True or False, Jesus Read Written Drafts of the Four Gospels

Emergence of the Four Gospel Catechism

Dozens of gospels circulated in early Christian communities. How were the four now independent in the New Testament called?

Elaine H. Pagels:

The Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion Princeton Academy

EMERGENCE OF THE Canon

In the earliest Christian movement, there were actually many different writings circulated, and many traditions almost the sayings of Jesus. Some of the leaders were concerned to say, "Well, which of these writings can be read in church? Which are the right ones? Which are the best ones?" And Irenaeus, the leader of a church in France in about the year 170, declared that "The heretics avowal that they have many more gospels than there really are. But really they don't have any gospels that aren't total of irreverence. At that place actually are only four authentic gospels. And this is obviously true because in that location are four corners of the universe and at that place are four primary winds, and therefore at that place can exist only four gospels that are accurate. These, besides, are written by Jesus' truthful followers."

Now, today, scholars of the New Testament wouldn't agree with Irenaeus, because we don't know who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Marker, Luke andJohn, whatever more than nosotros know who wrote the Gospel of Thomas. They're all attributed to disciples of Jesus, but nosotros don't actually know who wrote them. And nosotros don't know whether they came as the earliest sources or not. In fact, chances are they didn't. But they did present views of Jesus, which make him very of import and make the institutional church [central].... The gospels of the New Testament, of course, accept a lot of differences amid themselves. Only they're all similar in that they all see Jesus every bit the pivotal person, the one on whom everything depends, the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord. These other gospels, many of them, meet Jesus as a teacher, as a kind of figure of enlightenment, a kind of bodhisattva effigy, but i whom you and I could emulate, whom we could perhaps become. And that's a very different kind of emphasis. I remember the gospels of the New Testament were chosen because they do share this conviction of the importance and uniqueness of Jesus, which besides becomes the importance and uniqueness of the church as the only means of salvation. That is, the church building that called itself "catholic," which means simply universal, claims to exist the only access to salvation there is. If you lot're non a fellow member of that church, leaders of that church accept claimed from the first century until now, you are exterior, you are maybe consigned to damnation.

L. Michael White:

Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin

A PROLIFERATION OF GOSPELS

So, if there were then many bibles, how come there are only sort of four gospels included in the New Testament? How did that happen?

The procedure of the development of the canon; that is, the bible itself as the normative document in the way that we now have information technology, is really a product of the 2nd and 3rd century use of the gospels tradition. Now, from early on, of course, we have the four primary gospels that we now see in the New Testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, only there were many others that we know existed. There'southward the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas, each of which may go back to a very early on tradition. At that place's the Q document; the source, the saying source that underlies the gospels of Matthew and Luke. It'due south now lost but obviously it was known at once, and information technology, too, is very early, probably dating equally early every bit the 50'southward of the beginning century.

In the 2nd and 3rd century, we know that there were many other gospels that were developed. Nosotros have a mannerly assortment of popular kinds of stories of the life of Jesus. There's infant Jesus stories; the infancy Gospel of Thomas is one of these where you take the stories of the little kid Jesus performing all sorts of miracles. And obviously these are developing out of a kind of what nosotros might phone call popular interest. You can imagine the stories of Jesus developing in a lot of ways much similar whatever famous figure. I mean, allow's think of a Superman character. Once you know that Superman's a great guy, what was he like as a kid; the same matter happens with Jesus. Baby Jesus stories are 1 of these, and we become some wonderful little legends that develop this way.

We as well hear of other kinds of gospels that develop. Stories of the nascency that tell you in lurid particular, really, how true it actually was or how marvelous and miraculous it was; stores of apostles traveling to all kinds of strange lands; Thomas, who goes to India; Andrew, who goes out to some strange world, then on. These kinds of stories proliferate through the second and third century. There'southward a burgeoning Christian literature, and in some ways, I think nosotros have to wait at it as if it were really taking over the market, in a literary sense, of the popular imagination of the second and third centuries.

At the same fourth dimension, this burgeoning literature, ... even when it'southward used for local traditions or is, for example, the official gospel of a particular church, also presents a problem because if there's but one Jesus, how tin can there be all these unlike gospels? And when you expect at them all, even the four gospels in the New Testament, not to mention all these other kinds of things that we read; when you lot look at them all, y'all actually see that there are rather different portrayals of Jesus that come out of them. At that place's a different epitome in each dissimilar tradition. And then, the proliferation of the gospels on the ane paw reflects the growth and the kind of upsurge of popularity of Christianity. On the other hand, information technology produces a dilemma; how can there exist so many gospels when there's only one Jesus? And this is even a problem that faces the development of the New Testament canon itself. If there'southward merely one Jesus, why even four gospels, why non just one?

So, by the belatedly second and early 3rd century, we're starting to face this problem. Nosotros hear of people who want to harmonize all the gospels into just one story. Nosotros actually have a certificate called the diatessaron, produced by a Syrian Christian theologian by the name of Tatian, and the diatessaron means "through the four;" he weaves the four gospels together into ane, single narrative, and it produces some interesting effects with the story when he does so. In fact, information technology's so much of a problem that he puts them together that way, that people begin to worry too much if you exercise that.

So, on the one mitt, i gospel is too few, but the other possibility is yous could throw three of them out.... Only if ane is too few and yous tin can't fuse them all together, how many is also many? And finally the answer comes downward that four is the right number, and nosotros have this writer by the name is Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, in Gaul, mod day French republic, who around the year 180 says that no, the number of the gospels is properly four; these are the earliest, these are the best, but four is the right number.

Elizabeth Clark:

John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Religion and Director of the Graduate Program in Religion Knuckles Academy

IRENAEUS AND THE HERETICS

Who is Irenaeus and what was bugging him?

Irenaeus was a Bishop of Lyon in what today would exist French republic in the afterwards second century.... [He] was particularly noted for his writings in which he tried to combat various kinds of so-called heretics of the second century. Most of these were people who would consider themselves Christians. In fact some of these heretics such as Marcion and Valentinus conspicuously thought that they were better Christians and higher kinds of Christians than ordinary run of the factory Christians in the cosmic churches. Irenaeus took it upon himself to expose these different kinds of so-called heresies, people that had called wrong ways of thinking about Christianity, from his point of view. In an enormous book called "Against Heresies" in which he outlined all the difficulties, peculiarly, he said, many of these heretics decried the created club. They idea the material globe was bad. They didn't honor the God of the Old Testament who was represented as a creator. They didn't accolade the law that God gave in the Hebrew Bible, and in fact that does seem to be the example with some of these so-called heretics. They themselves, however, certainly thought of themselves as existence truer and higher kinds of Christians who had gone beyond much of what the Hebrew Bible said and were now into a dissimilar stage.... Then what you actually have here I recall is a kind of in-group Christian fighting over the who has the purer, truer kind of Christianity.

Why did it worry him that there were unlike interpretations?

Irenaeus was very concerned to say there's ane kind of Christianity which has come down from the time of the New Testament and been preserved through the bishops.... You could say Irenaeus was no postmodernist. He did not think there were many approaches to truth or many kinds of truths in the plural. There was ane truth that he thought had been given in ... the creed of the church such as it had developed at that fourth dimension and was preserved by bishops in their didactics potency, then he was not willing to acknowledge that in that location could exist these varieties of Christianity all of which were truthful.

THE DETERMINATION OF THE Canon

In the second and 3rd century we know at present there were any number of gospels which had names of apostles appended to them. There were as well acts or also with names of apostles appended to them and then you have The Acts of Paul, The Acts of Thomas so forth. ... these circulated quite freely in the church and Christians for a while probably used these ... somewhat indiscriminately; it's only a little bit subsequently ... you lot begin to have people objecting, "don't use this 1, don't use that i". ... It may surprise people to know that it'due south really not until the yr 367 that we have a list of New Attestation books that conforms exactly to the list of the 20-7 books we would telephone call the New Testament today. And so throughout the second and third centuries there was quite a lot of fighting about which ones are in and which ones non. I call up there was general agreement quite early on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Letters of Paul were safely in, but there was fighting nigh books like Jude and Second Peter. Certainly the book of Revelation was fought about a lot. The apocalyptic tone of that piece of work was not very suitable in the eyes of some Christians a picayune bit afterward....

Irenaeus doesn't like the idea that there are many gospels circulating with different accounts about Jesus, particularly a number of these accounts [which] rather downwards-play the materiality and physicality of Jesus' torso. They stress the kind of miracles that Jesus, equally a little child, performed, and Irenaeus thinks if we just stick to the gospels -- Matthew, Marker, Luke and John, we will take a more historical, we might say, business relationship of Jesus. I recall too what's at stake hither though too, is that the Catholic Church building, which Irenaeus represents, is in competition with groups, similar the followers of Valentinus and the followers of Marcion, who were not inconsiderable threats in the 2nd century. And so this is a kind of campaign about who has the best and correct form of Christianity....

Who decided exactly what got in and what was left out? What was excluded? What was suppressed?

It's hard to say.... Nosotros do accept a document chosen the Muratorian Canon ... which tells us that ane of the criteria for deciding whether a book is scripture or not is whether it can be read in the church. Now, this seems to be rather a circular argument, because you probably don't read it in the church unless you lot think information technology's scripture, only in that location seems to be something about suitability for public reading during worship, that'due south one criterion. The churchmen who argued about these points of what'southward in and what's out... [as well] wanted to say if we know a book was supposedly written by an Apostle or by a follower of an Campaigner, this gave it some authenticity. This was an attempt to say, "Nosotros're as close back with eyewitness reporting every bit nosotros can be."

FROM MANY GOSPELS TO 4

The diverseness of Christianity is certainly closely related to the proliferation of gospels. Fifty-fifty the gospels which we have in the canon of the New Testament are non of one mind, only really represent very different religious positions and very different images of Jesus. You become beyond this, we accept the Gospel of Thomas, which again is a very dissimilar image of Jesus as the revealer of the divine truth nearly the ultimate human self than nosotros find in Marker, or in Matthew. We have numerous fragments of other gospels, which sometimes we simply know they existed, but cannot really say what they [said].

So the question of establishing some authority in terms of gospels, which gospels should be read and which should not be read, was discussed in the second century, particularly subsequently Marcion. Marcion lived in the showtime one-half of the second century. He was a wealthy transport possessor and ship merchant. He came from northern Turkey... to Rome and he gave the Roman Church a lot of coin, and they welcomed him with open arms. But he felt that the original Christian gospel was no longer preserved, and he thought that only the apostle Paul had the true gospel. And he fix out to find this truthful gospel, and he took the Gospel of Luke and purified it from any he thought was Jewish and said, "This should be the scripture for the church, and this should be the only scripture for the church." And the Roman church became very suspicious of his manipulations with the Gospel of Mark. It is reported that they gave the coin back to him and said, "Thank you very much, but nosotros don't want you and your gospel...."

But the church actually had to think at that betoken, what should they exercise with the many gospels on hand. And with new editions of the gospels which were coming out all the fourth dimension. Right after Marcion, we have evidence from Rome that some other people saturday down and wrote a new harmony of the gospels of Matthew and Marking and Luke, melding them together into 1 gospel. Now in that situation nosotros accept plain a recourse to the original function of gospel narrative which is the narrative of Jesus' suffering and death as the story that accompanies the celebration of the fundamental Christian ritual, the Eucharist. And that meant that just gospels who have a passion narrative can exist included. The Gospel of Thomas does not accept a passion narrative. And it was never discussed for possible inclusion. It is characteristic that all gospels of the catechism take a passion narrative because the central Christian ritual, that'southward the Eucharist, cannot live without that story. And information technology is out of that move that the four gospel canon arises. And it comes, interestingly plenty, as a canon that preserves diversity, within limits.... There is no claim that this canon represents four gospels that are all saying the same thing. It is rather an attempt to join every bit many Christian communities that were bound to a particular gospel into one major church. And this was essentially achieved through the 4 gospel canon.

Harold W. Attridge:

The Lillian Claus Professor of New Attestation Yale Divinity School

SYMBOLS OF THE GOSPELS

Some of the symbols that Irenaeus uses of the gospels have come to be quite traditional and quite influential in the the symbolism associated with the gospels. And then the ox, the lion, the winged human being and the eagle that [are] used for the evangelists in many contexts, both creative and literary, go back to Irenaeus.

The eagle is the usual symbol for the Gospel of John, because his idea is so lofty and it flies and so high. And the ox is the symbol of the third gospel, the gospel co-ordinate to Luke, possibly considering of the manner in which Jesus is presented every bit as someone built-in in a manger. Information technology's unclear exactly why simply that's certainly an element. The human with wings is associated with the Gospel of Matthew. And this may go back to traditions about Matthew having some sort of celestial assist in the composition of his gospel.... Marking is symbolized past the lion, it'due south unclear why, but perhaps considering the lion is a symbol of Jesus in the book of Revelation. And Mark does take connections with an apocalyptic view of Jesus.

POLITICS Behind THE Catechism

I think the composition of a four-fold gospel canon reflects complicated developments during the course of the second century. Ane of the factors that played a role here certainly was the fact that certain gospels were revered in sure ecclesiastical centers, so it may be that Antioch had a special amore for the Gospel of Luke. Nosotros don't know that for a fact, only this is certainly an element in the development of the gospel canon. And then equally the centers got together and wanted to share fellowship and shared their readings, it would have been important for them to recognize i another'southward principle texts. There may also have been some theological issues that were existence debated, and the use of sure texts in connection with those debates probably played a role in the recognition of those texts as authoritative. We know that that was the case with the Gospel of John; by the end of the second century there was a faction amidst the Roman church leadership that rejected the fourth gospel and said, "We ought not have information technology." They thought that perchance there was a portrait of Jesus that compromised his humanity. And so the insistence upon the full humanity of Jesus would accept been an issue in the acceptance of John every bit authoritative. So there were both some political and also some theological reasons that no doubtfulness played a office. And so there were various other gospels that were not included within the fourfold canon that probably did not have the sponsorship of a major church, or had some characteristic to them that was specially problematic from a theological point of view.

Allen D. Callahan:

Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School

Catechism EMERGES FROM CONSENSUS

Sometimes when the New Testament scholarship discusses the matter of canon formation, the story implied is that there are some fume filled rooms somewhere in the 2nd century and a bunch of these cigar smoking Christian big shots got together and they decided who was going in and who was going out and then... it was a wrap, they closed up and and then everything else was on the cut room flooring.... If we render to Irenaeus' argument for the canon, I recall precisely the opposite is closer to a more responsible historical reconstruction, and that is that there'due south some kind of consensus among people in the Jesus movement as to what constitutes reliable tradition, reliable literature - literature that they want to read or they want to hear over and over again, and other kinds of literature that they don't want to hear. And, of class, in that location are groups that have differences of opinion nearly this. There's some discussion about certain books that tin be read but can't be read in church, for example. You can read them on your own, but there'southward a kind of parental advisory on them or something, and you don't read them in church building and you're careful when y'all read them past yourself, this kind of thing. Or in that location's some pieces of literature that a lot of people are reading only that the Grand Poobahs in the church don't want them to read. But these really institute special cases that imply a kind of consensus that are formed very early virtually the kind of literature Christians used that spoke to their self-identification and by which, they in turn, identified themselves.... That's kind of touchy-feely; it's hard to get a become a historical set up on it, but it'due south got to have been there. That was a development... from the lesser up, every bit opposed to from the top down. In Irenaeus' voice, I recollect we're hearing some summit down arguments ex-post facto.

Read more on the evolution of the canon in this essay by Marilyn Mellowes.

pellegrinwaysainew.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/emergence.html

Share this post