[Salvation]

I thought this would be an interesting discussion.

[Support Free Republic]

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg		Freepers/Avg		Monthlies
Never Never Land		1,138.00	34	33.47			238.00	19

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

[Salvation]

Three different ways to be an author:

**First, the author was clearly the individual who actually wrote the text with his own pen.

Second, the individual who dictated the text to a secretary or scribe was still considered the author.

Third, the individual was still considered the author if he only provided the ideas or if the text were written in accord with his though and in his spirit even though a "ghost writer" did the actual composition.**

[dsc]

"I thought this would be an interesting discussion."

I found it a blessed relief, after some of the whacko stuff we've seen recently. Thanks for posting it.

[Salvation]

Catholic Discussion Ping!

Please notify me via Freepmail if you would like to be added to or removed from the Catholic Discussion Ping list.

[Sloth]

the teacher said that the Gospels were written by the early Church community probably between the years 200 and 300

Foolish. The author of Luke, who also wrote Acts, was personally present for some of the events portrayed (e.g., Acts 16:13 -- "And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there."

[Desdemona]

The notion that the Gospels are the product of the early Church community in the third century is "strange" indeed.

Yes, since one critereon of inclusion in the New Testament was that the books had to be written within 100 years of Christ's death and ressurection.

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP

[Dajjal]

Contemporary Catholic Biblical Scholarship
By Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn
A good summarization of the work of Robinson, Tresmontant, and Carmignac on dating the four Gospels before 70 AD, written in Hebrew (and why the second gospel ought to be called the Gospel of Peter, which Mark collated and translated into Greek).

[xzins]

Interestingly, with the recent scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls, new evidence points to the authorship of the traditional authors. Father Reginald Fuller, an Episcopalian and Professor Emeritus at Virginia Theological Seminary, with Dr. Carsten Thiede, have analyzed three papyrus fragments from the 26th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew; the fragments date the year 40, which would indicate that the author was an eyewitness to our Lord's public ministry. Jesuit Father Jose O'Callaghan, studying fragments of the Gospel of Mark and using paleographic means, dated them at 50, again indicating an eyewitness author. Finally, Episcopalian Bishop John Robinson also posited from his research that all four Gospels were written between 40 and 65, with John's being possibly the earliest. This new research is not only questioning some of the modern scholarship but also supporting the traditional authorship.

Good stuff in these paragraphs.

[redgolum]

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't someone post an article here that said some fragments of Matthew have been found in Japan dating back an incredible amount of time?

Still, it is refreshing to see that the tide is starting to turn against the so called "Biblical Criticism".

[dangus]

TWO HUNDRED to THREE HUNDRED! There are MANUSCRIPTS that old!

Here's what happened accprding to the best evidence available:

Around 50 AD., St. Matthew the apostle wrote an Aramaic gospel.

A decade or two later, St. Peter the apostle's secretary, John Mark wrote the gospel of Mark. The catalyst may have been St. Peter's death (c. AD 64), or his expectation of an imminent death.

St. Luke's gospel was probably written in the AD '60's as well. He claims first-hand witnesses, perhaps even including the Blessed Virgin Mary, given the intimacy of his birth narrative, or a close acquaintance of hers. (The other principles in the narrative, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zecharaiah, and John the Baptist were long deceased.) The presumption that Luke was written after the fall of the temple is not necessary, even presuming the (apostasy of the) inability of Jesus to prophecize. Given the abrupt and unthematic end of Luke's story (which is in the "Gospel of Luke" and continued in "the Acts of the Apostles"), it was possibly finished immediately after the events at the end of Acts took place (c. AD 64)

At some point, perhaps around 90 AD, Matthew was translated into Greek and substantially revised. The result is that there are almost no passages in Mark that aren't recorded in Matthew, although sometimes the phrasing is essentially identical, sometimes one version is shortened, and sometimes there are significant differences. It is not certain whether the apostle Matthew was the person who revised the gospel. Some (non-fundamentalists) have suggested that apparent errors were inserted into the text by the revisionist.

The portions of Matthew which are identical to Mark vary in style, wordings and theme from the other portions of Matthew. Therefore, it is much more likely that Mark's gospel was added to Matthew than that Mark is an abridgement of Mark. It has been suggested that Mark may have been considered authoritative. (Catholics might suggest that this is because Mark was authorized by Peter.)

Luke includes passages found in Matthew but not Mark, Mark but not Matthew, and both Matthew and Mark. It even includes events recorded in John but not Matthew or Mark. Luke rarely uses the exact same wording as another gospel, however. It is quite possible that Luke interviewed both Matthew and Mark (or Peter).

The gospel of John is radically different from the others. It tells of very few events (only 7 prior to Jesus going to Jerusalem to die) and expounds on them greatly. The style is very similar to other Greek writings, so was considered for a long time to have been written at a very late date (even the 2nd century), after Christianity had been influenced more by Greek thought.

The Dead Sea scrolls confirm, however, that the Essenes (the branch of Judaism from which John came) were deeply into Greek literature. And whereas John was earlier expected to have been an ignorant fisherman, it now seems plausible that he was pointed out to Jesus for his excellence in writing. Of course, the gospel itself asserted that it was written bu John's own hand.

Even so, John was (according to Tradition) very young when Jesus met him. If he wrote the gospel as he approached death, it may still have been written in the AD 90s, or even the first part of the 2nd century.

Some scholars have suggested that the gospel of John initially existed as several several seperate, thematic scrolls, including one used for Passover celebrations. This would explain the disjointed nature of the text; its abrupt switching of topics, even to the point of jumping back in chronology; and its apparent lack of chronology (John records the cleansing of the Temple near its start, whereas others place it at the end of his ministry. Given the events within, it would be surprising that he did it twice.).

Oddly, the story of the stoning of the adulteress ("Who shall cast the first stone?") is a very late addition to the gospel of John; where that story originated is unknown. Also, verses of the introductory poem (Jn 1:1-18), once thought to be of very late origin, were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently, they existed as an earlier prophecy, to which John adds to so that he may explain its fulfillment.


In summary:
Matthew: AD 50, by the apostle, revised after AD 90.
Mark: AD 60-65, by John Mark, authorized by Peter
Luke: c. AD 64, or somewhat earlier, by a companion of Paul.
John: Late 1st century, possibly start of 2nd century, by the apostle.

What is explained here is NOT a consensus of historical researchers. Many researchers have refused to amend their theories in the light of new evidence. Many others make presumptions that the gospels contain errors (or even what must be called lies). It is my attempt to select historical analyses of researchers which are in agreement with newer, well-substantiated evidence which they many researchers have ignored, and the presumption of inerrancy of the Holy Spirit which guided the writing of the apostles.

[onedoug]

"Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to Me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have Me. In pouring this ointment on My body she has done it to prepare Me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this Gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." (Matthew 26:10-13 RSV)

Might Mark have been a woman?