The embryonic Canon Gospels of Mark and Matthew appear first.
The exact dating remains amorphous.
The four Canon Gospels are written and appear over the 69 CE – 110 CE period, later to become canonized as “The New Testament.
“Mark” (author unknown; the writing is no contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to Mark the Evangelist)
“Matthew” (author unknown; the writing is not contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to Matthew the Evangelist)
“Luke” (author unknown; the writing is not contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to Luke, the companion of Paul) [oldest surviving manuscript dates to approximately 200 CE]
“John” (author unknown; the writing is not contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to John) [This is “John the Evangelist,” not the earlier iconic ‘John the Baptist’]”
***
All four personages above are known as Evangelists.
The precise identities of the four writers are not accepted outside of Church dogma. The Church basically assigned the identities.
All four Gospels were originally written in Greek, different that the language(s) that Jesus and his disciples used—which were Hebrew Aramaic.
The four Gospels were 4 out of 20–50+ gospels known to have existed.
The dates (noted above) which most of the world ascribes to the writings of the Gospels, diverge from the dates (approximately 10–20 years earlier) which the Church ascribes to them.
Conceptually, the closer the gospels were written to the actual key events of the early 30s CE, the more credibility they would have.
The Gospels were intended for a far different audience (primarily the neo–pagan populace) than the Jewish common people to whom Jesus had preached, and to whom the original Embryonic Christians proselytized in the earlier part of the First Century.
All four of the Gospels are almost definitely written in the greater Turkey–Syria.
The four Gospels are divergent on the key and crucial timing of the death of Jesus:
• One gospel places the death on Erev Pesach, the day leading–into Passover, Nissan 14.
(Meaning, no Last Supper)
[Some terminology explanations –
Jewish calendar days starts at nightfall.
Pesach means Passover.
Erev means the day leading into, so Erev Pesach means
the day leading–into Pesach.
Nissan is a Hebrew month, a lunar month.
Nissan 14 is the day leading–into Passover.
Pesach (Passover) starts at sundown/sunset between Nissan 14 and Nissan 15.]
• Two of the Gospels place the death of Jesus during the daytime after the Passover Seder, meaning on the first day of Passover, Nissan 15. (Thus, the normative Passion saga comports to these two.)
• The fourth Gospel places the death of Jesus after the first day Passover, meaning a day or two (or three) after Nissan 15.
The actual personages, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are all believed by mainstream academia to have died well prior to the dates ascribed to the writing of their respectively named gospels. This leaves the true authorship of the Catholic Canon to persons unknown.
The Gospels as we know them today, were edited during the period of Constantine 272–317 CE (+/–100 years). The Church position would be that they were not edited.
The primary purpose of the Gospels, originally narrations by Christian/Church advocates, was to expound the glory of Jesus. This objective is axiomatic among secular historians. Jesus is, as well, graphically portrayed/related as the victim of treachery and betrayal. The specific treachery and betrayal ascribed by these unknown gospel writers, is, respectfully, historically untenable (see exhibit in appendix, the First Century).
Thus, given all of the above, the fact that some Gospels may intersect on a given anecdotal point, especially on a particular vignette – or a portion of a vignette – defamatory to the Jews, does not necessarily mean that the particular incident ever occurred as related. The incident, recounted or constructed decades after the actual point in time of the storied vignette, either added to the glory of Jesus, or detracted from the “standing” of the Jews. Even though the Jews were not proactively competing for the non–Jewish (neo–pagan) audience, Judaism as a Group/Religion/Theology is consistently portrayed in toxic terms and imagery in the Gospels. Part of the Christian logic to the neo–pagan audience of the time would presumably be that—if the Jews are bad, and we (the Christians) are the breakaway, we must be right.
In any event, hypothetically, a band of a dozen politically–savvy Christian politico–religious advocates, perhaps integral to the embryonic core leadership, meeting together near Greater Jerusalem in 68 CE, observing the Jewish leadership being decimated by Vespasian, and the Jewish central authority imploding in–front–of–their eyes, grasps the “historic moment.” With the Jewish elite immobilized and distracted, if not demolished totally, there is a historic vacuum. He whose saga resonates across the Judean terrain will win the hearts of the neo–pagan inhabitants of the Middle East and perhaps beyond. The outlines of the core saga–to–be–told are crystallized by this Christian vanguard. (The gospels are then crafted and written “back home” either by these same persons or by compatriots in the greater Turkey–Syria area.
The politico–religious raconteurs/advocates then each go their own separate way, passing on their series of anecdotal vignettes either verbally or written, easily setting the stage for their own or “offspring Gospel manuscripts” appearing one to five decades later. Potentially to be heavily edited in turn by the Church central authority in the second to fifth centuries.
Adulatory to Jesus; consistently highly defamatory to the Jews. Christened into the newly Christianized Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Gospels will resonate across a continent de facto controlled lock–stock–and–palace by the Christian central authority, now with total control of the organs of state of Rome.
As noted, the four particular gospels were selected out of a greater pool of perhaps 20–50 gospels by the early Church Fathers (initially apparently by second Century Irenaeus in particular) to be the official Church canon (core theological text), hence the name The Canon Gospels.
The “Canon Gospels” were initially “canonized” by (later–to–be Saint) Irenaeus [of Lyons] c. 185 CE. This was later re–ratified (and possibly re–edited) by the Council of Rome 382 CE and by other synods to follow in the triumphant over Rome Christian fourth century.
As noted, the fourth century marked the de facto conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, with the full power of the Empire now behind Christianity. At this point the Jews are decimated, scattered and marginalized. However to the newly–aligned Roman–Christian hierarchy, the politically irrelevant Jews had one, and final, more crucial role to play: historical scapegoat cum evil polarity.
Eager to distance newly–Christianized Rome (now the Church’s purview) from Rome’s crucifixion of Christ approximately 300 years earlier, the Canon Gospels— in the form incorporated by the Church at the same time it gained supreme status in Constantine’s Roman Empire—will attempt to shift as much blame as possible, and direct as much anger as possible—at the Jews. The ramification is that a powerful and lethal dynamic is set in motion, which would ultimately cause suffering and death, to millions, through this very day…
The Jews of the First Century at the time of Jesus, politically neutered by Rome, and under the military heel of Rome, would be surprised to read in the Gospels of the fourth century (were they to travel forward in time to read them) that the Jews had any power at all in the First Century. These Jews would also be quite surprised to read that in the early morning hours after long late–night Seders, 55 to 95–year–old Sanhedrin members were apparently up at approximately 3 A.M., illegally convening outside the Temple, illegally adjudicating on the Passover Holiday and illegally getting anywhere near the Halachic taboo against handing over a Jew to occupying authorities. These Jews of the First Century would be quite surprised to hear that in the early morning Jewish mobs were gathering and howling. (When is the last time one saw a Jewish mob, let alone at 5 A.M., let alone on a Jewish Holiday, let alone howling?) And, all this after four goblets of wine per Jew at the Seder? And factoring in 3–5 hour (quasi endurance test) Seders for each Jewish family going into the midnight hour of the very night, just several hours prior?
This work is concerned with Jewish history. But the toxic resonance of several asserted key vignettes, defamatory to the Jews, scattered across the Canon Gospels and later woven inextricably into the core “Passion” saga (the centerpiece of Christian lore) will have a lethal effect on the Jews for over nineteen centuries.
The Canon Gospels become the basis for the Passion (saga), known also as “the Passion of the Christ.” The Passion saga relates the (Church’s version of) events of the days flanking the death of Jesus, with particular emphasis on the 24 hours flanking the Last Supper (Seder) on each side.
An individual “toxic to the Jews” vignette within the Passion saga may not always have appeared originally in more than one of the four Canon Gospels. But, may be incorporated, nevertheless, into the local Passion saga— often, significantly more intensely shaded and far more incendiary than in the original Canon Gospel itself.
Thus, the origins of the Gospels themselves are obscure, key internal contradictions exist within their texts, the historical veracity and precision of the stream of anti–Jewish vignettes in them is highly dubious, and it is universally accepted that the gospels were not written contemporaneous with events.
Finally, the Gospels themselves are not in accord internally on the crucial timing of very key events. Yet the Jews, politically powerless in the First Century, but the historical ideological nemesis and whipping boy – straw man of the Church Fathers, will conveniently be caricatured and painted diabolically by later local Passion sagas, whose building blocks are extracted selectively from the four gospels, and then dramatically spun, case by case. With ominous consequences for the Jews and their descendants stretching–forth over the centuries.
The Passion sagas are highly dramatic and more often than not, quite intense. In general, they position “the saintly” v. “the demonic” for their audiences. And the Jews will uniformly be conveniently cast in the “demonic role.”
Generally, the only question is – how demonic? Impressionable Christian youth—over the centuries—introduced in childhood, by a combination of priest(s), parent(s), and teachers—to the “diabolical and demonic Jew” amalgam, will inevitably carry the toxic imagery embedded in their psyches for the duration of their journey through life.
The Jews are cast as radically more demonic in European medieval Passion sagas, than in 21st century American Passion sagas. Thus, contemporary American Christian audiences may not grasp the dimension of the vituperation employed. But the contentious 2003 American film The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson’s handiwork), crafted under the rubric of holy writ, provides a partial insight as to how hatred of the masses towards the Jews can be promulgated and disseminated via dramatizations of the sufferings of Jesus and spinning the background context.
While the Church will trumpet “Love thy Neighbor” as its asserted core doctrine, it will by and large—on an ongoing basis—lace the soil of Europe with “toxicity to the Jews.” And any local demagogue will conveniently harvest the hatred along the timeline of the seventeen centuries following Constantine. Greater Europe will become an ongoing killing field for the Jews. Hatred will find a permanent and secure residence in Europe. But Jewish residence and life will be more tenuous, and somewhat “less secure.”
Note the authoritative work The Anguish of the Jews by Edward H. Flannery* (Macmillan, NY, 1965).
* I first read Flannery’s work when I was researching a term paper on anti–Semitism in high school c. 1966. The Anguish of the Jews © 1965 remains to this day one of the iconic, breakthrough works of all–time. Note for the record that Flannery sub–titles his work ‘Twenty–three centuries of Anti–Semitism.’ Thus, Flannery is trying to posture that anti–Semitism pre–dated Christianity. On this particular score, however, the sainted Catholic priest Edward H. Flannery, was trying to defend the indefensible. Isolated local flare–ups between culturally competing groups cherry–picked from the span of four tumultuous centuries pre–Christianity, simply do not qualify for the term ‘anti–Semitism,’ the virulent cancer that was to terrorize and cut down millions over the nineteen centuries to–date, subsequent to the Christian Fathers. [See also www.shofars.org/persecution/default.htm]
***
Preoccupied with defending their lives, freedom and religious honor from the assaulting legions of Rome in front of their city walls, the First Century Jewish intellectual elite was “somewhat distracted.”
The first wave demonizations was being spun hundreds of miles to the northwest in greater Turkey–Syria emanating “coincidentally” just then from the first wave gospels. The gospel–spin would trash the legacy of an industrious and highly-educated spiritual–based group into a diabolical, blood–thirsty mob. But the Glory of Christ had to be expounded and promulgated.
Nineteen hundred years later, a random 7–year–old Jewish Polish girl, one of hundreds of thousands of Polish Jewish youngsters, as just one example of 1+ million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis, would face an average of 2–5 days of starvation–torture and debasement in a sealed Nazi cattle–car, in debasement and grime, watching her family starve to death, before probably being “gassed to death” with her mother, if they somehow survived the cattle–car torture–ordeal, upon arrival at a Death Camp—as a very, very direct consequence of the cumulative continued and ongoing demonizations by the Catholic Church pervasively over the seventeen to nineteen centuries to come.
The Church would like to portray itself as a victim of Nazism, as opposed to its hatred for the Jews progenitor.
But, words tend to have wings.
***