The Gospels are more like Impressionist paintings than photographs.

I've been having an email discussion with brother Tom recently regarding Jesus' awareness of his identity and role.

IMHO, we don't have to accept that the apostles represented Jesus accurately, only that their recollections and interpretations were spiritually accurate. Since Jesus wrote nothing himself, we have no other choice, and in the end, it doesn't matter (to me, anyway) if Apostle X "misremembered" an event because to cast it differently offered an insight the bare facts did not.

(For example: Jesus fasting for 40 days, and his post-resurrection ministry lasting 40 days.[1])

The ancient mentality toward historical documentation was very different from our own, and none of the gospels were biographies in the sense we would use the term today.

If we think of the synoptic gospels as Impressionist paintings rather than photographs, we are closer the truth.

(My own analysis and insight, and all deficiencies thereunto appertaining.)

[2013-06-06]

 

c0

Overheard on NPR Friday June 7, 2013:

Q: Why do elephants paint their toenails red?
A: To hide in cherry trees.

That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.

Everyone knows it's to hide in strawberry patches.


[2013-06-07]

c0

[1]
You're welcome to interpret those as literally 40 days, but the writers didn't expect you to. They expected you to see something more important than that.

That being said, the privilege of adjusting the text to interpret events lies only with the original writers, community of writers, or oral transmitters, not the translators or collators or anyone else who came after.

 

c0