Matthew gets unlikely boost

WorldNetDaily ^ | July 3, 2003 | Hal Lindsey

[Glenn]

This belongs in religion.

[sauropod]

ping.

[Jeff F]

Religion was not on the topic pick list. However the Culture/Society topic includes: "culture Discussion of health, education, welfare, drugs, abortion, environment, housing, unions, employment, social security, religion, arts, humanity, sports, and other cultural and societal issues."

[Glenn]

Religion was not on the topic pick list.

There is a forum for Religion.

[ovrtaxt]

This actually has more to do with Society/Culture than religion, IMO. The point of the story is the contortional logic of the 'scholars' of history trying to disprove the facts. Religion topics are more for doctrinal disputes within the church. IMO.

[LadyDoc]

Actually this is not about religion but about post modernism and political correctness.

I'm reading Jenkin's book Hidden Gospels.

Jenkins is a professor of religion at Penn state, not a fundamentalist propagandist, and his book is quite technical and convincing. His arguments are based on how historians evaluate ancient documents, and he questions their analysis based on academic, not religious, standards.

The "jesus seminar" is undermining the bible by insisting that other "hidden" gospels need to be included in the new testament. They base their opinions on the dates of new gospels found in Egypt and other ancient libraries. The underpinning of their opinions, never openly admitted, is that the evil catholics destroyed these documents in order to push their narrowminded religion.

But Jenkins points out that the manuscripts are not more ancient than the gospels. He admits that some parts of the manuscripts such as the gospel of Thomas, have ancient parts in them, but the manuscript in toto have ideas that were not intellectually currant until the late 2nd century. (i.e. after 150 ad)

The modern equivalent of this would be historical novels where the heroes and heroines act like 20th century yuppies. The "historical" facts might be partly true, but the intellectual ideas in the novels were not around back then.

THe main problem is not that a few pc professors are deconstructing Christianity, but that PBS/Newsweek/a&e and all other modern media outlets parade such professors as experts in every holiday article/special about christianity. Reporters are not familiar with how historical documents are dated, and do not question the pc re writing of history by such professors.

[Jeff F]

A more detailed discussion is available at:
http://hector3000.future.easyspace.com/altman.htm

[mdmathis6]

"There is a forum for Religion."

OH LET'S BE A PRIGGISH LEGALIST, REGARDING THE PLACEMENT OF POSTS, FOR GOODNESS SAKES!

[Glenn]

OH LET'S BE A PRIGGISH LEGALIST, REGARDING THE PLACEMENT OF POSTS, FOR GOODNESS SAKES!

No need to yell. Sorry you offend so easily. The problem is yours and not mine. Understand?

[steve8714]

Karl Keating in his collection, "nothing but the truth" has an interesting timeline on this kind of scholarship. As usual, human egos and scholars' herd mentality have a lot to do with common scholarly wisdom.

[tbpiper]

contortional logic of the 'scholars'

Perhaps they'll all scurry off to 'prove' the parody to be a forgery planted by christians to prove that Matthew was genuine.

[DeweyCA]

Back in 1982 or 83, I saw a copy of Greenleaf's book in a graduate school library in a suburb just north of Chicago. I was able to peruse it. It was fascinating. The greatest evidence to him of the resurrection of Christ was the dramatic change in the lives of the disciples. He said that the way that the change could plausibly be explained is that the resurrection did in fact occur. I think it is worth noting that Greenleaf was Jewish, and so it is not surprising that he was originally hostile to the message of the New Testament. But the evidence, according to him, was overwhelming. And he used the same evidentiary standards that he used in courts of law in the US. Pretty impressive stuff.

[DeweyCA]

Thank you for your insightful comments on the Jesus Seminar and how their dating of ancient documents is flawed.

[johnb838]

Huh. You said "currant" when you should have said "current", thus destroying all credibility in your argument.

Just kidding. No, really, why do people get so worked up about an article that may or may not have been mis-posted?

And thanks for the info on the Gospel of Thomas. I didn't know that and it makes a lot of sense. For those that don't know, Thomas' is group of aphorisms attributed to Jesus, some found in the gospels, similar in structure to Proverbs.

[johnb838]

That's interesting. And it reminds me of the canonization of Juan Diego by the Pope recently. It was argued that he may not have existed. But after his so-called visionary experience over 10 million central americans were converted.

Jesus said "Ye shall know them by their fruits". I believe that.

[SpringheelJack]

Yuval declares that Gamaliel is "considered to have authored a sophisticated parody of the Gospel according to Matthew."

Considered by whom? This is the first time I ever heard of it.

[dogbyte12]

First, I don't consider Hal a credible source. He panicked a great deal of people by saying that Armegeddon as envisioned in the book of Revelation was going to happen in 1988. He not only is a literalist, but a scare monger, who tries to twist prophecies into things that are going to happen in his lifetime, even though God works at God's own time.

Secondly, John's authorship is quite murky. The "source" for it being John of Zebedee who wrote the book of John was from a bishop over 150 years after Jesus was crucified, who said that he was told when he was a young boy, by an old man, that John of Zebedee wrote it. That is why most serious scholars doubt it. It could be possibly true, but there really is no solid evidence suggesting which follower wrote it.

People like Hal Lindsay are missing the point anyways. The authorship isn't so much important as the message. There were no signatures on the gospels. They were written in the enclaves of newly sprung christian communities to share the faith tradition and to keep the message of Jesus alive.

These tracts were often necessarily anonymous. Study pre-revolutionary history, and one will find that several of the founders, published anon tracts, to get a message out, while not singling themselves out for persecution from political opponents or the Brits. Later, we have discovered who wrote some of them, by analyzing styles, but that road is tougher, when you don't have works to compare it to other than itself.

That is why for example, biblical scholars question the authorship of pieces in the bible, and can do so, without attacking the message itself.

Many biblical scholars seriously question that Paul wrote Titus and Timothy, because the linguistic style was noticably different than the letters Paul wrote to congregations. A codex has been found in one piece, dating to the late first century, which only contains Paul's letters that scholars thought "sounded" like Paul, that justifies their scholarship.

This is serious scholarly business, and Chicken Little people like Hal Lindsay who make false prophecies would be wise to not toss stones in their glass houses while they criticize biblical scholarship.

You have two choices. Either Hal Lindsay was correct that scripture stated the world would end in 1988, and God didn't act as he promised, or Hal Lindsay doesn't know what in the heck he is talking about.

[dogbyte12]

The underpinning of their opinions, never openly admitted, is that the evil catholics destroyed these documents in order to push their narrowminded religion.

I wouldn't use quite those words, but I for one agree with them. I am not bashing "catholic truth" or "synoptic truth" for that matter. There is however strong evidence from letters at the time, that there was alot more "heretical" work than Phillip, Mary, and Thomas floating around at the time, that the orthodoxy felt quite justified in burning, denouncing, etc.

From the catholic perspective, they had every justification. Different followers had radically divergent thoughts on the message of Jesus. It was something bound to happen. When an oral tradition gets retold, translated, replaced by written tradition, wildly different philosophies can arise.

As an example, I will highlight in bold a keyword in a sentence twice as the point of inflection. Depending on which word a reader inflects, it does change the meaning of the sentence.

You should not speak ill of your friends.
You should not speak ill of your friends

Same written words, but slightly different effect on the reader depending on how one reads it. Many of Christ's followers were fluent in just aramaic, which was the common tongue, though some had a smattering of greek. If you got americans who spoke passable say Russian, and you had them interview followers of Kruschev today, and asked them to share the key points, key sayings of Kruschev, you would get vastly different books, different philosophies.

The core message of communism would remain, just as the core message of salvation through Christ remains. Details, kep points, what Jesus was trying to say though gets wildly divergent interpretations by those who listened.

Let us not forget that it is believed that Jesus key ministry at the end lasted over 3 years. The 4 gospels does not even begin to cover the amount that Jesus spoke upon. John and Matthew for example had wildly different purposes in their accounts, even though they got the core message.

There were other accounts. Many of these were written by smaller sects, who had different interpretations. They weren't "orthodox", but it does not mean that quotations of Christ weren't in there.

John does not report every time that Jesus asked for a refill of water, or, what time Jesus went to sleep at night. For John, those were insignifigant details. A gospel that detailed such minutae, might be accurate, but viewed too "earthly" and considered offensive, and non spiritual.

[tal hajus]

Mr Lindsey says that all of the gospel writers were claimed to be eyewitnesses of the events they describe, yet Bible scholars say that Mark and Luke wrote from the experiences of others, that Mark wrote as dictated to by Peter, and that Luke wrote from interviews with eyewitnesses. Any other theories out there?