Gospel -- thoughts
Jan. 15th, 2009 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI won't try and summarise the background, for it would be too simplified and provoke much correction. If you're as ignorant of early Christian History as I am, you can do worse than starting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels and reading articles linked from there (though you can presumably do better too).
Just about every combination of relationship between Mark, Matthew, and Luke has been proposed by scholars at some point. (Someone even had an enumeration.) For what it's worth, when I was reading, I bore in mind Matthew and Luke being based on Mark and something else (either both on X, or Luke on Matthew, or some combination).
Small observations:
* Mark presents a generally simple and consistent story, although it lacks a lot of the more detailed accounts of the other gospels. It's very consistent with the idea of Jesus as a wandering preacher like John the Baptist.
* All the gospels have an account of Jesus calming a storm, and the disciples saying "even" the wind and the waves obey him. It's interesting to compare this story to the "Which is easier? To say your sins are forgiven, or to say get up and walk? Your sins are forgiven. But now, get up and walk." quote.
* Indeed, now I'm acutely aware of the suggestion that many passages are pre-emptive strikes against heresies people were promulgating around the time the gospel was written. I just can't reliably tell which.
* When Jesus turns up in Nazareth, he's described as having a fairly normal family, and commenting that no-one ever believes in a prophet where he grew up. The later gospels have a passage where his mother and brothers try to visit him, and he says "no, those who believe are my true family". There's not yet suggestions that his early years were characterised by miracles.
* The resurrection is mainly "several women called Mary turned up, and the body was gone, and someone told them Jesus had risen." Most of the miracles accord to Jesus' death. (There's more details in the other gospels.)
* Although if you're taking a very literal reading, I notice that it says "Joseph bought some linen cloth, took the body down, and wrapped it in the cloth. Then he laid it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb." I don't know what normal burial customs would have been then, if Joseph actually did it himself or had twenty-one servants do it for him, or what a normal size of stone would be, but it got there somehow.
* Matthew reads like someone ticking boxes. "Step one. Burn bras. Step two ???. Step three. Come from Bethlehem. Step four. Come from Egypt. Step five. Come from Nazareth... Step n-1. Be messiah. Step n. Profit spiritually." :)
* John (and Acts of the Apostles and "letters to") has all the theology in.
Just about every combination of relationship between Mark, Matthew, and Luke has been proposed by scholars at some point. (Someone even had an enumeration.) For what it's worth, when I was reading, I bore in mind Matthew and Luke being based on Mark and something else (either both on X, or Luke on Matthew, or some combination).
Small observations:
* Mark presents a generally simple and consistent story, although it lacks a lot of the more detailed accounts of the other gospels. It's very consistent with the idea of Jesus as a wandering preacher like John the Baptist.
* All the gospels have an account of Jesus calming a storm, and the disciples saying "even" the wind and the waves obey him. It's interesting to compare this story to the "Which is easier? To say your sins are forgiven, or to say get up and walk? Your sins are forgiven. But now, get up and walk." quote.
* Indeed, now I'm acutely aware of the suggestion that many passages are pre-emptive strikes against heresies people were promulgating around the time the gospel was written. I just can't reliably tell which.
* When Jesus turns up in Nazareth, he's described as having a fairly normal family, and commenting that no-one ever believes in a prophet where he grew up. The later gospels have a passage where his mother and brothers try to visit him, and he says "no, those who believe are my true family". There's not yet suggestions that his early years were characterised by miracles.
* The resurrection is mainly "several women called Mary turned up, and the body was gone, and someone told them Jesus had risen." Most of the miracles accord to Jesus' death. (There's more details in the other gospels.)
* Although if you're taking a very literal reading, I notice that it says "Joseph bought some linen cloth, took the body down, and wrapped it in the cloth. Then he laid it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb." I don't know what normal burial customs would have been then, if Joseph actually did it himself or had twenty-one servants do it for him, or what a normal size of stone would be, but it got there somehow.
* Matthew reads like someone ticking boxes. "Step one. Burn bras. Step two ???. Step three. Come from Bethlehem. Step four. Come from Egypt. Step five. Come from Nazareth... Step n-1. Be messiah. Step n. Profit spiritually." :)
* John (and Acts of the Apostles and "letters to") has all the theology in.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 09:16 pm (UTC)I get the impression from my reading of the gospels that the Holy Spirit is key to some of the overtly supernatural actions of Jesus, and this seems to match the pattern in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I could be wrong, but it seems like a reasonable assumption.
Jesus could have performed miracles prior to those miracles recorded in the scriptures, but I suppose I wonder why they weren't recorded. More importantly than that though if he performed miracles beforehand one has to wonder why his family are unaware that he has.