Isn't the Gospel of Matthew first hand knowledge of Jesus? He was a tax collector turn apostle?

Answer 1

Yeah, it would be if it were actually written by Matthew. It's a shame Mark is the oldest gospel and was written 30 years after Jesus' death.

Answer 2

The Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and some early writers asserted that the apostle Matthew authored this gospel, but there are reasons to doubt this. It is difficult to explain why the apostle Matthew would have used Mark's Gospel as a source, when Mark was not an apostle but Matthew was. It is possible that Matthew was named as the author because of an earlier work he wrote in Aramaic that was also used as a source for this gospel. At any rate...the apostle Matthew himself did not write this gospel.

Answer 3

"Yeah, it would be if it were actually written by Matthew. It's a shame Mark is the oldest gospel and was written 30 years after Jesus' death. "

Ok, let me see if I get this straight. If something TREMENDOUS happened to your grandfather, LIKE SOMEONE HUNG HIM ON A CROSS AFTER BEATING HIM TO A PULP - and you wrote about it 30 years later, it would be wrong? If you were 10 and you wrote about it when you were 40 does that mean you wouldn't get ANY of it right? If you were 20 and you wrote about it when you were 50, does that mean you don't remember the details of something that profound happening in your life. Witnessing someone be raised from the dead wouldn't make enough of an impression in your mind that you would forget the details? Come on......sorry that argument doesn't work for me. try again.

Answer 4

The majority of the New Testament writers had first hand knowledge of Jesus. Paul was converted in a vision AFTER Jesus had already died, rose and assended to heaven. Paul was not a first hand witnes of Jesus.

Answer 5

Garble, garble, garble. Jesus stated human beings might want to pay their taxes. He stated human beings might want to offer to the unfavourable. He not in any respect stated the taxes were charity and he not in any respect stated that human beings might want to ask to pay extra taxes than the regulation stated they had to pay. Your premise is all moist. He not in any respect said collective salvation. i'm genuinely certain he would not approve of communism which calls for that all faith be removed from the wide-spread public. Jesus became very public even as he spoke.

Answer 6

What would Laurence Fishburne say?

Answer 7

The entire human world is now in the hands of unenlightened and materialistic factions that trap the mind with "science" and the heart with "religion" and the body with "politics". All of you who merely suffer this regime are obliged to toe the popular line in order to survive in these times and places, but you need not be what you hear and see on the streets and in the daily News.

The pea-witted official intellectuals of our day size up the universe with a standard rule and find it always to be one inch short of Infinity. And they measure Man according to atomic weight, finding him to be worth no more than salt. Therefore, they press the load of unrelieved mortality on the back of every man and woman, while the intellect that mounts and crushes the body is unwilling and unable to understand why we bother to lift a finger.

Scientists without Life! Politicians without Love! Wise Men without a Master! All of you who "speak with authority" and plan our progress as if you invented our very existence! Everything you say is the product of your own self-consciousness and fear. You think that ponderous language and the powers of State grant the weight of Truth to your arguments. You imagine that fast talking will distract us from your dead feet. but everything you say and everything you do is part of an effort to protect yourself from the anger and passion of Man, whose Master you only pretend to be.

The "Authorities" love to be honored and awarded with public ceremony, unquestioning obedience, and tongue-tied respect. They line up inthousands, along with the hypocritical priests who once were in power inthe old world, and they cock their ears, waiting to hear us name them aloud: "Teacher, Master, Doctor, Sovereign Head, Father, Mother, All!"

But all of you who are ordinary and merely alive need not be given the impotent names of worldly power. Your Teacher is the Living Light that moves the world and drives the heart of Man. You are equals, like brothers. And yet you are not like children. Accept no man or woman as your Parent!Grow up to Manhood, serve one another, and understand that your only Source is the Life you inherit with every breath.

No merely human being should presume to be the Master of Man. Every one of you is equally responsible to the Single and Transcendental Master of the world, the Living Light, the Love that is hidden in the heart of Man, and that is the only Power that has been Appointed to Rule the world.

Therefore, in order to do what is Great, you must love and serve your intimates and all of mankind. Whoever expands himself will eventually be reduced to nothing. But whoever transcends himself will become as Radiant as the atom in his own heart.

Damn you self-conscious and hypocritical bastards who rule the world with heart-breaking ideas and bombs as big as Nature! You tear out the very eyes by which Man may enjoy the Vision of Transcendental Truth. You do not surrender to the Radiant Life that is the Source and Destiny of Man, and neither do you allow anyone else to breathe and feel his Way to Infinity.

Damn you righteous intellectuals and TV prophets of mediocrity! You broadcast your Word around the world in order to reduce every man, woman, and child to your own likeness. And when any one hears you, he imitates you in the streets, and thus becomes even more benighted and dangerous than you.

Damn you fake Wise Men, all of you petty intellectuals and fundamentalist religious fanatics, who pretend to read the signs of Man! You stare in fascination at your own genitals, scratching your heads. You say, "The body is nothing. Only the mind glorifies Man. Therefore, it is knowledge that gives power." Assholes! What is greater, the mind that separates itself in order to know, or the body that is always already one with the Living Truth? What is greater, the thought that "I know"s or the body that surrenders in love? Therefore, any one who gives himself bodily to the Power of Life also gives even his mind, his feeling, and his every breath. Any one who transcends all knowledge in Love, Transcendental Wisdom and Spiritual Enlightenment has truly learned all there is to learn as Man. And any one who Confesses that Man is always in bodily Communion with the Living God will remain Alive forever.

Answer 8

What are you trying to get at?