Hal Taussig: It's Time for a New New Testament

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

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Huffington Post

Should The Bible be updated?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

This would be very interesting to see. Wondering what they'd have in store (too lazy to do research).

[John Dibble]

If you're going to consider these early Christian documents, much of which likely contradict the Pauline Epistles, as being valid in any way then you're better off just eliminating Paul and Revelations from the NT along with anything else that isn't the Gospels. If you don't you're going to have a very confused book.

Honestly as an atheist I'm not sure why the inclusion of more than the Gospels should be needed in the first place - your deity supposedly came down to Earth and preached what he wanted to preach and those are supposedly the ones that contain what he preached. Why is it necessary to glom on some other guy's interpretations? Was Jesus not clear enough? Did he not plan in enough time to get in what he needed to?

[The Mikado]

This would be very interesting to see. Wondering what they'd have in store (too lazy to do research).

You can get ahold of the "Gnostic" Gospels pretty easily on Amazon etc.  If you'd prefer reading about them to reading them, this is a pretty good start: http://www.amazon.com/Gnostic-Gospels-Elaine-Pagels/dp/0679724532

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

No, the NT Apocrapha shouldn't be added. Just like the OT Apocrapha. Although the latter is more credible.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's my take on his list of ten.

1. The Gospel of Mary
It's rather fragmentary and not readily understandable, tho that may in part be due to the missing portions.  It reports to be a telling by Mary (which Mary is unclear, tho Mary Magdeline seems most likely) to the assembled apostles sometime after the crucifixion of wisdom shared by Jesus to her, both while he lived and afterward in a vision. It probably wasn't because of Jesus acting through a woman that caused it to be suppressed, but because it had Mary and not Paul urging the need to minister among the Gentiles, and the discussion between the male apostles mentioned (Peter, Andrew, Matthew) makes it clear that they did not consider Peter to be their leader, but rather a more collegial decision making style.  However, other than as to the minor matter of church governance, there is nothing novel in that gospel.

2. The Thunder, Perfect Mind
I wouldn't classify this poem as Christian, but as Gnostic. While it could be easily applied to a Gnostic view of Jesus, there's nothing here that requires who it talks about to be Jesus.  If you like vague riddling text designed to lead one to self-introspection on the purpose and meaning of reality, you'll like this.

3. The Gospel of Thomas
It's a sayings gospel and many of the sayings can be found in the canonical gospels. Most of the others are wholly congruent with it.  However, it places Thomas in a far more important role than in the canonical texts and has him espousing the core of Pauline teachings without the need for a Paul; it ascribes to James the Just the worldly leadership, which makes some sense since he would be the heir to any claims of kingship Jesus had from Joseph and Mary; it rejects in an unambiguous way the necessity of physical circumcision; and it also more strongly than the canonical texts expresses a preference for celibacy as the ideal state for man to attain in this world.  Given the short shrift this gospel gives to Peter and Paul, it is no wonder it was suppressed.

4. The Odes of Solomon
I have yet to read them.

5. The Prayer of Thanksgiving
Not much substance to it, tho it is pretty.

6. The Acts of Paul and Thecla
Some feminists like this because it supports the right of women to preach and baptize, but in doig so they have to overlook its absolute veneration of lifelong celibacy.

7. The Gospel of Truth
I have yet to read this.

8. The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
Much like #5, save that we don't have a complete version of it.  Also, there is no doubt about this not having being written by the actual Paul.

9. The Letter Of Peter to Philip
Gnosticism dressed up in Christian clothing.

10. The Apocryphon of John
More Gnosticism dressed up in Christian clothing.
Maybe the The Odes of Solomon or The Gospel of Truth will have some value for me when I eventually get around to reading them, but the other texts here only have value to me as historical texts, not as theological guidance.

[DC Al Fine]

After reading the article, I'm confused as to what the author's rationale is for including these works. There's little discussion of authenticity, the date of writing etc. The author is also a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, so I'm skeptical that he's doing this for orthodoxy's sake.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Ernest, I think the consensus among historians and theologians today is that probably none of the gospels were written by their namesakes.  I know the authorship of the Pauline Epistles has been brought into question.

[DC Al Fine]

Ernest, I think the consensus among historians and theologians today is that probably none of the gospels were written by their namesakes.  I know the authorship of the Pauline Epistles has been brought into question.

I think there's still a fair amount of debate about Luke.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ernest, I think the consensus among historians and theologians today is that probably none of the gospels were written by their namesakes.  I know the authorship of the Pauline Epistles has been brought into question.

One has to be really desperate to find everything in the New Testament to be a fake to doubt all the Pauline epistles.  The core seven at least were written in the time of Paul and hence one has to be excessively skeptical to think anything other than they were either written by him or ghostwritten for him.

(The core seven are 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, and 1 Thessalonians.)

[John Dibble]

Ernest, I think the consensus among historians and theologians today is that probably none of the gospels were written by their namesakes.  I know the authorship of the Pauline Epistles has been brought into question.

One has to be really desperate to find everything in the New Testament to be a fake to doubt all the Pauline epistles.  The core seven at least were written in the time of Paul and hence one has to be excessively skeptical to think anything other than they were either written by him or ghostwritten for him.

(The core seven are 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, and 1 Thessalonians.)

IIRC only about half are debated to be authored by someone else, not all of them. Checking... yup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_epistles#Authenticity_of_the_epistles

[Globus Cruciger]

If you're going to consider these early Christian documents, much of which likely contradict the Pauline Epistles, as being valid in any way then you're better off just eliminating Paul and Revelations from the NT along with anything else that isn't the Gospels. If you don't you're going to have a very confused book.

Honestly as an atheist I'm not sure why the inclusion of more than the Gospels should be needed in the first place - your deity supposedly came down to Earth and preached what he wanted to preach and those are supposedly the ones that contain what he preached. Why is it necessary to glom on some other guy's interpretations? Was Jesus not clear enough? Did he not plan in enough time to get in what he needed to?

It would actually be far more logical to scrap the Gospels and keep the letters of Paul, since according to the best secular scholarship they were written several decades before the Gospels were.

Also, people keep forgetting that it's not a matter of "the words of Jesus" versus "the words of Paul." Rather, it's the evangelists' words about Jesus' versus Paul's words about Jesus. In both cases, we are receiving a secondhand story from a human author. Christians believe said human authors to have been divinely inspired, but I think it's silly to claim that the authors of the gospels were any more inspired than the authors of the epistles. Or vice versa.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The reasons why most of the New Testament Apocrypha aren't in the New Testament are, shock and horror, theological at least as much as historical. According to the received Christian understanding they tend to be heretical, and in most cases not only incidentally so. There are a few exceptions, obviously, but it's perfectly possible to read and even learn from them without feeling the need to elevate them to canonical status.

[afleitch]

The reasons why most of the New Testament Apocrypha aren't in the New Testament are, shock and horror, theological at least as much as historical. According to the received Christian understanding they tend to be heretical, and in most cases not only incidentally so. There are a few exceptions, obviously, but it's perfectly possible to read and even learn from them without feeling the need to elevate them to canonical status.

Again that treatment of the apocrypha rests on holding that in 2013, the theological decisions made some 1800 years ago (yet still three, four, five generations after Jesus is said to have lived) about the nature of Jesus, his corporeal and spiritual being, his life and works are correct. Christianity is after all, fundamentally a religion based not necessarily on the actual life, works and being of Jesus of Nazareth (which can never be determined) but on what his immediate (and not so immediate) followers wished for him to be. The people who determined what's in, what's out, what's heretical, what's negotiable and so on. It's religion by committee.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The reasons why most of the New Testament Apocrypha aren't in the New Testament are, shock and horror, theological at least as much as historical. According to the received Christian understanding they tend to be heretical, and in most cases not only incidentally so. There are a few exceptions, obviously, but it's perfectly possible to read and even learn from them without feeling the need to elevate them to canonical status.

Again that treatment of the apocrypha rests on holding that in 2013, the theological decisions made some 1800 years ago (yet still three, four, five generations after Jesus is said to have lived) about the nature of Jesus, his corporeal and spiritual being, his life and works are correct. Christianity is after all, fundamentally a religion based not necessarily on the actual life, works and being of Jesus of Nazareth (which can never be determined) but on what his immediate (and not so immediate) followers wished for him to be. The people who determined what's in, what's out, what's heretical, what's negotiable and so on. It's religion by committee.

Most or all religion is by committee in that sense, any change to the Biblical text no less so than the original compilation--if not even more so. Of course any and all arguments against including such-and-such a work in the New Testament from real or perceived heterodoxy only hold water if one already believes in the religion as it's been practiced for the last seventeen or eighteen centuries, so one's view of the necessity or desirability of what Taussig is suggesting will depend on what one already believes. Personally, I don't think insufficiency or inclusion of the wrong types of works is really one of the problems that the received N.T. can be accused of having.

I stand by my statement that the reasons for the current composition of the N.T. are at least as much theological as historical, but I will concede that theology is at least as much historical as theological.

[afleitch]

I stand by my statement that the reasons for the current composition of the N.T. are at least as much theological as historical, but I will concede that theology is at least as much historical as theological.

It's not just the matter of the composition of the N.T, but how readily (and this harks back to my adoptionionist talk a few months ago) Christians will see it only through one looking glass because that is what is expected of them by the faith. But when I look at John 1:18 'no one has seen the father but the son' I can see Marcion. When I see Luke 8:9-10 I can see the co-synchronicity with the Mithraic mysteries. Find John 20:26 and there's docetism. Everything else that was rejected, purged, burnt or killed can still be found in the New Testament even without the books that never made it.