Christ's History ~ Why the Delay In Recording It?

Originally posted by Germanicus
i am creating a religion around David Blaine right now. I plan on leaving it to my grandchildren when I die. They will pass it on to their children and when it is about 100 years after the death of David Blaine, we will kick off the new religion. Blaine can do way cooler stuff than walk on water.
The Church of Blaine will be the religion of the future.

edit- thats code for, I do not buy the whole jesus story. At all.

edit on 23-6-2012 by Germanicus because: (no reason given)

I usually do not agree with more than 75% of what you say....but in this instance, because I SOOOO LOVE David Blaine, I must give you a star.......

As for the OP, I agree with your questions. I always wonder the same thing. Maybe it IS because it didn't suit the church and matter much until the time of Constantine.....

Originally posted by lambs to lions

Originally posted by PrinceDreamer

If Jesus is the son of god, surely an all powerful all seeing god would of seen the need for a written text of his sons life, so that is his words would not be misunderstood or misinterpreted, I mean an all powerful god could arrange that, could he not?

Such a childish response. The same nonsense gets regurgitated over and over. It always goes something like this, "well, if God was all powerful then he would be able to....blah blah blah." or my personal favorite, "then why does God allow so much pain and violence...blah blah blah"

If you knew anything regarding scripture you would understand that while God does have such power, He does not swing it around like a hammer. Hence, we are given free-will and are allowed to do as we choose. So, since we as a race seem hellbent in our selfish, destructive ways, we bring a lot on ourselves.

This is the main problem with humanity. WE DON'T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR ACTIONS. We point fingers, and blame Him. We want to be able to make our own decisions, but we don't want to pay the price for our mistakes....go figure.

Scholars all agree that the 4 gospels were written before the end of the first century by eye witnesses or under the direction of eye witnesses.

Conservative Datings:
Paul's letters - A.D.50 - 65
Matthew - A.D. 70 - 80
Mark - A.D. 50 - 65
Luke - A.D. Early 60's
John - A.D. 80 - 100

We seem to forget the the paper medium of the day was papyrus, which wasn't especially durable.

That being said, the new testament is one of the most well documented documents of ancient history. There are more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgates and at least 9,300 other earlier versions and we have over 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament today. By comparison, the Iliad of Homer is second for antiquated documents with 643 manuscripts that still survive. The earliest version of complete preserved text of Homer dates from the 13th century. By comparison, there are some virtually complete and extensive fragments of the New Testament dating back to one century of the original.

The New Testament contains about 20,000 lines while the Iliad contains 15,600. Only 40 lines (or 400 words) of the New Testament are in doubt whereas 764 lines of the Iliad are questioned. This 5% textual corruption compares with one half of one percent of the New Testament. Many people are unaware that there are no surviving manuscripts of any of William Shakespeare's 37 plays (written in the 1600's), and scholars have been forced to fill in some gaps in his works.

There is no reputable scholar that says the Bible and New Testament is not a historically valid and accurate document, or that Jesus was not a actual historical person. I could go on to tell you how the eye witness testimony from multiple sources written in the New Testament would actually hold up in court, but I'll save that for another day. It ultimately comes down to who you believe Jesus is.

reply to post by Seede


i believe that today palestinians are the real blod line of real jew from before....

why they convert? cos U dont have to pa tax if U rare muslim that time

I apologize, I shouldn't have called your response childish. Sorry.

You know right from wrong because it is imprinted in your soul. I don't doubt that you are a good person. Regardless of what you believe, I try to grow as a person everyday. Every day I try and be a better person than the day before.

I don't hate you because you don't believe in Christ.

Again, I apologize.

Originally posted by BlueGargoyle

Conservative Datings:
Paul's letters - A.D.50 - 65
Matthew - A.D. 70 - 80
Mark - A.D. 50 - 65
Luke - A.D. Early 60's
John - A.D. 80 - 100

Agreed. So the idea that these four Gospels were written "long after" the death of Jesus is simply not true at all. If you set the time of Jesus' death circa 35 A.D., then they were written from 15 to 65 years after his death, with John being the outlier Gospel AND much different than the Canonical Gospels. So that would be like writing about someone who died between about 1950 to 1997. To put it in perspective

Paul's letters were written 15-30 years after his death (1982 to 1997)
Matthew was written 35 -50 years after his death (1961 to 1977)
Mark was written 15-30 years after his death (1982 to 1997)
Luke was written 25 years after his death (1987)
John was written 80-100 years after his death. (1912 to 1932)

So all but John could have either been alive when Jesus was alive or known people personally who were alive when Jesus was. And from their perspective, it wasn't that long ago. You know people who died in the 80's or 90's, right? It would be like writing about Martin Luther King, Jr. today,

Now take the remarkable similarity between Matthew & Luke--lots of identical phrases, and postulate a third source from which both these were derived: "Q" or "Quelle" and you can probably push the dates back a bit closer. Here's an explanation of Quelle.

Now the fact is Jesus was not a rock star at the time of his ministry. He had a small following. He and his followers thought of themselves as Jews. He kicked up a ruckus and was executed. No one outside of Jerusalem knew or cared one way or another. The Jewish sect grew slowly and had more traction outside Jerusalem where the Jews themselves were not as powerful, so it grew outside the Jewish population, in secular Rome. Paul tried like hell to keep these flocks from deviating from what he saw as "true" Christianity. That's what his letters are all about.

So the answer to the OPs question is: There wasn't that much of a delay in recording it. There was a big delay before Christianity, because of a political ploy on the part of Constantine, actually was placed in power overnight, and THAT is why

the Roman Empire never fell. It just changed hands. (But that's a story for another time.)

reply to post by schuyler

I don't know if I'm going off-topic or engaging in legitimate thread drift, but I'm curious about your statement:

So the answer to the OPs question is: There wasn't that much of a delay in recording it. There was a big delay before Christianity, because of a political ploy on the part of Constantine, actually was placed in power overnight, and THAT is why

I don't understand the "There was a big delay before Christianity" part.

I mentioned Pliny's letter in a post earlier. Here's the link: www.tyrannus.com... Pliny wrote in about 111 A.D. that

I was never present at examinations of Christians, therefore I do not know what is customarily punished, nor to what extent, nor how far to take the investigation. I was quite undecided; should there be any consideration given to age; are those who are however delicate no different from the stronger? Should penitence obtain pardon; or, as has been the case particularly with Christians, to desist makes no difference? Should the name itself be punished (even if crimes are absent), or the crimes that go with the name?

Meanwhile, this is the method I have followed with those who were brought before me as Christians. I asked them directly if they were Christians. The ones who answered affirmatively I questioned again with a warning, and yet a third time: those who persisted I ordered led [away]. For I have no doubt, whatever else they confessed to, certainly [this] pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished. There were others alike of madness, whom I noted down to be sent to the City, because they were Roman citizens. Soon in consequence of this policy itself, as it was made standard, many kinds of criminal charges occurred and spread themselves abroad. A pamphlet was published anonymously, containing the names of many.

Therefore I stopped the examination, and hastened to consult you. For it appears to me a proper matter for counsel, most greatly on account of the number of people endangered. For many of all ages, all classes, and both sexes already are brought into danger, and shall be [in future]. And not only the cities; the contagion of this superstition is spread throughout the villages and the countryside; but it appears to me possible to stop it and put it right.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan for advice in investigating Christians and forcing them to recant. Even though Christianity was spreading all over, and among all the people, he thought he had a chance to stomp it out. Widespread Christianity was up, operating, and being persecuted, two hundred years before Constantine.

But perhaps I misunderstood your point.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by lambs to lions


I apologize, I shouldn't have called your response childish. Sorry.

You know right from wrong because it is imprinted in your soul. I don't doubt that you are a good person. Regardless of what you believe, I try to grow as a person everyday. Every day I try and be a better person than the day before.

I don't hate you because you don't believe in Christ.

Again, I apologize.

edit on 24-6-2012 by lambs to lions because: mistake

No need to apologise, perhaps my reply was too terse, you have every right to believe whatever you will and I have no right to cast scorn on that. It is all to easy to write dismissive remarks on a faceless internet, something I am as much guilty of as anyone else

I do however believe Jesus was real, I have doubts over his divinity however. I do believe in god, or a creative force but not in religion. I find religion, no matter how good the initial intention becomes a blinkered submissive doctrine. It is used by people to control others for their own benefit and has very little to do with morality or god. Those who are genuinely Christian and actually live by its tenants do get my respect though, to be truly Christian is hard, very hard. To turn the other cheek, to offer aide and comfort to those in need no matter their own circumstance, in this world is worthy of respect.

Sorry if I lashed out, I should know better

reply to post by LDragonFire


The problem with your thinking is that you believe Christianity has a monopoly on miracles when the only thing that holds a monopoly on miracles is God Himself..

a2d

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by schuyler

 

I don't know if I'm going off-topic or engaging in legitimate thread drift, but I'm curious about your statement:

So the answer to the OPs question is: There wasn't that much of a delay in recording it. There was a big delay before Christianity, because of a political ploy on the part of Constantine, actually was placed in power overnight, and THAT is why

I don't understand the "There was a big delay before Christianity" part.

My fault for typing too fast, I think. I meant to say there was a big delay before Christianity "became big" or perhaps "took over." For the first couple hundred years it was a smallish cult without much traction and a fair bit of harrassment. Small groups met in people's homes. It wasn't like there were big churches of worship. Obviously it continued to grow until Constantine pushed it over the top.

My contention is that relatively speaking, there was no appreciable delay in recording Jesus's history. It wasn't as if he had a bunch of reporters following him around recording his speeches. With a couple of exceptions all we know of what Jesus said is in snippets of quotes, such as are related in the Gospel of Thomas. And, of course, there is the question of, "Did he really say X?" or was it added on later. One book that tries to come to grips with this is "The Five Gospels" by the Jesus Seminar The "fifth" gospel is Thomas. They placed his quotes in four categories:

Red text: He said it or something very much like it.
Pink Text: Jesus probably said something like this.
Gray Text: Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.
Black text: Jesus did not say this. It represents the perspective of a different or later tradition.

This is controversial, of course. I mention it to show the method used rather than the accuracy of it. Your mileage may vary. The book is terribly difficult to use, lacking an index, for example.

So the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were likely talking to people who remembered Jesus as a fellow from the recent past, with all the problems that entails. It would like be interviewing someone who was "at Woodstock" for their impressions of Jimmi Hendrix's guitar. Of course, many more people claim to have been at Woodstock than were actually there. We do know John McCain didn't make it because he was "tied up at the time." If we didn't have the movie and the books it would fast be fading from history.

With John, written much later, it would be like someone today deciding to write a biography of Theodore Roosevelt. No one is alive who was an adult when he was alive, but there is an established tradition (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Q, Paul's letters, maybe some more) from which to write a more established and fuller account.

Originally posted by aaaiii
As believer in the man, Christ, I have often wondered why his faithful waited 100 years or more to record an historical record of his life.

If he was such an important figure, performed miracles, spoke profoundly on life, was the son of God, why was there such a long period of time between his death and the actual record of his history?

If he was such an important figure why did his disciples not record everything he said and did while he was alive?

Was he possibly made into a more important figure ex post facto to suit the needs of a burgeoning Church?

Paul was writing about Christ 35 years after the crucifixion and the earliest gospel writings were assembled from still earlier writings and oral histories from the earliest days. I don't know what you're talking about when you say it wasn't for 100 years, that's not true.