Why Was The Gospel Written?

[Geezer]

This question came up in another topic. Christians, of course, believe the gospel is an eyewitness account of actual historical events but historians have uncovered evidence that convincingly rebukes that theory. Historians have also been unable to find the actual authors of any of the four gospel versions.

 

A lot of scholarship & research has been focused on who wrote the original gospel story & whether it's true or not, but I haven't found any historian that has examined "WHY?" the gospel was written and that strikes me as a very importent question. Well, I must modify my responce to that question. I have read one author's theory for why the gospel was written. Joseph Atwill's book Caesar's Messiah does explore that question & he has written a book about his theory. 

 

I don't know if his theory is correct but there has to be more than one theory for why someone wrote the original gospel story, assuming historians are correct that the gospel story is a story & not an actual historical event. I can see why Christians might not want to know the answer to that question, but as a non-believer I sure do. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[florduh]

I don't know how we could ever get into the minds of those who wrote down the stuff that became Holy Scripture, particularly the Gospels. Obviously there were societal and moral codes laid out. The occasional bit of tried and true good advice. Definitely anti-Roman Empire. There were attempts to build on mythologies that purported to answer the imponderable questions of existence. All I know is what they are used for today - creating profit, strife, tribalism, oppression, political advantage and war. Perhaps it was the same then.

[Joshpantera]

These fall in behind the Epistles. The most obvious motive I see is the need to mythologize the story in greater detail than the way Paul had it. Simply because the Gospels were written after Paul and they try and flower the story. The motive seems simple enough. 

 

That goes for the Gnostic Gospels too. Every bit of the gospel writing was done quite late. And they all seek to add depth to the previously brief job Paul made of the Jesus story. 

 

I think the above reason for why the gospels were written echoes through just about every mythicist I've encountered. From there they differ and clue in on different details. 

[Ellinas]

I would suggest (speculatively, of course): to try to create a story that can be seen sufficiently as a fulfilment of assumed prophecies as to shore up and support an emerging religious system.

 

It amazes me that the Christian viewpoint maintains that Christianity must be true because of perceived fulfilment of such prophecy, allegedly centuries after the prophecies were written.  It never seems to occur to them that what they are saying is that it took centuries for authors to come up with such a story.  In the end, however, I suggest that the use given to the gospels is the best clue as to their intent.  What relationship they bear to whatever stories were circulating early on in the history of Christianity is another matter.

[MOHO]

What I wouldn't give to get inside the heads of the authors and understand their motivations.

 

Money?

Fame?

Control?

Lunacy?

 

 

[Geezer]

On March 30, 2017 at 8:02 PM, Joshpantera said:

These fall in behind the Epistles. The most obvious motive I see is the need to mythologize the story in greater detail than the way Paul had it. Simply because the Gospels were written after Paul and they try and flower the story. The motive seems simple enough. 

 

That goes for the Gnostic Gospels too. Every bit of the gospel writing was done quite late. And they all seek to add depth to the previously brief job Paul made of the Jesus story. 

 

I think the above reason for why the gospels were written echoes through just about every mythicist I've encountered. From there they differ and clue in on different details. 

 

So, where did Paul get his ideas & beliefs about Jesus? He apparently is unaware there was an earthly Jesus. 

[Joshpantera]

Who was Paul? 

 

Was he really Marcion? Was he Apollonius of Tyanna? It's hard to say because like Jesus he doesn't exist in the historical record outside of the bible. Marcion stumbles across the Pauline epistles in the 2nd century and form the first canon along with his gospel. Some think that Marcion constructed this out of the tales of Apollonius. It's foggy and difficult to say exactly what really happened. 

 

If Paul was who the character is portrayed to be, then we know that he was a Jew who got all of his information from already existing christian communities. If he was really persecuting christians then he must have known the basic idea that they worshiped a Jesus figure. How else would he come up with the vision on the way to dumb-ass-cus? I'm being very generous here because I realize that Acts is not authentic. It comes down to the people who were already believers before Paul, in any event. And then we face either those believers followed a real person or they were following a mythological figure like Serapis or something similar. This could have happened to Serapis if some followers decided to historicize the hybrid god and then slowly start layering historical fictions around the god until eventually an orthodox tradition arose basing itself on historicity. We just don't know. 

 

This is time machine stuff. 

 

I had a great idea for a movie about a future where these debates get so heated that scientists eventually send an observer back through time to document the historical record once and for all. No sign of the historical Jesus. No Nazareth as described. Nothing. Then word comes back to go further. And the time traveler goes back to the supposed conquest of Canaan, back to the supposed Exodus, back to Egypt, back, back, back. Nothing. Finally they send orders to go all the way back and document human evolution itself and bring back an accurate and well documented history of the earth. And I wanted to include a lot of "wailing" and "gnashing of teeth" from the remaining christians when this information comes back to the future and the issue of the bible is settled once and for all and spreads throughout the world. This would give exposure to all of the critical analysis and skepticism that has arose in recent times and bring it to mainstream audiences, if it was done right. And if it was allowed to play out. I could imagine some major resistance to something like this coming to a "theater near you.... "

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

There is really no way to know all the why's I suppose but it was very well crafted. It gives the person being told the story, all the incorporated emotions of a good tear jerker. Love, selfless sacrifice, purpose, and makes it all personal to the one being taught the story. Once the soon to be believer realizes that their life is filled with "sin" then the story takes hold of them because then it's not just characters in a story anymore. It makes them part and party of the story. And they are the ones that needed to be rescued from this horrible place called Hell. The included real places as reference points and true accounts of history mixed in make it more believable. And attached it to an already existing religion. 

     If the story was all made up then can you imagine the reaction of the Jews when  they first heard about it? Lol. Huh? What? Who? 

 

DB