Jesus died in the 30's. Why did the apostoles wait 40 years to write the first holy book?
2007-02-13 13:37:36 · 13 answers · asked by Alucard 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
at first there were plenty of people who witnessed Jesus Christ's life, so it was spread by word of mouth, but as the apostles began to age and christianity started to spread beyone Israel, It was necessary that the Life of Jesus Christ be written down in order for it to be passed on easier and to father reaches of the earth.
(the epistles were written around 40-60 a.d., the gospe of Mark was written around a.d. 50 , the last gospel, John, around 90 a.d.)
2007-02-13 13:40:25 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Waynebudd is right---
Most of the day were illiterate, so a profuse corpus of literature would have been improbable (considering that most of the earliest Christians couldn't have written anything), but also superfluous. I suspect that part of the delay is based on the slow, yet steady spread of Christianity throughout the empire. Early on, the Christian sect was located within a relatively small area--here, oral tradition and the physical presence of the apostles would have been sufficient. However, once the Christian movement spread beyond the earliest centers, written communication would have been the only way for apostles to keep in touch with the far-flung groups of Christians.
2007-02-13 13:50:28 · answer #2 · answered by existdissolve 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because as long as they were alive, the apostles saw no need to record the saying of Jesus for future generations (Paul implied that many apostles thought that maybe there would be no future generations, because the end of the world might be near).
Once the apostles became old, and people began to realize that they would not be around forever, the need for preserving a record for future generations became more apparent.
The letters of Paul predate the gospels, BTW, because Paul wrote to people in churches that he started but that he could not personally visit because of circumstances.
2007-02-13 13:49:27 · answer #3 · answered by Randy G 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Al: Any of the writers of either, the Old Testament or the New Testament did not randomly decide to "pen" any of the Books of the Bible. The writers were "moved" to do so when God wanted it written, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - not by any personal interpretation put to paper. So; I believe that we might conclude, that God [Jesus] wanted the NT penned for the future.
2007-02-13 14:19:22 · answer #4 · answered by guraqt2me 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
A portion of the Gospel of Matthew has been found that is dated in the 40's. The epistles to the Thessalonians are definitely written around the year 45. They didn't really wait that long.
2007-02-13 13:46:23 · answer #5 · answered by Mr Ed 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
The oldest book is from 90 - 120. No one thought much about writting it down until later. Everyone knew what was happening because they were there, it wasn't until much later that they realized they needed to record it.
2007-02-13 13:40:54 · answer #6 · answered by Justsyd 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Oral tradition. Education was limited to the priesthood classes. The disciples were ordinary men - none would have known how to read or write.
2007-02-13 13:41:17 · answer #7 · answered by waynebudd 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
do you think they could have gone to WalMart and bought pencil and paper?
Look back and see that parchment and ink were rare. Writing this down basically came from memory, this had to take time to get it all together.
Times are not exactly the same.
2007-02-13 13:40:39 · answer #8 · answered by n9wff 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Jesus told them to go out, to teach and to baptize.
He never told them to write anything.
2007-02-13 21:24:40 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually the oldest book is concidered Mark and it has been discovered to be wirtten around 60 AD.....But if you read what was happening......I think they were pretty busy
2007-02-13 13:41:05 · answer #10 · answered by gluckstadt_randy 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋