by awakening 6 Replies latest jw friends
I was checking out why the watchtower study was using the book of Matthew regarding the last days during the meeting. I read somewhere, and please correct me if i am wrong, that Mark was written in advance of the other accounts.
I thought the differences were startling. Mark makes no mention of "as in the days of Noah". Mark clearly is writing in terms of one event, i cant see any reference to a future fulfilment.
Is this why the org dosent often use Mark regarding the end of the system?
The majority of bible scholars believe Mark to be the basis for Matthew and Luke.
John, maybe not.
The Gospel of John is quite different in content and essence all together....I always wondered why the wonderful story of the "ressurrection of Lazurus" was not witnessed or written about by all four apostles...
The writer of John made it all too clear the meanings by which he wanted to spread information about the "Christ"
Maat
Most all Bible scholars agree that Mark was the first book written. The watchtower stands almost alone in claiming that the Bible books were written in the order that they appear in their Bible. A great book on the subject is written by Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus.
Mark is the earliest. It is a much more stark gospel than the others. If you read the gospels in one or two settings, you will see how Mark differs from Matthew and Luke. It is hard for Witnesses to see b/c we jump all over the place. Blondie summarized a WT article about Christ as King. It kept switching from Psalms, a Jewish prayer book that is not likely to champion Jesus, and Revelation. If you know Paul wrote Romans, you can see for yourself that Paul did not write other letters that the WT uses. There is no need for commentaries.
I am sorry. When I was in college, scholars believed a document called Q once existed. It was a collection of Jesus sayings, without parables or the Passion. They believe this document accounted for the Synoptic Gospels. I decided to go into another field. When I returned, I discovered that despite its acceptance in my college years, most scholars no longer believed in Q. A young academic wrote an important article that changed the field. Today most scholars believe in Q again.
The Gnostic gospels also contain these sayings of Jesus. Altho the theology is markedly different, Jesus says the same words as in the canonical gospels.
I wonder what the Witnesses teach.
While I don't always endorse Wikipedia, they do have some pretty good articles on this kind of stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markan_priority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
See also this thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/246339/1/Markan-priority-and-the-synoptic-gospels
