I always assumed that the order of the books in the New Testament echoed the order in which they were written. But that’s not true. The Epistles came first, then the biography of Jesus.
It’s notable that the epistles of don’t tell of Jesus as a person who, on a certain occasion, said a particular thing that would settle the current argument. Instead he speaks to the apostles in their hearts. The biographical details came a century later.
- The letters of the apostles come first, but they are fifty or more years after Christ.
- Then there’s the Gospel of Mark, 65 - 80 years after Christ. Mark is described by early writers as an apostle of Peter who never met the Lord (and he is clearly unfamiliar with Palestine).
- The book of Matthew (80 - 100 C.E.) was copied from, and elaborated on, the book of Mark.
- The author of Acts of the Apostles also wrote the Gospel of Luke some time between 80 and 130 C.E. This Luke was not an apostle of Jesus; as describe in “Luke” itself, he is someone who knew Paul and travelled with him.
- John is a later author (90 - 100 C.E.), who is also not an eyewitness, as we can tell from the dates of the controversies and events that he mentions.
So what we have in the New Testament is a tradition of Christianity not by eye-witnesses, but by writers who believe in Christ and speak of him largely as evangelists do today when listening to the “voice of God.” Then we have later writings that spoke of Jesus as a person and were ascribed, based on tradition rather than scholarhsip, to his disciples.
On the cultural side we have the Hellenistic ideals that were sweeping Judea at the time, Greek ideals of the philosphical school called Cynicism, and a very standard hero myth.
This story was built up in a way that reminds me of Santa Claus. The story of Father Christmas, a generous ideal who would reward children who were good all year, came first. Only later was he transformed into Santa Claus with eye-witness accounts. His packsack became miraculous (magical), larger outside than in and able to supply multitudes. He acquired flying reindeer that carried him into the sky. Other writers added Mrs. Claus, elves, Rudolph, and a taste for cookies & milk. If Santa made all the toys in the world, he must have a factory staffed by elves and we began to hear about his labour troubles.
Similarly, in the American legend, Paul Bunyan the giant logger came first, then was given Babe the Blue Ox and miracles (called “tall tales”) such as creating the Grand Canyon by dragging his ax-head on the ground. Babe acquired verismilitude through detail such as the fact that she measured 42 ax-handles and a plug of tobacco between the horns.
So Jesus came first, then the iconic events of his life such as miracles, persecution, and death, and finally Joseph & Mary and a childhood. Instead of having details of his life fade away in later writings, they are added when he is outside the scope of human memory.
See also “Biblical scholarship” (previous) or “Did Christ Exist?” (next).
