I wonder if any or all of the synoptic gospels were written by Greek-literate gentiles or Jews; Matthew seems most addressed to Jews, and hence most likely composed by one. My speculation is that all three were, but the evidence either way seems thin.

Robert said
I think one needs to look at author and audience together. Each gospel is written by someone but also written for someone.

and this is exactly my point too - the gospel of john is universal, it does not target jews as others

Unlike the other gospels that target specific groups like the Jews, John's audience is universal. It addresses humanity as a whole.

While the other gospels target specific groups like Jews or Romans, John breaks those boundaries entirely. It is written for everyone, everywhere.

• The Global Scope: He explicitly states his message is for the whole world. Verses like John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world") show that his audience has no national or ethnic borders. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]

 

The audience of the gospel of Matthew must have had a larger contingent of Jewish loyalists, even some who thought the message had been only for Jews, but the author was clearly trying to move them toward fully embracing the contemporary mission to the gentiles. It could have been (but was not necessarily) written/adapted soon after the gospel of Mark but for this different audience.

The final version of the gospel of Luke was written from a later perspective by a more highly educated Greek author and for an audience fully ensconced in a gentile environment. And yet the case can be made that the author or some of his audience could have been Jewish proselytes before embracing a fully Christian identity. The focus is on the myth of origins of the world-wide Hellenistic gentile church in full continuity with its earlier roots in the earliest Jewish disciples of Jesus.

None of these authors would have been eyewitnesses of the message or death of Jesus, though they presumably inherited many stories about Jesus and his significance, stories that had evolved over generations and would need to be crafted together into a fully literary process by genuine authors who dominated their material.

The works were (as I understand) composed in Koine Greek, which lets out the actual disciples whose names are attached to them, and in the first century CE. 

But I have not seen a discussion of who they (or the shadowy author of Q) might have been.

I would be interested to know what inferences can be drawn from the texts: in what city each lived, in what decades, what stratum of society each may have occupied, might any have actually been acquainted with Jesus, and so on. 

Or whether it is just an impenetrable mystery.

Steefen said

Nephesh is about the "All of Me," the entire breathing, living human being, not just an inner spirit.

 
= = = =
 

Psuche (Greek: ψυχή) is an ancient Greek term generally meaning soul, life, mind, or the animating breath of a living being. Pronounced "su-kay" (or "shuka" in modern Greek contexts), it refers to the seat of feelings and the immaterial part of a human, often contrasted with bios (physical life). 
Key Aspects of Psuche:

Definition: Originating from "breath" or "vital force," it represents the inner self, personality, and life force.
Biblical Usage: Occurs 102 times in the New Testament, frequently translated as "soul" or "life" (e.g., Matt 10:39, Acts 2:41). It can refer to physical life, the individual self, or the spiritual, eternal part of a person
.

Philosophical Evolution: Plato viewed the psuche as an immortal soul, whereas Aristotle saw it as the form or organizing principle of a living body.
Distinction from Bios and Zoe: While bios refers to material life (biology) and zoe refers to divine/eternal life, psuche is often used for the mental, emotional, and inner life. 

Stephen said
Stephen, can you give us some kind of a summary, I’m asking because I am losing you …
I'm sorry it just wouldn't work. There's the difference in our ages. You didn't want kids...
  

I made up my mind decades ago [made 3 kids with 1 woman], even if the rest of you haven't. If your goal is to deconstruct Judeo-Christianity by arguing that the shift from Aramaic to Greek [language, lingua franca] introduced pagan myths—like Dionysian rituals of eating raw meat and drowning in wine barrels—that’s just one niche theory. Either way, I don't see what people confusing John the Baptist with the Savior has to do with any of it.

Why is Greek influence treated as a 'problem'? I'm perfectly comfortable admitting that Christianity leaned heavily into the Greek language and worldview to spread. But using Greek concepts to communicate the gospel doesn't mean Jesus was a carbon copy of Dionysus, nor does it require us to deny Him. It just means the early Church knew how to speak to its audience.

Even if early Christianity heavily adopted Greek language and concepts over Jewish ones, that is just standard religious development. It is no different than how the Egyptians merged Ptah, Sokar, and Osiris into a single composite deity over time. Cultural adaptation is how spiritual ideas survive and spread—it doesn’t mean you deny the core figure of Jesus.

If we look at the history of religion, the transition from Old Testament burnt offerings—which the Jews established all the way back through the archetype of Cain and Abel—to Jesus offering His own body represents a massive cultural leap. Christianity took a Jewish foundation but transformed it through a Hellenistic and Mediterranean mindset, where concepts of a dying-and-rising god already existed (such as Ptah-Sokar-Osiris or Dionysus). Jesus offers Himself in a brand-new way; this evolution of the concept of sacrifice is a historical fact, not a reason to deny Jesus.

Let me ask you all a direct question: Are you going to deny me, just as people denied Jesus? If I tell you that I AM Adam—the very first to understand God—will you reject that truth simply because it doesn't fit your traditional boxes, just like they rejected Him?

When an infant nurses on its mother's milk, does it have an awareness of that milk, or do you think it believes it is consuming the mother herself? In Christianity, we do not have a concept of eating Jesus's literal flesh [meaning meat, raw or burnt]; rather, our concept is bread of life [and wine]—alluding to Melchizedek, who had neither father nor mother! Why bread? Because of the yeast, for we have no better parable for the resurrection... [if you have 1, give it to us]

When Jesus says that rivers of living water will flow from within the body of whoever believes in Him, that too is a parable. It is not literal water, just as the Eucharist is not literal cannibalism. It is a spiritual reality expressed through earthly symbols.

2. The Creation of Serapis

Serapis was created by the Greek Pharaohs of Egypt to bridge two cultures. He was primarily a mix of Osiris (Egyptian god of the underworld) and Apis (the sacred bull). Because the Greeks already viewed Osiris as Dionysus, the new Serapis automatically absorbed Dionysian traits, including joy, resurrection, and benevolence. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]

I'm sorry it just wouldn't work. There's the difference in our ages. You didn't want kids...

1stadam1stantiochian said

Steefen said
  

Stephen, can you give us some kind of a summary, I'm asking because I am losing you ...
  

Steefen said

Stephen, can you give us some kind of a summary, I'm asking because I am losing you ...

I have long thought that religion was an outgrowth of the desire to moderate nature. I just read about psychologist Jaynes who discussed the bi cameral mind. I am now strongly wondering if the basis of religion includes the expression of those inner voices that some/most/all/me have. They can seem so compelling yet foreign in the sense that they feel like they come from outside of our normal self.

And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.  KJV

When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  NIV

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted.  NRSVUE

By all means watch for the full discussion but the short version is that "they" seems to be the correct reading and the "some" might reveal a certain squeamishness on the part of translators uncomfortable with the idea that all the disciples doubted which is clearly implied.  

Now the Whimsical but Paranoiac Conspiracy Theorist, one of the 21 distinct personalities that dwell within my seething brain, immediately spun a theory (or played connect the dots) that hones in on questions raised by this text.

It is a scholarly commonplace that of the two synoptic gospel writers, Luke more closely follows Mark's chronology, but it is Matthew who is more faithful to Mark's word order.  So consider this scenario...

Mark's gospel did not originally end at 16:8.  Verse 16:7 hints at a subsequent meeting in Galilee and the reader's expectation for the depiction of such a meeting would be quite natural.  Let's pretend for a minute that Matthew 28,16-17 copies the original ending of Mark as Matthew was wont to do so often before.  But Mark included no proclamation or Great Commission.  We were left with the disciples, previously depicted as goofballs in Mark's gospel, doubting the resurrection itself!

Of course such an ending would have horrified the later gospel writers.  So it was thought better to blame the women and end at 16,8 rather than leave the disciples standing on the mountain and not getting it.  So the original ending of Mark's gospel was not "lost", it was suppressed!  (Cue the ominous organ music.)  

Those popping noises you hear are the sound of apologists' heads exploding all across our land.  

Thank you.

Steve

In the case of Serapis, it's an interpretio type of syncretism where the deities have similar function. It's not the common Egyptian style of syncretism  where the deities have dissimilar function but represent the union of two regions (like the Ra and Amun regional temples of the Two Lands) or maybe maybe a personal god and a tribal god (which is my guess for Ra-Horus.)

Personal god + tribal god is ofc how I imagine the Egyptian Yah deity came about in my evolving hypothesis — Ea in Sin is the 28th lunar day in the Babylonian hemerologies. And here we find the pork proscription, the Sappatu (Sabbath), and the no leeks and garlic mentioned in Exodus. This would match how Mandaeans say Abraham was originally a priest for The Great Life (imo Ea in anuship) but was removed from that responsibility, and they don't say he apostasized from worship afaik but just stepped down, while he also stops at the two major Sin/Suen temple towns, and his family have Sin/Suen style lunar names. Then my guess is that his Lord is first Hammurabi, then the Amorite 14th dynasty - here would be the circumcision.

So henotheism to monotheism. And because it covers vast time and multiple cultures, it's complicated. Jesus to me absolutely sounds like someone who got the very best education for the son of a handmaiden to a Lord, and if he has access to the cracked cuneiform, might be exhibiting an understanding of religious history and not just be enacting traditions of the Antiquarian Revival (the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid Uruk as it diffuses to Galilee-Peraea via Nabataeans like Chuza and Phaesalis) without understanding it.

In later times this god also acquired the characteristics of the god Osiris, resulting in the god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.

As the patron deity of craftsmen, builders, and architects, he was worshipped as the ultimate divine artisan who brought the universe into existence using the power of thought and speech.

= = =

Steefen:

Sounds like Jesus in the gospel of John is Ptah and Serapis.

= = =

Ptah-Sokar-Osiris: Over time, Sokar merged with Ptah (the creator god of Memphis) and Osiris (the primary ruler of the underworld) to form the composite deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. This combined god represented the cycle of creation, underworld stability, and resurrection.

Steefen:
So when I think of Lord of the Resurrection, I now think of Osiris, Sokar, and Jesus.