That is interesting. Can you share what the underlying Greek actually says?
Thanks
I believe I told you above the word is the Gospel. Itâs mentioned many times throughout Acts. It is not referring to written texts.
Vinnie
From biblehub.com
[3056 ( lĂłgos ) is a common term (used 330 times in the NT) with regards to a person sharing a message (discourse, âcommunication-speechâ).
Doing word studies in a language you donât speak is not a good idea, but this is fairly simple.
Im Greek.Logos means somethuing you retell or tell of an event or a speech genrally.We use it when we are speaking .Hense an oral message
We know that many were involved in putting together the NT based on the eyewitness testimony. Giving oneself to the ministry of the word would likely include dictating it and writing down what you and others had seen. They certainly wrote a great deal about him, most of which we donât have I suspect.
In-as-much-as many undertook[a] to compile a narrative about the things having been fulfilled[b] among us, 2 just as the eyewitnesses from the first[c] and ones having become servants of the word handed-down to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having closely-followed[d] everything carefully from-the-beginning[e], to write it for you in-order, most-excellent Theophilus, 4 in order that you may fully-know the certainty of the things about which you were instructed.
word.â
λÏγοÏ
(logou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strongâs 3056: From lego; something said; by implication, a topic, also reasoning or motive; by extension, a computation; specially, the Divine Expression.
GODâS WORDÂź Translation
However, we will devote ourselves to praying and to serving in ways that are related to the word."
Something said (including the thought); by implication, a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specially, (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e., Christ)
a emphasized textemphasized text1. Luke 1:1 Or, set- their -hand.
b 2. Luke 1:1 Or, accomplished.
c 3. Luke 1:2 That is, the beginning of Christâs ministry.
d 4. Luke 1:3 Or, accurately-traced.
e 5. Luke 1:3 That is, from before Johnâs birth.
Bible Book List
Jesus is alive!
Walk instep and filled with the Holy Spirit and you will know Him and then you will be able to share the Living Word (Jesus) to those you come in contact with.
It wont be a debate anymore, it will be Eternal Life.
And your point is?
They were writing the NT.
Liston was an 8 to 1 favorite over Clay. So much for experts and leaders of our nation who are supposed to know better, like scholars.
May I ask you a question? On what grounds do you reject my view of your take on John? John is absolutely true, you say, based on comparing it to the synoptics. That doesnât make sense to me especially when your position as stated is that each gospel contains many errors and myths and cannot possibly be accurate.
But why just 3 verses later do we find
The spoken word would be spreading at this time. Not the written word which came later. With the first being Paulâs letters.
Great question. They wrote it in paragraphs, in bits and pieces, in parts. They wrote on scraps. It was compiled later. Much of it was lost. Many took on writing it. Many. Not two or 4 or 6. They wanted to record and preserve what had just taken place in their midst. These people, Bill, were blown away. They were not like Christians of modernity. They were on fire. They were consumed with Him. They loved Him with all their hearts, minds, strength and souls. They turned the world upside down. Christ commanded them to tell the world. What would you and I do under those circumstances? I would make sure that we wrote down everything. Iâd collect every scrap and save it. I would give myself to that end. Many did.
They would communicate the message of His love in any and every way they could possibly find. We donât get their passion, their sense of urgency, their enthusiasm, their joy, their singlemindedness. These people were nuts. They would do anything to inform the world that God Almighty had just paid them a visit. GOD himself came to town and they knew him and talked to him and ate grub with him. They could not be contained and we donât get that.
Many of us who are ready for a nap read over their lives and weâve forgotten what itâs like to be in love, to be totally inspired, to be on a mission to save the world. We donât pick up on their energy. These guys were cooking. They were red hot zealots.
However, they were not you, and they did not have the same skills and dependence on the written word, nor did they give it the same authority as modern society. We tend to say regarding agreements,âif it is not written down, it didnât happenâ but ancient societies did not think that way, as most could not write, there was no paper, no books, and usually only trained scribes wrote anything other than perhaps a crude list. Oral transmission was the norm, and had full authority. Only after Christians organized into communities were they able to compile a written record, probably in response to the aging and death of the first generation of Christians, and a need to preserve their stories.
1 Like
Thanks for your input. I think you make sense and you know your stuff much more than I do, Iâm positive.
Hereâs what I go by to some extent: human nature. They lacked all kinds of things. They didnât even have bicycles, did they? But they were scrappy and tough and in love. They were devout, devoted, committed, determined, focused, unwilling to be denied, even rejoicing after beatingsâthey loved him so. They loved him. I donât think that word registers with us any more. They worshiped and adored him and longed to please him. Pete balled like a baby for letting him down. Please donât overlook that. It makes all the difference in the way we approach the NT.
We donât see that kind of thing today. The closest we get is Benjamin Braddock crying at the top of his lungs, âElaine! Elaine!â on a glassed-in church balcony. We are bombarded with scenes like Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a bloody pile of flesh. Riots, 911, Bernie Madoff in handcuffs. We donât tap into a reservoir of our innocence these days and to try to conceive of something as beautiful and untainted and sweet as the birth of Jesus, itâs tough to do.
A Harvard historian said that Einstein and Bohr really loved each other, but they wanted such different things from physics, that they could never see eye to eye. I want the truth and I know the One who makes it possible for my children not to live in fear of me.
No. You are right. They were not me. Thank goodness, huh? They were not lazy or complacent. They didnât take Christ for granted. I have never sung songs of praise after being whipped for my faith. I think they were much more likely to do everything they could think of to advance His Kingdom, writing down a record of the details of his life or paying some one to would have been cake. I really believe that. Reading and writing are not the same as figuring out that the Higgs boson should appear on the LHC screen at a certain point on a graph. 10 year old kids can read and write. âIt doesnât take a rocket scientist!â
1 Like
Children of 10 are generally capable of learning to read and write, if they have the opportunity. A lot of children in a lot of times and places donât have that opportunity; their time was needed elsewhere (e.g., farming, herding, spinning; in the early European middle ages even elite men didnât learn to write since they were expected to learn how to use a weapon and horse and they had clergy who could read and write serving them) or there was no available teacher or material to learn with. Note also that more people would have known how to read than how to write.
What the literacy rates throughout the Roman empire were is argued by historians. And also in which languages.
1 Like
Mary, was the mother of one of Jesusâ disciples: James (Matthew 27:55-61). She provided for Jesusâ ministry via financial means, Joanna, the wife of Herodâs steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, provided for them out of their resources.
I believe they had more than enough resources to buy writing essentials and to pay for writers to record what took place. In addition I think many folks jotted down descriptions of the events as they happened, even quoting Christ. Rabbis followed him. Many undertook the task to write up the story of His entire life. They had the wherewithal and they were committed to reaching every human being on earth.
I have failed to convince you (and everyone else) how badly they cared about telling the world that Jesus died for us and rose again to live inside our lives forever. They were utterly consumed by this desire. Totally. A careful review of the NT supports my opinion on this, too.
And if Iâm not mistaken, literacy still would not see much improvement yet for over a thousand years. Because even up to the printing-press at the time of the reformation, people were still pretty much dependent on their local priest (who could read the Latin text) to verbally deliver âthe Wordâ to them each sabbath.
It is no accident that the reformation with its many varied emphases on us all reading the Bible for ourselves and the proliferation of printed materials due to the invention of the press necessarily began in the same period. Printed things had indeed been important before that (Scribes were apparently in demand after all), but direct interaction with printed materials was not yet widespread among the masses - hence the job security enjoyed by any scribes. So I suggest that our thinking of âthe Wordâ as being a written Word is a fairly modern preference found mostly in the last several centuries.
2 Likes
No. We all think this. We just think they didnât care about proclaiming this to the world until it actually happened and they were convinced of his resurrection. Mark at least makes it explicitly clear they did not understand Jesus would die and suffer for the sins of the world during his ministry. Afterwards, when many were convinced he rose they dedicated their lives to preaching the good news. They didnât have the foresight to plan ahead for people living 2,000 years later. Jesus was expected to return very soon by most of the early church. @jpm is correct in that at the end of the apostolic era Gospels started being written down. The delay of Jesus in returning and ending of the eyewitness era dictated this.
They lived in an oral culture with low literacy. You live in one with high literacy that emphasizes written texts and are wishfully thinking everything was written down by the disciples as it happened. There is not a single shred of reliable evidence for this imagined claim. In fact, all the differences in the Gospels if you look at each story and event critically, with a synopsis, side-by-side, demonstrate conclusively that this was not the case.
Vinnie
Why did they travel great distances to tell the world about him?
He did return. Just as He promised.
But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, âI place You under oath by the living God, to tell us whether You are the [a]Christ, the Son of God.â 64 Jesus *said to him, âYou have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.â
He is a rascal. âGee, why would it occur to you to ask me such a question? Do you normally demand each person you are about to murder to fess up? to tell you whether or not He is the living God? Gosh fellas, I donât mean to be rude or nuthin, but what do you think? Why are you about to kill me? Iâm just curious. You think Iâm God?â Laughing. âMe? God? Come on. You serious? Me? Where did you get that idea? Whatâs wrong with you?â
It was a filthy joke, his execution. He knows what they are up to. Heâs losing patience. âYou know what I am. Letâs get this over with.â
I am amazed at our naĂŻvetĂ©, at our unwillingness or inability to see what is plastered all over the universe. He wasnât there just whistling Dixie, twiddling his thumbs. At least I donât think so