Mark is earliest Gospel dated to 65-75CE, Jesus is dated around 6 BCE - 30CE.
Average Human Life Expectancy was 41 years.
50% Jews were killed in Jewish war. No eye witness possible.
“ The Conclusion usually(and I think rightly) drawn from their comparative study is that the Gospel of Mark (or something like it) served as a source for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and that these two also had access to a collection of sayings of Jesus(conveninently called ‘Q’), which may have been complied as a handbook for the Gentile mission around AD50.- P-25.
F.F.Bruce The Real Jesus
Bible Scholar A.M.Hunter- “If we had only Mark’ gospel we should infer that Jesus ministry was located in Galilee with one first and final visit to Jerusalem, and that the Galileen ministry began after Baptist John was imprisoned.
Average Human Life Expectancy was 41 years.
50% Jews were killed in Jewish war. No eye witness possible.
The earliest witnesses wrote nothing’ there is not a Single book in the New Testament which is the direct work of an eyewitness of the Historical Jesus. Page-197, -A Critical Introduction to New Testament. Reginald H.f. Fuller. Professor OF New Testament, Union Theological Seminary NewYork .
“ The Conclusion usually(and I think rightly) drawn from their comparative study is that the Gospel of Mark (or something like it) served as a source for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and that these two also had access to a collection of sayings of Jesus(conveninently called ‘Q’), which may have been complied as a handbook for the Gentile mission around AD50.- P-25.
F.F.Bruce The Real Jesus
Bible Scholar A.M.Hunter- “If we had only Mark’ gospel we should infer that Jesus ministry was located in Galilee with one first and final visit to Jerusalem, and that the Galileen ministry began after Baptist John was imprisoned.
4th gospel takes a different view. Here the scene shifts backwards and forwards between Galilee and Judea during the first six chapters , from chapter 7 onwards the scene is totally laid in Judea and Jerusalem,(See Jn3:24 for Baptist John and Jesus).” –P 45, Works and Words of Jesus.
Dr. C.J. Cadoux, who was Mackennal Professor of Church History at Oxford, thus sums up the conclusions of eeminent Biblical scholas regarding the nature and composition of this Gospel:
“It was written after Peter's martyrdom (65 A. D.), and at a time when Mark, who had not himself been a disciple of Jesus, apparently had non of the personal disciples of Jesus within reach by whose knowledge he could check his narrative. These circumstances of its composition account for the existence in it, side by side, of numerous signs of accuracy and a certain number of signs of ignorance and inaccuracy."- C.J. Cadoux : The Life of Jesus Penguin Bookds, P. 13
"The speeches in the Fourth Gospel (even apart from the early messianic claim) are so different from those in the Syoptics, and so like the comments of the Fourth Evangelist both cannot be equally reliable as records of what Jesus said : Literary veracity in ancient times did forbid, as it does now, the assingment of fictitious speeches to historical characters: the best ancient historians made a practice of and assigning such speeches in this way."I
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1. C.J. Cadoux: The Life of Jesus, p. 16.
Rev. T.G. Tucker writes:
"Thus Gospels were produced which clearly reflect the conception of the practical needs of the community for which they were written. In them the traditional material was used, but there was no hesitation in altering it or making additions to it, or in leaving out what did not suit the writer’s purpose"
The four Gospels included in the Bible were not the only Gospels written in the early centuries of Christianity.
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1. T.G. Tucker : The History of the Christians in the Light of Modern Knowledge, p.320
C.J. Cadoux sums up the position in these words in his book Life of Jesus.
“In the four Gopels, therefore, the main documents to which we must go if we are to fill-out at all that bare sketch which we can Put together from other sources, we find material of widely-differing quality as regards credibility. So far-reaching is the element of ucertainly that it is temptig to ‘down tools’ at once, and to declare the task hopeless. The historical inconsistencies and impobabilities in parts of the Gospels form some of arguments advanced in favour of the Christ-myth theory. These are, however, entirely outweighed as we have shown-by ther considerations. Still, the discrepancies and uncertainties that remain are serious and consequently many moderns, who have no doubt whatever of Jesus’ real existence, regard as hopeless any attempt to dissolve out the historically- true from the legendary or mythical matter which the Gospels contain, and to recostruct the story of Jesus’ mission out of the more historical residue.”
-----------------------------1. C.J. Cadoux: op. cit., pp.16,17.
I give the Current Position of Biblical Theologians summarised by American Scholar
Professor John Hick, sums up the current position of Theological research as follows:
Quote:
“The weight and extent of the strain under which Christian Belief has come can be indicated by listing aspects of Traditional Theology which are, which are in the opinion of many Theologians today [including myself], either untenable ot open to Serious Doubts.
1. There are divinely revealed truths [such as the doctrines of Trinity or the two natures of Christ]
2. God Created the physical Universe out of nothing “n’ years ago.
3. Man was created originally brought into the existence as a finitely perfect being, but rebelled against God, and the human condition has ever since been that of creatures who have fallen from grace.
4. Christ come to rescue man from his fallen plight, buying man’ [or some men’s] restoration to grace by his death on the cross.
5. Jesus was born of a Virgin mother, without human Patenity.
6. He performed miracles in which the regularities of the natural order were suspended by Divine Power.
7. His Dead Body rose from the Grave and Returned to Earthy Life.
8. All men must respond to God through Jesus Christ in order to be saved.
9. AT Death a person’s relationship to God is irrevocably fixed.
10. There are two human destinies, traditionally referred to under the symbols of Heaven and Hell. “
“God and the Universe of Faiths”- John Hick,Formerly Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Claremont Graduate School. California Published by Macmillan 1998.
Professor John Hick, sums up the current position of Theological research as follows:
Quote:
“The weight and extent of the strain under which Christian Belief has come can be indicated by listing aspects of Traditional Theology which are, which are in the opinion of many Theologians today [including myself], either untenable ot open to Serious Doubts.
1. There are divinely revealed truths [such as the doctrines of Trinity or the two natures of Christ]
2. God Created the physical Universe out of nothing “n’ years ago.
3. Man was created originally brought into the existence as a finitely perfect being, but rebelled against God, and the human condition has ever since been that of creatures who have fallen from grace.
4. Christ come to rescue man from his fallen plight, buying man’ [or some men’s] restoration to grace by his death on the cross.
5. Jesus was born of a Virgin mother, without human Patenity.
6. He performed miracles in which the regularities of the natural order were suspended by Divine Power.
7. His Dead Body rose from the Grave and Returned to Earthy Life.
8. All men must respond to God through Jesus Christ in order to be saved.
9. AT Death a person’s relationship to God is irrevocably fixed.
10. There are two human destinies, traditionally referred to under the symbols of Heaven and Hell. “
“God and the Universe of Faiths”- John Hick,Formerly Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Claremont Graduate School. California Published by Macmillan 1998.
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