The "Hole" Story of Jesus Christ?

[Pontiuth Pilate]

I thought I'd read the Bible.

Boy was I wrong.

It turns out that in addition to our four familiar gospelers: Mark, Matt, Luke, and John, SEVENTY-SIX other people [at LEAST] also wrote gospels telling their perspective of the life of Jesus.

It also turns out that the 325 CE Council of Nicea [in addition to putting down the heresy of Arianism, the non-divinity of Christ, an issue that was decided by voting and then anathemizing (an early version of excommunication) - and making war on - those who voted Arian] also settled the issue of WHICH of these 80-odd gospels should be included, and which should be labelled as "apocryphal" and thrown on the dung heap.

Obviously, the four gospels chosen were picked not only because their authors were close to Christ as one of His twelve disciples, but also because their testimony leaves no doubt as to His Divine Origin.

Typically of the Church, many of the other gospels were declared heretical and were burned - or "lost" - and forgotten.

It's only recently that the Gnostic Scrolls and the Dead Sea Scrolls have offered a DIFFERENT version of the life of Christ - one in which he was not only very very human, but also [according to some accounts] MARRIED. Something, of course, that would be a matter of routine to a thirty-year old Jew in a society where bachelorhood was vehemently frowned upon.

Even more interestingly, the "synoptic problem" [the strange correlations and differences between the first three Gospels we use today] leads some to think that there may have been an original "Q" document or Gospel written by Jesus Himself, used as a source for both Luke and Matthew, which was then either lost or deliberately destroyed. They see the Gospels of Thomas and Philip [among the 80] as being variations and elaborations on this original document.

The motive for keeping all this apocrypha relatively unknown [and out of the "real" Bible] is obvious. But are these apocrypha really accurate? Should the Bible be revised to include their testimony?

If so, that would certainly bring Christianity closer to a Deist, non-Divine view of Christ's life, not through the adding of testimony, but through the revelation that so much testimony was arbitrarily discarded.

 

[CivCube]

Of course it would. It's no secret that the church was this way on a lot of documents. Just goes to show how unauthoritive the Bible really is. If you really want to know God, take your nose of the book and look at life.

 

[onejayhawk]

Historically the reason for selection the books which became the New Testament has to do with primacy of source. It was done in 320 at the Council of Nicea, where the Nicean Crede was also written. By that time the number of accounts of the life of Jesus had become problematic because many of the accounts were not very embellished, or clearly derivative or both. So an attempt was made to weed out those clearly in error.

As can be imagined there were, and still are, considerable disputes. Later scholars, notably Luther, were to complain that the standards for inclusion were to low, and that there are books in the NT which are not "Scriptural." Even Luther held them to be good devotional reading, just not rising to level of authority that true scripture commands.

Historically speaking, some of the odder inclusions, eg the shortest book of the Bible, Philemon, has proven an invaluable tool for modern textual methods of verification. The book of Hebrews, historically written by Paul, was clearly not, and its authorship is in dispute. What is not disputed is its right of place.

It is an interesting study to follow the books of the Bible through the disputations. For a century no reputable scholar believed that Moses or any one person wrote Genesis. I mention in another thread the supposed myth of Pilate (nothing personal). There was for a time a school of thought that the Hittites never existed, because there was no room for them in the ancient ME.

All of these and many others are discredited by archiological finds, computer analysis of word choice, etc. In other words modern science, in this case of archiology, anthropology, textuology rather than physics and cosmology.

J

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Right obviously the books in the Bible are more accurate [historically] then what they were once believed to be by an Enlightenment movement that was motivated by pure skepticism taken to extremes. The Bible's been an invaluable historical source.

OTOH, the method of selection at Nicea was so obviously partisan [aside from the necessary discarding of redundant and "uninspiringly written" sources]... basically anything that refuted the Arianist creed [as opposed to the one you mentioned, the Nicean or Divine Creed] was included.

I'm not questioning the accuracy of the NT as a whole, just the fact that the selection of Gospels in particular was made in such a politically sparked atmosphere that it shaped our idea of Jesus as divine [as opposed to the various other interpretations: prophet to the Muslims, outcast rabbi to the Jews, philosopher to the Deists].

There WAS apocrypha that was rightly thrown out - accounts of phoenixes and all sorts of other magical crap - I can find sources on those, I think it was in an epistle that Mark Twain unearthed and wrote about [strange source, but still]. So there was a divine interpretation to begin with, 'cause these were pretty superstitious people. I guess it was just twisted out of context.

 

[onejayhawk]

The people in Nicea had many motives for selecting the books that they did. Their methods of selection can bear careful scrutiny. Basically the books had to be written by an eyewitness, or by a disciple of an eyewitness. Primary sources and all that, and it was not a new concept.

Paul is forced in some of his writings to defend his position as an Apostle, though he was clearly accepted by the 12. The book of Hebrews was pulled in as a book of Paul's, even though it is clearly a work of the highest order on other grounds. Luther suggests Appolos, who is mentioned in Luke's writings as a possible author.

If you are inclined to disbelieve the entirety of the Bible, then the story of its cannonization will hold little charm for you. Remember though that even the church fathers were only drawing the line between good and better.

J

 

[Xen]

perhaps, as a polythesit, it is not my place to enter my voice into this, but, in my opinion, if the books are not enterd into the faith directlly, there should at least be an addendum to the holy books of the religions spawning from that source including them

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Oh, that's not a problem. What the Church didn't burn [no way to judge how large a sample that is, of course] is now all out in the open. Scholars read them and write thesis papers.

The problem is that nobody else reads them. Those whose only experience with Scripture is Easter Egg hunts and the Gideon Foundation seem to think that the 4 gospels we have today dropped from heaven and weren't selected by religious politicians fighting a civil war in the third century - 298 years after Jesus died.

 

[Kryten]

This is a very interesting thread.

Many religious people today tend to ignore the fact that religions have 'evolved' (!) throughout the ages.
For example....

Mithraism: one of the major religions of the Roman Empire, the cult of Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom.
After the conquest of Assyria in the 7th century BC, and of Babylonia in the 6th century BC, Mithra became the god of the sun, which was worshipped in his name.

Mithraism was similar to Christianity in many respects, for example, in the ideals of humility and brotherly love, baptism, the rite of communion, the use of holy water, the adoration of the shepherds at Mithra's birth, the adoption of Sundays and of December 25 (Mithra's birthday) as holy days, and the belief in the immortality of the soul, the last judgement, and the resurrection. Mithraism differed from Christianity in the exclusion of women from its ceremonies and in its willingness to compromise with polytheism. The similarities, however, made possible the easy conversion of its followers to Christian doctrine.

Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2002.

Baptism, communion, holy water, immortality of the soul, the last judgement, the resurrection, shepherds at Mithra's birth, which was on the 25th of December....and all some 700 years before Jesus....
Hmmm....I wonder where the early Christians got their ideas from?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moved to History... to prevent this thread being turned into another religious debate.

I didn't know about this. Interesting.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

You have sparked my interest... 70 other gospels? That's just overwhelming. I have to do some reading...

 

[polymath]

I knew there were a lot, but not 70.

Any linkth, Pontiuth?

 

[Drewcifer]

I can't provide a link but I do own a book called "The Nag Hammadi Library" which has English translations of many of the Gnostic scrolls - they were found in the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi. They were buried sometime in the fourth century by someone who wanted them to survive for posterity. A search for "Nag Hammadi" should be a good place to start.

 

[Stapel]

The 4 biblical gospels are, according to some analysts, only 2 books. Three of them are so similar that it is quite plausible they origin from one. These four gospels were all written around 70AD, so after the seven letters of Paul. (I know there are more, but 7 of them are really written by Paul, The others might be written by Paul, but we cannot be sure). From a historical (and thus not divine) perspective, it is quite unlikely the gospels were indeed written by M, M, L & J.
Some of the close followers of Jesus had great doubts with the way their leader was presented by Paul.
There is quite some literature that describes Jesus as a paramilitaristic rebellion leader.

To me a rebel leader fighting the Romans makes more sense than the Son of God preaching & healing!

 

[wilbill]

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin
You have sparked my interest... 70 other gospels? That's just overwhelming. I have to do some reading...

A lot of them are just fragments - a few verses. Some are pretty interesting. In one (forget the name) a young Jesus get's po'd at one of his playmates, calls down God's wrath, and kills him. I'm guessing this one was written by someone with an axe to grind. Another is the Gospel of Thomas ("doubting Thomas") which is largely a collections of "sayings" of Jesus, kind of like Confucius' sayings.

 

[Kafka2]

Originally posted by Kryten
This is a very interesting thread.

Many religious people today tend to ignore the fact that religions have 'evolved' (!) throughout the ages.
For example....



Baptism, communion, holy water, immortality of the soul, the last judgement, the resurrection, shepherds at Mithra's birth, which was on the 25th of December....and all some 700 years before Jesus....
Hmmm....I wonder where the early Christians got their ideas from?

Other elements of Christianity bear a resemblance to even older faiths- the cult of Osiris being one prominent example. There are archetypes to be found in just about every religion.

This doesn't mean they are false, of course.

 

[Kafka2]

I believe that the Gospel of Mark is the one considered to be most likely to be a truly contemporary gospel.

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by Kafka2
I believe that the Gospel of Mark is the one considered to be most likely to be a truly contemporary gospel.

I thought so too... Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Pikachu]

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate
Obviously, the four gospels chosen were picked not only because their authors were close to Christ as one of His twelve disciples, but also because their testimony leaves no doubt as to His Divine Origin.

In my opinion the four gospels in the bible is not clear about the divine status of Jesus. The gospels do tell that Jesus was Messiah and the Son of God, but I don't think the Jews expected Messiah to be God himself, and according to Jesus all humans are Gods children. There are some things in the gospels that indicate that Jesus was God, but other things indicate the opposite. If the motivation for putting the bible together was to demonstrate that Jesus was God, they did a lousy job.

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate
Even more interestingly, the "synoptic problem" [the strange correlations and differences between the first three Gospels we use today] leads some to think that there may have been an original "Q" document or Gospel written by Jesus Himself, used as a source for both Luke and Matthew, which was then either lost or deliberately destroyed. They see the Gospels of Thomas and Philip [among the 80] as being variations and elaborations on this original document.

I don't think it is strange that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are so similar. According to the tradition, Mark is the oldest of the bible gospels. Both Matthew and Luke had the gospel of Mark right in front of them while they wrote their gospels. They both wanted to write an improved version of Mark so they included almost all of Mark in their gospels.

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate
The motive for keeping all this apocrypha relatively unknown [and out of the "real" Bible] is obvious. But are these apocrypha really accurate? Should the Bible be revised to include their testimony?

If so, that would certainly bring Christianity closer to a Deist, non-Divine view of Christ's life, not through the adding of testimony, but through the revelation that so much testimony was arbitrarily discarded.

At the time of the Nicea council, there was a lot of Jesus related texts available, but their quality, reliability and relevance varied. To put them all in the bible would be meaningless. The New Testament should only contain the best and most important scriptures, and that is what the Nicea council tried to do.

We know that the four gospels they did choose are well written. They have a logical structure, they are easy to read and understand and they focus on the life of Jesus. Many of the gospels that were left out do not have those characteristics.

The gospel of Thomas is simply a collection of Jesus quotes with no continuity. Single quotes that are taken out of it context is easy to misunderstand, and much of the Thomas stuff is also in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Thomas gospel isn't even interesting to read unless you already are interested in Jesus, so I don't see why it must be a part of the bible. Personally I would not mind having it there.

The gospel of Phillip is logical enough, but it is not focused on the life of Jesus. It is more a theological textbook than a gospel. Its mission would be much like the letters in the New Testament, and in my opinion there is too much of that kind in there already. There are several other gospels of this type, but I don't see any reason to include any of them in the bible. They could instead be collected in a theology book for people with particular interest for such things.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is more about her than about Jesus, but it is interesting reading anyway. It is not obvious that it should be a part of the bible, but it could be included the same way as the acts. Unfortunately only parts of it is preserved.


I think the four gospels in the bible are the best of all the old Jesus books I have read. I would not mind having some more in the bible, but not too many. I think four gospels is enough. The line has to be drawn somewhere! It is however unfortunate that many of the old books have been destroyed, but it is too late to does something about that now.

Edit:

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate
It's only recently that the Gnostic Scrolls and the Dead Sea Scrolls have offered a DIFFERENT version of the life of Christ - one in which he was not only very very human, but also [according to some accounts] MARRIED. Something, of course, that would be a matter of routine to a thirty-year old Jew in a society where bachelorhood was vehemently frowned upon.

Who said Jesus wasn’t married? The bible says nothing about that, so we can assume he was married like everybody would have expected him to be. What is that supposed to change?

Btw, if someone wants to read some books that didn’t make it to the bible, there is a large collection of them on
this site.