Were the Apostles the original authors of the NT?

[shegeek72]

Since the threads in the ng are being broken up, sometimes making
continuity, and finding my posts, difficult - I'm starting a new
thread.

To answer those who questioned my claim that none of the Apostles were
the original authors of the NT, here's what I believe to be the most
accurate information:

http://people.ucsc.edu/~mgrivich/TheAuthorshipandDatingoftheNewTestament.htm

"The dominant understanding of the ordering of the texts is the
following. Mark was written first. Contemporary with this, a
collection of sayings of Jesus, called Q, was written. After this,
Matthew and Luke were written. They were not aware of each other and
both used both Mark and Q as sources. This is the dominant
understanding, because the textual evidence for it is overwhelming.
Also apparent is that the author of John did not use the other Gospel's
as sources, and the other Gospel's did not use John as a source. This
is apparent from even a casual reading of John and the other (called
the synoptic) gospels. John almost never uses the same words to
describe events and only occasionally describes the same events. If
John was aware of the other Gospels he was more concerned about
recording what they did not write about that what they did.

The Gospel According to Mark, written by Mark, an associate of Peter
(A.D. 55-70).

The Gospel According to Luke, written by Luke, an associate of Paul
(A.D. 60-75), and The Acts of the Apostles (A.D. 65-85), written by the
same person.

The Gospel According to Matthew, written by an anonymous Jewish
Christian (A.D. 60-85) and Q, written by Matthew the apostle (A.D.
45-70).

The Gospel According to John, written by the Johannine community based
on the testimony of John the apostle, (A.D. 90-130).

The Letters of Paul, written by Paul, (A.D. 49-67).

We then have that the vast majority of the New Testament was written by
second or third witnesses, in the range of 20 - 100 years after the
death of Jesus. This is a critical piece upon which the reliability of
the New Testament rests."

I stand partially corrected: parts were written by the Apostles, but
the majority were not.

[Old George down on the bayou]

Post by shegeek72
Since the threads in the ng are being broken up, sometimes making
continuity, and finding my posts, difficult - I'm starting a new
thread.
To answer those who questioned my claim that none of the Apostles were
the original authors of the NT, here's what I believe to be the most
http://people.ucsc.edu/~mgrivich/TheAuthorshipandDatingoftheNewTestament.htm
"The dominant understanding of the ordering of the texts is the
following. Mark was written first. Contemporary with this, a
collection of sayings of Jesus, called Q, was written. After this,
Matthew and Luke were written. They were not aware of each other and
both used both Mark and Q as sources. This is the dominant
understanding, because the textual evidence for it is overwhelming.
Also apparent is that the author of John did not use the other Gospel's
as sources, and the other Gospel's did not use John as a source. This
is apparent from even a casual reading of John and the other (called
the synoptic) gospels. John almost never uses the same words to
describe events and only occasionally describes the same events. If
John was aware of the other Gospels he was more concerned about
recording what they did not write about that what they did.
The Gospel According to Mark, written by Mark, an associate of Peter
(A.D. 55-70).

Rather Paul than Peter. Mark's gospel supports Paul's view dim view of
the "authority" of the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church (Jesus'
brother James and some of the 12 apostles) as expressed in the second
chapter of Galatians.

Mark has Jesus telling his disciples (who were some of his followers
and were obligated to follow him as he had called them to do so) to
follow him to Galilee after his resurrection, contrary to Luke/Acts
that suggest Jesus wanted them to stay in Jerusalem, and suggested
Jerusalem as the beginning place of the church. Mark suggest that it
was a failure of the disciples that caused them to not go to Galilee
immediately after Jesus' resurrection. Mark suggest that Jerusalem did
not listen to Jesus and his disciples, but rather murdered Jesus and
that the disciples should have left Jerusalem and shook "the dust
from their sandals as witness against it".

Jesus' brother James (along with Jesus' mother and other brothers)
are mentioned in a negative way in Mark's gospel, in that they seem
to believe rumors that Jesus was "beside himself", and went to
"seize" him.

<snip>

[gilgames]

<<
"The dominant understanding of the ordering of the texts is the
following. Mark was written first. Contemporary with this, a
collection of sayings of Jesus, called Q, was written. After this,
Matthew and Luke were written. They were not aware of each other and
both used both Mark and Q as sources. This is the dominant
understanding, because the textual evidence for it is overwhelming.
The original teaching (based on the Church Fathers) was that first
(probabily in AD 36 when the Jes started to persecute the Christians
openly) Matthew's Logia was written in Hebrew recording the sayings of
Jesus, the around 43 AD Mark in Rome as the story of Jesus.
The present Matthew and Luke not later than 62 AD, both knowing the
Logia and Mark, and expanding it with their own sources. John is an
independent source from the 90's

The Gospel of Thomas fits into this scheme as using the Logia of
Matthew and known and used by John.

laszlo

---

[It's not clear that these are inconsistent. Matthew's Hebrew sayings
could well be the special sourse for the current Matthew.
--clh]

[Carl]

Dear Gilgames,

The correct order of the Gospels is John, Mark, Matthew, Luke.

My source is Dr. Thiering of Australia. See her website for more
details. Use Search.
Search who she says the gospel writers were - and they were NOT the
apostles, but
some were sponsored by apostles.

Pesher of Christ
http://www.pesherofchrist.infinitesoulutions.com/

Even some evangelical scholars now concede John was written first in
late 30s
of 40s. Actually, it was 36 or 37 AD. The 3 others were written in
the 40s.

Does it matter?

Well, for one thing, to put John first rearranges Christian theology.
It would be
nice, for example, to know exactly who the "Jews" in John were.

These matters should all be thoroughly discussed.

Sincerely,
David Christainsen

Post by shegeek72
<<
"The dominant understanding of the ordering of the texts is the
following. Mark was written first. Contemporary with this, a
collection of sayings of Jesus, called Q, was written. After this,
Matthew and Luke were written. They were not aware of each other and
both used both Mark and Q as sources. This is the dominant
understanding, because the textual evidence for it is overwhelming.
The original teaching (based on the Church Fathers) was that first
(probabily in AD 36 when the Jes started to persecute the Christians
openly) Matthew's Logia was written in Hebrew recording the sayings of
Jesus, the around 43 AD Mark in Rome as the story of Jesus.
The present Matthew and Luke not later than 62 AD, both knowing the
Logia and Mark, and expanding it with their own sources. John is an
independent source from the 90's
The Gospel of Thomas fits into this scheme as using the Logia of
Matthew and known and used by John.
laszlo
---
[It's not clear that these are inconsistent. Matthew's Hebrew sayings
could well be the special sourse for the current Matthew.
--clh]

[Burkladies]

In addition to your input, the gospels were believed to be written by 3
C. AD; matt/luke 90-135, john 120, letters of apostles 177-220, Q,
Judas and other gospels . The apostles were also writers but there
were many other writers.

Post by Carl
Dear Gilgames,
The correct order of the Gospels is John, Mark, Matthew, Luke.
My source is Dr. Thiering of Australia. See her website for more
details. Use Search.

...>

Post by Carl
Even some evangelical scholars now concede John was written first in
late 30s
of 40s. Actually, it was 36 or 37 AD. The 3 others were written in
the 40s.

...

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Burkladies
In addition to your input, the gospels were believed to be written by 3
C. AD; matt/luke 90-135, john 120, letters of apostles 177-220, Q,
Judas and other gospels . The apostles were also writers but there
were many other writers.

Believed by whom?

[r***@yahoo.com]

Post by shegeek72
The Gospel According to Matthew, written by an anonymous Jewish
Christian (A.D. 60-85) and Q, written by Matthew the apostle (A.D.
45-70).

The writers reasoning here is that Matthew was an apostle: a first hand
witness of the events of the gospels and as such he would not have used
Mark as a source. Therefore it is unlikely that he was the author.
But this is not necessarily true. Even presuming the Q hypothesis,
which the author does, there is no real reason why Matthew couldn't
have used Mark as a general guideline. The only evidence for assuming
it couldn't have been, is "it wouldn't have been".

Post by shegeek72
I stand partially corrected: parts were written by the Apostles, but
the majority were not.

2 of the gospels were traditionally asserted to be of the apostles and
Mark and Luke were traveling companions of the apostles. The site seems
to accept Mark and Luke, accepts John as basically by John, but with
some editing by his church community, and accepts the background info
of Matthew as basically Matthean while dismissing actual Matthean
authorship on flimsy grounds. It seems then that the majority actually
was written by the traditional authors, and according to the site, all
of them basically trustworthy as to the testimony of Jesus.

Something big happened with Jesus. Within decades of his death,
Christianity was spreading all over the Mediterranean and then beyond
even in the face of persecution for the first 300 years. How do we
explain the faith passed down to us? The best explanation we have is to
accept the testimony of the bible.

[Matthew Johnson]

Post by shegeek72
Since the threads in the ng are being broken up, sometimes making
continuity, and finding my posts, difficult - I'm starting a new
thread.

You have been trying to take advantage of this lack of continuity for
months, trying to hide behind it, pretending you did not way what you
really said. And now you finally admit it is more of a curse than a
blessing. What took you so long?

Post by shegeek72
To answer those who questioned my claim that none of the Apostles were
the original authors of the NT, here's what I believe to be the most
http://people.ucsc.edu/~mgrivich/TheAuthorshipandDatingoftheNewTestament.htm

And it is certainly much more accurate than the arrant nonsense you
posted earlier, as you _finally_ admit below. It is far, FAR from
saying NONE of the Apostles were original authors.

Admit it: you were dead wrong. And you are _still_ quoting the above
web-site out of context! For unlike you, the author of that site is
well aware that, "Unfortunately, these questions are not cut and
dried." In general, he knows better than to give such certainty as you
do to his conclusions.

Post by shegeek72
"The dominant understanding of the ordering of the texts is the
following. Mark was written first. Contemporary with this, a
collection of sayings of Jesus, called Q, was written.

Concerning order, this is accurate. But conerning Q, it is not. It is
FAR from "the dominant undrestanding" that Q even existed. Q is a
hypothetical explanation for the common material between the
Synotpics. It is far from the only explanation.

Post by shegeek72
After this, Matthew and Luke were written. They were not aware of
each other and both used both Mark and Q as sources. This is the
dominant understanding, because the textual evidence for it is
overwhelming.

`Why did you leave out the author's words here? He had a link to the
site that explains WHY he thinks it is 'overwhelming'.

Did you leave it out because it would embarass you? It should. The
evidence is FAR from 'overwhelming'.

Post by shegeek72
Also apparent is that the author of John did not use
the other Gospel's as sources, and the other Gospel's did not use
John as a source. This is apparent from even a casual reading of
John and the other (called the synoptic) gospels. John almost never
uses the same words to describe events and only occasionally
describes the same events. If John was aware of the other Gospels he
was more concerned about recording what they did not write about that
what they did.

And again, you left out his words. We just CANNOT trust you to
accurate quote someone else, can we?

[snip]

Post by shegeek72
I stand partially corrected: parts were written by the Apostles, but
the majority were not.

But even here you are still wrong. You still do NOT have "the
majority were not", expect by misinterpretation of the source you
cite.

After all, your original objection was NOT concerning the authorship
of the _entire_ New Testament. It concerned only those portions that
_depend_ on eyewitness tesetimony, such as the narrative of events
(e.g. the triduum).

But the _majority_ of the NT does nO even _Fit_ this catagory. After
all, Paul himself wrote about half the NT. And he rarely claimed to
give eyewitnes material, nor was it even relevant to what he wrote.

Face it, you have got yourself confused AGAIN.

[k***@astound.net]

Post by shegeek72
To answer those who questioned my claim that none of the Apostles were
the original authors of the NT, here's what I believe to be the most

You still have not penetrated into the inner sanctum of higher biblical
criticism. I suggest trying books instead of the internet. The Anchor
Bible Dictionary would provide you with a point of view that is
consistent with advanced higher criticism.

I believe that only a tiny minority of Christians really subscribe to
the findings that I called advanced higher criticism. A good place to
look for who does is to read the membership list for the Jesus Seminar.
I will do my best to present their opinions.

First, that Jesus did not actually exist (or if he did he had nothing
to do with the teachings passed on under his name) is going further
than the the position of even the majority of higher critics. They
accept that Jesus lived and taught. So far as I know they all agree
that he was crucified while Pontius Pilate was the Roman in charge of
Jerusalem. All of this can be concluded from non-Christian sources.

All of them agree that the gospel of John is relatively late, was not
written by an apostle and that it contains no useful information about
the teachings of Jesus.

All of them appear to agree that Matthew and Luke wrote on the basis of
Mark and Q and that Luke used a significant amount of material from the
oral tradition but Matthew has only a small amount of oral material.
Matthew wrote independently of Luke and John and was a Greek-speaking
Christian from somewhere in Syria. Neither Matthew nor Luke knew
anything about the life of Jesus except what they read in Mark. Hence
they were not themselves apostles nor even persons very close to
apostles.

Opinions differ about Mark. He does not write as a eye witness but his
sources may have been eye witnesses. I personally can see no reason why
Mark could not have been a follower of Peter who wrote up, after
Peter's death, what he had heard from Peter.

Q might have been written by apostles. A lot depends on who you think
the apostle's were. The general feeling is that Q does not represent
the Church in Jerusalem. I personally think that before Matthew's time
it was called "According to the Disciples" abbreviated as "KATA MATH"
(Greek Mathetes equals disciple) and that both the apostle Matthew and
the gospel writer Matthew were invented to explain what MATH meant. I
think the writer thought he was preparing a new edition of Q with
historical information added (from Mark).

I think that what now passes for John's gospel was prepared somewhere
in the left wing of Paul's church in order to satisfy people's
curiosity (which Paul seems not to have done) about the person and
activities of Jesus. I believe it was controversial enough that it
threatened to split the church and so, in my opinion, Luke was written
as an answer to John. All of this happened somewhere around 100 CE and
was quite independent of the apostles.

The Book of Jude has the best chance of all the books in the New
Testament of being written by an apostle. But, of course, it is too
short to be of any use. The Book of James might well go back to James
the brother of Jesus. But James was not an apostle.

There is still no real consensus about when and by whom Revelation was
written. Whoever wrote it was surely very close to whoever wrote the
Gospel, but critics have agreed that the two books had different
authors. Hence it remains possible that Revelation was written by an
apostle.

Thus none of the apostles were the original authors of the New
Testament except possibly Jude and some unnamed one (John?) who wrote
Revelation.

I have summarized here the thinking of the school of advanced higher
critics and added a few ideas of my own. But don't anybody take my word
for these things. Go read the critics themselves.