| According to Mark, Christ was a
man; according to Matthew and Luke, he was a demigod; while John insists that he was God
himself.
Mark was written some time after the year 70, Luke about
110, Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. |
But
the Gospel of Mark, as we have it, is not the original Mark. In the same way that the
writers of Matthew and Luke copied and enlarged the Gospel of Mark, Mark copied and
enlarged an earlier document which is called the "original Mark." This original
source perished in the early age of the Church. What it was, who wrote it, where it was
written, nobody knows. The Gospel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to be an
unhistorical document. They acknowledge that it is not a life of Christ, but an
interpretation of him; that it gives us an idealized and spiritualized picture of what
Christ is supposed to have been, and that it is largely composed of the speculations of
Greek philosophy. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are called the
"Synoptic Gospels," on the one hand, and the Gospel of John, on the other, stand
at opposite extremes of thought. So complete is the difference between the teaching of the
first three Gospels and that of the fourth, that every critic admits that if Jesus taught
as the Synoptics relate, he could not possibly have taught as John declares. Indeed, in
the first three Gospels and in the fourth, we meet with two entirely different Christs.
Did I say two? It should be three; for, according to Mark, Christ was a man; according to
Matthew and Luke, he was a demigod; while John insists that he was God himself. There is not the smallest fragment of trustworthy evidence to show that
any of the Gospels were in existence, in their present form, earlier than a hundred years
after the time at which Christ is supposed to have died. Christian scholars, having no
reliable means by which to fix the date of their composition, assign them to as early an
age as their calculations and their guesses will allow; but the dates thus arrived at are
far removed from the age of Christ or his apostles. We are told that Mark was written some
time after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140
A.D. Let me impress upon you that these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as
early as possible. The first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke,
was made by the Christian Father, St. Irenaeus, about the year 190 A.D. The only earlier
mention of any of the Gospels was made by Theopholis of Antioch, who mentioned the Gospel
of John in 180 A.D.
-
- Page 3
Go to Page 4
NOVO's
Library
|