Gnosticism is alive and well today, disguised in various forms of postmodernism. It is being taught today. Let’s see if we can see through the disguises and get to the truth.
Most scholars who specialize in Gnosticism work straightforwardly and eruditely. They translate the Coptic language, provide commentaries, and publish their findings for all of us nonspecialists (like me) to read.
However, a few specialists push the borders of Gnosticism too far. Though these scholars also are erudite and highly qualified, they work hard at blurring the clear distinctions between the canonical New Testament and the Gnostic scriptures. It is these scholars’ views that are critiqued in this article.
By way of reviewing definitions, canon originally meant a measuring stick or string, by which all measurements were done. Today, it means writings that have a privileged place and that measure rivals. In our discussion the canon is the New Testament and the Old Testament. Also recall that “orthodox” literally means “straight or correct thinking.” It refers to the Christianity that was propounded by such men as Irenaeus and Athanasius, to name only these two.
Definition or Creed of Chalcedon
This article zeros in on a common strategy employed by scholars who push too hard. In their strategy, it is not as if they colluded with each other. Instead, they seem to have the same goal in mind, and that specific goal limits the path they take to reach it. I quote key passages, usually a paragraph that I divide up. The ideas in these selected passages are found throughout their books. Then I offer my own comments or analysis.
It may be difficult, but I challenge the readers to spot the scholars’ strategy. Or they may scroll down to the summary section “Their Common Strategy,” if they want to skip over the hard work.
Orthodoxy Is a Political Bully
In Elaine Pagels’ Gnostic Gospels (Vintage, 1979), she provides the basic facts on this diverse religious movement and their writings, and then some. She informs us that the early church engaged in a struggle for orthodoxy, and only one side carried the day. That side promoted the New Testament and “suppressed” the Gnostic scriptures. But why should that side alone win? Was it victorious on the content of the two sets of writings, or on politics?
Pagels provides the answer in her very first chapter “Controversy over Christ’s Resurrection: Historical Event or Symbol?” She writes:
If the New Testament accounts could support a range of interpretations [of the resurrection], why did the orthodox Christians in the second century insist on a literal view of the resurrection and reject all others as heretical? (p. 6)
In that short excerpt, she asks the question I posed in the opening paragraph in this section. Contrasting the doctrine of the resurrection by its content in different writings is valid. But she continues in the same paragraph:
I suggest that we cannot answer this question adequately as long as we consider the doctrine only in terms of its religious content. (p. 6)
Thus, the content is inadequate as a criterion of assessment. Going beyond it, her analysis heads towards politics. She writes in the same paragraph:
But when we examine its practical effect on the Christian movement, we can see, paradoxically, that the doctrine of the bodily resurrection also serves an essential political function: it legitimizes the authority of certain men who claim to exercise exclusive leadership over the churches as the successor of the apostle Peter [. . .]. Gnostic Christians who interpret resurrection in other ways have a lesser claim to authority: when they proclaim priority over the orthodox, they [the orthodox] denounce them as heretics. (p. 6, emphasis original)
Time and again throughout her book she sees the struggle over the content as political, not as over the content itself, alone.
Critique: Her argument pushes too far past the clear differences in the content in the New Testament and the gnostic Scriptures. She reduces the differences in content between the two sets of writings. This reduction in turn gives her permission to focus on the political. In the first chapter of her book, her review of the doctrine of the resurrection in the New Testament tells us how. She discovers a wide range of different interpretations on the literalness or symbolism of New Testament resurrection. It turns into mishmash.
Why this focus on hodgepodge diversity? She must find a wide range of interpretations in order to support her thesis that the church leaders were bullies (the more academic way of saying this is “oppressors”) who were interested only in maintaining their high perch or privileged position of male power. If the New Testament has a mixture and discrepant truth claims, then this opens the door wide to the Gnostic scriptures. How can one truth claim be distinguished from another? Only by politics, privilege, and power.
Further, Pagels’ survey of New Testament (alleged) diversity on the bodily resurrection is overstated. There was much more unity and unanimity than she appreciates. Three reasons show this.
First, the four canonical Gospels loudly proclaim the empty tomb into which a body had been laid. The sealed tomb became empty by only two means. Either a person or persons took the dead body out of it, or the dead body came back to life by a miracle and left the tomb on its own, as the stone seal over the entrance was rolled away. There are no other alternatives. All four Gospels say that the second alternative happened. In fact, Matthew says that the opponents of early Christianity spread a report that the disciples stole the body. Hence, the enemies knew the only two alternatives to the empty tomb two thousand years ago. But Matthew denies that his fellow believers acted dishonestly by stealing the body and then proclaiming a bodily resurrection (Matt. 28:11-15).
Second, the Gospel of John has been called the “spiritual” Gospel, but it is precisely this one that emphasizes the physical, bodily resurrection. John 2:18-22 says:
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:18-21, NIV)
After the resurrection, it was Thomas who had the privilege of touching Jesus’ wounds to find out for himself that Jesus was not a disembodied ghost. John 20:26-27 says:
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:26-27, NIV)
And Luke 24:38-39 is in perfect agreement. When Jesus appeared and startled the disciples, he said to them:
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” (Luke 24:38-39)
Third, Pagels goes on to describe visions and appearances outside of the four Gospels but still in the New Testament, as if the appearances deny Jesus’ bodily resurrection. However, when we look at all of the passages in the New Testament on the resurrection, it is clear that his body during the miracle was made perfect, rising above death, diseases, and weakness; and it was able to live eternally. Though completely physical, his body was transformed into its full strength and health. For example, in Paul’s usage of the word “spiritual” (pneumatikos) throughout his epistles (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:42-44), it always means acting consistently with the Spirit’s empowerment. Thus, when he says that Christ’s resurrected body is spiritual, it does not mean nonmaterial or nonphysical. Rather, in Jesus’ resurrected state, he could appear and reappear at the Spirit’s leading and empowerment.
Thus, unity and unanimity occur in the New Testament far more strongly than diversity, on the doctrine of the bodily resurrection. Scholars do not have to believe in it in order to see the unity. If most of the Gnostic texts stray from this clarity, then we should not muddy the waters and blur the distinctions between the two sets of writings. Why not keep them separate and enjoy them in their own right? Why push so hard to break down the obvious differences?
Lost Purity and Origins
The main thesis of Karen L. King’s book What is Gnosticism? (Harvard, 2003) is to define this multiform, diverse religious movement. One major way to reach a definition is to break with the old categories of orthodoxy and heresy. Religious movements of all sorts have an origin, essence, and purity. Not even early Christianity enjoys those three qualities in a unique way. And neither does Gnosticism.
Specifically, in the last chapter of her book she says that certain inherited assumptions in the study of early Christianity and Gnosticism, placed side-by-side, must be abandoned. One of them wrongly says that historical truth is pure. She writes:
[. . .] This assumption is thoroughly embedded in the antisyncretistic discourse of both ancient polemics and modern scholarship [syncretism means a mixture]. Historical phenomena do not, however, admit of purity in the same sense that they have no precedents, or that they are unique in ways that other phenomena are not. (p. 229)
What does this mean? Historical religious movements borrow from some sources or “precedents” and maybe from each other if they are contemporaneous. She continues:
All religions are syncretistic, and all are unique in that no historical phenomenon is fully identical to any other. Purity and contamination are therefore not amenable to historical analysis [. . .]. (p. 229)
She goes on to say that another assumption needs to be abandoned. Orthodoxy or truth is characterized by unity, uniformity, and unanimity; heresy or falsehood by division, multiformity, and diversity. Such concerns are for social-rhetorical claims as rival groups stake out their identity, but not for historical analysis.
What is the main source – or origins – of Christianity? Judaism? That would go a long way in establishing the purity of origins for the New Testament, above the Gnostic scriptures that distort the older sacred text. However, King doubts this. “Christianity, by contrast [to Gnosticism], is said to be original and to have developed ‘naturally’ out of Judaism” (p. 223). She then explains that this is wishful thinking. Therefore, the origins of orthodoxy are not that special, in the same way that the origins of Gnosticism are not that special—or both are equally special so that we have a tie or a wash in the two sets of writings.
Critique: Back to the excerpts, in many ways King is right, but only when she limits her discussion to the history of religious development. Religions do have sources. Also, New Testament Christianity did have diverse teaching, such as the requirement (or not) of circumcision and kosher food and obedience to Mosaic law generally, though freedom won out. But according to the New Testament, diversity is not found in regards to Jesus’ unique Sonship, his unique Lordship, his unique Messiahship (Christ = Messiah = Anointed One), his physical crucifixion, his atoning work on the cross, his bodily resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit in the Book of Acts, to name only these few. Further, the Books of Acts, for example, shows that Christians resisted other religions as the missionaries fanned out through the Empire (Acts 8:9-25; 14:8-18; 17:16, 22-34; 19:17-20, 23-41).
However, King does not adequately analyze the New Testament as a possible source of purity, not a startling omission because she denies purity to all religions, historically considered. Instead, her analysis zooms ahead to the second and later centuries to prove her case of the im/purity (take your pick) of New Testament doctrines as the essential source of orthodoxy. However, she does use Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), a very prominent (and radical) scholar, to discover some Greco-Roman ideas in the New Testament (pp. 100-07). But even he sees that the content of Gnosticism differs widely from Christianity, making it unique, yet King seems disappointed in his obvious and correct conclusion (p. 106).
Let us assume, only for the sake of argument and contrary to fact, that the Old Testament is not a major source of early Christian theology. Does this mean that the early church did or should absorb much or any of Gnosticism? And if Gnosticism does predate the New Testament, traveling along a path from India and Persia, does this mean that the New Testament did or should absorb gnostic teaching, in a kind of cross-pollenization? However, Bultmann is right. The New Testament and early Christianity are vastly different from Gnosticism. If, for King, both religious movements are equal in purity, origins, and essence (or equal in impurity, nonorigins, and nonessence), then surely they should still be seen as distinct in kind and quality. And surely they should therefore remain in their own spheres, particularly in the debate over the canon.
Truthfully, the canonical Gospels and indeed the entire New Testament draw heavily from the Old Testament, almost exclusively, except for such concepts as Logos. And even in this one example John 1:1 looks a lot like Genesis 1:1. If some scholars conclude that the New Testament’s efforts at borrowing from the Old Testament are clumsy, can the scholars deny that the effort was done, much more closely to the Old Testament than the comparatively few times that Gnostics refer to it? More to the point, one of the gaping omissions in Gnostic texts generally is the wise use and appreciation of the Old Testament. And when Gnostics reference it, they scar or distort its teachings beyond recognition.
In the article Postmodern ‘Truth Soup’, I further analyze King’s strategy in her book.
In this article, Messianic Prophecies, I produce a lengthy chart of Bible prophecies that the Gospel authors claim were fulfilled by Jesus. At the end of the Table, I have interpretive keys that the authors used. Though modern scholars may chuckle at tables that list Bible prophecies, such prophecies were nonetheless important for the Gospel authors in a way that the Gnostic authors cannot even remotely match. The New Testament uses the Old in very deep and vast ways. For that and many other reasons, New Testament Christianity and Gnosticism are very different in kind and quality.
Proto-Orthodoxy Is Also a Political Bully
The subtitle for Bart D. Ehrman’s book communicates a lot: Lost Christianities: the Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford, 2003). It is a survey of rival versions of Christianity that lost the battles with “proto-orthodoxy” (Ehrman’s word). This word means an early form of orthodoxy, since according to him earliest Christianity was undergoing an epic battle for primacy. His book goes beyond Gnosticism, though that is analyzed in many chapters and sections. But the strategy for overturning the canon of Scripture, or at least blurring its distinctiveness, is the same as Pagels’ and King’s.
How did proto-orthodoxy win out, according to Ehrman? One thing is certain. The victory is not due to the purity of doctrine and the deepest origins, because all rivals claim the same origins and purity. Ehrman writes:
[. . .] All of the viewpoints claimed support, of course, in the teachings of Jesus – even the views that claimed there were 365 gods, that Jesus was not really a human being, that his death was simply a ruse meant to deceive the cosmic powers. Today we might think it nonsense to say that Jesus and his earthly followers taught such things, since, after all, we can see in the New Testament Gospels that it is simply not true. (p. 93)
This priority of the New Testament Gospels now suffers from the challenge of these historical questions posed by Ehrman, continuing in the same paragraph:
But we should always ask the historical questions: Where did we get our New Testament Gospels in the first place, and how do we know that they, rather than the dozens of Gospels that did not become part of the New Testament, reveal the truth about what Jesus taught? What if the canon had ended up containing the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Mary rather than Matthew, Mark, and Luke? (p. 93, emphasis original)
In the next paragraph Ehrman reinforces the notion that all rival Christianities trace their lineage through the apostles back to Jesus. Indeed, his entire Part III discusses other weapons in the arsenal of both proto-orthodoxy and the “nonheretical” (my word) challenge.
Critique: One way to break the deadlock between the doctrines that teach that there were 365 gods and that Jesus was really not human on the one hand, and the denial or the absolutely no support of them in the canonical Gospels on the other, is to place Jesus in his thoroughly Jewish context. He was a devout and serious Jew. He would have been very reluctant, to say the least, to accept these teachings. Would a devout orthodox Jew today accept 365 gods into his or her theology? Of course not. So why would Jesus, the devout Rabbi?
Ehrman should appreciate this Jewish context since he calls Jesus an apocalyptic prophet. Is it not true that this kind of prophet is the most fiery and decisive? He demands that all persons everywhere should repent and walk in the kingdom of God in the Jewish meaning of that phrase: the God of Israel is king, and he is now breaking into the world with a transformed message of his right to rule, not only over Israel, but the whole world also. And throughout the Old Testament other prophets called God’s people to renounce idols and other gods and to return to the true and living God. How could Jesus not fit into this prophetic tradition or stream? How could an apocalyptic prophet not be a human, especially for scholars like Ehrman? The early Christians who wrote the New Testament understood this truth, not fiction.
Also, three of the canonical Gospel writers were devout Jews who accepted the new Way of Jesus. Even Luke, most likely a gentile (though some are coming around to the fact that he may have been Jewish), takes great care to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures. If scholars doubt the identity of the four Gospel authors, then surely the scholars can see that the authors maintained Jesus’ Jewishness; even John portrays him as going to more festivals prescribed in the Torah. The authors of the rest of the New Testament were also Jews. Or if scholars doubt this, then at least the authors were concerned to interpret the salvation history in light of the Old Testament, quoting from it to explain that history. They too would be very reluctant to accept polytheism and to deny Jesus’ humanity outright and his physical crucifixion. In fact, the authors do not do any of this.
Further, as for Jesus’ death being a ruse, it is quite certain that he did physically and actually die by crucifixion. It was the preferred method of execution by the Romans who were experts at it. Why would the earliest Christians who saw it deny it? Wouldn’t their enemies contradict their denial? Indeed, the earliest Christians, particularly in the writings of Paul barely two decades after the events in Jerusalem, interpreted the crucifixion as God’s plan of redemption, rather than deny that it actually happened. Paul writes, “But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). It may have been unacceptable to Jews to believe that their long-awaited political Messiah would be crucified. And it may not have made sense to gentile Greeks that the world’s Savior would be crucified like a criminal. But in spite of this opposition, Paul did not waver in his message of the real and physical crucifixion.
Thus, the historical questions posed by Ehrman have been answered. It is always sound scholarship to locate Jesus in his Jewish context and to keep our boots on the ground, so to speak, about historical facts like the crucifixion. This context is historically original and therefore accurate and true. And that is Christianity at its heart and most pure. Gnostic texts wander far from this context and truth and accuracy and originality and purity.
Their Common Strategy
In the foregoing quick summaries of these scholars’ views that represents the main thesis of their books, I left hints about their common strategy. Though these scholars have not colluded, the whole process or strategy boils down to these three steps.
First, these scholars must show that one truth claim cannot be separated from another. Truth claims gets thrown into a kind of soup, where all the pieces are boiled down into a tasteless or tasteful, indistinguishable liquid. This turns the clarity and unity of key New Testament doctrines into mishmash.
Second, this confusion of truth claims is done by showing the (alleged) broad diversity of key doctrines in the New Testament. If these doctrines are not fixed and clear, but a hodgepodge, then this swings the door wide open to competing truth claims, specifically, those found in the Gnostic scriptures.
Third, if these canonical doctrines are not fixed, then the only reason the New Testament gained primacy and orthodoxy is political; it’s not about content. After all, why should victory rest on content? All truth claims have been boiled down into an extra-thin truth soup. Then victory has to be only about politics, privilege and power – all male, incidentally.
Thus, the New Testament gets lost in a sloshy truth soup. After the distinctions between the doctrines have been blurred, who can tell the difference between orthodoxy and heresy?
Another Common Strategy
I have not dealt with this strategy in the critiques so far. Pagels, King, and Ehrman frequently use the terms “heresiologists,” “polemicists,” and “apologists” to describe early orthodox church leaders, such as Irenaeus link and Athanasius. One prominent scholar of Gnosticism today uses the term “heresy hunters” (James M. Robinson, ed. The Nag Hammadi Library, 3rd ed. Harper, 1990, p. 6). And Marvin Meyer, a very prominent Gnostic scholar, also uses the terms, and, incidentally, questions the distinction between heresy and orthodoxy (The Gnostic Discoveries, Harper San Francisco, 2005, pp. 55-56; The Gnostic Bible, Shambala, 2003, pp. 1-19).
Critique: This collection of terms signifies anyone who studies heresies with suspicion (heresiology), fights for (polemics) or defends (apologetics) true doctrine with the goal of refuting rival religious truth claims. It seems that according to these modern scholars, early orthodox leaders were oppressive because they excluded Gnostic teachings from their churches. In light of the scholars’ criticism of early church leaders, Pagels (p. 142) and Ehrman (p. 6) wonder what Christianity would look like today, if the Gnostics had won.
It is unclear to me what these scholars want. Do they advocate an incorporation of Gnostic teachings in churches today? Would they like to have Gnostic Christianity from the second and later centuries up to today win the battle over orthodoxy? On the last page of her book, Pagels says a casual reader may get this impression from her book, but she did not intend to argue for that (p. 151). But this last-page backtracking is too little too late, for her entire book goes in the opposite direction. Yet if scholars want neither a kind of victory for Gnosticism nor a very out-of-focus blurring of the New Testament and the Gnostic texts, then why do they push so hard tp break down the vast differences in the content of the two sets of writings?
These scholars unwittingly and ironically set up another privileged hierarchy, a kind of “orthodoxy hunting” and neo-polemics and neo-apologetics on behalf of Gnosticism. This hunt says that if these early church leaders – down here on earth, not in a modern American university – did not warmly embrace Gnosticism, but sought to refute it, then they were bullies.
In reply, is it not partially the case that the Gnostics provoked the heresy hunting because they were pushy? Kurt Rudolph, whose introduction to Gnosticism is highly regarded, says that certain Gnostics sent out missionaries to “infiltrate” Christian communities (Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, Harper and Row, 1980, pp. 208-17).
But how could the early orthodox leaders of early orthodox Christianity (yes, the term ‘orthodox’ is valid and true, and I gladly use it) embrace these late texts and bizarre doctrines? Hypothetically, even if the leaders were wrong in some ultimate sense to see the New Testament as pure, original, and essential, then their belief and confidence in it led them to reject Gnosticism. So they were acting consistently with their belief and confidence. They did not live in tolerant modern America and Europe. The orthodox church leaders were right to reject Gnosticism. Orthodox churches today should reject it, too.
On a personal note, on a strictly doctrinal level I regard the early church fathers as heroes. Overall, they foresaw things clearly, especially the utter confusion that these strange doctrines would have wreaked on their churches. The orthodox leaders therefore acted responsibly as shepherds of their flocks.
So the whole battle over orthodoxy and heresy is reversed from the hierarchy that today’s scholars seem to set up, in favor of Gnosticism. Instead, given the vast differences in content between the New Testament and the Gnostic scriptures – the very content that the scholars deemphasize or blur together – the battle, for me, gets overturned and can be posed thus:
The early church leaders could not accept Gnostic teachings into their churches. when the fathers rejected them, they were heroes.
Today, as I read the Gnostic texts, I would not want the leaders of any orthodox church denomination to accept them as authoritative. The Gnostic texts are much too outlandish and weird, doctrinally speaking.
Conclusion
Pagels and Ehrman in other books reveal that in their youth they left fundamentalist churches that burned them. Once in a while I seem to catch flashes of glee in their writings, as they challenge orthodoxy and throw key canonical doctrines into the truth soup. But I prefer to avoid intuitional critiques and psychological explanations from sparse data.
Instead, the common strategy may indirectly find its source in the large intellectual movement of postmodernism, and King says as much (pp. 233-47). It tears down boundaries, especially the ones guarding privilege and power. It also frequently fails to distinguish between real differences in religious truth claims – as if any truth claims can be nailed down. They cannot, according to postmodernists.
See the article Postmodern ‘Truth Soup’.
It would be great if all scholars who specialize in Gnosticism would not bother with pushing the borders too far – to the point of confusing us about truth claims that do not equal those found in the New Testament, as if the Gnostic scriptures should be canonical, or close to it.
Bluntly, the above scholars remind me of toddlers who cannot spot stranger-danger (the Gnostic doctrines). They would let them into the “proto-orthodox” or “orthodox” churches. Actually, I believe they can see the differences between the New Testament texts and the Gnostic ones. But the postmodern scholars don’t care about the wide differences. They advocate a “Truth Free-For-All.” All truths are the same, tossed into a soupy mishmash.
The ancient Gnostics were Gnutty,
It is best for Christianity today to reject the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and its postmodern teachers when they say otherwise. The Gnostic Scriptures are too diabolical and sometimes silly and often doctrinely dangerous to be accepted by any church today.
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ARTICLES IN A SERIES
1. Postmodernism and the Bible: Introduction
2. The Origins of Postmodernism
6. The Reconstructed Jesus: What the Bible Actually Says
7. Interpreting the Bible and Finding the Truth
8. Postmodernism and the Bible: Conclusion
Other Articles
Deconstruction: The Language Games People Play
Deconstructing Gender Differences
Postmodern Roots of Leftist Policies
Three Cures for the Skeptical Sneering Age!
THE RELIABILITY OF THE GOSPELS
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
6. Reliable Gospel Transmissions
8. Did Some Disciples Take Notes During Jesus’ Ministry?
9. Authoritative Testimony in Matthew’s Gospel
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
13. Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
15. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Conclusion
Church Fathers and the Authorship of the Four Gospels
1. Church Fathers and Matthew’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
Reliability of the New Testament Manuscripts (Part 4 is the summary)
1. New Testament Manuscripts: Preliminary Questions and Answers
2. Basic Facts On Producing New Testament Manuscripts
3. Discovering And Classifying New Testament Manuscripts
4. The Manuscripts Tell The Story: The New Testament Is Reliable
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 
Jim,
Excellent posts so far. It is needed with the ignorance of most believers, even pastors, of church history.
One area that I think that needs to be emphasized is that the gospel writers were “eyewitnesses” or recorded interviews of “eyewitnesses.” Matthew and John were ‘eyewitnesses” since they were disciples of Jesus. Mark is the secretary of the Apostle Peter and wrote down what he said. Thus, Mark would be “The Gospel of Mark According to Peter.” Luke would be the one gospel that uses interviews with “eyewitnesses” (αὐτόπτης, autoptes) in Luke 1:2. Even Luke himself would be an “eyewitness” to several of the events recorded in Acts 16, 20-22, 26-28 since he uses the word “we” indicating that he had personal knowledge of the events recorded in Acts.
Thus, all the writers of the gospels were written in the First Century CE. Were written between 60-90 CE. All the writers of the NT were Jewish with the possible exception of Luke who would be a Diaspora Jew, Jewish proselyte, or Gentile (I lean to Diaspora Jew). All of the writers used the LXX as their primary Scripture (85% of the quotes of the OT in the NT are from the LXX). Also, they were writing in Koine Greek of the First Century CE with various degrees of compentcy, (Luke-Acts and Hebrews with a very degrees of literary Koine Greek). Not only that, but the writers were writing with a Jewish-Christian worldview or mindset, not with a Gentile or Greco-Roman worldview or mindset.
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Excellent suggestions. I hope that the numerous links at the bottom of the page will direct readers towards your suggestions. In any case your comment will be appended to the bottom of the post, and the readers, I hope, will see it. Well done and right on!
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