Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament: the order of books according to Jesus Chri st

[lclapshaw]

I agree with Russell Gmirkin above. I'm just starting the book but the raw amount of useful information and links so far makes the book worth every penny.

[Giuseppe]

But these literatures may have been to one degree or another synchronic,

Mlinssen finds a precursor in his theory about the rivalry between Chrestus and Christ, and one who assumes a synchronic production of these literatures, in Georges Ory, Le Christ et Jésus.

[billd89]

mlinssen (Martijn) hasn't posted in nearly two months. Unusual?

[Peter Kirby]

mlinssen (Martijn) hasn't posted in nearly two months. Unusual?

His emails indicate that he does not want to participate on the forum directly.

[rgprice]

the book shows there is a statically significant (ie massive) difference between the gospels and epistles
few XS (the derived Christ) in the gospels compared to epistles, and the other way round

it argues the best explanation is the gospels are earlier and subsequently added to the later epistles
this explains the lack of almost anything 'Pauline' in the gospels and why they don't even know who Paul is, they don't know his XS either

in other words the Pauline terminology and theology just isn't in the gospels (or Acts). It's because the gospels predate this later development

he shows using statistics why all the contortions to make the epistles predate the gospels are never going to work, that initial assumption is just flawed from the start. the XS/Chrest/Christ of the epistles is a development on from earlier phase(s)

i think one reason for the confusion is the gospels were added 'to' the epistles and some redaction occurred, but not a wholesale creation by anyone who was closely connected to an epistle using group/community. they did not write the gospels as an 'allegory for Paul' or any of those contortions to try and make the epistles come first when they clearly don't know who he is or the cultic terminology and beliefs of the epistles and in general are a bad fit

The problem here is that there are many other indications that at least the Gospel of Mark is dependent on the Pauline letters. And vice versa, there are many indications that the epistle writers, except for the Pastorals, didn't know the Gospels.

It also has to be pointed out, which Martijn does not at all address in his book, that the ORIGINAL assumption was that the Gospels were written before the epistles. It is only recent scholarship that has advanced the idea the epistles came first. The more traditional view is that the Gospels were first.

Why are teh epistles so vague about who Jesus is? Why are there no details about his life? Certainly many later forged epistles did include Gospel details, such as 3 Corinthians.

Likewise, there are numerous indications that the writer of the "Gospel of Mark", or of content that we now find in Mark, knew the Pauline letters. In fact I'd say the whole narrative is driven by the Pauline letters and makes dozens of literary allusions to them.

What we are left with is certainly a deeper puzzle, but Martijn's conclusion just doesn't hold. If only it were so simple!

Martijn tries to make a simple conclusion to explain ONE set of features, but his conclusion ignores dozens of other features. Unfortunately, this leaves us with an even more complex problem. How do we explain the fact that the Gospels were written after at least some Pauline letters and that the Gospel writers knew the Pauline letters, while also explaining why it is that there appears to be a major disconnect between the concept of XS in the Gospels and the Pauline letters?

Martijn does do a good job of framing the importance of this question, but his solution is far too simplistic.

[rgprice]

I have a hypothesis about why we see this discrepancy between the use of Christ in the Gospels and the epistles. This has to do with my overall view on the development of the scriptures.

I think that the first "scriptures" that were produced were the Pauline letters. A Pauline letter collection of "Letters to Seven Churches", which was organized chronologically according to when the letters were written. As a companion to this letter collection a narrative about Paul's ministry was written to preface the letter collection. The narrative follows the chronology of the letters, beginning with Paul's conversion through a vision of Jesus (which is not what I think Paul actually meant, but its how it was depicted) and then his travels to Macedonia, etc. ending with a trial of Paul in Jerusalem, where he is arrested and taken to Rome.

Then someone wrote a preface to that narrative, which is largely preserved in the Gospel of Mark. But the original version of this narrative was written such that it was intended to be followed directly by the story about Paul's conversion. And it is in the story of Paul's conversion that the reader is first introduced to "Jesus Christ" or IS XS.

The introduction of IS XS is intended by the writer of the original Gospel to be a "big reveal". Along the way, writer of the original Gospel plays coy with the identity of Jesus, intentionally avoiding revealing exactly who Jesus is and exactly identifying him as IS XS.

I would say its possible also that instead of there being this two stage process like I've described, its also possible that instead of there first being narrative about Paul only, the first story was the whole story that went from the introduction of Jesus into the ministry of Paul, all written at the same time by the same writer. That's also a possibility. But either way, there was at some point a collection that consisted of a Gospel story that opened with the introduction of Jesus and his ministry, in which his identity remained a mystery, then had his Crucifixion and his appearance to Paul as "Jesus Christ, followed by the Pauline letters.

Then, someone took this longer narrative and they copied only up to the point where the women flee from the tomb and they leave off the part about Jesus appearing to Paul and the rest of Paul's ministry, because that part isn't "about Jesus", its about Paul. And they label this writing "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ", because they have in fact only copied the beginning of the story. But in giving the story the title, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ", they actually ruin a major plot device of the writer, essentially giving away the ending, which, ironically, they themselves have left out.

This explains why the title is what it is, and why the Gospel of Mark avoids ever actually identifying its protagonist as "'Jesus Christ". And every other Gospel just follows suit, because every other Gospel is derived from the truncated story.

However, someone did get their hands on the whole story, which then became the basis of Acts of the Apostles. Acts of the Apostles preserves elements of the original longer ending of the original Gospel in the first person passages. This is why, without much effort, one can read from Mark 16:9 right into the narrative about Paul's vision of Jesus on the road.

[dbz]

[W]hat does that mysterious ΧΣ stand for, χριστός or χρηστός? The first word means 'anointed' in Greek, the second means 'good', and it is widely assumed that Jesus Christ is the 'Anointed One' - yet even that phrase does not appear anywhere in the New Testament.

John 1:41 and 4:25 both specifically use the word ‘Messiah’, which is the Hebrew word for ‘Anointed’, so Linssen is wrong about it never being used. There’s also the fact that the Synoptics all describe Jesus – or IS, if you like that better – in ways that align with the kinds of things Jews expected of the Messiah at the time; the description depicts an apocalyptic preacher who performs miraculous healings which are signs that he’s ‘the one who is to come’, and two of the Synoptics claim he was descended from David and born in Bethlehem, with Matthew in particular explicitly linking these to prophecies considered to be Messianic. Does Linssen explain why the Synoptics so consistently present the man they’re describing as fitting Messianic standards, if not because they were trying to portray him as the Messiah?

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--Dr Sarah said April 22, 2024 at 1:49 pm