Thu 12 Feb 2009
How to Read the Bible for All its Worth – The Gospels
Posted by S.G.R. Webster under An Introduction to the New Testament
[29] Comments
Sorry it’s so late. I just got home from the game.
Godspeed you as you finish reading.
It’s the greatest you will EVER read.
I’m blessed to be given the opportunity to even ask you to do it.
This painting is entitled “the calling of saints Peter & Andrew”.
The artist is Caravaggio from the 16th Century.
Love the beardless Jesus.
pg. 29 – Why did some communities need a different Gospel than other communities in the very early church? What made it different from now, where none of the Gospels supersede eachother?
I was a little bit confused about when it talks about the similarities of the gospels on 136 and 137. so mark probably wrote his gospel first. matthew and luke based their writings off of mark’s, and they had some additional information of their own. so… instead of putting 3 gospels in, of which two are based on the third, why didn’t the church fathers organize it as one book that’s made up of mark’s writing and including matthew and luke’s additional information? do you think it would have less validity or believability?
Ok, so reading the gospels and really taking a look at everything..something stood out to me first mentioned in Matthew 8:21 saying: Then another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” …. Why wouldn’t Jesus let him go and bury his father? Maybe this is a different time and all..but Jesus had to understand the sons connection to a father figure and take time to mourn at least a little bit. I think this is extremely sad…sorry but everytime i read the gospels this stuck out.
on pages 131-132, Since the gospels were passed down orally how do we know it was the same as what Jesus said, and wanted to say and that it wans’t like a game of telephone?
I don’t understand how the four Gospels are functioning as hermeneutical models for us. pg 129
When they talk about thinking virtically, I understand the concept of it, but if they dont want you to overdue that kind of thinking how do you know when to begin and when to stop doing it? (page 139)
On page 113 it said that there were 2 difficulties with the gospels,
1) Jesus didn’t write a gospel.
2) There are 4 gospels.
I can see why number 1 would present difficulties but number 2… not so much.
While atheists/non-believers may be able to use fact that certain events or facts are not in all 4 of the gospels, this is ultimately not a problem and having 4 gospels gives more information.
The 4 gospels support each other by recounting most of the same events with different details focused on, this should support their validity because 2 people seeing the same event will remember different details.
In addition to this, the 4 gospels were written to different people and with different purposes, this would change the writing style and details that are included.
The total information provided by 4 gospels is much greater than that of just 1, they support and “flesh out” the other’s accounts.
I would think that having four gospels would be more of an advantage than a hindrance.
I might have missed something concerning this though, as I had to read the chapter a little more quickly than I would have liked.
131-132. This part of the passage talks about the Bible being passed down. I feel like even though the events of the Bible took place not to long before it was written, that it would still have some minor flaws.My question kinda goes with Hannah’s above, because I know that God would have to be involved in the writing process but it is still so mystifing that the Bible’s outcome was so accuarate. So how did the Bible translate so accuaretly?
Page 137.
I was a little intrigued by the fact that John’s gospel is so different from the the other three. At first, I wondered why it varied so much, since most atheists probably think that it’s contradictory due to the fact that it doesn’t follow the other three. Then I realised that Matthew and Luke used Mark’s gospel as a basis for their own, while John wrote entirely independently. Why did Matthew and Luke use the Mark’s gospel when they could have done what John did, and relied on the Holy Spirit? Was Mark’s gospel totally necessary?
Oh yeah, I meant to ask if it was really necessary for Matthew and Luke to use Mark’s gospel…I know that Mark’s gospel itself is necessary.
On page 137, the authors say that John wrote independently from the writers of the other gospels. Why was this?
First, I really enjoyed reading about the “already, not yet” perspective it talked about on page 147. Second, I’m not sure if I’m reading it wrong, but the third paragraph on page 132 confused me a little. What is it talking about with the evangelists?
on pg. 133 it talks about the question of who Jesus was talking to in his parables, wether it be his disciples, the priests or the general crowd. my question is then that since the parables were ment for those groups, how should we as christians react to them? should we just read them as part of Jesus’ life and works, or should we relate them to our live deeply now despite all the warning in the last chapters weve read about taking the stories and superimpossing them to fit our lives?
131-132 It says that the facts about Jesus’ life were handed down orally in pericopes, yet all of the gospels were written from a firsthand account. Can both be true?
ok so on pg 132, im hung up on this whole.. “historical original context” thing. what is the book trying to get across at the end of the paragraph on the top of the pg when it asks the question [can u imagine what we might say... etc] then it goes on to talk about Paul citing sayings of Jesus 3 times w/out alluding to their original historical contexts. why would he not allude to them? wouldn’t we want to know exactly what Jesus said?(if thats what historical original context even is) and then what is that whole thing right after that when it says the saying in Acts is not found at all in the gospels, so for us it is totally without an origianl context..? im so confused haha.
On page 135, they talk about why we shouldnt fill in parts from one of the gospels with another. Why shouldnt we.
pgs 133-134 stress finding historical context of the gospels in order to glean the most from them. This is a kind of difficult thing to do considering the time between then and now, are there any good resources to aid us in this search for historical context?
On page 155 the last paragragh says “In a certain sense, therefore, the Gospels are already functioning as hermeneutical odels for us, insisting by their very nature that we, too, retell the same story in our own twentieth-century contexts. I don’t understand this paragragh at all.
Pg 139… vertically thinking. how much is too much, or “overdoing” it?
Beardless Jesus is younger than his disciples.
why do they say that were so teaching translated without their context?
Pg. 132
I too, had confusion about why John’s gospel was done so much differently than Matthew and Luke, on page 137.
Also, on page 132, I got a little confused about what was handed down orally and what was written from a firsthand account.
All the gospels were written by people with firsthand accounts, right? And the reason they were written down was like what we did for our study guide, so the news about Jesus could be spread farther?
Why do we need to translate “the kingdom of God” into our culture today? Isn’t it just something to know, that doesn’t have anything to do with culture? Just like “salvation” is a term and we don’t need to translate it into culture.
i don’t understand how we are supposed to accept the entire Bible as being true and reliable if somethings in the Gospels aren’t the same. I know that most of the things that don’t match up are tiny things that don’t really matter, but I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t be the same if the bible is inspired by the Lord.
pg 129 says that the gospels were written to meet all the needs of different communities. Totally don’t understand why they were written for people’s needs? and what needs were they?
on page 147 it talks about the early christians who had to “live between the times”. i think it is interesting to think about the christians who had to live before the birth of Christ. they heard of a coming savior but yet they didn’t see it in their time. they had to have so much faith! It is encouraging to me because sometimes our faith is shaky and we doubt God but really HE has given us plenty of evidence to believe in Him and we have proof of His birth, death and resurrection.
On page 131-132 it talks about how the people in the first century AD wouldn’t necessarily keep the sayings and stories of Jesus in context, which is why you see them in different contexts throughout the bible. in earlier chapters we learned that we weren’t supposed to take things out of context… so what’s the difference?
i dont understand why we wouldnt want to fit different parts from diferent gospels together in order to better figure out what was going on…. is it bad to read a chronological bible???
late because i was not able to access a computer at 9 at night