LNH: Eggplant the Easter Miracle Komodo Dragon #1 to (??)

[martinphipps2 at yahoo.com]

Tom Russell wrote:
> martinphipps2 at yahoo.com wrote:
> > Tom Russell:
> >
> > > Easter is really a more exciting story.  Much as I
> > > disliked Mel Gibson's PASSION, he had the right idea starting in
> > > Gethsemane.  That's a powerful scene.  A great set-piece.  Then you've
> > > got the betrayal of Judas.
> >
> > Ah, yes, but according to "Judas" himself (ie from the Gospel According
> > to Judas, recently recovered and translated in Egypt), he didn't betray
> > Jesus: he was doing exactly what Jesus wanted him to do.  Then there's
> > the Gospel According to (Doubting) Thomas which (not surprisingly)
> > doesn't make any mention of Jesus being resurrected.  As far as I know,
> > both of these "non-canonical" gospels are considered authentic, dating
> > back as early as 130-170 AD (Judas) and 140-200 AD (Thomas).
>
> THOMAS was a sayings gospel, if I'm not mistaken: kind of a "Barlett's
> Guide to Jesus", not a gospel in the traditional, narrative sense of
> the word.

Which makes sense if you're one who considers the words of Christ to be
more important than the story surrounding him.

> > Interestingly, this means that six out of the twelve apostles were
> > heard from (or at least had gospels attributed to them).
>
> Actually, of the four Vulgate gospels, only two were attributed to
> apostles: Matthew and Mark.  The third synoptic, Luke, is attributed to
> one of Paul's disciples, and both LUKE and the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
> were probably written by the same person (stylistically, they're very
> similiar), which lends some credibility to its authorship.

My bad.  I assumed Luke was an apostle.  I should mention that there is
also a Gospel according to Peter (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter ) and a Gospel according
to Mary Magdalane ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mary ) but
that these texts are almost certainly "apocryphal" (which I assume is a
polite way of saying "bulls--t").

> John, which is not a synoptic gospel, is not attributed to one of the
> apostles, nor to St. John the Divine (the REVELATIONS dude).  It's the
> most poetic of the Vulgate gospels, and also has the fewest number of
> miracles.

I know that John was written later than the other gospels but according
to wikipedia
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Apostle ) the gospel according
to John was presumably attributed to John the Apostle (also known as
John the Theologian, John the Evangelist and John the Divine).

> There are many, many gospels that have turned up over time, including
> the Infancy Gospels, which give various interpetations of JESUS: THE
> LOST YEARS.  See!  What happens between the ages of twelve and thirty!
> Witness! Jesus creating birds out of stone!  Be astounded! as young J.
> C. retaliates against bullies!

Crap.  I had no idea.  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospels )
 You know, if you're a lawyer presenting evidence in a court case and
99% of the evidence was thrown out before it was presented publicly,
what would that say for the credibility of the case?  For that matter,
why do we have a "Gospel accoording to Luke" if Luke wasn't one of the
apostles?  Didn't somebody have to tell Luke what happened?  So it's
the "Gospel according to what somebody told Luke".  Geez.

Martin