H2Andy:actually, Matthew used Mark and another source (usually called "Q") to
write his gospel, as well as information unique to Matthew.
Mark was written first.
Like Matthew, Luke used Mark, Q, and information unique to Luke.
by the time John was written (the last of the Canonical Gospels to be
written), things were all over the place, and John isn't even considered
a synoptic gospel (like Mark, Matthew, and Luke).
Read Mark in a sitting, and then John in a sitting, and you will see
the tremendous leap in the "Jesus Message" that has taken place,
already within the first 70 years of Jesus' death.
one of the earliest gospels, Thomas, is not a cannonical gospel
because by the time the canon was decided upon, Christianity had charged
so much that the church fathers felt the early gospel was "alien"
to Christianity.
now, the gospel of Thomas handn't changed. what had changed
was the views of Christianity around.
a fascinating subject, and one i wish i knew more about
Andy, you're taking a theory, actually a hypothesis, proposed by some Biblical scholars, notably the Jesus Seminar as well.... gospel. There are many, MANY Biblical scholars who refute that theory & put forth some very valid arguments against it. There is no real evidence for the existence of Q but the theory of its existence has been bandied about for a decade or so & has been presented to (and accepted by) the public as fact. The existence of Q is theoretical only & does not even begin to take into account some of the letters of the New Testament, which predate the writing of the Gospels. As to the Gospels themselves, many scholars believe that they were all actually written before 70 AD. They base this on references to the Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. None of the Gospels refers to the Temple in the past tense- all references imply that it was still standing at the time that the Gospel was written. There's also a description in John of the healing at the pool of Bethesda which describes the architecture in present tense "is surrounded by five porticos, or covered colonnades" (John 5:2). That was also destroyed in AD 70 & the way in which this passage was written points to it still being intact. So, when one looks at the possibility of that dating &, again, the early dates of the letters that make up the majority of the NT, one can see that there has not be enough passage of time for myths to be created. Also bear in mind that we are speaking of an age with an oral tradition that relied heavily on accuracy.
OK, lots of the posters here have issues with taking things on faith. Well, let's talk about the Bible & what is says. There's a lot of agreed upon evidence of it's veracity:
First, the accuracy with which it has been transmitted Scholars agree that the Bible (both New & Old Testaments) has been reproduced independently, in many areas of the known world, over a span of about a thousand years with an accuracy rate of over 95%. There is also its historical accuracy. For example, the Bible mentions 29 kings & multiple cities & countries. The existence of all of them has been substantiated by modern archaeological discoveries. The places that Jesus & His Disciples visited in the New Testament have also bee substantiated overwhelmingly by archaeological evidence. If a ruler or king is mentioned in either the OT or the NT, it has been verified that they did, in fact, exist & at about the time that is referenced in the Bible. Even the Jesus Seminar scholars agree on this. So, if the documentation of people, places, & events is so startlingly accurate in so many instances, does that not make the probability of the documented events of Jesus' life, death, & resurrection a distinct probability? For that matter, does it not make the existance of the God that is talked about in the Bible a distinct possiblity?
Second, let's look at what has not been discovered about the New Testament & the life of Jesus. There are no writings by either the Romans nor the Jews of that time that refute the claims of His followers- that He died & rose from the dead. Yes, His followers were persecuted but even so, there was no denial of the empty tomb & the resurection that followed. I find that pretty telling- this group of men who fought so hard to have Jesus put to death suddenly fell silent on the subject of the resurection. One might almost believe that they didn't know how to stop the truth frrom spreading, wouldn't one? There are very few references to Jesus in our known historical documents of around that time. The first & most famous one is Flavius Josephus' reference to Jesus in his Antiquities (& no, I'm not going to cite the questionable version):
"At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of the people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out."
Oddly enough, Flavius, who was notorious for saying that "they had it coming" when writing about people executed by the Romans, did not say that about Jesus &, instead, seems rather sympathetic to Jesus & His teachings. This, from an historian kinown for taking the "party line" in his writings.
I'm jumping around a little but I just want to give you all some food for thought. The Jewish culture of that time was very patriarchal society & women were not held in very high regard. So, why do you think that the Gospel writers, if they were making things up, would have the discoverers of the empty tomb women? Perhaps because they were telling the truth? And again, where was the denial of the tomb by any of the authorities?
Along those lines, one last thought. Why do you suppose that a bunch of people who ran & hid when Jesus was arrested & crucified suddenly gathered the courage to go out & publically proclaim that He rose from the dead, that He was the Messiah? Why would His brother, who had earlier denied Him suddenly join His followers & later be martyred for his faith? Not to mention all of the other followers who lived & died proclaiming that Jesus was the Son of God. Instead, this group of cowards & petty little men suddenly had the courage to live the rest of their lives spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, most dying horrible deaths because of what they believed to be true.
There's a lot of evidence out there for the existance of a Creator, for proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God. I don't pretend to be a scholar by any means. What I am is a life-long agnostic who, at the age of 45, finally recognized the logic that allowed me to believe.