Matthew; Mark; Luke; John and the 500. The viewpoint held by most biblical scholars is that these gospels was not written by Matthew their namesakes or by any other eyewitnesses. The earliest gospel of Matthew was written around c. 70-100. Some 37-67 years after Jesus’ alleged crucifixion and death. The Gospel of Mark is regarded as the earliest gospel we have and tradition believed that it was written by Mark the Evangelist, St. Peters interpreter. It is believed that Mark was written in the year 70, 37 years after Jesus had died. The Gospel of Luke was written around c. 80-90, this means that this gospel may well have been written some 47-57 years after Jesus was dead and again scholars agree that it is highly unlikely that neither Luke or any other eyewitness wrote this book. The Gospel of John like all the other gospels was written by an anonymous author. This is the majority opinion of biblical scholars. This gospel was written around c. 80-95, some 47-62 years after Jesus’ death. What about the so-called 500 witnesses that we find in Corinthians 15:6 where Paul claims that some 500 Christians witnessed Jesus walking this earth after his crucifixion. All we have here is Pauls say so. He supplies us with no written testimonies as a way to corroborate his claim, and without this corroboration we have to be sceptical about his claim, we must remember that when he wrote this he was going around the countryside spreading Christianity. We have to remember also that Paul never met Jesus in person. He claimed to have spent time with Jesus’ brother and one of his disciples for 15 days. Again this could easily have been written to establish his own authority over other Christians as the man in the know. Paul himself admits that he used lies to convince people to believe what he preached (see Roman: 3.7). So here we have it...Paul is a liar and therefore we must be very sceptical about everything he claims. There are Christian scholars who are more than willing to read scripture and interpret to suit their theological biases. As what we see with Professor Richard Bauckham in his book ‘Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony’. Listening to him on the Unbelievable podcast discussing his book with another disagrees with him, it is clear that most of most book is sheer interpretation and bias. Most biblical scholars have rejected his book for the reasons mentioned above. The only Christians who accept his writings are evangelical ones who don’t care about facts! These facts remain the same as they were before Bauckham wrote his book...that being we have no contemporary eyewitness accounts to Jesus.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:55:03 +0000
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