Matthew And Luke Plagiarized Mark
The majority of New Testament scholars agree that out of all four gospels. It is short, was written in poor Greek, and contains geographical and other errors.
Rather than being independent accounts of the life of Jesus, the gospels of Matthew and Luke can be shown to have borrowed heavily from Mark, in some instances even copying him almost verbatim. Matthew uses about 607 of Marks 661 verses Luke incorporates 360.
To their credit, Matthew and Luke improved on Marks original text. They corrected grammar, style, accuracy, and theology.
For example, Mark 5:1 erroneously calls the eastern edge of the Sea of Galilee the country of the Gerasenes, which is actually more than 50 kilometers away. Matthew 8:28 substitutes the more plausible Gadara, a spa only 12 kilometers from the lake. In Mark 7:19, Jesus declares all foods clean, something the Torah-observant Matthew apparently disagreed with, since he didnt copy the statement in his parallel account.
Mark wrongly attributes a quote from Malachi to Isaiah Matthew 3:3 corrects this mistake. Marks more primitive Christology allows Jesus to be , and not by a Jew. In the more developed Christology of Matthew, Lord is used 19 times, and in Luke, its used 16 times.
How Many People Wrote The Bible And Over How Long Of A Period Of Time Was It Written
Perhaps you have wondered about these matters, or maybe you have been asked about them and were not sure how to go about giving an appropriate answer. An acquaintance of mine recently called and asked me both of those questions.
From the outset, let us recognize and acknowledge that nowhere within the text of the Bible do we find Gods direct answer to either one of these inquiries. Despite that, using the information that is given to us in Gods word, we can come up with a general, ballpark figure for each of these two matters under discussion.
All Scripture was given by inspiration of God . The spokesmen/prophets of God who wrote His word in human language were guided in their writings by the Holy Spirit . In some cases, the human writers of a particular book of the Bible identify themselves in other cases, the human writer is not named. For a biblical book to be anonymous, however, does not alter either the source or inspiration of its message.
What about calculating how many men of God wrote the Old Testament? There is less certainty in our response. The writers of the Old Testament books would include Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the men who wrote the last fourteen books from Ezekiel to Malachi, with each book bearing the name of its writer. How many Old Testament writers did we just note, either by naming or describing them? I counted twenty-four.
Roger D. Campbell
Who Really Wrote The Bible
Submitted by Holyman Preter on Wed, 2015-11-11 01:17
Its the best-selling and most widely distributed book of all time. Each year, the United Bible Societies alone distribute close to 400 million full or partial Bibles across the globe. This remarkable book has been translated, as a whole or in part, into more than two thousand languages and dialects. The Bible, we may conclude, is generally available to the vast majority of humanity.
That said, few other Christian nations are as interested in the Bible as the United States. According to the American Bible Societys 2015 State of the Bible survey, 79 percent of American adults name the Bible as the book that comes to mind when they think of sacred literature or holy books. The average American household owns at least four Bibles, and 88 percent of American homes have at least one. Further, 69 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat agree that the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life 51 percent believe the Bible has too little influence on American society today.
Yet the survey also indicates that only 14 percent of American adults read the Bible daily. While 55 percent profess that it is the actual or inspired Word of God and is not mistaken in its statements and teachings, only 28 percent claim to read it more than once a week.
NO OTHER BOOK LIKE IT
TRUE OR NOT TRUE?
To put it succinctly, how can we know whether the Bible is the inspired Word of God?
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The Bible Records The Word Of The Lord
Sometimes that message came in a direct form, introduced by such phrases as, the word of the Lord came to me. One Bible researcher counted more than 3,800 times when the writers of Scripture used some variation of the phrase, the word of the Lord came to me, saying . In other words, the prophet stated with clear authority that God, the Creator of the universe, actually communicated His message personally to the prophet.
For example, Isaiah records: And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, Go and tell Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears surely I will add to your days fifteen years .
In other cases prophets described their own experiences and offered different perspectives on the same event. They presented the message of God in different styles and languages, and yet the Holy Spirit guided their thoughts and minds to present Gods divine truth and not merely their own humanly devised message.
Some writers claimed to see God and speak to Him face to face . Hundreds of thousands if not millions heard His voice giving the 10 Commandments . It was so powerful and frightening the people said, Let not God speak with us, lest we die .
Archaeology Confirms The Bibles Historical Accuracy
Archaeologists have consistently discovered the names of government officials, kings, cities, and festivals mentioned in the Bible — sometimes when historians didn’t think such people or places existed. For example, the Gospel of John tells of Jesus healing a cripple next to the Pool of Bethesda. The text even describes the five porticoes leading to the pool. Scholars didn’t think the pool existed, until archaeologists found it forty feet below ground, complete with the five porticoes.1
The Bible has a tremendous amount of historical detail, so not everything mentioned in it has yet been found through archaeology. However, not one archaeological find has conflicted with what the Bible records.2
In contrast, news reporter Lee Strobel comments about the Book of Mormon: “Archaeology has repeatedly failed to substantiate its claims about events that supposedly occurred long ago in the Americas. I remember writing to the Smithsonian Institute to inquire about whether there was any evidence supporting the claims of Mormonism, only to be told in unequivocal terms that its archaeologists see ‘no direct connection between the archaeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.'” Archaeologists have never located cities, persons, names, or places mentioned in the Book of Mormon.3
Archaeology consistently confirms the historical accuracy of the Bible.
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Inspired To Display Glory
Those are the human authors who wrote the Bible. But heres one of the most important things, and Ill end with this, which needs to be said.
Just as the heavens are telling the glory of God, so that we should be able to look at nature and discern in it the hand of God , and just as John said of Jesus Christ, We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father , so that those who saw Jesus should have discerned that this is the Son of God, in the same way, the glory of God shines forth from his handiwork in the very word of God that he inspired the Bible through the human authors, so that we can say, in a similar way, that we have seen here the hand of God, the truth of God. This is his word.
Table Iii: Deuterocanonical Old Testament
The deuterocanonical books are works included in Catholic and Orthodox but not in Jewish and Protestant Bibles.
| Book | |
|---|---|
| Tobit can be dated to 225175 BCE based on its use of language and lack of knowledge of the 2nd century BCE persecution of Jews. | |
| 1 Esdras | 1 Esdras is based on Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. |
| 2 Esdras | 2 Esdras is a composite work combining texts from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. |
| 2 Maccabees | 2 Maccabees is a revised and condensed version of a work by an otherwise unknown author called Jason of Cyrene, plus passages by the anonymous editor who made the condensation . Jason most probably wrote in the mid to late 2nd century BCE and the Epitomist before 63 BCE. |
| Wisdom of Sirach | Sirach names its author as Jesus ben Sirach, probably a scribe offering instruction to the youth of Jerusalem. His grandson’s preface to the Greek translation indirectly dates the work to the first quarter of the 2nd century BCE. |
| Baruch was probably written in the 2nd century BCE part of it, the Letter of Jeremiah, is sometimes treated as a separate work. | |
| Additional psalms | The additional psalms are numbered 151155 some at least are pre-Christian in origin, being found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. |
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Who Was Jesus Did He Really Exist
Most scholars agree that Jesus, a first-century religious leader and preacher, existed historically. He was born in c4 BC and died reportedly crucified on the orders of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate in cAD 3033. Then, for around 40 years, news of his teachings was spread by word of mouth until, from around AD 70, four written accounts of his life emerged that changed everything.
The gospels, or good news, of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are critically important to the Christian faith. It is their descriptions of the life of Jesus Christ that have made him arguably the most influential figure in human history.
We cant be sure when the gospels were written, says Barton, and we know little about the authors. But the guess is that Mark came first, in the 70s, followed by Matthew and Luke in the 80s and 90s, and John in the 90s or early in the second century.
In general, Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the same story with variations, and hence are called the synoptic gospels, whereas John has a very different style, as well as telling a markedly different version of the story of Jesus. Matthew and Luke seem to be attempts to improve on Mark, by adding more stories and sayings from sources now lost. John is a different conceptualisation of the story of Jesus, portraying a more obviously divine figure.
Who Wrote The Bible: Prophets
Wikimedia CommonsThe prophet Isaiah
The next texts to examine when investigating who wrote the Bible are those of the biblical prophets, an eclectic group who mostly traveled around the various Jewish communities to admonish people and lay curses and sometimes preach sermons about everybodys shortcomings.
Some prophets lived way back before the Golden Age while others did their work during and after the Babylonian captivity. Later, many of books of the Bible attributed to these prophets were largely written by others and were fictionalized to the level of Aesops Fables by people living centuries after the events in the books were supposed to have happened, for example:
Wikimedia CommonsThe prophet Jeremiah
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Who Wrote The Gospel Of John
Of all the gospels, John comes closest to revealing the identity of its author. At the very end of the gospel, the author begins referring to one disciple as the one whom Jesus loved, and eventually suggests this disciple wrote the gospel:
Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. When Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him?
Jesus answered, If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me. Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die he only said, If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?
This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. John 21:2024
The disciple whom Jesus loved is traditionally believed to be the apostle John. While this passage may seem to point to John, it isnt a closed case. Lets look at what we know about the writer of the Gospel of John prior to this passage.
Were There Any Women Bible Writers
Dear Roger,
There seems to be much emphasis these days on the role of women in ministry. I like that because when I was young women definitely took a back seat in church affairs. Recently, Ive began wondering if any of the books of the Bible were written by women.
Sincerely, Curious
Dear Curious,
The Bible contains a variety of 66 books written by approximately 45 different writers over a span of about 1200 years. The fascinating thing is that the Holy Spirit carefully inspired all the authors so that their books dovetail together with the same main theme. The first 12 chapters of Genesis tell us that mankind is in trouble because of Sin and the Fall. The rest of the Bible, from Genesis 12 to Revelation 22, describes how God will fix the problem and eventually restore man to the glorious place and existence that he had before the Fall. A red thread runs through every book in the Bible. A 1,200 year-unified-stream of salvation is nothing less than remarkable!
All the Bible books were definitely written by menwith one possible exception. Ill say more about that exception in a moment.
We really dont know any of the authors of the historical books in the Old Testament like Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Nehemiah or Esther. They were all written in the third person.
The authors of the Poetical books are fairly well knownexcept for the book of Job. Again, writing in the third person, the author tells Jobs story. It is not the authors story.
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The Bible Today Is The Same As What Was Originally Written
Some people have the idea that the Bible has been translated “so many times” that it has become corrupted through stages of translating. That would probably be true if the translations were being made from other translations. But translations are actually made directly from original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic source texts based on thousands of ancient manuscripts.
The accuracy of todays Old Testament was confirmed in 1947 when archaeologists found The Dead Sea Scrolls along today’s West Bank in Israel. “The Dead Sea Scrolls” contained Old Testament scripture dating 1,000 years older than any manuscripts we had. When comparing the manuscripts at hand with these, from 1,000 years earlier, we find agreement 99.5% of the time. And the .5% differences are minor spelling variances and sentence structure that doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence.
Regarding the New Testament, it is humanity’s most reliable ancient document.
All ancient manuscripts were written on papyrus, which didnt have much of a shelf life. So people hand copied originals, to maintain the message and circulate it to others.
Few people doubt Platos writing of The Republic. Its a classic, written by Plato around 380 B.C. The earliest copies we have of it are dated 900 A.D., which is a 1,300 year time lag from when he wrote it. There are only seven copies in existence.
*McDowell, Josh. The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict , p. 55.
Who Compiled The Old Testament
Compiling and ascribing divine inspiration of the Old Covenant Scriptures occurred over time, by consensus, by evidences of unity, self-attestation, personal spiritual devotion, and by liturgical usage in communities. There are theories of canonization of selected books by councils . However, much of this is reliant upon commentary . The sacred texts, preserved by Israel as Gods Word to them, were more formally recognized, particularly, after the Babylonian Captivity. By the time of Jesus, the texts that Jesus affirmed as being the Word of God were complete. God is sovereign over all things including His Word.
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Appendix: Was Matthews Gospel Originally Written In Aramaic
Both Papias and Irenaeus testify in their descriptions of who wrote the Gospels that Matthews Gospel originated in the language of the Hebrew peopleby which they almost certainly intended Aramaic, which was the spoken language of the Jews at the time and which shares the same alphabet as Hebrew. No ancient Aramaic version of Matthews Gospel has, however, survived. The Gospel According to Matthew is in Greek. Further complicating matters, the version of Matthews Gospel that has survived in Greek reads smoothly and elegantly, not at all like a literal translation from Aramaic might read. Plus, Matthews Gospel incorporates much of Marks Gospeloften word-for-word. Many different solutions to this dilemma have been posited over the centuries. Heres the reconstruction that I find most convincing, though others are certainly possible as well:
_________
* B. Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of a New Millennium , 248-249 B. Ehrman, Lost Christianities , 235 B. Ehrman and W. Craig, Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?: A Debate between William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman .