Gospel Authors Intelligent?

CDfm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Much of it was written by Shakespeare, actually.

Commentarii de Bello Galico and Commentarii de Bello Civili have authorship attributed to one Gaius Julius Caesar .

The Mad Hatter

CDfm wrote: »

Commentarii de Bello Galico and Commentarii de Bello Civili have authorship attributed to one Gaius Julius Caesar .

Spokey-doke. I've never really looked into Ancient Rome in any detail (beyond the TV series Rome, I mean), so all the famous lines I know are Shakespeare.

Tim Robbins

robindch wrote: »

Impressive indeed, but perhaps less so when one considers that there were other, similar, accounts of miraculous events around at the same time (and before, and subsequently) that never made it as far as a world religion. I suspect that its survival is at least as much an accident of historical circumstance as than any specific wisdom on the part of the authors.

Or indeed, that Jesus thought that he was founding a world religion anyway -- I don't think that there's a whole lot evidence that he did, since much of the justification for the distinction between judaism and early christianity was Paul's work and Paul never met Jesus.

But going back to your first point, while the authors might have been well-educated by Roman standards and even more so -- presumably -- by Palestinian (or whatever) standards, the gospels themselves, with the debatable exception of John, are not impressive works of literature. Plodding, humorless, diaphanous accounts of one-dimensional characters and events of which the authors seemed to understand little, and were clearly at a loss as to how to communicate. The Romans, to say nothing of the Greeks, really did produce better stuff than that.

How about we all read the Gospel of John and discuss online?

Pompey Magnus

robindch wrote: »

But going back to your first point, while the authors might have been well-educated by Roman standards and even more so -- presumably -- by Palestinian (or whatever) standards, the gospels themselves, with the debatable exception of John, are not impressive works of literature. Plodding, humorless, diaphanous accounts of one-dimensional characters and events of which the authors seemed to understand little, and were clearly at a loss as to how to communicate. The Romans, to say nothing of the Greeks, really did produce better stuff than that.

I have to say that perhaps the Gospel writers are in a no-win situation.

Mark is our oldest Gospel and is also the least developed Gospel, it is very bare when compared to the others and is indeed not up to the standards of other works from antiquity. But it is quite possible that Mark's intention was to faithfully relay the story as he recieved it without embellishment on his part. His characters are one-dimensional but then he most likely didn't know them personally and so if he were to make his characters more interesting he would probably have had to resort to literary invention, which is never good in a historical account.

On the other hand I think it is generally accepted that the Gospel of John is the most impressive Gospel on theological and philosophical grounds, but I think it is also the least credible when it comes to believability. In this Gospel Jesus engages in long discussions and philosophical discourses, it is very unlikely that these could be accurately remembered and recorded ~65 years after his death so it seems quite likely that much of the sayings of Jesus as recorded in John were later inventions from members of the Johannine community.

If we had four relatively impressive Gospels along the lines of John then we could say that the Gospel writers were indeed impressive authors who knew their Greek philosophy and had a detailed understanding of theological issues, however we would also be critical of them because they are providing statements that just couldn't be accurate recollections of what Jesus said.

If we wanted to know what the real Jesus actually said and did we would like to have more Gospels along the lines of Mark and less like John.

Dades

Tim Robbins wrote: »

How about we all read the Gospel of John and discuss online?

I'd rather gnaw off my own leg.

But knock yourselves out!

CDfm

Charco wrote: »

If we had four relatively impressive Gospels along the lines of John then we could say that the Gospel writers were indeed impressive authors who knew their Greek philosophy and had a detailed understanding of theological issues, however we would also be critical of them because they are providing statements that just couldn't be accurate recollections of what Jesus said.

But then again maybe it was composed with the Gentile in mind. Jews would already have been familiar with a Platoist view already popular -whereas non jews may not have been so inclined.

robindch

Charco wrote: »

Mark is our oldest Gospel and is also the least developed Gospel, it is very bare when compared to the others [...] the Gospel of John is the most impressive Gospel on theological and philosophical grounds, but I think it is also the least credible when it comes to believability.

Yes, that's roughly what I believe.

It's generally accepted that ancient authors regularly had people deliver speeches according to what the author thought they would say in a given situation, rather than a precise record of what they did say (look at what Plato had Socrates saying in comparison to Xenophon). The idea we have these days of a properly-researched biography with precise quotations from the main players seems to have been pretty much unknown then.

Charco wrote: »

If we wanted to know what the real Jesus actually said and did we would like to have more Gospels along the lines of Mark and less like John.

Agreed. But then again, the first three gospels are pretty dull stuff and I can't help but wonder if christianity could ever have taken off if John had not written his flightly and esoteric gospel. I rather suspect not.

rockbeer

robindch wrote: »

It's generally accepted that ancient authors regularly had people deliver speeches according to what the author thought they would say in a given situation, rather than a precise record of what they did say (look at what Plato had Socrates saying in comparison to Xenophon). The idea we have these days of a properly-researched biography with precise quotations from the main players seems to have been pretty much unknown then.

If only Jesus had taught his followers something useful, like the principles of voice recording technology :pac:

UU

No I think otherwise that they were in fact very intelligent and witty people whoever they were. After all, it wasn't even Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who wrote the Gospels. They were names put on each of the books. The New Testament was written over 100 years after Jesus' death and the authors didn't even know Jesus. The reason I said they were intelligent is because at that time in Palestine there was a whole issue of people proclaiming to be the Messiah. The Old Testament had predicted that a Messiah would come for the Israelites. The fact that they managed to take a that story and attribute to somebody who may have not been a Messiah let alone a god is baffling. Furthermore, they managed to use a load of local ancient Pagan stories and add that onto this. Their writings were then translated into one of the linguas francas of that time, Greek. Can you say that people capable of establishing the foundations of a major world religion which worked then (and still does to a large extent) as a major political drive and convert the masses to a bunch of crazy ideas?

CDfm

UU wrote: »

No I think otherwise that they were in fact very intelligent and witty people whoever they were. After all, it wasn't even Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who wrote the Gospels. They were names put on each of the books. The New Testament was written over 100 years after Jesus' death and the authors didn't even know Jesus. The reason I said they were intelligent is because at that time in Palestine there was a whole issue of people proclaiming to be the Messiah. The Old Testament had predicted that a Messiah would come for the Israelites. The fact that they managed to take a that story and attribute to somebody who may have not been a Messiah let alone a god is baffling. Furthermore, they managed to use a load of local ancient Pagan stories and add that onto this. Their writings were then translated into one of the linguas francas of that time, Greek. Can you say that people capable of establishing the foundations of a major world religion which worked then (and still does to a large extent) as a major political drive and convert the masses to a bunch of crazy ideas?

UU -you make it sound like a bunch of guys intent on world domination which it wasnt.How can you be so certain on authorship-we dont know very much of thr beliefs of the druids because they operated an oral tradition.So Christianity was written down when convenient -it was an underground belief and believers were persecuted and leaders executed.

Popular belief among the Israelites was for a king not someone who said accept what you have etc. So the books were translated to the Greek only shows that they had been written down and were a force. They shouldnt have suceeded and did.

I am interested in what pagan stories were assimilated?

robindch

rockbeer wrote: »

If only Jesus had taught his followers something useful, like the principles of voice recording technology :pac:

Good idea, but go with fancy tech? Why didn't Jesus just pick up and pen and write something?

Unless of course, he did, but whatever he wrote was subsequently destroyed.

Must tell run_to_da_hills about this.

2Scoops

robindch wrote: »

Why didn't Jesus just pick up and pen and write something?

Hi, Jesus! How you uh, how you coming on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice little story you're working on, there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protagonist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yeah, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? (voice returns to normal) Oh, I look forward to reading it.

Dades

AtomicHorror

2Scoops wrote: »

Hi, Jesus! How you uh, how you coming on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice little story you're working on, there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protagonist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yeah, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? (voice returns to normal) Oh, I look forward to reading it.

My friend keeps doing this routine about my PhD. thesis. Former friend, that is.

CDfm

Well Christians do a good line in talking books - they are called Masses