Ranking the Gospels

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While browsing in my local library the other day I came upon two books. One was called “Eyewitness to Jesus” by Carsten Peter Thiede that involved the dating of a fragment of the Gospel of Mathew that he found at Magdalen College in Oxford. The fragment was originally thought to be written toward the end of the second century (180-200), however Dr. Thiede redated it to the middle of the first century (60). This is considered to be important because it makes it possible that it was actually written by Mathew who would have been a witness to the events he reported.

The other book that attracted my attention was “Beyond Belief” by Elaine Pagels which compares the Gospel of John (which became part of the Bible) and the Gospel of Thomas (which did not.) The author doubts that the Gospel of John was written by the son of Zebedee, as most Christians believe, and takes the position that the author had the intent of opposing the teachings of Thomas.

This is making me wonder if some of the gospels should be given more weight than others. Some responses are predictable. A bible literalist will say they were all written by God and should be given equal weight, an atheist will say that none should be given any weight; those responses need not be repeated (though they probably will be anyway.) What I am interested in is the opinion of people who actually have an opinion.

The Gospel According to John is the most anti-Jewish of the Gospels.

Well, they DID kill the son of god, I could see how some of them might take that badly.

It was the Romans who did the deed. Besides the death of Jesus was required for his program of salvation. Thank the Romans for helping Jebus complete his Mission.

90 percent of the Jews alive at that time lived in the Babylonian Exile. Very few Jews (percentage wise) dwelt in the Holy Land.

You can hardly blame the Jews of Haran for the death of Jebus. They probably never even heard of him.

ruveyn

Apparently, the gospel of Mark, as it was the first written, and some scholars believe that it was partly a source for Mathew and Luke.

I always preferred Luke personally, not for any historic factual reason I just found more verses that held meaning for me.

If I had to rank, here's how I would likely do it from most accurate to least:

1) Mark
2) Luke
3) Matthew
4) John

This order is in the general chronological order agreed upon by scholars. John is the least reliable as it is the oldest and most likely driven by theological reasons. Mark is considered the most reliable as it is a source of material for both Luke and Matthew, so while Luke and Matthew will make some corrections on obvious failings of Mark, the degree of copying tends to suggest that they are not very independent in terms of sources. Matthew is also likely older than Luke, and some would argue that Matthew is based heavily upon Mark and Luke.

I can't evaluate Thiede's work, but it is not likely written by Matthew, simply because the attestation is not one based upon reliable historical reasons, and even further the apparent reliance of the testimony upon the claims of the Gospel of Mark seems questionable. (Note: It is possible that Thiede is taking the Augustinian view that Matthew is the source text for Mark, but very few people take this position) Even further, while few believe that the Gospel of Matthew itself was written 180-200 AD, few believe it to be as low as 60 AD.

As for John being a rebuttal to Thomas, that's something that is more plausible to me. I've heard that John has a more philosophical and even having Gnostic influence. John 1 actually seems to have a reference to the Logos philosophy common in Stoic philosophy of the time, which does not sound like a poor fisherman, but rather a lot more like an early theological writer trying to construct something out of the gospel narrative being passed around. The idea that he would oppose the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas does not sound strange, particularly given that opposing ideas is often a reason why people formulate their own.

If you want, I could try to be more thorough with this post, but I am mostly working from memory. However, I do have an Oxford Guide to the Bible, which can allow me to find scholars on the matter.

"The Jews" didn't kill Jesus. Perhaps some of them didn't like him but so what? Everyone in the country was a Jew including the followers of Jesus and Jesus himself..

That would be like saying "THE AMERICANS" killed John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Do you think that a thousand years from now people around the world are going to say "We hate those Americans because they killed JFK?"

I was being sarcastic and making fun of that viewpoint.

Thanks, but don't go through a lot of trouble for me. I only glanced at Thiede's book, not being all that interested in the dating of ancient documents, it is just that I think that if the Gospel of Mathew was actually written by the tax collector who followed Jesus that is worth considering.

I agree that the beginning of John's gospel suggests a gnostic influence, if fact it agrees with several points made in Tripartite Tractate, another gnostic document, so it might not have been gnosticism that John was refuting but Thomas himself. As Pagels points out in her book it is only from John that we get the image of “Doubting Thomas”, the others only mention him as one of the twelve.

Being sarcastic in as Aspie/Autie forum is not a good idea.

ruveyn

But sarcasm is such a prolific point in politics. Didn't Jews invent sarcasm?

An interesting point, though...not one of the Gospels makes Peter--who was named to be the leader of the Church--look very good, either. (I personally think Peter had ADHD, BTW.) There's a LOT of material in there that would not exactly inspire confidence in his leadership, and it seems to me that if the point had been PR, there are a number of Peter incidents that would've been removed or downplayed. The same is actually true of many figures in the Bible, including John himself, who happens to be the judgmental loudmouth who wants Jesus to call down lightning on some people who didn't treat them right. And of course Paul gets the king of bad introductions, given what he's involved in when he first shows up in Acts.

When you look at the image of "doubting Thomas" in that context (though I would say that there have been serious misuses of that passage to belittle people unfairly), it's really not out of step with how most all of the disciples were portrayed.

As for who the author of John was, he could have been the son of Zebedee (and in light of the "judgmental loudmouth" aspect it could be the case). I have heard other theories, though, one even suggesting that the locations at which that disciple showed up and where he did not suggested it could well be Lazarus. Not sure who all has researched that theory, though. And of course, there's John of Patmos, who may be the son of Zebedee, OR may be yet a third individual to consider in this discussion.

It was the Babylonians.

ruveyn

I thought they invented Gucci?

Actually, I invented sarcasm, but through working independently.