Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Who said they saw or heard anything in New Testamt?
I have been looking at collections of stories in the first 5 books of the New Testament, trying to see who originated the stories, who said they saw any of this happen, or heard the sayings.
This may be a deliberate literary style, with nobody admitting to having seen or heard anything reported. But then I got to thinking that perhaps none of those 5 books were written or spoken by any first person witnesses.
We can read Luke's mention that he was not a real witness, and from his reasoning we can conclude that there were no circulating written gospels at the time he was writing his gospel.
Which would leave the possibility that none of the gospel authors was a direct witness to any of the stories reported, even if they may have had the same names as apostles who would have been witnesses.
So is there a reason we see no 'I saw or I heard' in these books? Not even a report of who told me?
If we make the assumption that Mathew, Mark, and John of Gospel name fame were the Apostles mentioned in the gospels, we do not see them identify themselves as being those people.
They do not appear to claim to have heard Jesus say anything, or claim to have seen him do anything. In telling a story where one was a witness, it is very unusual to find the story teller fail to make such claims.
I do not fault the authors for failing to claim what was not so.
Peter does not appear to have written any of the Gospels.
Luke does allude to some attempts to document the stories, but notice that he does not tell us that he takes any of his stories from them. He does not mention whether any were by original witnesses.
John's writings do not tell us anything that he personally saw or heard, or at least he does not mention having seen it, heard it. The generalized statement at the beginning looks more like preamble rather than a statement that he, John saw all of which he wrote., and he does not lay claim to being an apostle, one of the 12.
The concern is that stories that have been circulating verbally for a century are often known by everyone and are written down as though fact. But those writing them down have no personal exposure, and no chain of custody.
We do not even know whether spurious stories may have inserted themselves into the verbal record.
Note that Paul does not appear to have had access to any gospel, but writes half of the New Testament.
Decisions made by the church long after the fact as to who may have authored what are not convincing to me. The absence of any mention by an author of direct witnessing is so strong an evidence of itself.
The generalized statement that I was a witness to something or other, appears to be totally absent from Mathew, Mark, Luke, Acts of the Apostles.
We can make assumptions about who wrote all but Luke and Acts. Luke and Acts we know was written or compiled as editor by someone who did not witness any of it. The reality is that first the three other gospels do not internally identify who the authors were, and do not appear to lay claim ot having seen or heard anything directly that they report. The stories that refer to the apostles also do not appear to be referring to self. They are narratives told as though by a story teller who was not directly involved.
Which is entirely appropriate if the authors did not directly witness the events. But do we assume that the normal tendency to mention having heard or seen a momentous event was suppressed by an editorial board? Did people back then not like to mention that they saw or heard things?
5 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
It's true; none of them were written by contemporaries of Jesus. They were written many years after the alleged events.
You may find it interesting to read about Krishna, Mithras, Dionysus, and Horus. These are mythologies much more ancient than the Hebrew mythologies, and they are characters who have many, many similarities with Christ. ..
- 1 decade ago
Really? NO ONE wrote anything before Luke wrote his account? Are you sure about that?
Luke 1
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us...
Really? "MANY have undertaken..." I guess that means that you're incorrect. There WERE circulating gospels when Luke wrote his account! But what did Luke say after this? Hmm: "...just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word." Wait, is he saying that eyewitnesses wrote their own accounts, or had others write them? Maybe, just maybe, Luke is referring to the gospels of Matthew (who was one of Jesus' disciples) and Mark (who was a companion of both Peter and Paul)!
And what about Peter? 1 Peter 5:1:
"To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a WITNESS [emphasis mine] of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed..."
2 Peter 1:16
"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were EYEWITNESSES [emphasis mine] of his majesty."
I don't know how you missed all that when you were reading the New Testament. And there are other examples of them saying that what they were writing was passed down to them from eyewitnesses, if they weren't eyewitnesses themselves (Luke and Paul weren't, but Matthew, Peter, James, John, Jude and possibly Mark were!), but I'm not awake enough yet to search for all of them.
Edit: John does claim to be an eyewitness, in John 1:14. It's also believed that Mark inserted himself into the text in Mark 14:51-52 ("a certain young man", according to the Holman CSB). And as I said, there are many more references. It's obvious that the writers of the New Testament at least believed that they were writing an accurate account of what happened (whether they witnessed it or not, which as I said, some did, some didn't).
While Peter didn't write any of the gospels, he still contributed to the New Testament (1&2 Peter). Please understand, regarding who wrote the New Testament, we aren't just making guesses two thousand years later. We have apostolic tradition dating to as early as the beginning of the 2nd century. They attest as to who wrote the various books, and quote from them. Whether the writers wrote from first-person or not is irrelevant. Many writers at the time didn't use first-person.
- no bodyLv 61 decade ago
most were written more than 70 years after Jesus' supposed. death.
lets not forget that the church itself sat down an decided what would, and would not, be included into the New Testament.
- macieLv 51 decade ago
1 st John " That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hand have handled, concerning the Word of life The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. The Word was Jesus. read St. John 1 the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh.(Jesus)
Source(s): 1St John 1 in the back of the bible. and St. John one of the gospels. - Anonymous1 decade ago
Gee, do ya think?