Reading the New Testament chronologically

[Ziploc Surprise]

Whoever wrote the stories, the order in which they were written shows a developing theology.

We know this stuff was edited, though, to account for changes in church doctrine. I maintain that when they were written is far less important than when the last redactor sat down with his blue pencil and started making changes.

As late as the Codex Vaticanus, the oldest, more-or-less complete xtian bible c 350 AD we find significant differences between it and "modern" bibles. That did not happen by accident, my friend.

Edits do befuddle things but there are still significant differences between the gospels Mark and John that I don't think can be attributed to edits alone.

BTW, and I believe you'll find this funny (I do at least) when I was a Christian many Christians (including myself) had trouble understanding and or interpreting the Bible. Some people had ways of dismissing this by saying stuff like "god's wisdom is greater than ours " (translation we humans are too stupid to understand this shit) or "Paul was just weird" or "Paul was so close to god he had difficulty explaining things to ordinary people".

Interpreting the Bible in the context of time and a developing theology makes those strange statements of the figures in the Bible or who reportedly wrote it make sense. Edits do confuse things though.