2006-07-04 05:04:22 · 8 answers · asked by Bad Boy 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
We don't know when or who wrote the "gospels." The earliest manuscripts of such things are from a few hundred years later.
Think about how much AMERICAN society has changed in a couple of hundred years.
If we accept that the "gospels" were written by the people who's names are on them, then we have to consider WHO was reading them at the time. They were only circulated among Christians. Very few people actually witnessed what Jesus did and said. How would anybody even know what Christians were saying and if any of it were true or not? It's not like they had television ministries to "get the word out."
By the time Christianity was an accepted theology, people who didn't agree were being killed for it and their writings were being destroyed.
If there were people who didn't agree with the content of the gospels, any evidence of that has long ago been removed.
2006-07-04 05:51:38 · answer #1 · answered by Dustin Lochart 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The Gospels WEREN'T written only 20-30 years after Jesus. The first Gospel that was written was Mark, and the earliest that it could have been written is shortly arter 70 AD, since it contains allusions to the destructution of the temple in Jereusalem. The historical reference that we have that even suggests that such a thing as a Gospel might exist is from around 120 AD... but there are no examples, the reference does not contain any quotations, and the way it is referred to seems to indicate that it is a collection of sayings... not at all like the gospels that we know today.
The first reference to 4 Gospels occurs around 150 AD.
The idea that Jesus was an actual historical person did not emerge until well into the 2nd century.
2006-07-04 13:08:58 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Perhaps a part of one gospel was somewhat early - but even that one came some decades after Jesus' reputed DEATH, not his birth. The rest came decades later. In short, no one has ever found or reported Christian texts before more or less, 66 AD.
More importantly, were you of the opinion that people carried gospels around with them like they do today? The anthology that would become the gospels wasn't compiled until hundreds of years after the events - and it was done by Roman authorities in accordance with their own political agenda.
2006-07-04 12:16:03 · answer #3 · answered by JAT 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I wonder how many Jews followed Jesus. Why did the 12 leave their homeland and go spread Christianity to the gentiles? Couldn't they convince the Jews?
2006-07-04 12:56:30 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
where is your evidence for the 20 to 30 yr claim?
2006-07-04 12:47:09 · answer #5 · answered by meta-morph-in-oz 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
how do we know they did not?
besides they have been changed over time
that is evidenced by the different variations in the Gospels
2006-07-04 12:08:31 · answer #6 · answered by Gamla Joe 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
How many people other than the Zealots would have known about it. They didn't have the Internet. If they had have known...
2006-07-04 12:09:09 · answer #7 · answered by D 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cause they were true?
2006-07-04 13:52:43 · answer #8 · answered by ALLEN F 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋