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Sat 30 Jumada Al Oula 1444AH 24-12-2022AD at 8:37 pm #82988
Matthew takes very serious liberties with the text. We shall see this when we discuss the Old Testament in relation to the genealogy of Jesus which is placed at the beginning of his Gospel.
He inserts into his book descriptions which are quite literally incredible. This is the adjective used in the work mentioned above by Father Kannengiesser referring to an episode in the Resurrection. the episode of the guard. He points out the improbability of the story by referring to military guards at the tomb, “these Gentile soldiers” who “report, not to their hierarchical superiors, but to the high priests who pay them to tell lies”. He adds, however: “One must not laugh at him because Matthew’s intention was extremely serious. In his own way, he incorporates ancient data from the oral tradition into his written work. The scenario is nevertheless worthy of Jesus Christ Superstar. [ An American film which parodies the life of Jesus.]“
Let us not forget that this opinion on Matthew comes from an eminent theologian teaching at the Catholic Institute of Paris (Institut Catholique de Paris).
Matthew relates in his narration the events accompanying the death of Jesus. They are another example of his imagination.
“And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.”
This passage from Matthew (27, 51-53) has no corresponding passage in the other Gospels. It is difficult to see how the bodies of the saints in question could have been raised from the dead at the time of Jesus’s death (according to the Gospels it was on the eve of the Sabbath) and only emerge from their tombs after his resurrection (according to the same sources on the day after the Sabbath).
The most notable improbability is perhaps to be found in Matthew. It is the most difficult to rationalize of all that the Gospel authors claim Jesus said. He relates in chapters 12, 38-40 the episode concerning Jonah’s sign:
Jesus was among the scribes and Pharisees who addressed him in the following terms:
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Jesus, therefore, proclaims that he will stay in the earth for three days and three nights. So Matthew, along with Luke and Mark, place the death and burial of Jesus on the eve of the Sabbath. This, of course, makes the time spent in the earth three days (treis êmeras in the Greek text), but this period can only include two and not three nights (treis nuktas in the Greek text [ In another part of his Gospel Matthew again refers to this episode but without being precise about the time (16, 1-4). The same is true for Luke (11, 29-32). We shall see later on how in Mark, Jesus is said to have declared that no sign would be given to that generation (Mark 8, 11-12).]).
Gospel commentators frequently ignore this episode. Father Roguet nevertheless points out this improbability when he notes that Jesus “only stayed in the tomb” three days (one of them complete) and two nights. He adds however that “it is a set expression and really means three days”. It is disturbing to see commentators reduced to using arguments that do not contain any positive meaning. It would be much more satisfying intellectually to say that a gross error such as this was the result of a scribe’s mistake!
Apart from these improbabilities, what mostly distinguishes Matthew’s Gospel is that it is the work of a Judeo-Christian community in the process of breaking away from Judaism while remaining in line with the Old Testament. From the point of view of Judeo-Christian history, it is very important.
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Sun 1 Jumada Al Akhira 1444AH 25-12-2022AD at 10:47 pm #83000
O. Culmann thinks that latter additions are obvious in this Gospel; such as chapter 21 which is probably the work of a “disciple who may well have made slight alterations to the main body of the Gospel”.
It is not necessary to mention all the hypotheses suggested by experts in exegesis. The remarks recorded here made by the most eminent Christian writers on the questions of the authorship of the fourth Gospel are sufficient to show the extent of the confusion reigning on the subject of its authorship.
The historical value of John’s stories has been contested to a great extent. The discrepancy between them and the other three Gospels is quite blatant. O. Culman offers an explanation for this; he sees in John a different theological point of view from the other evangelists. This aim “directs the choice of stories from the Logia [ Words.] recorded, as well as the way in which they are reproduced . . . Thus the author often prolongs the lines and makes the historical Jesus say what the Holy Spirit Itself revealed to Him”. This, for the exegete in question, is the reason for the discrepancies.
It is of course quite conceivable that John, who was writing after the other evangelists, should have chosen certain stories suitable for illustrating his own theories. One should not be surprised by the fact that certain descriptions contained in the other Gospels are missing in John. The Ecumenical Translation picks out a certain number of such instances (page 282). Certain gaps hardly seem credible, however, like the fact that the Institution of the Eucharist is not described. It is unthinkable that an episode so basic to Christianity, one indeed that was to be the mainstay of its liturgy, i.e. the mass, should not be mentioned by John, the most pre-eminently meditative evangelist. The fact is, he limits himself, in the narrative of the supper prior to the Passion, to simply describing the washing of the disciples’ feet, the prediction of Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial.
In contrast to this, there are stories which are unique to John and not present in the other three. The Ecumenical Translation mentions these (page 283). Here again, one could infer that the three authors did not see the importance in these episodes that John saw in them. It is difficult however not to be taken aback when one finds in John a description of the appearance of Jesus raised from the dead to his disciples beside the Sea of Tiberias (John 21,1-14). The description is nothing less than the reproduction (with numerous added details) of the miracle catch of fish which Luke (5,1-11) presents as an episode that occurred during Jesus’s life. In his description Luke alludes to the presence of the Apostle John who, as tradition has it, was the evangelist, Since this description in John’s Gospel forms part of chapter 21, agreed to be a later addition, one can easily imagine that the reference to John’s name in Luke could have led to its artificial inclusion in the fourth Gospel. The necessity of transforming a description of Jesus’s life into a posthumous description in no way prevented the evangelical text from being manipulated.
Another important point in which John’s Gospel differs from the other three is in the duration of Jesus’s mission. Mark, Matthew and Luke place it over a period of one year. John spreads it over two years. O. Culmann notes this fact. On this subject, the Ecumenical Translation expresses the following.
“The Synoptics describe a long period in Galilee followed by a march that was more or less prolonged towards Judea, and finally a brief stay in Jerusalem. John, on the other hand, describes frequent journeys from one area to another and mentions a long stay in Judea, especially in Jerusalem (1,19-51; 2,13-3,36; 5,1-47; 14,20-31). He mentions several Passover celebrations (2,13; 5,1; 6,4; 11,55) and thus suggests a ministry that lasted more than two years”.
Which one of them should one believe-Mark, Matthew, Luke or John?
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Thu 12 Jumada Al Akhira 1444AH 5-1-2023AD at 12:16 am #82996
Matthew and Luke both provide different genealogies of Jesus: the contradictions are so large and the improbabilities so great, from a scientific point of view, that a special chapter of this book has been devoted to the subject. It is possible to explain why Matthew, who was addressing himself to Jews, should begin the genealogy at Abraham and include David in it, and that Luke, as a converted Gentile, should want to go back even farther. We shall see however that the two genealogies contradict each other from David onwards.
Jesus’s mission is described differently on many points by Luke, Matthew and Mark.
An event of such great importance to Christians as the institution of the Eucharist gives rise to variations between Luke and the other two evangelists. [ It is not possible to establish a comparison with John because he does not refer to the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper prior to the Passion.] Father Roguet notes in his book Initiation to the Gospel (Initiation à l’Evangile) page 75, that the words used to institute the Eucharist are reported by Luke (22,19-24) in a form very different from the wording in Matthew (26,26-29) and in Mark (14,22-24) which is almost identical.
“On the contrary,” he writes, “the wording transmitted by Luke is very similar to that evoked by Saint Paul” (First Letter to the Corinthians, 11,23-25).
As we have seen, in his Gospel, Luke expresses ideas on the subject of Jesus’s Ascension which contradict what he says in the Acts of the Apostles. He is recognized as their author and they form an integral part of the New Testament. In his Gospel, he situates the Ascension on Easter Day, and in the Acts forty days later. We already know to what strange commentaries this contradiction has led Christian experts in exegesis.
Commentators wishing to be objective, such as those of the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible, have been obliged to recognise as a general rule the fact that for Luke “the main preoccupation was not to write facts corresponding to material accuracy”. When Father Kannengiesser compares the descriptions in the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke himself with the description of similar facts on Jesus raised from the dead by Paul, he pronounces the following opinion on Luke: “Luke is the most sensitive and literary of the four evangelists, he has all the qualities of a true novelist”.
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Fri 13 Jumada Al Akhira 1444AH 6-1-2023AD at 11:36 am #82983
This position has been collectively adopted by more than one hundred experts in the exegesis of the New Testament, both Catholic and Protestant. It diverges widely from the line established by the Second Vatican Council in its dogmatic constitution on the Revelation drawn up between 1962 and 1965. This conciliar document has already been referred to once above, when talking of the Old Testament. The Council was able to declare of the latter that the books which compose it “contain material which is imperfect and obsolete”, but it has not expressed the same reservations about the Gospels. On the contrary, as we read in the following.
“Nobody can overlook the fact that, among all the Scriptures, even those of the New Testament, the Gospels have a well-deserved position of superiority. This is by virtue of the fact that they represent the most pre-eminent witness to the life and teachings of the Incarnate Word, Our Saviour. At all times and in all places the Church has maintained and still maintains the apostolic origin of the four Gospels. What the apostles actually preached on Christ’s orders, both they and the men in their following subsequently transmitted, with the divine inspiration of the Spirit, in writings which are the foundation of the faith, i.e. the fourfold Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
“Our Holy Mother, the Church, has firmly maintained and still maintains with the greatest constancy, that these four Gospels, which it unhesitatingly confirms are historically authentic, faithfully transmit what Jesus, Son Of God, actually did and taught during his life among men for their eternal salvation until the day when He was taken up into the heavens. . . . The sacred authors therefore composed the four Gospels in such a way as to always give us true and frank information on the life of Jesus”.
This is an unambiguous affirmation of the fidelity with which the Gospels transmit the acts and sayings of Jesus.
There is hardly any compatibility between the Council’s affirmation and what the authors quoted above claim. In particular the following:
The Gospels “are not to be taken literally” they are “writings suited to an occasion” or “combat writings”. Their authors “are writing down the traditions of their own community concerning Jesus”. (Father Kannengiesser).
The Gospels are texts which “are suitable for various circles, meet the needs of the Church, explain observations on the Scriptures, correct errors and even, on occasion, answer adversaries’ objections. Thus, the evangelists, each according to his own outlook, have collected and recorded in writing the material given to them by the oral tradition”. (Ecumenical Translation of the Bible).
It is quite clear that we are here faced with contradictory statements: the declaration of the Council on the one hand, and more recently adopted attitudes on the other. According to the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, a faithful account of the actions and words of Jesus is to be found in the Gospels; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the existence in the text of contradictions, improbabilities, things which are materially impossible or statements which run contrary to firmly established reality.
If, on the other hand, one chooses to regard the Gospels as expressing the personal point of view of those who collected the oral traditions that belonged to various communities, or as writings suited to an occasion or combat writings, it does not come as a surprise to find faults in the Gospels. All these faults are the sign that they were written by men in circumstances such as these. The writers may have been quite sincere, even though they relate facts without doubting their inaccuracy. They provide us with descriptions which contradict other authors’ narrations or are influenced by reasons of religious rivalry between communities. They, therefore, present stories about the life of Jesus from a completely different angle than their adversaries.
It has already been shown how the historical context is in harmony with the second approach to the Gospels. The data we have on the texts themselves definitively confirms it.
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Wed 18 Jumada Al Akhira 1444AH 11-1-2023AD at 12:55 am #82990
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
This is the shortest of the four Gospels. It is also the oldest, but in spite of this, it is not a book written by an apostle. At best it was written by an apostle’s disciple.
O. Culmann has written that he does not consider Mark to be a disciple of Jesus. The author nevertheless points out, to those who have misgivings about the ascription of this Gospel to the Apostle Mark, that “Matthew and Luke would not have used this Gospel in the way they did had they not known that it was indeed based on the teachings of an apostle”. This argument is in no way decisive. O. Culmann backs up the reservations he expresses by saying that he frequently quotes from the New Testament the sayings of a certain ‘John nicknamed Mark’. These quotations. do not however mention the name of a Gospel author, and the text of Mark itself does not name any author.
The paucity of information on this point has led commentators to dwell on details that seem rather extravagant: using the pretext, for example, that Mark was the only evangelist to relate in his description of the Passion to the story of the young man who had nothing but a linen cloth about his body and when seized, left the linen cloth and ran away naked (Mark 14, 51-52), they conclude that the young man must have been Mark, “the faithful disciple who tried to follow the teacher” (Ecumenical Translation). Other commentators see in this “personal memory a sign of authenticity, an anonymous signature”, which “proves that he was an eyewitness” (O. Culmann).
O. Culmann considers that “many turns of phrase corroborate the hypothesis that the author was of Jewish origin,” but the presence of Latin expressions might suggest that he had written his Gospel in Rome. “He addresses himself moreover to Christians not living in Palestine and is careful to explain the Aramic expressions he uses.”
Tradition has indeed tended to see Mark as Peter’s companion in Rome. It is founded on the final section of Peter’s first letter (always supposing that he was indeed the author) . Peter wrote in his letter. “The community which is at Babylon, which is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark.” “By Babylon, what is probably meant is Rome” we read in the commentary to the Ecumenical Translation. From this, the commentators then imagine themselves authorized to conclude that Mark, who was supposed to have been with Peter in Rome, was the Evangelist . . .One wonders whether it was not the same line of reasoning that led Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in circa 150 A.D., to ascribe this Gospel to Mark as ‘Peter’s interpreter’ and the possible collaborator of Paul.
Seen from this point of view, the composition of Mark’s Gospel could be placed after Peter’s death, i.e. at between 65 and 70 A.D. for the Ecumenical Translation and circa 70 A.D. for O. Culmann.
The text itself unquestionably reveals a major flaw. it is written with a total disregard to chronology. Mark, therefore, places, at the beginning of his narration (1, 16-20), the episode of the four fishermen whom Jesus leads to follow him by simply saying “I will make you become fishers of men”, though they do not even know Him. The evangelist shows, among other things, a complete lack of plausibility.
As Father Roguet has said, Mark is ‘a clumsy writer’, ‘the weakest of all the evangelists’; he hardly knows how to write a narrative. The commentator reinforces his observation by quoting a passage about how the twelve Apostles were selected.
Here is the literal translation:
“And he went up into the hills, and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he made that the twelve were to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons; and he made the twelve and imposed the name Simon on Peter” (Mark, 3, 13-16).
He contradicts Matthew and Luke, as has already been noted above, with regard to the sign of Jonah. On the subject of signs given by Jesus to men in the course of His mission Mark (8, 11-13) describes an episode that is hardly credible:
“The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and said, ‘Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.’ And he left them, and getting into the boat again he departed to the other side.”
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Fri 27 Jumada Al Akhira 1444AH 20-1-2023AD at 9:06 pm #82979
In the writings that come from the early stages of Christianity, the Gospels are not mentioned until long after the works of Paul. It was not until the middle of the Second century A.D., after 140 A.D. to be precise, that accounts began to appear concerning a collection of Evangelic writings, In spite of this, “from the beginning of the Second century A.D., many Christian authors clearly intimate that they knew a. great many of Paul’s letters.” These observations are set out in the Introduction to the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible, New Testament (Introduction à la Traduction oecuménique de la Bible, Nouveau Testament) edited 1972 [ Pub. Editions du Cerf et Les Bergers et les Mages, Paris.]. They are worth mentioning from the outset, and it is useful to point out here that the work referred to is the result of a collective effort which brought together more than one hundred Catholic and Protestant specialists.
The Gospels, later to become official, i.e. canonic, did not become known until fairly late, even though they were completed at the beginning of the Second century A.D. According to the Ecumenical Translation, stories belonging to them began to be quoted around the middle of the Second century A.D. Nevertheless, “it is nearly always difficult to decide whether the quotations come from written texts that the authors had next to them or if the latter were content to evoke the memory of fragments of the oral tradition.”
“Before 140 A.D.” we read in the commentaries this translation of the Bible contains, “there was, in any case, no account by which one might have recognised a collection of evangelic writings”. This statement is the opposite of what A. Tricot writes (1960) in the commentary to his translation of the New Testament: “Very early on, from the beginning of the Second century A.D., it became a habit to say “Gospel’ meaning the books that Saint Justin around 150 A.D. had also called “The Memoirs of the Apostles.” Unfortunately, assertions of this kind are sufficiently common for the public to have ideas on the date of the Gospels which are mistaken.
The Gospels did not form a complete whole ‘very early on; it did not happen until more than a century after the end of Jesus’s mission. The Ecumenical Translation of the Bible estimates the date the four Gospels acquired the status of canonic literature at around 170 A.D.
Justin’s statement which calls the authors ‘Apostles’ is not acceptable either, as we shall see.
As far as the date the Gospels were written is concerned, A. Tricot states that Matthew’s, Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels were written before 70 A.D.: but this is not acceptable, except perhaps for Mark. Following many others, this commentator goes out of his way to present the authors of the Gospels as the apostles or the companions of Jesus. For this reason he suggests dates of writing that place them very near to the time Jesus lived. As for John, whom A. Tricot has us believe lived until roughly 100 A.D., Christians have always been used to seeing him depicted as being very near to Jesus on ceremonial occasions. It is very difficult however to assert that he is the author of the Gospel that bears his name. For A. Tricot, as for other commentators, the Apostle John (like Matthew) was the officially qualified witness of the facts he recounts, although the majority of critics do not support the hypothesis which says he wrote the fourth Gospel.
If however the four Gospels in question cannot reasonably be regarded as the ‘Memoirs’ of the apostles or companions of Jesus, where do they come from?
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Sat 28 Jumada Al Akhira 1444AH 21-1-2023AD at 8:10 pm #82992
There can be no doubt that this is an affirmation coming from Jesus Himself about his intention not to commit any act which might appear supernatural. Therefore the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation, who are surprised that Luke says Jesus will only give one sign (the sign of Jonah; see Matthew’s Gospel) , consider it ‘paradoxical’ that Mark should say “no sign shall be given to this generation” seeing, as they note, the “miracles that Jesus himself gives as a sign” (Luke 7,22 and 11,20).
Mark’s Gospel as a whole is officially recognised as being canonic. All the same, the final section of Mark’s Gospel (16,1920) is considered by modem authors to have been tacked on to the basic work: the Ecumenical Translation is quite explicit about this.
This final section is not contained in the two oldest complete manuscripts of the Gospels, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus that date from the Fourth century A.D. O. Culmann notes on this subject that: “More recent Greek manuscripts and certain versions at this point added a conclusion on appearances which is not drawn from Mark but from the other Gospels.” In fact, the versions of this added ending are very numerous. In the texts, there are long and short versions (both are reproduced in the Bible, Revised Standard Version, 1952). Sometimes the long version has some additional material.
Father Kannengiesser makes the following comments on the ending. “The last verses must have been suppressed when his work was officially received (or the popular version of it) in the community that guaranteed its validity. Neither Matthew, Luke or a fortiori John saw the missing section. Nevertheless, the gap was unacceptable. A long time afterwards, when the writings of Matthew, Luke and John, all of them similar, had been in circulation, a worthy ending to Mark was composed. Its elements were taken from sources throughout the other Gospels. It would be easy to recognise the pieces of the puzzle by enumerating Mark (16,9-20). One would gain a more concrete idea of the free way in which the literary genre of the evangelic narration was handled until the beginnings of the Second century A.D.”
What a blunt admission is provided for us here, in the thoughts of a great theologian, that human manipulation exists in the texts of the Scriptures!
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Fri 4 Shaban 1444AH 24-2-2023AD at 1:01 am #82981
Culmann, in his book The New Testament (Le Nouveau Testament) [ Pub. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1967], says of this that the evangelists were only the “spokesmen of the early Christian community which wrote down the oral tradition. For thirty or forty years, the Gospel had existed as an almost exclusively oral tradition: the latter only transmitted sayings and isolated narratives. The evangelists strung them together, each in his own way according to his own character and theological preoccupations. They linked up the narrations and sayings handed down by the prevailing tradition. The grouping of Jesus’s sayings and likewise the sequence of narratives is made by the use of fairly vague linking phrases such as ‘after this’, ‘when he had’ etc. In other words, the ‘framework’ of the Synoptic Gospels [ The three Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke.] is of a purely literary order and is not based on history.”
The same author continues as follows:
“It must be noted that the needs of preaching, worship and teaching, more than biographical considerations, were what guided the early community when it wrote down the tradition of the life of Jesus. The apostles illustrated the truth of the faith they were preaching by describing the events in the life of Jesus. Their sermons are what caused the descriptions to be written down. The sayings of Jesus were transmitted, in particular, in the teaching of the catechism of the early Church.”
This is exactly how the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible (Traduction oecuménique de la Bible) describe the writing of the Gospels: the formation of an oral tradition influenced by the preachings of Jesus’s disciples and other preachers; the preservation by preaching of this material, which is in actual fact found in the Gospels, by preaching, liturgy, and teaching of the faithful; the slender possibility of a concrete form given by writings to certain confessions of faith, sayings of Jesus, descriptions of the Passion for example; the fact that the evangelists resort to various written forms as well as data contained in the oral tradition. They resort to these to produce texts which “are suitable for various circles, which meet the needs of the Church, explain observations on the Scriptures, correct errors and even, on occasion, answer adversaries’ objections. Thus the evangelists, each according to his own outlook, have collected and recorded in writing the material given to them by the oral tradition”.
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Sun 6 Shaban 1444AH 26-2-2023AD at 1:00 am #82994
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
For O. Culmann, Luke is a ‘chronicler’, and for Father Kannengiesser he is a ‘true novelist’. In his prologue to Theophilus, Luke warns us that he, in his turn, following on from others who have written accounts concerning Jesus, is going to write a narrative of the same facts using the accounts and information of eyewitnesses-implying that he himself is not one-including information from the apostles’ preachings. It is therefore to be a methodical piece of work which he introduces in the following terms:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having informed myself about all things from their beginnings, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning things of which you have been informed.”
From the very first line, one can see all that separates Luke from the ‘scribbler’ Mark to whose work we have just referred. Luke’s Gospel is incontestably a literary work written in classical Greek free from any barbarism.
Luke was a cultivated Gentile convert to Christianity. His attitude towards the Jews is immediately apparent. As O. Culmann points out, Luke leaves out Mark’s most Judaic verses and highlights the Jews’ incredulity at Jesus’s words, throwing into relief his good relations with the Samaritans, whom the Jews detested. Matthew, on the other hand, has Jesus ask the apostles to flee from them. This is just one of many striking examples of the fact that the evangelists make Jesus say whatever suits their own personal outlook. They probably do so with sincere conviction. They give us the version of Jesus’s words that is adapted to the point of view of their own community. How can one deny in the face of such evidence that the Gospels are ‘combat writings’ or ‘writings suited to an occasion, as has been mentioned already? The comparison between the general tone of Luke’s Gospel and Matthew’s is in this respect a good demonstration.
Who was Luke? An attempt has been made to identify him with the physician of the same name referred to by Paul in several of his letters. The Ecumenical Translation notes that “several commentators have found the medical occupation of the author of this Gospel confirmed by the precision with which he describes the sick”. This assessment is in fact exaggerated out of all proportion. Luke does not, properly speaking, describe things of this kind; “the vocabulary he uses is that of a cultivated man of his time”. There was a Luke who was Paul’s travelling companion, but was he the same person? O. Culmann thinks he was.
The date of Luke’s Gospel can be estimated according to several factors: Luke used Mark’s and Matthew’s Gospels. From what we read in the Ecumenical Translation, it seems that he witnessed the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus’s armies in 70 A.D. The Gospel probably dates from after this time. Present-day critics situate the time it was written at .circa 80-90 A.D., but several places it at an even earlier date.
The various narrations in Luke show important differences when compared to his predecessors. An outline of this has already been given. The Ecumenical Translation indicates them on pages 181 et sec. O. Culmann, in his book, The New Testament (Le Nouveau Testament) page 18, cites descriptions in Luke’s Gospel that are not to be found anywhere else. And they are not about minor points of detail.
The descriptions of Jesus’s childhood are unique to Luke’s Gospel. Matthew describes Jesus’s childhood differently from Luke, and Mark does not mention it at all.
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Wed 9 Shaban 1444AH 1-3-2023AD at 1:01 am #82986
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
Matthew’s gospel is the first of the four Gospels as they appear in the New Testament. This position is perfectly justified by the fact that it is a prolongation, as it were, of the Old Testament. It was written to show that “Jesus fulfilled the history of Israel”, as the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible note and on which we shall be drawing heavily. To do BO, Matthew constantly refers to quotations from the Old Testament which show how Jesus acted as if he were the Messiah the Jews were awaiting.
This Gospel begins with a genealogy of Jesus [ The fact that it is in contradiction with Luke’s Gospel will be dealt with in a separate chapter.]. Matthew traces it back to Abraham via David. We shall presently see the fault in the text that most commentators silently ignore. Matthew’s obvious intention was nevertheless to indicate the general tenor of his work straight away by establishing this line of descendants. The author continues the same line of thought by constantly bringing to the forefront Jesus’s attitude toward Jewish law, the main principles of which (praying, fasting, and dispensing charity) are summarized here.
Jesus addresses His teachings first and foremost to His own people. This is how He speaks to the twelve Apostles “go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans [ The Samaritans’ religious code was the Torah or Pentateuch; they lived in the expectation of the Messiah and were faithful to most Jewish observances, but they had built a rival Temple to the one at Jerusalem.] but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 10, 5-6). “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. (Matthew 15, 24). At the end of his Gospel, in second place, Matthew extends the apostolic mission of Jesus’s first disciples to all nations. He makes Jesus give the following order. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28, 19), but the primary destination must be the ‘house of Israel’.
Tricot says of this Gospel, “Beneath its Greek garb, the flesh and bones of this book are Jewish, and so is its spirit; it has a Jewish feel and bears its distinctive signs”.
On the basis of these observations alone, the origins of Matthew’s Gospel may be placed in the tradition of a Judeo-Christian community. According to O. Culmann, this community “was trying to break away from Judaism while at the same time preserving the continuity of the Old Testament. The main preoccupations and the general tenor of this Gospel point towards a strained situation.”
There are also political factors to be found in the text. The Roman occupation of Palestine naturally heightened the desire of this country to see itself liberated. They prayed for God to intervene in favour of the people He had chosen among all others, and as their omnipotent sovereign who could give direct support to the affairs of men, as He had already done many times in the course of history.
What sort of person was Matthew? Let us say straight away that he is no longer acknowledged to be one of Jesus’s companions. A. Tricot nevertheless presents him as such in his commentary to the translation of the New Testament, 1960: “Matthew alias, Levi, was a customs officer employed at the tollgate or customs house at Capharnaum when Jesus called him to be one of His disciples.” This is the opinion of the Fathers of the Church, Origen, Jerome and Epiphanes. This opinion is no longer held today. One point which is uncontested is that the author is writing “for people who speak Greek, but nevertheless know Jewish customs and the Aramaic language.”
It would seem that for the commentators of the Ecumenical Translation, the origins of this Gospel are as follows:
“It is normally considered to have been written in Syria, perhaps at Antioch (. . .), or in Phoenicia, because a great many Jews lived in these countries. [ It has been thought that the Judeo-Christian community that Matthew belonged to might just as easily have been situated at Alexandria. O. Culmann refers to this hypothesis along with many others.] (. . .) we have indications of a polemic against the orthodox Judaism of the Synagogue and the Pharisees such as was manifested at the synagogal assembly at Jamina circa 80 A.D.” In such conditions, there are many authors who date the first of the Gospels at about 80-90 A.D., perhaps also a little earlier. it is not possible to be absolutely definite about this . . . since we do not know the author’s exact name, we must be satisfied with a few outlines traced in the Gospel itself. the author can be recognized by his profession. He is well-versed in Jewish writings and traditions. He knows, respects, but vigorously challenges the religious leaders of his people. He is a past master in the art of teaching and making Jesus understandable to his listeners. He always insists on the practical consequences of his teachings. He would fit fairly well the description of an educated Jew turned Christian; a householder “who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” as Matthew says (13,52). This is a long way from the civil servant at Capharnaum, whom Mark and Luke call Levi, and who had become one of the twelve Apostles . . .
Everyone agrees in thinking that Matthew wrote his Gospel using the same sources as Mark and Luke. His narration is, as we shall see, different on several essential points. In spite of this, Matthew borrowed heavily from Mark’s Gospel although the latter was not one of Jesus’s disciples (O. Culmann).
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Fri 18 Shaban 1444AH 10-3-2023AD at 1:01 am #82998
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
John’s Gospel is radically different from the three others; to such an extent indeed that Father Roguet, in his book Initiation to the Gospel (Initiation à l’Evangile), having commented on the other three, immediately evokes a startling image for the fourth. He calls it , a different world’. It is indeed a unique book; different in the arrangement and choice of subject, description and speech; different in its style, geography, and chronology; there are even differences in theological outlook (O. Culmann). Jesus’s words are therefore differently recorded by John from the other evangelists: Father Roguet notes on this that whereas the Synoptics record Jesus’s words in a style that is “striking, much nearer to the oral style”, in John all is meditation; to such an extent indeed that “one sometimes wonders if Jesus is still speaking or whether His ideas have not imperceptibly been extended by the Evangelist’s own thoughts”.
Who was the author? This is a highly debated question and extremely varying opinions have been expressed on this subject.
A. Tricot and Father Roguet belong to a camp that does not have the slightest misgivings: John’s Gospel is the work of an eyewitness, its author is John, son of Zebedee and brother of James. Many details are known about this apostle and are set out in works for mass publication. Popular iconography puts him near Jesus, as in the Last Supper prior to the Passion. Who could imagine that John’s Gospel was not the work of John the Apostle whose figure is so familiar?
The fact that the fourth Gospel was written so late is not a serious argument against this opinion. The definitive version was probably written around the end of the First century A.D. To situate the time it was written at sixty years after Jesus would be in keeping with an apostle who was very young at the time of Jesus and who lived to be almost a hundred.
Father Kannengiesser, in his study on the Resurrection, arrives at the conclusion that none of the New Testament authors, save Paul, can claim to have been eyewitnesses to Jesus’s Resurrection. John nevertheless related the appearance to a number of the assembled apostles, of which he was probably a member, in the absence of Thomas (20,19-24), then eight days later to the full group of apostles (20,25-29).
O. Culmann in his work The New Testament does not subscribe to this view.
The Ecumenical Translation of the Bible states that the majority of critics do not accept the hypothesis that the Gospel was written by John, although this possibility cannot be entirely ruled out. Everything points however towards the fact that the text we know today had several authors: “It is probable that the Gospel as it stands today was put into circulation by the author’s disciples who added chapter 21 and very likely several annotations (i.e. 4,2 and perhaps 4,1; 4,44; 7,37b; 11,2; 19,35). With regard to the story of the adulterous woman (7,53-8,11), everyone agrees that it is a fragment of unknown origin inserted later (but nevertheless belonging to canonic Scripture)”. Passage 19,35 appears as a ‘signature’ of an ‘eyewitness’ (O. Culmann), the only explicit signature in the whole of John’s Gospel; but commentators believe that it was probably added later.
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