MrMacSon wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2017 2:44 pm
There is a prevailing assumption that all Christian-related texts, including the pseudepigraphical and apocryphyl 'gospels' and epistles/texts, were and are written as a response to (a 'reaction to') the synoptic or canonical gospels [the canonical gospels being the 3 synoptics + gJohn].
I would argue that there is a reasonable chance that is not the case.
I put the proposition that the books of the NT, including the Pauline epistles as we know them today, arose out of a milieu of gnostic, spirit-worshipping stories, pericopes, and texts that predominated in an/the inter-testamentary period.
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I would counter this by saying that your proposition of the origins of the texts coming from the milieu of differing beliefs (need not be heretical as you imply) would not in anyway impact the observation that the written texts came in response to written texts. These are not mutually opposing positions and in fact I think they are complimentary.
The explosion of NT texts, IMO a gospel first, came about from competition as a result of the diversity. But before I digress into that, we need to step back and consider another set of questions first to understand why Jesus stories would promulgate. Why were the NT books written in the first place? What was their initial audience and their their distribution?
**** Everything below is my opinion at the moment, an educated guess ****
It is my belief that a "pre-published" gospel, which critics love to label a proto-Gospel, circulated in the synagogues (meaning the physical building, as the term by NT writers means the physical building or compound, not the congregation/assembly, which Ecclesia or "Church" in our English translations meant). This book was more a manuscript, IMO a religious play of sorts, not dissimilar to those of other cults in the Roman Empire -- these are already Hellenized congregations. The theology contained within is neither Marcionite nor Gnostic, but rather ambiguous. I don;t know if the play was ever performed, but as at least few versions of the prototype were made it is probable it was.
It is my general belief that Christianity had two primary camps of factions, one which became known as all the various heretical Gnostic type sects, and the other would coalesce into the Orthodoxy (after many decades of evolution). One of the sects within the proto-Heretical camp, which we call the Marcionites, took a version of the proto-type Gospel and using it as a structure wrote their own Gospel. They used this with great success for evangelism, giving them a huge leg up on the other sects and especially over the proto-Orthodox camp. The Gospel of Matthew was almost certainly an immediate reaction to the Marcionite, using a different version of the prototype Gospel as it's base (it was organized much differently). The Gospels of Mark (possibly) and Luke (definitely) were reactions to both of those. The Gospel of John was a reaction to Matthew.
None of these created new sects, all of thse emphasized the positions of those sects. No two Gospels were written by the same sect either. This is why the theologies conflict. Each was written to "set the record straight" from those written before. And to help the sect using them to evangelize. For once one sect began to grow rapidly with new recruits and starting new churches it became a competition to grow your own sect to not become overwhelmed in numbers so as to be rendered too small and insignificant to survive. Christianity expanded because of this internal bickering and competition (Celsus commented on this bickering characteristic of Christians). The Gospels and other books were the tools of this expansion.
The competition was why the Jesus stories came about in what was likely just one or two generations. Mind you these books were not mass produced, but only made enough for a congregation (their synagogue/building) to house one. When Paul says he brought a Gospel in Galatians, it means a physical copy. It is the salesman's tool, the preacher's book. Other texts supported these. What these congregations likely already had was a LXX copy - but that is another story.
I do agree with Giuseppe's basic assumption that the books appeared first in the second century, probably about the early reign of Antoninus Pius, and before the end of the reigh of Commodus all the Canonical Gospels were present in forms not too dissimilar from what we know. That is a remarkably brief time frame, and suggest tremendous competition.
That is my best guess.