WWE Smackdown #21. Well, not really. This discussion began around the issue of the DaVinci Code (and neither are nice to Dan Brown), but it’s mostly about the Gospels–canonical and non-canonical–on their historical reliability, etc. In the middle Richard Hays brought up a point about why the 4 gospels are accepted as authoritative and the others were not: Beyond the fact that they are earlier, he pointed out that they present the most continuity to the OT. That is, the salvation-historical continuity of the message of the four gospels with Judaism is what the early church found compelling. (This is especially true for Irenaeus–see especially his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching which is very OT-NT focused.) See here.
Friday, 26 October 2007
Richard Hays vs Bart Ehrman (25 April 2006)
Posted by Ben Blackwell under Jesus and the Gospels, Patristics[2] Comments
Friday, 2 November 2007 at 4:13 am
I really enjoyed this debate. In fact, I have probably listened to it 4 or 5 times. Do you know of anyone that addresses the question of how much the gospel writers could theologize and still remain faithful to what actually happened?
Friday, 2 November 2007 at 10:35 pm
That’s a good question–I was thinking about it myself, so it must have been a great question. I asked a friend doing his work on the gospels and he couldn’t think of a good balanced treatment off the top of his head, but it’s not an issue that he’s looking at since he’s doing more of a narrative reading. I’ll pass along what I hear.