The Voices of the New Testament

[Clive]

I wonder if an overview might be of help to work out how these books were edited together.

I would argue the core books are in fact Hebrews and Revelation, which are possibly the earliest. Revelation is a rewrite of something Jewish, as possibly is Hebrews.

Their voices are about a new heaven and earth, justice, cleansing of sins, the heavenly High Priest, Alpha and Omega.

Very big messages!

Other writers riffed with this idea of a basically heavenly christ or a messiah, the Pauline works and epistles.

Another group - the gospels - attempted to fix these tales in a time and place.

Acts attempted to bring it all together in some sort of relationship with various creeds.

[Charles Wilson]

Revelation is a rewrite of something Jewish, as possibly is Hebrews.

Revelation 5: 5 - 6 (RSV):

[5] Then one of the elders said to me, "Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals."
[6] And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth;

Your "Jewish rewrite" begins roughly here and proceeds through Chapter 11-ish. Alexander Jannaeus is the King and the Mishmarot Group "Immer" is the "Lamb", based on a Wordplay on the word "Immar" => "Lamb" Atwill traces out the hand of Domitian (or the people who followed the Flavians in the Court after Domitian's death) surrounding this material. Lotsa' noir humor involved in this surrounding material.

Their voices are about a new heaven and earth, justice, cleansing of sins, the heavenly High Priest, Alpha and Omega.

The Alpha and Omega reference the House of Eleazar from Jehoiarib through Immer. This is the Story of the Hasmoneans and the Destruction of their Dynasty. The Romans simply steal everything and rewrite the rest to make the Romans as the Heirs to God's Promises.

Acts attempted to bring it all together in some sort of relationship with various creeds.

Acts is the most cynical of the lot. It is the Story of Mucianus and the 12th Legion at the Destruction of the Jerusalem and the Ascension of the Flavians.

Not many - or any - members of this site enjoy reading this but it's there, big as life and twice as ugly. It's not uplifting Metaphysics, Glory to God and all that. It is the most vicious literature ever written.

CW

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

I wonder if an overview might be of help to work out how these books were edited together.

I would argue the core books are in fact Hebrews and Revelation, which are possibly the earliest. Revelation is a rewrite of something Jewish, as possibly is Hebrews.

Recently I thought it would be nice if each member create his own overview on this topic. A bit chronology, dependence of the texts from one another, the question of oral tradition, history or imagination as base, who was on which side and and and ... only "facts", no arguing

Everything on one sheet with colored arrows

[DCHindley]

I wonder if an overview might be of help to work out how these books were edited together.

David Trobisch has his POV in The First Edition of the New Testament and other papers, suggesting that Polycarp of Smyrna was the first to publish the four units of the New Testament as handed down (the four gospels as a unit; the letters of Paul as a unit; the Acts of the Apostles and the General Epistles as a unit; and then the book of Revelation all by its lonesome). Individual books may have circulated independently of the units they later came to be transmitted with before the final editor's time. What is certain is that Irenaeus seemed to know of all of them (with one exception I think) and refrains from citing any other gospels, Acts or epistles, as if he thought them inferior to the ones he preferred.

I would argue the core books are in fact Hebrews and Revelation, which are possibly the earliest. Revelation is a rewrite of something Jewish, as possibly is Hebrews.

Revelation may have began as a collection of Judean works predicting the fall of the Roman hegemony from the mid 1st century CE that got a final re-write by a Christian editor. Hebrews was actually fairly late to the table. It's order in the letters of Paul moves around from manuscript to manuscript, suggesting that it was added to them later. The Greek is reportedly top flight and the theology much more cohesive than the Christological statements in the other Pauline epistles. I'd suggest that it was written to tie those Christological statements together, and was likely written after the gospels.

But that's just me.

DCH