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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skipper who wrote (24237)	8/12/1998 3:22:00 PM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

You put a lot of faith in the oral tradition. Not at all. On the contrary, Christianity is a collection of writings of primary witnesses. Since Christ was able to read, he surely also wrote during his lifetime. Eusebius mentions a letter Christ wrote to a King of Edessa, that still existed when he wrote his history. Maybe the source of the elusive "Q" included Christ's own notes. Maybe not. Regardless, there wasn't a paucity of primary witnesses recording their memories.

To: Skipper who wrote (24237)	8/12/1998 7:51:00 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

" However, the difference between the original words of an author (Jesus or Caesar), and hearsay, is something a little more objective. You put a lot of faith in the oral tradition." Hi Skipper, A carful evaluation of the New Testament documents and the historical developments after the Crucifixion reveals a very early date for both the Gospels and the Book of Acts. It is generally agreed that the key to dating the Gospels is in dating the Book of Acts, because almost all scholars (liberal as well as conservative) agree that acts is written after the Gospels because it deals with the activities of the followers of Jesus after the Resurrection. Consequently, the Gospels cannot be dated later than Acts. The key, then, to finding the date of the Gospels, is determing the time of the writing of Acts. What was the date of the writing of Acts? Most conservative Christian scholars believe that the Book of Acts must be dated earlier than 70 A.D. and here is why: 1. Luke, the author of Acts, makes no mention of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D.70. (It is univerally recognized that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D.) It is hard to believe that if Acts was written after this date, especially because Luke is, throughout Acts, centrally interested in events which occur in Jerusalem. In fact, Luke makes no mention of the war that broke out between the Jews and the Romans in 66 A.D. which lead to the fall of Jerusalem. Yet, throughout the Book of Acts, Luke shows great concern with Roman-Jewish relations. For example, he mentions the minor skirmish which occurred between these two in A.D. 44. Why could he then pass up the much more significant war which occurred 22 years later, a war which resulted in the destruction of the Jewish tempple and the sacking of all Jerusalem? What really drives home this point is the fact that Jesus prophecies in Luke's Gospel that Jerusalem would fall (Luke 21). Do you think Luke would have missed the opportunity to show how this prophecy was fulfilled? One of the reasons Luke wrote acts in the first place was to show how the working of the Spirit in the early Church carries on and fulfills the ministry of Jesus. Every other Gospel also prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem. The liberals scholars who don't believe anything supernatural can occur, argue that this shows that the Gospels must be written after the fall of Jerusalem--a main reason they date the Gospels late. The Gospel authors thus supposedly put into Jesus' mouth a prophecy He never made. But what's interesting to observe here is that in all the Gospels the fall of Jerusalem is connected closely with the end of the world (Luke 21; Matt. 24:Mark13). This raises problems for interpreters because the world didn't end when Jerusalem fell. But the problem in the text raises an even more serious problem for the liberal view. For if the Gospel authors were fabricating a prophecy of Jesus about Jerusalem after the fact( as the liberals claim), they certainly wouldn't have fabricated a connection between it and something they knew did not seem to have occurred, namely, the end of the world! The point is very clear! So the prophecy of Jesus concerning the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 had to have been written prior to A.D. 70. Luke would have mentioned it being fulfilled in Acts, and none of the authors would have connected it with an obvious ending of the material world if, in fact, it had been written(fabricated) after this date. So, it is clear that Acts was written before 70 A.D. 2. Acts also makes not mention of Nero's persecution of Christians in the mid-60s. In fact, his view of the Roman government is neutral. This definitely indicates that Nero's persecution had not yet occurred. Consequently, the writing of the historical document of the Book of Acts must be place before the active persecution of the Christians begin under Nero's reign. 3. Another important point concerns the martyrdom of Paul and Peter in 64 and 65 A.D. Luke carefully records the martyrdom of other Christians like stephen and James in the Book of Acts, why not the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul? Since Luke devotes half the book of Acts to Paul and a large portion to Peter, it would be incredible if he neglected to record their martyrdom if it had already occurred when he wrote his book. This indicates that the Book of Acts was finished before the Martyrdoms of Paul and Peter in 64 and 65 A.D. Remember, the Gospels had to come before the Book of Acts! 4. Luke's record of people and events in the Roman Empire has been carefully substantiated by many archeological expeditions. 5. Luke also uses expression in Acts which were used widely early on in Christianity, but not later--not after A.D. 70. Jesus, for example, is called "the Son of Man," but his title of Jesus died out very early in Christian circles. From these simple observations, we can date the Book of Acts before 65 A.D. The Gospel of Luke was written just before the Book of Acts. Scholars universally agree that the Gospel of Mark was written before Luke. Most scholars agree that Matthew and Luke were written almost at the same time since they both used Mark as a reference. So the Gospels were definitely written before 65 A.D. and possibly as early as late 40s to mid fifties. So we can see that the New Testament contains historical documents that were written by eyewitnesses and those interviewing eyewitnesses soon after the actual events had occurred. We can conclude that the New Teatament is an historical document of eyewitness accounts of the Life of Jesus and the early development of the Christian Church. Emile