[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]JayPierce wrote:
It was mentioned earlier that the Gospels don’t include all of Christ’s teachings. Undoubtedly, it wasn’t because they couldn’t remember. So if Jesus told them to teach the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit brought to their minds everything Jesus taught them, then why didn’t they teach all of it? Why was it not all written down?
That is my biggest question. Why is it that we don’t have everything?
The Spirit does not speak of his own initiative, but the apostles admittedly did. That is the other problem.
[/quote]
Three points of response.
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Get ready for a mind crash - the evidence actually suggests that NONE of the gospels were written by apostles. Matthew was most likely NOT an apostle; Luke was certainly not an apostle; and the VERY EARLIEST witnesses to the authorship of John’s gospel concur that it was NOT written by John the apostle, but rather by a Jerusalem disciple (not an apostle - Jesus had many disciples in his lifetime who were NOT apostles) of Jesus referred to as John the Elder. Mark’s is the closest to being written by an apostle - the very earliest evidence suggests that Mark’s gospel is compiled from his recollections of the stories about Jesus that Peter told. Thus, while the gospel authors ALL used eyewitness material ultimately derived from the apostles, the fact remains that the apostles themselves did not write gospels.
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Bearing in mind the fact that the gospels were not written by apostles, how do you know that the apostles DIDN’T teach everything Jesus taught them? It is MUCH more likely that they did, but as the author of John’s gospel notes, if all of Jesus’ deeds and sayings were written, the world could not contain all of the books such information would fill. Now that is hyperbole, of course, but there is truth in it - the earliest Christians were keenly aware of the limits of what could be written down. It is likely that the apostles were faithful in teaching everything Jesus told them to teach; the fact that not all of that information made it into the gospels is no reflection on the faithfulness of the apostles.
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You show absolutely no sensitivity to genre. Genre is the most important characteristic of a work, as it determines how audiences will be disposed to interpret it. Think of the mystery novel genre, the biography, poetry, etc. Every genre carries with it certain distinguishing characteristics. The gospels were written in the style of Greco-Roman historiographic biographies, and one of the characteristics of that genre was judicious selectivity. What that means is that good historical biographies did not include EVERYTHING about a person’s life; they picked some major events or teachings and highlighted them. Because the gospels are part of that genre, it is only natural that they don’t record everything Jesus said or did; they pick certain events and teachings and highlight those.
Moreover, while the eyewitnesses and apostles were still alive, there was no need to write everything down - THEY WERE ALIVE TO TEACH EVERYTHING! In fact, we find that people didn’t start composing gospels until the eyewitnesses and apostles started dying out. It was at THAT point that people realized they needed to start writing down the teachings.
[quote]
Translate and teach the Gospel. I understand that there are ideas for which there are no words in Aramaic. In those cases, there are still explanations that can be used to convey what Christ was teaching.
But:
- certainly don’t leave anything out.
- don’t teach an idea of your own mind.
- don’t disobey rules that Christ set in place.
These are, again, my problems with the apostolic teachings.[/quote]
- You still don’t get it, dude. Translation IS interpretation! On the one hand, even to explain what Christ was teaching in a different language REQUIRES INTERPRETATION OF JESUS’ WORDS IN THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE TO DETERMINE THE NECESSARY IMPLICATIONS. On the other hand, translating into a new language requires careful, interpretive sifting of the various analogues to determine which ones were actually appropriate and sufficiently similar to the concepts of the original language and culture to facilitate translation.
Moreover, you are still left at an impasse in the case of Matthew 5:48 and Luke 6:36 - same speech, same context, different readings (Matthew reads, “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” whereas Luke reads, “Be merciful, therefore, as your Father is merciful.”). Which is the original version? Which are the true words of Jesus? NEITHER, in the sense that Jesus didn’t speak Greek, and had no word in his language for “perfect”, and BOTH, in the sense that both are inspired interpretations of whatever Jesus actually DID say.
- I already dealt with your erroneous claim that Paul allows a man to marry his daughter in 1 Corinthians 7. All you have is your misreading of an already poor translation; Parthenos in that instance does NOT refer to a daughter, but to a virgin fiancee. Moreover, even if parthenos referred to a daughter in this instance rather than a fiancee, the Greek word used in key verses can also mean “to give in marriage” (gamizw), as a father gives his daughter in marriage to another. Thus, at every single level, your argument fails.
Even more importantly, you claim to only follow Jesus’ words. Well, even if you were correct in your ridiculous misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 7 (which you really don’t want to keep telling people about, because anyone with half a brain who reads that passage can see you’re wrong), the fact is that AT NO POINT in the gospel accounts is Jesus recorded as saying, “a father cannot marry his daughter.” Thus, by your reasoning, there is no commandment of Jesus on the issue, and thus Paul would not be disobeying Jesus at all!
You see how ridiculous this all is, right? Please tell me you can see that now.
Finally, I would like your example (other than from 1 Corinthians, because the passage you are thinking of actually DOESN’T support your point) where the apostles “spoke of their own initiative.”[/quote]
So, then (and I suspect you saw this coming. Not that I was being overly deceptive), where does that leave modern you and me? How do we know what is right and wrong with the Bible, when hundreds of years of scholarship simply result in more and more squabbling (even as recently as 2005, specifically speaking of the Catholic church) as to what is the correct translation? Are we all supposed to be Biblical scholars and join in the squabbling?
How are we to introduce people to the story of the life and teachings of Christ, knowing that the stories are inaccurate, incomplete, and not even written by anyone who was there?
