@Freakenstein
I checked out the link. First of all, the article is from 1922. Since then, scholarship has come a long way and humongous amounts of new evidence has been discovered. So this article is so dated that any appeal to "general scholarship" is basically meaningless at this point. But even by 1922 standards the article is full of unbased claims and assumptions. Let me point some of them out:
"Now we know absolutely nothing of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, apart from what is said of them in the Gospels. "
That was not true in 1922, and it is even less true now. We knew even than that Luke was also mentioned in one of Paul's epistles, and that Acts contained some "we" passages - which would tell of the author's involvement. These two facts are actually how Luke is even associated with Acts and also with the third gospel.
Today, and possibly even then, we have three early church fathers talking about Mark being with Peter and writing his gospel from his accounts. Papias was the one who said this in the 2nd century, and he is quoted by Eusebius in the 4th. Now, this may not be much, but it is certainly not "absolutely nothing".
No human being knows when they were written, or where.
This should deserve one of those "O RLY" pictures. Pick up any modern critical commentary on any gospel and find the section on "authorship" "date" and "
lace of writing." You will find several pages and large bibliographies of in depth scholarly discussion of this, often pinpointing the location or the date very precisely.
OK, this next paragraph I just have to take a part a piece at a time:
But the Gospel of Mark, as we have it, is not the original Mark. In the same way that the writers of Matthew and Luke copied and enlarged the Gospel of Mark, Mark copied and enlarged an earlier document which is called the "original Mark."
Really, that's it? He's just going to assert this without giving ANY EVIDENCE, ANY SOURCES, or ANY REASON to back up the claim. Can I say red herring, unfounded claim, or maybe even "
ics or it didn't happen"? There are so many scholarly works arguing against this, it is nothing but an outdated simplification.
The Gospel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to be an unhistorical document.
Maybe some, and please say which. But not all, and even then tell us why or its a straw man argument.
Indeed, in the first three Gospels and in the fourth, we meet with two entirely different Christs. Did I say two? It should be three; for, according to Mark, Christ was a man; according to Matthew and Luke, he was a demigod; while John insists that he was God himself.
Wow, here he really gets it wrong. This is not an unheard argument, but it is entirely fallacious. I won't go into the details here, but check this out:
60Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" 61But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ,[f] the Son of the Blessed One?"
62"I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
63The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked. 64"You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?"
Ok, let me explain why this is significant. The reference to "son of man" was a term that already had meaning in first century Judaism. The context is Daniel 7:13-14
13"I saw in the night visions,
and(AA) behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the(AB) Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
14(AC) And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all(AD) peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
(AE) his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
This "son of man" was to be ruler over all, and all would "serve" him. This word "serve" is used in the Old Testament only of God alone. Man is not to "serve" anyone but YHWH, the God of the Old Testament. When Jesus introduced himself as that son of man, the High Priest knew he was referring to himself as God, and that alone would have been a reason for him to cry out "blasphemy." Claiming to be a son of God in a vague sense, or even more claiming to be just a man would by no means cause this reaction. So the hypothesis of the "increasing Christ" through the gospels is a bogus claim. Alright, back for more.
We are told that Mark was written some time after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. Let me impress upon you that these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as early as possible.
That is completely outdated. The gospels are all dated in the first century today, and that with very good evidence. His claim is either outrageous or outdated. Hardest piece of evidence: p52. The oldest surviving manuscript fragment, a piece of the gospel of John is dated 117-138 AD. Bear in mind that this is a copy and was a piece of a codex, not a simple letter. That means that by that year the gospel of John was already known and widespread enough that people were making structured copies of it. If it became that important, it is quite plausible that it was written around AD 90 like conservative scholars would argue.
OK, I will quit reading any further. This post is already long enough, and I don't feel like digging through even more outdated and long disproved junk. I thought it might have been worth reading for some original arguments, but all he does is trod through outdated underlying material without quoting any sources. That is, intellectually speaking, the equivalent of listening to an argument for Jesus' existence because "the Bible says so." It will only do you good if you are already convinced.
