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Title: Who Wrote the New Testament? : The Making of the Christian Myth by Burton L. Mack ISBN: 0-06-065518-6 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 06 September, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (32 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Cutting Edge Scholarship
Comment: If you want an honest, no-nonsense appraisal of the origins of the New Testament, then this book is for you. Unlike apologetic writers, who state absolute truths up front and then work backwards into a proof, Mack proceeds in a scholarly fashion to reconstruct who wrote the bible and when they actually did it.. This kind of scholarship is particularly difficult, because the earliest scrap of new testament we possess is a small piece of John's Gospel dated 125 CE(the Ryland fragment), and the earliest complete manuscripts are dated towards the end of the second century CE..Additionally, the only extrabiblical references to Christ in the century in which he lived are limited to one-liners from ancient writers and historians such as Tacitus, Josephus, Suetonius and Seneca.
Given this to work with, Mack proceeds with a remarkable bit of detective work to develop a working hypothesis about the true origins of the New testament. Consequently, and in a manner not unlike the methodolgy employed by the Jesus Seminar, he unabashedly (but carefully)incorporates non-canonical works such as the Gospel of Thomas and the hypothesized "Q" document into his analysis, being aware that an over-arching factor in the early church's assessment of the canonical worthiness of any book lay in its conformity to accepted church orthodoxy and doctrine. As a result, modern scholarship is therefore correct in being suspicious of some canonical works and in accepting(provisionally) the inclusion of other non-canonical works in any analysis. Frankly, this is no different than a paleontologist accepting new fossil evidence, even if it invalidates or alters his or her own pet theories.
I have noted that some reviewers have observed that Mack seems to be doing a lot of guessing, with a minimum of backup from other scholarly sources. I wonder if they read the same book I did, because mine contains a very thorough bibliography of both modern and ancient works.. Perhaps they reject Mack's sources because his rather unique use of them is in disagreement with their own preconceived notions of what constitutes credible research and/or biblical truth. No matter, this book is an excellent source for the general reader who appreciates honest scholarship from an uninhibited and acclaimed expert in this field.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not bad
Comment: If we read the dialogues of Plato the person who is the mouth piece of his thought is a historical character Socrates. It is clear however that Plato is not simply writing down what Socrates has said, but he puts in his mouth ideas that he thinks are correct. Mack thinks that this was a common practice in Greek communities and that a large number of the sayings of philosophers like Diogeneses were constructed after the event to reflect the spirit of his philosophy.
Mack is a biblical expert and has written previous works on the subject including one on the existence of a common source of sayings for two of the Gospels known as Q.
In this book he uses as a tool of exposition the recent finding of the Gospel of Thomas. A manuscript written in Coptic which was found in 1945. Rather than being a Gospel which purported to tell Jesus life, this is a collection of his sayings. Mack believes that all of the Gospels have a similar background. A series of sayings which have been developed by different Christian communities to reflect their teachings over practical and theological issues. The interesting thing about the Gospel according to Thomas is that there are no miracles, there is no crucifixion and no physical resurrection, suggesting that these things became important somewhat later.
He sees the writing of the Gospels as something akin to fiction writing. The authors of the Gospel wrote their stories to illustrate and to explain the doctrinal intricacies of their belief system. In much the same way that an ancient Greek may have developed a saying of Diogeneses to illustrate a point about his philosophy.
Later these stories have become something else and have been seen as literal history. The book is interesting as an exposition of what is common knowledge about the study of the bible. I personally would have preferred more detail about some things such as the means of dating the Gospels. However the book is aimed to be an introduction to a complex field.
Rating: 1
Summary: 1 Kings 8:61
Comment: it is ironic that the same way this author disects the authoral foundations of the NT, is the same way that his book will be disected in years to come: his ideas were just a product of the sinful culture of which he was a part. repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ if you hope to have any type form of salvation. the world is sin and it will remain that way until tribulation. if you aren't on board with Christ, you are much much worse off than you can possibly know.
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Title: Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman ISBN: 0060630353 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 07 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Neil Asher Silberman, Israel Finkelstein ISBN: 0684869136 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 11 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Lost Gospel : The Book of Q and Christian Origins by Burton L. Mack ISBN: 0060653752 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 08 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy by Burton L. MacK ISBN: 0826413552 Publisher: Continuum Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History by Gary Greenberg ISBN: 1570718423 Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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