Behind the Gospels

Behind the Gospels PDF

Author: Eric Eve

Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1451469403

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New Testament scholars often talk about oral tradition as a means by which material about Jesus reached the Gospels writers. Despite the recent interest in oral tradition, scholarly advances have not penetrated the mainstream of academic Gospels scholarship, let alone the wider public. Behind the Gospels fills this gap, offering a general theoretical discussion of oral tradition and the formation of ancient texts and providing a critical survey of the field.

Behind the Scenes of the New Testament

Behind the Scenes of the New Testament PDF

Author: Paul Barnett

Publisher: Intervarsity Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 9780830813292

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Paul Barnett traces the church from the Gospels to Revelation, anchoring events recorded in the New Testament within the historical, political and social context of the Roman Empire.

Jesus Rabbi and Lord

Jesus Rabbi and Lord PDF

Author: Robert L. Lindsey

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-08-29

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781548824495

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In 1945, Robert Lisle Lindsey from Norman, Oklahoma, found himself the pastor of a small Baptist congregation in Jerusalem, Israel. With his Hebrew-speaking congregants in mind, he began a translation of the Greek texts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and soon concluded there must lie behind these Gospels--even if distantly--an early Hebrew story of Jesus. To his surprise, he also found that Luke almost always showed Greek texts which could easily be translated literally to Hebrew. The same was true of Matthew, wherever he was not copying Mark's Gospel.In 1962, Lindsey met Professor David Flusser of Hebrew University and the two pursued the question of whether we can get back to the earliest semitic story and words of Jesus. "It is clear," say Lindsey and Flusser, "that our synoptic texts originated mainly in one Greek translation of a Hebrew biography of Jesus, probably written by the Matthew of tradition. The materials are too Hebraic to have originated in Greek, as many scholars mistakenly think today. Happily, if we use the right tools we can still hear Jesus speak as his fellow Jews of the first-century heard Him.''Lindsey tells here the warm, personal account of how he and Flusser struggled over many years to discover the earliest form of Jesus' words and narratives of His life. They believe that the records, when properly analyzed and studied, show us an authentic picture of Jesus interacting with the people of Jerusalem and Galilee. Jesus clearly heads a movement, the ''Kingdom of Heaven, '' and is a Divine Figure whose actions and words are fully Messianic.

Misquoting Jesus

Misquoting Jesus PDF

Author: Bart D. Ehrman

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0061977020

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When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible. Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible. Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible.

Scripting Jesus

Scripting Jesus PDF

Author: L. Michael White

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2010-04-15

Total Pages: 534

ISBN-13: 0061985376

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In Scripting Jesus, Michael White, famed scholar of early Christian history, reveals how the gospel stories of Jesus were never meant to be straightforward historical accounts, but rather were scripted and honed as performance pieces for four different audiences with four different theological agendas. As he did as a featured presenter in two award-winning PBS Frontline documentaries (“From Jesus to Christ” and “Apocalypse!”), White engagingly explains the significance of some lesser-known aspects of The New Testament; in this case, the development of the stories of Jesus—including how the gospel writers differed from one another on facts, points of view, and goals. Readers of Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Bart Ehrman will find much to ponder in Scripting Jesus.

The Gospels Behind the Gospels

The Gospels Behind the Gospels PDF

Author: Robert M. Price

Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)

Published: 2023-02-23

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1634312392

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What if we have been missing a whole stage of how the canonical gospels came to be? What if there were a whole raft of prior Jesus narratives, whether written or oral, the fragmentary vestiges of which now appear in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This would explain why these gospels seem over-crowded with incompatible understandings of Jesus ("Christologies")? In The Gospels Behind the Gospels, innovative biblical scholar Robert M. Price attempts to reassemble the puzzle pieces, disclosing several earlier gospels of communities who imagined Jesus as the predicted return of the prophet Elijah, the Samaritan Taheb (a second Moses), a resurrected John the Baptist, a theophany of Yahweh, a Gnostic Revealer, a Zealot revolutionary, etc. As these various sects shrank and collapsed, their remaining followers would have come together, just as modern churches and denominations seek to survive by merging and consolidating. Our canonical gospels might be the result. Similarly, Price explores the possibility that Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ (listed as if on a par in 1 Corinthians 1:12) were originally figureheads of rival sects who eventually merged in much the same way. You will never read the gospels the same way again!

The Gospel behind the Gospels

The Gospel behind the Gospels PDF

Author: Ronald A. Piper

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-04-09

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9004267093

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The Gospel Behind the Gospels portrays all the major areas of current discussion and debate regarding the early source of Jesus' sayings known as Q. Sixteen gospel scholars have advanced the debate about this source's nature, history and significance. Contributors discuss Q's existence, its relationship to Mark's gospel and to the Gospel of Thomas, its genre, its redactional history with special reference to the Son of Man and to wisdom and prophetic traditions, its social history with respect to family structures and the Cynics, a feminist analysis of Q, its significance for the historical Jesus and for Jesus' parables. The volume sheds important light on Jesus and Christian origins as well as upon Q itself, and it is significant for the diversity of major North American, European and Japanese scholarship which is represented.

Who Wrote the Gospels?

Who Wrote the Gospels? PDF

Author: Gary Greenberg

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9780981496634

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Greenberg takes readers inside the complex and poorly understood world of modern Gospel text and source criticism and provides an easy-to-follow guide that shows how New Testament scholars arrive at their challenging conclusions.

Jesus Before the Gospels

Jesus Before the Gospels PDF

Author: Bart D. Ehrman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2016-03-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0062285238

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The bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus, one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today examines oral tradition and its role in shaping the stories about Jesus we encounter in the New Testament—and ultimately in our understanding of Christianity. Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally—including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply researched work, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman investigates the role oral history has played in the New Testament—how the telling of these stories not only spread Jesus’ message but helped shape it. A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman draws on a range of disciplines, including psychology and anthropology, to examine the role of memory in the creation of the Gospels. Explaining how oral tradition evolves based on the latest scientific research, he demonstrates how the act of telling and retelling impacts the story, the storyteller, and the listener—crucial insights that challenge our typical historical understanding of the silent period between when Jesus lived and died and when his stories began to be written down. As he did in his previous books on religious scholarship, debates on New Testament authorship, and the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, Ehrman combines his deep knowledge and meticulous scholarship in a compelling and eye-opening narrative that will change the way we read and think about these sacred texts.

The Gospel According to Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew PDF

Author:

Publisher: Canongate U.S.

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780802136169

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The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.