The earliest Gospels was not written until the 60s (Mark). Paul does not write much about the ministry or the life of Jesus – other than the big finish. All the early Christians likely followed Jesus’ apocalyptic view and, like Paul, believed in the imminent return of Jesus and the establishment of the King of God on earth. Could this belief in the imminent end of time have caused a delay in the writing of the Gospels?
There isn’t much incentive to write the Gospels if the end is to come soon. There will be no need to tell the people that enter the new Kingdom as they already know what they need to know (salvation through death and resurrection of Jesus) and there is nothing to leave to posterity.
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I think a really good book could be written about how the delay of the Parousia stimulated the development of the New Testament. (If this book has already been written somebody let me know.) Our earliest Christian document, 1 Thessalonians, is motivated by precisely that delay. As Robert suggests it may have been an impetus for an expanded ministry to the gentiles. The earliest form of Resurrection belief seems to have anticipated an almost immediate Parousia. The Resurrection was not seen simply as an isolated one-time event but the very beginning of the end. The forged Pauline epistles address issues that arose from this idea. I think we can intuit that some members of the early Christian community were dropping out of their traditional social roles in anticipation of the Parousia. Especially folks at the bottom end of the social hierarchy – women and slaves. Wait a minute folks! Not so fast!
I remember once asking Prof Ehrman about this issue and I got a hint from his response that he might have at least considered writing such a book. It would probably be a hard sell to a popular publisher, but it is important.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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