So the MacBreakWeekly folks where talking about the Bible today and they had some “Hey, I’d like to know a little bit about the Bible” stuff, so here’s some hopefully interesting Biblicious factoids.
- 4 Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
- Matthew: written for a Jewish audience, serves as a connection from the “Old” Testament to the “New”. Gives a nice genealogy. On the other hand, the Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus are treated most harshly.
- Mark: Assumed to be written 1st of the 4 official Gospels. Barebones, everything seems to happen “immediately”. Probably written by a disciple of Peter.
- Luke: Believed to be written by a physician. Has the most parables. Luke also wrote “Acts” the 1st book after the 4 Gospels
- The first 3 are called “synoptic” gospels, which means “of one eye” since they mostly talk about overlapping events. John is different.
- John: is believed to be written MUCH later. Contains much more developed imagery, theology, abstractions. Of course has the famous John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that God sent His only Son…). Probably written down by a disciple of John.
- If Mark is 1st, and Matthew and Luke have things in common with Mark, we assume they read/heard about Mark. But what about stuff that is in Matthew and Luke but is not in Mark? Scholars assume there must be another source, which is called “The Q” which sounds all mystical and fancy, but is just based on the German word for “Source”. A lot has been said about Q but there is absolutely no empirical evidence that it ever existed.
- The letters, especially the letters of the Apostle Paul, are believed to have been written down much earlier than the Gospels. That is to say: the books are not listed in chronological order.
- There are other Gospels. Anyone who read The da Vinci Code knows this already (aside: that book was a great novel and terrible history, no serious church historian takes it seriously, at least none that I am aware of). The Gospels of Thomas and Judas are perhaps the most famous, but none are generally believed to be as reliable as the 4 listed above, for various and mostly boring reasons.
- Yes, the “Jesus Seminar” tries to indicate what is more- or less- likely to be actual sayings of Jesus, but they can’t really prove much conclusively. Also, you’ll find a whole lot of books about trying to find the “historical” Jesus. That’s pretty difficult to try to find, and not a great use of your time, IMO.
- Please ignore the book of Revelation entirely, any movie made about it, or anyone you see on television who is talking about it.
- Kirk Cameron is to Christianity as Ronald McDonald is to fine dining.
- If you are interested in some academic-but-accessible Biblical criticism, checkout Bart Ehrman’s writing (and yes Leo, you can even get an audiobook of one of his books)
Update: My recommendation to ignore the book of Revelation is that, to beginners and non-believers (who are the only ones I expect to learn much from such a beginner’s guide) is that it is the culmination of the previous 66 books, and needs very careful study, or else you are likely to get some whack-job trying to tell you that 666 refers to some modern political figure. The Revelation is like a scalpel, in the right hands, a powerful tool; in the wrong hands, a dangerous weapon.
I have not watched the video mentioned in the comments below, and therefore can’t vouch for it.
To Doug Stewart: I include the Gnostic Gospels because they exist, and calling them “vile heresies” is not going to do much to dissuade non-believers from being interested in them. You might try engaging people in a discussion as to why they are discounted by many, perhaps most. It will take more than dismissive Christian-specific jargon.
To ChrisMtP: I don’t agree that “fear” is the word that I would want to emphasize. A more consistent word might be “love” (the perfected form of which is said to cast out fear, as well as the explanation from John 3:16 as to why Jesus came to earth from heaven.) As for what will matter in 1,000 years, well, stuff? Probably nothing, but what will we do today, what will we do tomorrow? That will matter today, and tomorrow, and perhaps for eternity.