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
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 06:17 pm (UTC)[me]
“settling” the question of whether Christ was divine.
[you]
Wrong. The council actually rejected a heresy that denied the divinity of Christ. They did not decide that Christ was divine. Oh, that vote wasn't even close, 367 to 2.
This is where you are starting to get annoying. This is also why I have -no- desire to get serious about this research. Too many sophists that claim absolute knowledge. My post at this point was concise by design. I was not "Wrong." If I wanted to spend more words on it, I would have said that the Council of Nicaea agreed to a compromise (that word) in agreeing that Christ was "of the same substance" of God. That much credible sites and authors seem to agree upon.
[me]
Another point that surpised me is that it is generally agreed that they were not written by the hands of the apostles themselves.
[you]
Matthew and John were Apostles/Disciples.
Mark was written by John Mark, who was acting as a secretary for Peter.
Luke was written by Luke, the doctor supporting Paul, and was acting as a secretary recording interviews with a lot of eyewitnesses from the various women and disciples.
So, technically, only two of the Gospels were written by the physical hand of the apostles.
There is no hard evidence that those gospels were written by the hands of those you cite. The earliest fragments still date from decades after the original events. As several sources note, it was a common practice at the time to attribute an account to the apostle that it seemed most in character of. Why were there no accounts written at the time of the events themselves? How can you dismiss other gospels that have just as much validation as those that made it in?
[me]
The earliest copy found was written decades after the events.
[you]
Amazing. Consider, the earliest copy we have of Plato is 1100 years after his supposed writing. And, the earliest copy we have of Julius Caesars works are about 800 years after. Yes, the NT works we have fragments from about 40 years after authorship.
Amazing? Not really. Plato's works (which are also hearsay!) are not the source of belief affecting millions of people; wars are not fought over Plato; people are not persecuted over Plato's -exact- words. That's why there is a difference. How can you even make those comparisons?
To modern standards, 40 years is nothing; in those days, four decades is a significant and critical amount of time. Particularly because so much of the story was passed on by the spoken word: stories grow in the telling.
The "Q" source does invite investigation, though. Although this is circumstantial, the phrases and wordings in the Gospels (and various gnostic texts) that are identical or very similar is curious, the more so because of the nature of the spoken word.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 04:01 am (UTC)As I concluded, I could probably pile up all the evidence in the world, but that will not change a person's mind.
As Jesus related in the story of the rich man in Hell asking Abraham to let him warn his brothers. Abraham responds, "If they won't believe Moses and the Prophets, they won't believe if a dead man comes to life and tries to warn them".
Maybe you might find my response an interesting academic exercise.