(May 23, 2015 at 8:35 pm)Nestor Wrote:(May 23, 2015 at 8:08 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Of course, you are also familiar with the "You have heard it said...but I say..." passages, so you know Jesus offered new material, also.Maybe, though having read most of the OT, Plato, a great deal of Aristotle, and now going through Philo's complete works, after of which I plan to read some Stoics, and eventually a behemoth, two volume set of Jewish and Christian pseudographa (mostly predating Jesus with some exceptions, namely the Christian works of course) that I plan to crack open next year, I'd be surprised if there was anything original in the NT with the exception of a few kernels here and there, as much as I'm already finding it shocking that anyone could truly believe the that NT contains *divine* wisdom, much less innovative thought. You know as well as I do that, at least for the most part, when an author using Jesus as their mouthpiece writes, "You have heard it said... but I say," he's not saying stuff that hadn't been taught by others, Jewish or Gentile, before.
Ah, but Nestor, I'm not buying into your assertion that the authors used Jesus as their mouthpiece.
However, let's pursue this for a moment. You've read the thread and know my positions, but I need to know yours.
1. Who are the authors of the gospels?
2. When were they written approximately?
3. What was their motivation for writing?
