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You know how the internet is, you start out researching the first symptoms of covid-19 and three hours later you’re watching videos of kittens doing something funny… or as was the case for me a few weeks ago, you start out watching videos of kittens doing something funny and three hours later you’re watching a video about misquoting Jesus in the Bible. Warning, it’s a little over 90 minutes. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE [/youtube] Bart Ehrman brought up some interesting points that made me think of the debate over the multiple first vision accounts.
At the 42:11 mark Ehram begins to talk about the discrepancies in the gospels in the NT and how they are much easier to recognize when all the gospels are read “horizontally” as opposed to reading the traditional way.
Reading the traditional way: read an entire gospel, then move on to the next.
Reading horizontally: you read a story in one gospel then you read the same story in the other gospels before moving on to the next story.
Ehrman starts off by discussing the differences in the resurrection accounts. Many of Ehram’s questions reminded me of the same kinds of questions we ask that result from having multiple first vision accounts.
Who is it that actually goes to the tomb? Mary Magdalene by herself or Mary Magdalene with other women? If other women, how many and what are their names? Was the stone already rolled away, or was the stone still there? Who do they see there? A man (Mark), two men (Luke), or an angel (Matthew)? It depends on which gospel you read.
As it relates to the first vision, who was actually seen in the first vision? God, Jesus, angels? It depends on which account you read.
At the 45:23 mark in the video, Ehram does the same sort of activity with the crucifixion story. The short version is that in the gospel of Mark Jesus remains silent throughout the ordeal up until the very end when he says, “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?” That’s it. The gospels of John and Luke record other things Jesus said while on the cross. Ehrman mentions how many of us have combined the accounts from the gospels into one super-narrative and we’ve ended up with the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross… but individual gospels give different accounts that say different things.
He goes on to say that it’s fine to combine the narratives, but we should realize that when we do that we write our own gospel because we’ve created a narrative that’s different than what any of the other gospels have told.
It made me wonder whether there were ever any issues of credibility resulting from the different resurrection and crucifixion accounts.
Granted there is one rather large difference between the different resurrection and crucifixion accounts and the different first vision accounts. The accounts in the New Testament theoretically have different authors that give accounts from their perspective and recollections whereas with the first vision we have one author. Yes, there’s only one account penned by JS, but I’d still say that the accounts have the same author.
It’s just interesting how, for the most part, wider Christianity has accepted the differences in the accounts given in the gospels. So much so that discrepancies go unnoticed. Or if they are noticed, the default position many take is to combine narratives into a super-gospel, not to call the accounts into question.
Just something that popped in my head the other week when I was trying to find some funny kitten videos.
Interestingly I have undertaken doing the gospels in the horizontal fashion you mention. It is interesting to do, although it does take some concentration and will power to do. The outcome for me was that I decided what I do and don’t believe abut the whole story. It also makes it clear why scholars believe Matthew and Luke are really based on the account of Mark (chunks of Matthew are nearly word for word). Having read the accounts of the FV, I think it might be worthwhile to do a similar horizontal study. I have not yet watched the video, but thanks for sharing.
I had read the book “Misquoting Jesus” and found it fascinating. One of my takeaways is just how Christian the BOM, PoGP, and JST are. They insert Christ into time periods and story lines in ways that many Christians could only dream that the bible would do. It becomes like a retelling of the familiar OT bible stories but with Jesus taking center stage. Christians would also have loved for the bible to teach the trinity – but it does not. In fact, one of the best bible scripture verses to reference the trinity appears to have been a later insertion. The BOM is unabashedly trinitarian throughout. For many years the LDS church taught that these more explicit Christian teachings were in the original bible texts but they were removed by wicked men. As for first vision discrepancies, I suppose it comes down to what you believe happened in the grove and what you think that it means. The traditional church narrative has for many years been that JS received a visitation in the Sacred Grove. Also that this experience makes him a prophet of God authorized to speak and act on God’s behalf and build a church that is the only true church recognized by God. The antithesis would suggest that if God did not visit JS in the grove then JS does not become a prophet and the church that JS builds is the church of JS.
Having so much riding on the first vision is not entirely fair to JS. He seems to have seen it as a personal experience and visionary in nature.
I do not worry much about the different accounts but that is because 1) I believe it to have been a vision and may have been ethereal and shifting in nature 2) I do not understand prophets in the same way that the LDS church now teaches 3) therefore, this experience does not make the LDS church true nor non-LDS churches as false.
As a final thought, I have observed LDS members trying to build a similar “supernarrative” with the first vision accounts. Thereby adding together all the pieces that can reasonably make sense together.
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