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Source: (consider it) Thread: Synoptic Gospels
Frankenstein
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At some time in the early centuries after Christ, the Cannon of the New Testament was established,
when and by whom, I do not know.
(I believe there are gospels attributed to Thomas and Philip not included.)
Of the four gospels adopted, the first three are known as the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic: Through one eye?
As no one Gospel can be seen to be the first written, any two Gospels have material not shared by the third, I seems to me that there was an oral tradition which was used by the three Gospel writers.
How do you see this?

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orfeo

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

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LeRoc

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I personally think it was a Time Lord.

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Frankenstein
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I personally think it was a Time Lord.

I missed that episode of Dr Who!

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Frankenstein
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

Excellent programme!

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Jack o' the Green
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The synoptic problem has been argued ad nauseum for many years. The problem seems to me to be that so much of the evidence is open to subjective interpretation, and how you interpret the evidence has a big influence on the conclusion you come to.

I'm not altogether convinced regarding the existence of 'Q', and could be convinced otherwise about the priority of Mark.

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Frankenstein
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Yes, this question is a bit of an old chestnut!
Nevertheless, I still have not come across a satisfactory solution. I am personally aware of at least one person who devoted much serious brain power on this issue.
My personal take is that as the second coming was about to happen, why record the events.
This would also account for the long period which occurred between the crusifiction and the gospels.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
Yes, this question is a bit of an old chestnut!
Nevertheless, I still have not come across a satisfactory solution. I am personally aware of at least one person who devoted much serious brain power on this issue.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why it's much of a "problem" that needs a "satisfactory solution." fwiw, I think the evidence does point to Q and the primacy of Mark, but if we were to find out somehow that Matt. or Luke came first, or that there is no Q but the common source material was derived piecemeal, that wouldn't change anything. The whole question is the sort of thing academics like to write papers about or debate on the Ship (and I enjoy that as much as anybody) but I don't really see what it changes about our faith, or even what it says one way or the other about the authority of authenticity of the NT.


quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:

My personal take is that as the second coming was about to happen, why record the events.
This would also account for the long period which occurred between the crusifiction and the gospels.

Sure, that makes sense. Or even the notion that as long as there are eyewitnesses, there's no need for a written record (remembering as well that the desire to "write stuff down" is far less of a factor in the ancient era than today). Once the apostles start dying off there's more of a notion that "oh, we should be recording this stuff." Much like the way we will see a push to get holocaust survivors or WW1 vets or some other group of people on film describing their experiences when we start seeing their generation die off (my husband is involved in one such effort).

But again, it seems like a question of academic interest and fun to noodle around with but not nearly as compelling in it's implications as questions like, "why is there evil?" or "what does it mean to love my neighbor?".

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Baptist Trainfan
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quote:
Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
I'm not altogether convinced regarding the existence of 'Q', and could be convinced otherwise about the priority of Mark.

My personal feeling fwiw is that there was never a written document corresponding to "Q". What I do believe is that there was a corpus of stories circulating within the Christian community, which soon hardened into more-or-less fixed formulas. Not every church would possess every story.

These would be told or handed down in the churches; any changes or mistakes would thus immediately be picked up and corrected.This is what commonly happens in communities with oral history, and my suggestion is that we should privilege oral rather than written documents when we think of the early transmission of the Gospels.

I suggest that the three Evangelists, writing with their specific constituencies in mind, used both this "common" material and other stories gained through other routes - eg there seems to be good evidence that Mark was informed by Peter. I'm not at all concerned with which Gospel came first! (John Robinson argued strongly for the primacy of John!)

[ 25. February 2016, 14:46: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

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Frankenstein
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

But again, it seems like a question of academic interest and fun to noodle around with but not nearly as compelling in it's implications as questions like, "why is there evil?" or "what does it mean to love my neighbor?". [/QB]

I like academic questions and I have no problem with 'evil' nor 'loving my neighbour'.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

But again, it seems like a question of academic interest and fun to noodle around with but not nearly as compelling in it's implications as questions like, "why is there evil?" or "what does it mean to love my neighbor?".

I like academic questions and I have no problem with 'evil' nor 'loving my neighbour'. [/QB]
You are a better Christian than I am if you struggle more with "is there a Q?" than "how do I love this *$%! person?"

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Schroedinger's cat

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Synoptic is generally regarded as meaning "looking the same", not necessarily as "through one eye" (in the sense of from one perspective). They have a similar style and appearance, as opposed to John, which is structured very differently.

As others have said, the origins are hotly debated. There is strong evidence of some common sources, but it is just as likely that these "common sources" were oral tradition as written works, that each of the writers gathered what information they could from sources they trusted - largely the same ones, but some variations.

We cannot know if other writers had access to a source that only one of them actually used. Or whether they all had access to the same set of sources, sometimes using the same source and phrasing, other times not. We can draw tentative conclusions based on assumptions about usage, but these are only ways of understanding how the accounts may have been written. Some people do use source criticism as a definitive argument when it doesn't always justify this role.

It is also important to remember that the gospels were written to different audiences, so the selection of material would have been impacted by this. If you are writing an book, you need to understand who your audience is, and it will be a very different style and form if you are writing it for academia or for the coffee table. It can be the same author, on the same subject, but the style and content will be significantly different.

So yes, an oral tradition is almost certainly behind them all. It was a society that valued this highly. More importantly, it didn't place the same expectations on written tradition as we do. The gospels are not "history" in the sense that we consider it, nor are they "eye-witness accounts" as we think of them. They are individual interpretations of world-changing events. To argue whether Jesus actually said A or B is to miss the point that Jesus healed people.

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Frankenstein
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

But again, it seems like a question of academic interest and fun to noodle around with but not nearly as compelling in it's implications as questions like, "why is there evil?" or "what does it mean to love my neighbor?".

I like academic questions and I have no problem with 'evil' nor 'loving my neighbour'.

You are a better Christian than I am if you struggle more with "is there a Q?" than "how do I love this *$%! person?" [/QB]
I make no claim to being a better Chistian!
Some neighbours are easy to love, some are not.
The theory is easy the practice less than easy!

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Frankenstein
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Following on from the above postings.
How literate where the early followers of Christ, and would they have been equipped to write or copy a lengthy document such as a gospel?

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Schroedinger's cat

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quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
Following on from the above postings.
How literate where the early followers of Christ, and would they have been equipped to write or copy a lengthy document such as a gospel?

It varied. Peter was almost certainly illiterate (and Jesus may well have been). Paul was clearly very literate and well read.

Literacy was nothing like as widespread as it is today. However there were scribes who would perform literacy tasks for a price (or as part of their employment). Getting something read or written was not difficult, but was not within the reach of everyone.

Copying documents was actually easier, because there is no necessity to actually understand the writing to make a decent copy of it.

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Adeodatus
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My own view on the Synoptics is that "synoptic" itself is a red herring. If at the back of your mind you carry the idea that these three writers shared a point of view, I think it can divert you from noticing how strongly individual they actually are. Each has their own theological agenda, their own personality, and their own imagination.

Try this exercise. Sit down (with a nice cup of tea) and read a gospel. But read it while imagining that none of the others exist. Ignore footnotes, parallels and all the other stuff that clutters our Bible pages, and as far as you can, try to imagine this is the only gospel you have ever read, or ever will. And if you've never tried this before, prepare for some surprises.

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Jack o' the Green
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
I'm not at all concerned with which Gospel came first! (John Robinson argued strongly for the primacy of John!)

I think he argued for the Fourth Gospel containing primitive, Palestinian tradition which was independent of the Synoptics and in some cases more reliable (e.g. regarding the arrest, trials and date of Jesus' crucifixion) rather then it being written before the Synoptics (although he did argue for pre-AD 70 for the entire New Testament, so it would've been close date wise.
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Frankenstein
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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
Following on from the above postings.
How literate where the early followers of Christ, and would they have been equipped to write or copy a lengthy document such as a gospel?

It varied. Peter was almost certainly illiterate (and Jesus may well have been). Paul was clearly very literate and well read.

Literacy was nothing like as widespread as it is today. However there were scribes who would perform literacy tasks for a price (or as part of their employment). Getting something read or written was not difficult, but was not within the reach of everyone.

Copying documents was actually easier, because there is no necessity to actually understand the writing to make a decent copy of it.



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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Peter was almost certainly illiterate (and Jesus may well have been).

Well, Luke 4:16-21 ("He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written....") seems to say that Jesus could read.

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Lyda*Rose

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According to at least one Gospel story, Jesus could read Hebrew from the Torah. And then there was that one iffy story about him writing in the dust when he was chasing the accusers away from the adulterous woman. Writing was quite a specialized skill. Somehow I think that part was an embellishment. And he probably couldn't read or write Greek. He grew up in a devout household and where he learned to read Hebrew at the synagogue but his family was headed by a man who did manual labor.

ETA: Cross post

[ 25. February 2016, 17:24: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]

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venbede
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quote:
Originally posted by Frankenstein:
At some time in the early centuries after Christ, the Cannon of the New Testament was established,
when and by whom, I do not know

The Holy Spirit?

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Jack o' the Green
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Joseph was a craftsman. The koine Greek word for carpenter as well as the most probable Aramaic word meant more than someone who simply did manual labour.

The passage of Jesus reading in the Synagogue is regarded with scepticism by some scholars because of the way Jesus jumps around the text which would've been difficult with a scroll.

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
According to at least one Gospel story, Jesus could read Hebrew from the Torah. And then there was that one iffy story about him writing in the dust when he was chasing the accusers away from the adulterous woman. Writing was quite a specialized skill. Somehow I think that part was an embellishment.

It's a tangent, but I've heard one very fascinating explanation for that iffy story. (Thanks, Rob Bell.)

John 7 and 8 are clear that this encounter happened at the end of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths). (Jesus's plea of "Let anyone who is thirst come to me" takes on particular meaning during this harvest festival, when water took on special significance.)

One of the passages read during Sukkot was (and, I think, is) Jeremiah 17-13: "O hope of Israel! O Lord! All who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be recorded in the underworld*, for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord." *The NRSV here says "underworld," but the Hebrew is eretz, which is "land" or "ground."

So, the explanation would be that in the passage of the woman caught in adultery, he (or John) riffed off the passage from Jeremiah that everyone would have on their minds, and he wrote the names of the accusers on the ground.

/tangent

[ 25. February 2016, 18:11: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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Brenda Clough
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I too have always assumed that Jesus wrote the name of the male partner on the ground. But I was doing the detective-fiction thing. Of course it was the woman on the hook for adultery, even though adultery by definition is a crime you need two people to commit. Whoever the male participant was, he had contrived to shimmy out of the entire mess, leaving her holding the bag. How? Clearly he was married/rich/of high status, so that he had the power to escape. In other words, he was bulletproof, and she wasn't. But in a small town everybody knows who is boffing who. Jesus wrote his name on the ground and everybody standing there not only knew that He was right, they knew that He knew what a bunch of hypocrites they were. And so all they could do was set their stones down and slink away.

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
John Robinson argued strongly for the primacy of John!

Does anyone go along with Robinson's argument other than Biblical lecturers trying to think of exam questions to set?

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I too have always assumed that Jesus wrote the name of the male partner on the ground. But I was doing the detective-fiction thing. Of course it was the woman on the hook for adultery, even though adultery by definition is a crime you need two people to commit. Whoever the male participant was, he had contrived to shimmy out of the entire mess, leaving her holding the bag. How? Clearly he was married/rich/of high status, so that he had the power to escape. In other words, he was bulletproof, and she wasn't. But in a small town everybody knows who is boffing who. Jesus wrote his name on the ground and everybody standing there not only knew that He was right, they knew that He knew what a bunch of hypocrites they were. And so all they could do was set their stones down and slink away.

Yep. And the story describes him writing twice, with "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" between the two times. Perhaps it was the name of the male partner the first time, and the names of the accusers the second time?

While you're quite right about people in a small town knowing who is boffing who, this was Jerusalem during a pilgrimage festival, so this may have been more akin to convention boffing.

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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PaulTH*
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm at a bit of a loss as to why it's much of a "problem" that needs a "satisfactory solution." fwiw, I think the evidence does point to Q and the primacy of Mark, but if we were to find out somehow that Matt. or Luke came first, or that there is no Q but the common source material was derived piecemeal, that wouldn't change anything

This stuff has been kicking around for centuries. Cliffdweller expresses here what most modern scholarship has to say on the origins of the gospels, but he/she is right in saying that that a change in that scholarship wouldn't change what we have. Robinson's arguments for the primacy of John are complicated. It's often thought that the reason John didn't just retell the synoptic story is that some version of it was already well known to the Church, and he wanted to tell it from a deeper perspective in the knowledge that Christ was the Logos existing before all time.

But John's knowledge of the geography of Jerusalem before its destruction, and his Holy Week narrative could only have come from an eye witness account of the events. So perhaps John's account of the feeding of the five thousand was taken from an earlier source, but his Holy Week recollections were his own.

The question of millennialism is also vitally important in the understanding of the NT. In Paul's earlier letters, I Thessalonians and Galations, he believes Christ will soon return to the earth, and that he will likely live to see it. By the end of his life, he may have realised that Christ's coming is a more distant prospect, in which we, for now, look for His coming in the Eucharist.

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Paul

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Schroedinger's cat

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quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Peter was almost certainly illiterate (and Jesus may well have been).

Well, Luke 4:16-21 ("He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written....") seems to say that Jesus could read.
Actually, reading the scriptures may have been part of his religious upbringing, and may not reflect a wider ability to read. But I take your point, he was at least partially literate. I had forgotten that passage.

I was thinking about the letters that Paul wrote to the churches. There must have been someone in these churches who cold read them, but there may not have been many. And we know less about those churches who never got a letter because nobody there could read.

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Lamb Chopped
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Whole buncha reactions here--

Re Peter, he was very likely literate, both reading and writing. The man was not just a Jew (who would have learned to read at the synagogue) but he was part of a decent sized fishing operation. Literacy is an important business skill. And the Hebrew alphabet learnt at the synagogue does double duty for the everyday language of Aramaic, which is closely related to it.

As for Jesus, certainly he could both read and write, and the jumping around in the text noted earlier is no evidence against it. Sure it's hard to jump around in a scroll text when you must roll and unroll to get to the bits you want--but synagogues were also big on making you memorize everything possible, to the point where knowing the whole OT by heart was not out of reach. Heck, I'm nowhere near that league, and I can do just the same--hold my Bible open to a single passage while following a discussion that leaps through fifteen/thirty different texts all over the OT and NT, basically word perfect. It's not that tough if you love the Scriptures and have a decent verbal memory, particularly if you've been trained to it, as Jewish boys were. And this is a common characteristic of plenty of mostly-oral cultures--when your access to a physical text is limited, you learn to rely on memory way more than most people from print-based cultures realize is possible.

As for reading and writing Greek--anybody raised in Galilee in a business-oriented family had a decent chance of at least speaking some Greek, and quite possibly reading or writing it as well. There's a reason Isaiah referred to it as "Galilee of the Gentiles"--there were plenty of them around, including whole Roman colonies who employed builders (carpentry, anyone?) and needed to eat (there's the fishmongers then). And Greek was the primary business language of the day--not Latin. If Peter, Jesus, whomever, had to deal with a Gentile who'd not bothered to learn local Aramaic, chances are they'd do it in Greek. Just as Japanese businessmen dealing with Vietnamese or Koreans are very likely to use English today.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38

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There are various studies that attempt to define what literacy rates in E. Mediterranean countries were in the 1st century. They tend to settle on a figure of around 10%, though it varies from culture to culture.

But though less than today, it would have to be an extremely small church that wasn't able to receive and study a letter using their own resources. And if you didn't read, it's quite likely that you had to know someone who did.

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HCH
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# 14313

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I have been told that archaeologists have found first-century pots marked with the initial letters of the intended contents, as we might have "W" for "wheat". If this is so, it suggests that many people could at least identify Hebrew letters.

In view of the gaps in our knowledge of the life of Jesus, it may be presumptuous to assert that of course he did not know this or that.

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Barnabas62
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# 9110

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Hosts are discussing the right home for this thread.

Barnabas62
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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Martin60
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# 368

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He didn't write the names of the accusers, but their lovers.

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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119

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The problem of the Synoptics for me is not who was first (most scholars agree on Mark, but the official RC position is Matthew), who borrowed from whom, and whether there were other sources involved , such as Q.

My problem as an evangelical is that the Synoptics provide very meagre support for the two basic distinctives of evangelical soteriology, ie justification by faith and PSA (or at least the saving centrality of Christ's death on the cross).

A strong argument for both can be mounted from John and the Pauline epistles, so it is not a simple (simplistic?) matter of responding that the relative absence of these doctrines from the Synoptics demonstrates that evangelicals have misunderstood the NT gospel message.

The Jesus of the Synoptics has a great deal to say about soteriology and eschatology, but appears to indicate that we will be finally judged in accordance with how we have performed here on earth, rather than on the basis of grace - which is a pretty scary thought.

Any suggestions?

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Schroedinger's cat

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# 64

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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The Jesus of the Synoptics has a great deal to say about soteriology and eschatology, but appears to indicate that we will be finally judged in accordance with how we have performed here on earth, rather than on the basis of grace - which is a pretty scary thought.

Any suggestions?

I don't think you can draw a clear distinction between these two ideas without making for a very broken theology.

Grace is not (IMO) about "Pray the Jesus prayer and you are sorted", it is more about your heart, why you did what you did. So it is all about how we perform on earth, all about what we do, but not according to a simple checklist. It is a question of "did you live a life as well as you could, as much for God as you could?" (VERY simplistic).

So if you go to church every week because you want to appear pious and spiritual, that may not be a plus marker. If you go to church every week because you believe that is the only place you can find God, despite being wrong, that may be a positive. It is not the act, it is the intention, the drive, the motivation.

Jesus stories were often saying this very thing, while making it very physical and practical. In the story of Dives and Lazarus, for example, the problem is not Dives wealth (the very physical, practical thing), it is his attitude to Lazarus (and thereby to his wealth). Oh and a message about how cloth-headed his listeners/readers were.

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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119

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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is a question of "did you live a life as well as you could, as much for God as you could?"

To which question it is impossible to imagine anyone with the slightest skerrick of self-awareness replying, "Yeah, pretty much".
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Schroedinger's cat

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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is a question of "did you live a life as well as you could, as much for God as you could?"

To which question it is impossible to imagine anyone with the slightest skerrick of self-awareness replying, "Yeah, pretty much".
Then the real challenge of Christianity is to accept this, and seek to improve next time.

I probably put it too rigorously. I think I intended to mean what was your attitude, your intention? Did you listen to others? Did you, over your life, seek truth? It is not about whether you make it (nobody does), it is about whether you learned.

I suppose for me, I would argue that I have few regrets in life. This does not mean that I don't wish many things were much different, it means that I believe I acted for the right in what I did. At least most of the time.

With hindsight, I can look back and say that I was sometimes unbelievably wrong, but that is hindsight. I am sure that others have thought I was wrong at the time, and some of them I listened to. I have not been perfect, but I have tried to always act for the good, and always been prepared to think new things, see new ideas, embrace the possibility that I have been very wrong.

Maybe, most important of all is that I haven't done this to "earn my way into heaven". I have done this because I have come to realise that this is what a decent human being does. It is Christianity because it is the bible that guides my understanding of "decent human being".

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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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