September 10, 2018 Monday
Bedtime Story
The Damning
What is most damning of this entire affair
of the four canonical gospels viz. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is that they
are mutually inconsistent with each other.
Of these four gospels Mark was the first to
be written (around 66 to 70 AD) with Luke and Matthew referring to it and using
it as their source and hence the three are very similar in style, arrangement
and presentation.
While the believers ascribe the authorship
of the gospel of Mark to John Mark, a companion of apostle Peter the scholars
attribute it to some unknown Christian of the first century.
The gospel of Matthew is believed by the
scholars to have been written slightly later between 80 to 90 AD by some
unknown male Jew and who used the gospel of Mark as a template to draw his own
scripture.
Same holds true for the gospel of Luke;
while the believers attribute it to Luke the Evangelist the scholars estimate it
to be have been written by an unknown person slightly later between 80 to 110
AD who yet again used the gospel of Mark as a base to weave his story
upon.
Because of their similarity these three
works are together referred to as synoptic gospels.
The scholars till this very day debate the
subject of authorship and the inter-relationship between these three gospels
and this debate goes by the name of “the synoptic problem”.
Whosoever wrote the fourth gospel of John
may have known about the previous three gospels since his was the last to come
but certainly did not use the material of the former three, at least not
directly.
Even though all these four gospels have
factual differences and even discrepancies it is this gospel of John that
deviates most from the rest.
For instance it does not speak about the
baptism of Jesus, exorcisms carried out by Jesus (yes, Jesus to a large is
portrayed as an Exorcist of all sorts in the first three synoptic gospels),
parables and the Last Supper and yet it has some events in addition which the
other three do not such as Jesus turning wine into water or Jesus washing the
feet of his disciples.
What is common to all four is the extensive
use of material from the already existing Jewish scriptures to the extent of
even quoting some of them.
Although all four talk about the career of
Jesus and his deeds, the differences among them are stark; for instance the
first gospel Mark never alludes to Jesus as “God”, never even mentions virgin
birth and a complete absence of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
And yet they are more or less consistent
about the accounts of Passion with only minor differences.
For instance they all have it in their
content the conspiracy plot of the Jewish priests, the Last Supper in Jerusalem
(except in John), Jesus’s prophecy to Peter, his trial in the Jewish Supreme
Court, ill-treatment by the guards, flagellation and execution.
We shall continue to expand our knowledge
of the scriptures in the nights to come as the comprehension of so much Western
and Eastern Orthodox art and literature is dependent on the understanding of
them.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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