happened at later gatherings of bishops. Imagine the arguments and riots that erupted over these proceedings (and they did-- boy, did they!). The decisions that led to what was canon were the product of the politics and opinions and fighting of men and, ultimately, compromise. Not God. How can anyone point to the Bible as the last word on anything? Guide, yes...but literally? Maybe not.
There were apparently hundreds of “gospels of” existing and in use during the time of the Nicean Council. Apparently it was common practice for a gnostic to write an account he believed true and assign it to an Apostle to give it more legitimacy. Constantine picked the most generally and widely accepted and convened the first worldwide meeting of bishops. The major points that Constantine can take credit for are settling the day Easter fell on and declaring mass on Sunday instead of Saturday (can’t do anything the Jews did!), and “settling” the question of whether Christ was divine. More importantly, Constantine legalized all religions (not just Christianity) in the Roman empire.
Here is a fine and heated discussion of these points by people more knowledgeable than I.
Another point that surpised me is that it is generally agreed that they were not written by the hands of the apostles themselves. The earliest copy found was written decades after the events. So the New Testiment is based on the writings of people who probably never even met Christ or witnessed the events that occurred. I’m not even going to mention the “Q” document. Oops.
Anyway, that's what I learned at school today!
For more reading on these subjects, check out:
How the Nicean Council Changed the World
and
The ages of the Gospels
Despite my frivolous titling, this actually is a fairly serious discussion about the New Testament and the Gospels, so feel free to skip it!
This post was prompted by a thought-provoking LJ exchange (things like this are really what makes LJ work for me). What started as Broadway geeking wandered over to a short discussion of the Gospels.
To begin with, let me state that I consider myself a Christian and belong to a church. I think religion plays an important part in many lives and deserves respect; religious groups were incredibly supportive during the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII. My own church was very supportive during recent events in my life (though I, myself, am not very active in it). So this isn't meant to be a rant about Christianity nor a Bible-slam: don't take it that way.
This got me thinking about the Gospel of Judas that was recently in the news and while looking into that, I learned some interesting things about the Gospels. Coincidentally, the Discovery Channel aired “Biblical Mysteries Explained: the Lost Gospels” that evening!
I had grown up believing that the New Testament had been written just after the death of Christ. I never questioned as to who or how, though (I was just a little kid). Later, I learned that it had been compiled from the writings of the gospels of the Apostles. Again, I assumed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had written them.
As I got older and more cynical, I resented people who used the Bible to further their own agendas. As The Simpsons’ Chief Wiggum once said, “The Bible says a lot of things!”
And the Bible (both Old Testament and New Testament) does say a lot of things. Much of it was pragmatic and sensible in the days before refrigeration and modern hygienics and modern law. But for every quote that someone uses to further their cause, you can find another that contradicts it (or is equally nutty). The holy books could be the word of God, but they were transcribed by the hand of man— mortal and fallible.
What I recently learned takes that even further: the manner the New Testament was put together was capricious at best. I grew up naively assuming that the Bible was a book and put together by learned people at the time of Christ. Imagine my surprise to find out that this is nowhere near what happened.
People point to the Council of Nicea (under Roman Emperor Constantine) as the event that determined what became canon and went in to making what the New Testament is today. That seems not to be the actual situation: the “official” parts of the New Testament had been pretty much settled by most of the Christian church by that period, though there was still many disputes. The only Gospel that was not included (that Constantine liked) was the Gospel of Mary-- deemed to controversial because it was written by a woman; Constantine let it go in order to help Christianity succeed (according to accounts). There is a surprising amount of detail and record as to what happened at the Council of Nicea. The final, official decisions about what was “canon” actually happened at later gatherings of bishops. Imagine the arguments and riots that erupted over these proceedings (and they did-- boy, did they!). The decisions that led to what was canon were the product of the politics and opinions and fighting of men and, ultimately, compromise. Not God. How can anyone point to the Bible as the last word on anything? Guide, yes...but literally? Maybe not.
There were apparently hundreds of “gospels of” existing and in use during the time of the Nicean Council. Apparently it was common practice for a gnostic to write an account he believed true and assign it to an Apostle to give it more legitimacy. Constantine picked the most generally and widely accepted and convened the first worldwide meeting of bishops. The major points that Constantine can take credit for are settling the day Easter fell on and declaring mass on Sunday instead of Saturday (can’t do anything the Jews did!), and “settling” the question of whether Christ was divine. More importantly, Constantine legalized all religions (not just Christianity) in the Roman empire.
Here is a fine and heated discussion of these points by people more knowledgeable than I.
Another point that surpised me is that it is generally agreed that they were not written by the hands of the apostles themselves. The earliest copy found was written decades after the events. So the New Testiment is based on the writings of people who probably never even met Christ or witnessed the events that occurred. I’m not even going to mention the “Q” document. Oops.
Anyway, that's what I learned at school today!
For more reading on these subjects, check out:
How the Nicean Council Changed the World
and
The ages of the Gospels
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 12:06 pm (UTC)"The Books and the Parchments" by Dr. F.F. Bruce
The section, "The Canon of Scripture" in the massive ESV Study Bible.
A number of resources available from The Masters Seminary and Dallas Theological Seminary, among others.
Second, I hope you will consider doing the hard digging. The real history is buried under a lot of false and popular mythology. A lot of this false mythology has grown in recent years as a result of novels like DaVinci Code and various Discovery Channel "documentaries". Basically, if it features people from "The Jesus Seminar", then you know you are getting scholarly sounding gibberish and not real scholary research. (If you know how the Jesus Seminar folks evaluate claims, then you will agree that it is gibberish.)
Okay, now to your comments ...
Discovery Channel aired “Biblical Mysteries Explained: the Lost Gospels” that evening!
Please keep in mind that Discovery Channel programs are written from the bias of the producers. These so-called "Lost Gospels" have been known for hundreds of years and have been rejected by the churches for many reasons. So, they are neither "lost" or rejected by conspiracy -- two false claims of the program.
Again, I assumed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had written them.
There is over 1900 years of tradition and the testimony of second century church fathers that confirm who the authors were. Also, archeology has found first century fragments of the Gospels that help confirm that the accounts were written during the first century.
But for every quote that someone uses to further their cause, you can find another that contradicts it (or is equally nutty).
The problem is sinful people like to use a technique called "eisegesis" (to read into). In this, they pick text fragments that support their agenda. In that case, I could use pretty much any book to find fragments of text to support anything I want.
However, Scripture itself demands that believers use a technique called "exegesis" (to read out-of). In this, they are to read whole segments in order to understand the grammatical context, historical context, etc. Then, listen to what the passage says and compare with other verses to ensure a consistent statement. But, this is difficult to do, even for believers.
The holy books could be the word of God, but they were transcribed by the hand of man— mortal and fallible.
It is interesting that God used two different techniques to ensure the high degree of accuracy in the transmission of the Scriptures. For the OT, the Jews established very strict copying procedures. Hence the amazement when people compared the 1100 AD manuscripts with the 120 BC manuscripts found at the Dead Sea and noticed that the only significant differences were in the letter style and some spellings. For the NT, God led the early fathers to create tons of copies. So, by the end of the second century, there were over 25 Thousand copies of the NT text. As a result, the Hebrew and Greek texts that are used for translating into other languages are fairly well known and considered very near the original texts.
People point to the Council of Nicea
One of the mythologies. Nicea had nothing to do with canon. Nicea met to resolve the issue of the divinity of Jesus. The first Council that even talked about canon occurred long after Nicea and that Council did not establish canon but ordered that a single compilation, or codex, of the already recognized 27 books be made, resulting in the Hippo Regius codex of 393.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 05:23 pm (UTC)I will address specific points, but one overall feeling I get from your excellent comment is that the creation of the New Testament as we know it today was a smooth and agreeable process overseen by God. From the readings I found, that was hardly the case. In fact, I would be disbelieving if someone tried to convince me that this was a painless process. I found a note from someone (I don't remember what discussion this was from) that describes how I see the process: "The actual compilation of the Bible was an incredibly complicated project that involved churchmen of many varying beliefs, in an atmosphere of dissension, jealousy, intolerance, persecution and bigotry."
Something as influential and important as the New Testament simply could -not- have come about in a peaceful and orderly manner. The controversy and bitter division we see today (over gay ministers, marriage, feuding churches, secular politics, etc.) is nothing compared to the violence that occurred during the Synods of those days.
To your comments:
As noted above, my interest is cursory. I am more interested in the process and how consensus is reached. Myth and popular beliefs aside, I honestly do not believe that there can be a last word on who is correct, based on some of the debates and the extremely qualified debaters on all the different sides.
Discovery Channel/Lost Gospels:
I understand that DC's programs are designed for ratings and snagging viewers: I just found the timing serendipitous. Like Wiki, it provides decent information and key words for further research. As for the "Lost Gospels", what you say is not really true: while they are known, complete copies of the most famous (or infamous) do not exist. So they are "lost". Or mostly lost.
There is over 1900 years of tradition and the testimony of second century church fathers that confirm who the authors were. Also, archeology has found first century fragments of the Gospels that help confirm that the accounts were written during the first century.
I'm afraid that the testimony of people hundreds of years (at least decades) after the events does not hold water. Particularly due to the less structured archiving technologies of the day. A court would label this evidence -hearsay- and disallow it.
For the NT, God led the early fathers to create tons of copies. So, by the end of the second century, there were over 25 Thousand copies of the NT text. As a result, the Hebrew and Greek texts that are used for translating into other languages are fairly well known and considered very near the original texts.
Considering how the eisegesists will argue on the bases of exact wording (and these zealots are a big part of the problem), points of translation or a mis-copied text is -huge-. Why choose such a fallible method for getting the Word out? And in allowing men to choose what compromises the NT, valuable Words are lost.
One of the mythologies. Nicea had nothing to do with canon.
I said as much. The synods that established canon for what we now call the New Testament happened 40-60 years after Nicea (the Festal Epistle of Athanasius 367ce is cited by some). Still, the most popular collection of books that made up the NT was so well known at the time of Nicea that an index of them was not even mentioned in those notes.