The New Testament: Orthodoxy and Heresy

[solicitr]

The Patristic Fathers held that Revelation was written not by the disciple John, but by John the Presbyter. This was based (via Papias) on the tradition of Polycarp, who knew the Evangelist personally. Textual scholarship agrees: the Gospel and the Apocalypse are not from the same hand.

Interestingly, Tolkien's friend Austin Farrer has a theory named for him: perhaps the leading minority answer to the "synoptic problem." The Farrer Hypothesis holds that the author of Luke used both Mark and Matthew, whereas the mainstream theory holds that Luke and Matthew wrote independently, based on Mark and the hypothetical "Q."

John of course isn't synoptic and doesn't enter in. But I digress....

[Lalaith]

Yes, there is some question on who wrote Revelation. Our church has always taught that it was John the Apostle. That may be, in part, due to some kind of knee-jerk counter-reaction to what Catholics believe. I suppose it's a bit beside-the-point for this discussion, though.

[Pearly Di]

Reminds me of the oft reported, possibly apocryphal, accounts of conservative Catholics at the time of Vatican II: "If Latin was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!"

I've heard the Protestant 'fundie' equivalent: "If the King James Bible was good enough for St. Paul, it's good enough for me!"

I've never heard anyone actually say such an absurd thing, I hasten to add. But it's a good apocryphal story.

The Baptists I know would treat Job as a true story, though I have heard a few say it is the oldest book in the Bible (by which they mean it was written down before Moses got around to compiling Genesis from the earlier writings of Adam, et al).

Lali, my theological position is that I would not necessarily dismiss Job just as a story. It could be, of course, belonging to the Wisdom literature as it does, but it could also very well be based on a true story that happened a long, long, LONG time ago ... whatever, it's a wonderful, , deep, profound book and is not diminished by whatever its origins were ...

I am not exercised about who compiled and edited the Pentateuch.

(I really can't help but think of the Ainulindalë when I think of Satan as a fallen angel, roaming the earth, destroying and spreading evil and chaos wherever he can.)

Me too, Lali.

The Patristic Fathers held that Revelation was written not by the disciple John, but by John the Presbyter. This was based (via Papias) on the tradition of Polycarp, who knew the Evangelist personally. Textual scholarship agrees: the Gospel and the Apocalypse are not from the same hand.

Thanks for that, soli. I am not very well versed in the Fathers. All good stuff to know and digest.

Interestingly, Tolkien's friend Austin Farrer has a theory named for him: perhaps the leading minority answer to the "synoptic problem." The Farrer Hypothesis holds that the author of Luke used both Mark and Matthew, whereas the mainstream theory holds that Luke and Matthew wrote independently, based on Mark and the hypothetical "Q."

John of course isn't synoptic and doesn't enter in. But I digress....

Oh, that's very interesting too. Tolkien knew some pretty interesting people.

[MithLuin]

Well, when I turn the Book of Revelation into a screenplay, it's going to be a vision of John the Apostle, and part of the story will intercut with his time in Ephesus.

Not that I know how to write screenplays

Or have a clue what the book of Revelation is actually about

But I think it is a very colorful and exciting story, and would make a very vivid movie

Despite the fact that it has a dire warning about adaptations incorporated into it, making the above the least of my worries:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. Revelation 22:18-19

"Q" is interesting, like the Yahwehist and Elohist traditions in the Torah. Definitely adds 'unexplored vistas' to the realm of Biblical scholarship. For the record, Polycarp has an unfortunate name.


But I should probably add something serious to this discussion, and it will be this: concerning Job, whether or not he and his friends were real people who got into debates, there were certainly many people who had a boatload of bad things happen to them, and probably at least one of them learned to say, in the midst of all his misfortunes: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." In that sense, the story is "true." Whether or not said man named his daughter "jar of mascara" is not really important to me, so it wouldn't bother me to find out it's not true. The reason you can write a "true" story like the book of Job is because it happened all the time, not because it never happened. Does that make any sense?

[anthriel]

But I should probably add something serious to this discussion, and it will be this: concerning Job, whether or not he and his friends were real people who got into debates, there were certainly many people who had a boatload of bad things happen to them, and probably at least one of them learned to say, in the midst of all his misfortunes: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." In that sense, the story is "true." Whether or not said man named his daughter "jar of mascara" is not really important to me, so it wouldn't bother me to find out it's not true. The reason you can write a "true" story like the book of Job is because it happened all the time, not because it never happened. Does that make any sense?

Yes, perfectly, Mith.

I've struggled a bit with the idea of "is the bible literally true", because it seems to matter so much to other people. I can, without hesitation, say that I do not really care if there was a literal Job, and he said all the things quoted to him literally, etc. To me, the point of the thing is the moral behind the story. The reason for the story. The lesson, there (which, with Job, is a difficult lesson for me, sometimes!).

Was he a real guy, one person who went through all that, exactly that way? Maybe. Could be. Can't rule it out. Can't prove it. What would change if we could prove it true? Nothing? What would change if we could prove it never happened, just that way?

Nothing?

I guess that should matter to me, but it doesn't.

[MithLuin]

There are some events were it 'really matters' if it happened or not, but the Book of Job isn't one of them. I'm thinking of the Exodus - if you were to say that God didn't really rescue the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt...that would change the story. Same with Jesus' death and resurrection. The Sermon on the Mount might work as a stand-alone, but if you say Jesus never really lived (or never really rose again after death), that...makes a difference. The story doesn't mean the same thing if it didn't actually happen.

Whereas the book of Job...doesn't lose anything for being taken in a more mythic sense. Because then he is representing real people, whose stories are lost or clouded. It's still 'true', even if it isn't literally factually acurate.

Obviously, there are differences of opinion as to which parts of the Bible fall into which category. Some people would get a lot of meaning from the story of Adam and Eve by taking them as people who represent our first parents...in a mythic sense. Others would be very upset if you didn't take the first two chapters of Genesis very...literally. Few people take it as all literal (ie, a reference to 'four corners of the earth' means that the world must be flat) or all figurative (Jesus's resurrection is a metaphor for...) I try to look at what the point of the story is to figure out which meaning is more relevant, but if you disagree on that, you are going to disagree on your reading of it, as well.

[Túrin Turambar]

Yes, there is some question on who wrote Revelation. Our church has always taught that it was John the Apostle.

That’s a hard argument to maintain given the stylistic differences between John’s other works and Revelation. The Gospel of John and the Epistles of John are written in clear literary Greek, while the original version of Revelation is clunky and contains spelling and grammar errors. I would suggest that being accredited to the Apostle John has been a major factor in keeping it in the ‘divine revelation’ camp as opposed to the ‘ravings of a lunatic’ camp. It was still being challenged into the 4th century, and Martin Luther claimed that Jesus ‘neither knew it nor taught it’. Certainly I find it hard to reconcile with Jesus’ own eschatological prophecy in the Synoptics. Or, it must be said, with anything else.

It should also be mentioned that there’s significant dispute over who wrote the other books accredited to John. I understand that there is no consensus that the Gospel and the other books were written by the same John, that the Gospel of John has one single author (as I mentioned upthread, the impression I got was that it was believed to have been several), or that any of those people were John the Apostle. Certainly both the Gospel and the Epistles are written to a standard of Greek that would have probably been beyond a Galilean fisherman, even using a secretary, and appear to have been written too late to have been the work of one of Jesus’ contemporaries.

But I think it is a very colorful and exciting story, and would make a very vivid movie

The author of The Brick Testament has been having fun adapting Revelations.

As to the Q Document, we should probably soon have a look as the Gospel of Thomas. It’s an example of what a straight ‘sayings Gospel’ could look like.

Here’s a translation.

The Gospel was found with other Gnostic literature, and has several Gnostic (or at least dualistic) elements. For example, the introduction refers to ‘secret sayings’ by the ‘living Jesus’ (similar to John’s Logos). Jesus also makes references to the demiurge (the ‘Lion’), and the Gospel seems to reject the idea of a bodily resurrection in favour of a spiritual one.

[solicitr]

Although John as we have it seems to have been reprocessed and in part written by a single editorial hand, a very educated, Hellenized individual, it has always struck my lay eye that the Passion narrative was not (originally) written by a Gentile, but rather by a Jew very familiar with Jerusalem's geography and social currents at the time: in short, it's plausible that the "original draft" of the last chapters were written or related by an eyewitness, perhaps the disciple himself.

Whereas the famous opening chapter and much else reflects a great deal of Neoplatonic influence one would hardly expect in a Galilean fisherman! Most scholarship views the Fourth Gospel in its final form as the product of a "Johannine community" at Ephesus. (But even the early Fathers were skeptical of the authenticity of the 2nd and especially 3rd Epistles).

I'm not entirely sold on "Q." I have suspicions that it is another figment of late-Victorian scholarly bloodymindedness, a gap-filling entity like aether and phlogiston. Added to this was a perhaps excessive excitement over Thomas when it was unearthed in 1892 (remember all the "Was Jesus an Essene" stuff that mushroomed up after the Qumran discoveries?)

I for one wouldn't rule out Matthean priority, if by that is understood the Aramaic original rather than the edited Greek text we have.

[Túrin Turambar]

Although John as we have it seems to have been reprocessed and in part written by a single editorial hand, a very educated, Hellenized individual, it has always struck my lay eye that the Passion narrative was not (originally) written by a Gentile, but rather by a Jew very familiar with Jerusalem's geography and social currents at the time: in short, it's plausible that the "original draft" of the last chapters were written or related by an eyewitness, perhaps the disciple himself.

Whereas the famous opening chapter and much else reflects a great deal of Neoplatonic influence one would hardly expect in a Galilean fisherman! Most scholarship views the Fourth Gospel in its final form as the product of a "Johannine community" at Ephesus. (But even the early Fathers were skeptical of the authenticity of the 2nd and especially 3rd Epistles).

I think it very likely that the Apostle was the first author – I read somewhere that parts of the Gospel of John seem to date to 50 AD, about the time that someone who was a contemporary of Jesus would feel the need to write down his experiences before he died. He may have left something of a sayings/signs Gospel himself, that his own followers subsequently added theological material to as to make the complete package by around 100 AD.

I'm not entirely sold on "Q." I have suspicions that it is another figment of late-Victorian scholarly bloodymindedness, a gap-filling entity like aether and phlogiston. Added to this was a perhaps excessive excitement over Thomas when it was unearthed in 1892 (remember all the "Was Jesus an Essene" stuff that mushroomed up after the Qumran discoveries?)

The Gospel of Thomas suggests that lists of the sayings of Jesus were floating around early Christian communities, which makes the existence of a Q-Document highly plausible. It makes sense when you think about – Christianity was originally spread by word of mouth. As I argued in the first post, early Christians quite likely believed that the second coming was imminent and so there was no need to write things down as they had people who had been eyewitnesses to the events. If there was going to be any writing, it would have been lists of sayings of Jesus so that they could know his exact wording. It would not have been necessary, at first, to give general biographical information on him or discussions on theology, which they would have already known. The writings of the Gospels themselves would have been made necessary by the death of the first generation of Christians, the spread of Christianity into new communities and the rise of heterodox churches.

Given that there is some material shared by any two of the Synoptic Gospels but not the third, there’s only so many possible explanations. Either they were all written in succession with material being added and subtracted along the way, or two of them used the third and another common source. And given that much of the shared material is specific accounts of the sayings and doings of Jesus rather than biographical of theological passages, it seems likely that a fourth document with a list of such sayings and doings was used.

I for one wouldn't rule out Matthean priority, if by that is understood the Aramaic original rather than the edited Greek text we have.

I’ve always understood that the mainstream scholarly position was that all of the Gospels were originally composed in Greek. It would make sense that Matthew would have been written originally in Aramic, given that it was written by a Jewish-Christian for other Jewish-Christians, but it shares enough identical wording with Luke and Mark to suggest to me that they were written in the same language from sources in the same language.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Was he a real guy, one person who went through all that, exactly that way? Maybe. Could be. Can't rule it out. Can't prove it. What would change if we could prove it true? Nothing? What would change if we could prove it never happened, just that way?

Nothing?

I guess that should matter to me, but it doesn't.

I don't think that those to whom it matters have anything to apologize for. But equally I don't think that you have anything to apologize for saying that it doesn't matter to you. Different beliefs work for different people, and I think it is enormously important to try to understand what it is that different people believe, and why, without judging each other one way or the other.

[anthriel]

Was he a real guy, one person who went through all that, exactly that way? Maybe. Could be. Can't rule it out. Can't prove it. What would change if we could prove it true? Nothing? What would change if we could prove it never happened, just that way?

Nothing?

I guess that should matter to me, but it doesn't.

I don't think that those to whom it matters have anything to apologize for. But equally I don't think that you have anything to apologize for saying that it doesn't matter to you. Different beliefs work for different people, and I think it is enormously important to try to understand what it is that different people believe, and why, without judging each other one way or the other.

Well said.

There are some events were it 'really matters' if it happened or not, but the Book of Job isn't one of them. I'm thinking of the Exodus - if you were to say that God didn't really rescue the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt...that would change the story. Same with Jesus' death and resurrection. The Sermon on the Mount might work as a stand-alone, but if you say Jesus never really lived (or never really rose again after death), that...makes a difference. The story doesn't mean the same thing if it didn't actually happen.

Absolutely true. I edited out some of what I had written, and now I see it in your response; I must care about factuality of the resurrection of Christ. And I do believe that to be true.

[solicitr]

Except- and this is a big except- only 3% of Mark is actually unique, and only another 3% common with Luke but not Matthew. Whereas 94% of Mark is found in Matthew.

It was simply postulated, over a century ago, that Mark "must" be the oldest, because it's the shortest. But there's no actual evidence for the priority in time of any of the Synoptics: but for the affirmative declarations by the Fathers that Matthew (in Hebrew or Aramaic)* came first.

If Mark is an abridged version of Matthew, the need for Q vanishes.

And I don't find that a possibility so unreasonable as to be excluded from all consideration. Mark, it's generally agreed, was written at Rome for the Roman Christian community; and there was little reason to lay out to a bunch of Gentiles all of Matthew's Judaica and Old Testament references. Romans really didn't care whether he came from the House of David, or fulfilled something Isaiah prophesied.

Q is also unnecessary under the Farrer Hypothesis: Matthew worked from Mark, and Luke worked from both: nothing left for which it's needed to invent an asterisk-text.

The Gospel of Thomas suggests that lists of the sayings of Jesus were floating around early Christian communities, which makes the existence of a Q-Document highly plausible

I would put it less strongly: what Thomas suggests is that a 'Sayings of Jesus' was floating around an Egyptian Gnostic community in the 3rd Century- which is not quite the same thing. I don't really think it especially plausible that the earliest communities would have been circulating Jesus' sayings, but not his biography: the Incarnation and Resurrectiuon are all Paul (the oldest author we have) ever really wrote about, barely referring to teachings or parables. **


*Matthew as we have it was of course written in Greek; but, in addition to Papias and Iraenaeus et al, it would be astounding to think that the "Gospel to the Jews" was not originally written in a language they understood! Remember, not one of the Gospels as we have them can be considered an "authentic" text- but it has been suggested by some that the Old Syriac (East Aramaic) texts of Matthew represent an *older* version or tradition than the Greek.

** There might be a faint whiff of post-Christian intellectuality surrounding the old text-scholars- Jesus' importance was of course as a 'great moral teacher,' not Salvator Mundi. Whereas I suspect the primitive Pauline Church saw things rather differently.

[Túrin Turambar]

Except- and this is a big except- only 3% of Mark is actually unique, and only another 3% common with Luke but not Matthew. Whereas 94% of Mark is found in Matthew.

It was simply postulated, over a century ago, that Mark "must" be the oldest, because it's the shortest. But there's no actual evidence for the priority in time of any of the Synoptics: but for the affirmative declarations by the Fathers that Matthew (in Hebrew or Aramaic)* came first.

There’s far more evidence than that.

For example, Mark preserves some of Jesus’ quotations in Aramic. It’s hard to understand why an author writing to non-Aramic-speaking gentiles would have bothered to do so when an author writing to Aramic-speaking Jews (Matthew) would not. And if he did use the Greek version of Matthew, he would have needed to go to the trouble of translating those passages into Aramic or referring to a list of Jesus’ quotations in Aramic, which presumably Matthew must have referred to as well.

Also, the differences between Mark and the other Synoptics are far more easily explained if Matthew and Luke are copying Mark rather than visa-versa. For example, Mark alone recounts an incident (14:51-52) where a man goes up to Jesus, takes off his clothes and runs away. It seems odd that Mark, had he been copying Matthew, would have removed half of Jesus’ sermons and then gone to the trouble of recounting that meaningless anecdote. Similarly, references to Jesus being emotional, being given lip by his disciples, not knowing things or being unable to do things are far more likely to be found in Mark. A classic example is in Mark 8:22-26, where Jesus needs to try twice to heal a man. The other Gospels omit his failed first attempt. It seems odd that, had Mark been using Matthew or Luke, he would have added something like that. Also, Mark alone mentions (at 3:21) that Jesus’ own family thought he was insane – that’s a fact far more likely to be omitted than included.

A really fascinating clue comes from apparent copyists’ fatigue in Matthew and Luke. For example, Mark erroneously refers to Herod with the title ‘basileus’ throughout his Gospel. Matthew correctly starts off calling him ‘tetrarch’ but then ends up lapsing into ‘basileus’ later on, especially when writing verses identical to those found in Mark. That makes more sense if you assume Matthew was copying Mark than visa-versa.

Finally, Mark’s language is simply more primitive and more clone to clunky passages. The other Gospels inevitably say what he says more eloquently.

And if you accept Markean priority, at the very least Matthew must have had another extensive source. Given that he was living and working in the Middle East, it seems reasonable to suggest that Matthew would have been able to access things like eyewitness accounts, possibly in the form of lists of stories and quotations. At the very least, Matthew must have used Mark and another source, and Luke used Matthew and Mark. But that doesn’t explain why Matthew and Luke virtually never disagree with Mark even when they disagree with each other.

The Gospel of Thomas suggests that lists of the sayings of Jesus were floating around early Christian communities, which makes the existence of a Q-Document highly plausible

I would put it less strongly: what Thomas suggests is that a 'Sayings of Jesus' was floating around an Egyptian Gnostic community in the 3rd Century- which is not quite the same thing. I don't really think it especially plausible that the earliest communities would have been circulating Jesus' sayings, but not his biography: the Incarnation and Resurrectiuon are all Paul (the oldest author we have) ever really wrote about, barely referring to teachings or parables. [...] There might be a faint whiff of post-Christian intellectuality surrounding the old text-scholars- Jesus' importance was of course as a 'great moral teacher,' not Salvator Mundi. Whereas I suspect the primitive Pauline Church saw things rather differently.

The Gospel of Thomas was composed sometime between 50-150 AD, and more likely over that time period. It seems likely that it was composed using some of the same sources as Matthew (given their shared quotations), and it’d be odd for the author to simply extract them from a narrative. It’s a more likely explanation that both Gospels were based on similar Judean sources, which, based on the shared material between Thomas and Matthew and Matthew and Mark, seemed to mostly consist of quotations.

Markean priority would also suggest that Matthew was originally written in Greek.

[solicitr]

I'm a complete agnostic as to the Synoptic Problem. But I don't like "consensuses" that rely too heavily on assumed premises and suppositions; and the Occam/lawyer in me really gets uncomfortable whenever hypothetical agencies are supposed. So in what follows bear in mind that I'm simply expressing doubts about the certitude of the Two-Source Hypothesis, not coming down in favor of the Augustinians!

Mark’s language is simply more primitive and more clone to clunky passages. The other Gospels inevitably say what he says more eloquently.

Which assumes a big, fat, hairy premise, in fact two: that "cruder" implies "older;" as well as a quiet denial that Matthew has passed through the hands of one or more editors. All that the 'clunkiness' (and Latinisms) of Mark establish is that its author didn't have a good command of educated Greek (and probably lived in the Latinate West).

In fact there is, to me, an understandable over-reliance on the part of the old textual scholars on textual details of the Matthew they have before them, and thereby to conflate the author with the editor(s) or possibly translator.

Now Matthew published also a book of the Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the Church

Not only Iranaeus (who knew Polycarp), but also Papias, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome himself all concur that Matthew was first written in Aramaic or "the dialect of the Hebrews;" Jerome claimed to have seen the Aramaic Matthew himself. Which in turn raises at least the counter-hypothesis, not lightly to be dismissed, that the textual details of the Greek version, including such things as the basileus/tetrarch matter, reflect on the translator and not the author. 'Basileus' does indeed look like copyist fatigue, but what was being copied? That it was Mark is an assumption; it could just as well have been the Aramaic proto-Matthew.

This is not to say that I'm sold on Matthean priority either- just that there are no certainties. But I'm really, really not sold on "Q" (the existence of which is not mentioned in *any* ancient source)- and under either Markan or Matthean priority it's simply not necessary. Q was invented because of a supposed independence of Luke from Matthew that simply isn't warranted- they agree with one another against Mark too many times to be ignored.

[Túrin Turambar]

Which assumes a big, fat, hairy premise, in fact two: that "cruder" implies "older;" as well as a quiet denial that Matthew has passed through the hands of one or more editors.

But it doesn’t negate the strength of the other evidence. And it’s possible that Matthew was edited since Mark copied from it. But then you need to explain why no early, unedited copies of Matthew have been found, which would be difficult given they were apparently floating around the Empire as far away from Syria as Rome. You also need to explain why Mark omitted so many important passages in favour of trivia like the story of the man in the linen cloth. You can explain the content difference and the difference in language by simply assuming that Matthew copied from Mark.

'Basileus' does indeed look like copyist fatigue, but what was being copied? That it was Mark is an assumption; it could just as well have been the Aramaic proto-Matthew.

Why would the Aramic proto-Matthew give Herod a Greek title? And if it did, why would it give him the incorrect one? And if Mark copied off Matthew, why would he use the incorrect one consistently?

This is not to say that I'm sold on Matthean priority either- just that there are no certainties. But I'm really, really not sold on "Q" (the existence of which is not mentioned in *any* ancient source)- and under either Markan or Matthean priority it's simply not necessary. Q was invented because of a supposed independence of Luke from Matthew that simply isn't warranted- they agree with one another against Mark too many times to be ignored.

With the help of the Skeptics Annotated Bible I can answer this one.

Points where Mark and Luke agree against Matthew:

Did God address Jesus or the audience at his Baptism? (ML say Jesus, M says audience)
How many Gadarene men were possessed by devils? (ML say one, M says two)
Was Jarius’ daughter still alive when she was approached by Jesus? (ML say yes, M says no)
How many blind men were healed near Jericho? (ML says one, M says two)
What did Jesus ride into Jerusalem? (ML says a colt, M says a colt and an ass)
Did the sign over Jesus’ head on the cross give his name? (ML says no, M says yes)
Was the tomb opened or closed when the women arrived? (ML says closed, M says opened)
Were the angles inside or outside of the tomb? (ML says inside, M says outside)
Where did Jesus appear to his eleven disciples? (ML says Jerusalem, M says Galilee)

Points where Matthew and Mark disagree with Luke:

Did Herod think Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead? (MM says yes, L says no)
How many days after Jesus foretold his death did he turn water into wine? (MM says six, L says eight)
Was the blind man outside Jericho healed when Jesus was entering or leaving the city? (MM say leaving, L says entering)
Did Herod’s or Pilate’s soldiers put the robe on Jesus? (MM says Pilate’s, L says Herod’s)
Did one of the thieves being crucified with Jesus call on him to ‘remember me’? (MM says no, L says yes)
Did the temple veil rip before or after Jesus died? (MM says after, L says before)
What did the centurion call Jesus? (MM – the son of God, L – a righteous man)
Were there one or two angels in the tomb? (MM – one, L – two)
Where did the resurrected Jesus tell his disciples to go? (MM – Galilee, L – Jerusalem)

Points where Matthew and Luke disagree with Mark:

Did Jesus tell his apostles to take a staff and wear sandals? (ML says yes, M says no)
Did Jesus say Peter would deny him before the cock crows once or before it crows twice? (ML says once, M says twice)
Did the cock crow after Peter’s first denial? (flows on from the above – ML says no, Mark says yes)
Did the women immediately tell the disciples that they had seen Jesus resurrected? (ML says yes, M says no)

Essentially, Luke and Matthew are only united against Mark on three points – whether Jesus told the disciples to go barefoot and without a staff, the cock crow/denial incident and whether the women went immediately to the disciples. Matthew and Luke agree with Mark far more often than each other.

[Túrin Turambar]

Two more points that we've already touched on:

1. What commandments are Christians obliged to follow? And more importantly, are they obliged to enforce them with Old Testament Law? Let’s use the 4th/5th Commandment (Honour thy father and mother) as an example.

In Matthew 19:18-20 Jesus tells the young man to follow several specific commandments, including this one. In Mark 7:5-15 (which Mith quoted upthread) Jesus apparently rejects Jewish dietary restrictions, but also seems to confirm that you should honour your father and mother.

The commandment itself is quoted alone in Ex 20:12, but then God expands on it in Ex 21:14-17 by adding that anyone who strikes or curses their mother and father should be killed. Jesus is apparently critical of the Pharisees for not following through:

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.

And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

I’ve got no idea how all this would work with ‘render unto Caesar...’.

Interestingly, Jesus gives a different list of commandments in each Gospel. Each author agrees that you should not murder, steal, commit adultery, dishonour your father and mother or bear false witness (Matthew 19:17-19, Mark 10:19 and Luke 18:20). But Matthew has him ad ‘and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ while Mark lists Jesus’ sixth commandment as ‘defraud not’. He doesn’t seem to care about taking other Gods, making idols, or taking the Lord’s name in vain (although in Matthew he later affirms the need to keep the Sabbath) .

2. I did not quote from Revelation in the start of the thread, but it does contain numerous references to the impending second coming. Jesus says “I come quickly” at least four times (3:11, 22:7, 22:12, 22:20), and John of Patmos affirms that the things described will shortly come to pass (1:1, 1:3). Furthermore, Jesus himself gives no account of the elaborate eschatology in John when he himself describes the end of the world in the Synoptics. Either the book is not designed to be taken literally or it has some serious issues.

So what does it mean?

[Cerin]

1. What commandments are Christians obliged to follow?

A Christian doesn't follow commandments because we're obliged to, in the sense that one is obliged, whose righteousness is defined, established and maintained by following a certain compendium of commandments. A Christian's actions flow from their relationship with God through Jesus Christ, rather than being the means of establishing and maintaining that relationship, as was the case with the Israelites and the law.

As I think Mith explained quite well in a previous post, if a person loves his neighbor, that will encompass the commandments that involve personal and interpersonal morality and conduct. The minutiae of the Mosaic Law with regard to ritual purification serves no function for a Christian, who is cleansed by the blood of Christ and whose acknowledged sin therefore no longer separates him from God.

Interestingly, Jesus gives a different list of commandments in each Gospel. Each author agrees that you should not murder, steal, commit adultery, dishonour your father and mother or bear false witness (Matthew 19:17-19, Mark 10:19 and Luke 18:20). But Matthew has him ad ‘and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ while Mark lists Jesus’ sixth commandment as ‘defraud not’. He doesn’t seem to care about taking other Gods, making idols, or taking the Lord’s name in vain (although in Matthew he later affirms the need to keep the Sabbath) .

I'm not sure why this leaves you scratching your head. It makes perfect sense that various books of the Bible would contain different information and emphases if they're meant to be taken as a whole. I mean, what would be the point of having four gospels, if they were all identical to one another?

The commandment itself is quoted alone in Ex 20:12, but then God expands on it in Ex 21:14-17 by adding that anyone who strikes or curses their mother and father should be killed. Jesus is apparently critical of the Pharisees for not following through:

The meaning I see in 7-15, is that the Pharisees have established and maintained traditions surrounding the commandments that are contrary to the spirit of the commandments. In this case, they've established a tradition that allows people to withhold financial support from their parents in the name of giving gifts to God, and Jesus is apparently saying that this violates the spirit of the commandment, 'Honor thy father and thy mother'.

I don't see a substantive reference here to the penalty aspect related to the Exodus verses you cited. No, I don't think Christians are bound to follow penalties laid out in the Mosaic law. We operate under a new covenant spiritually, and are instructed to obey civil authority in the manifest world.


(I have no insight to offer on Revelation.)