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/lit/ - Literature

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18771271 No.18771271 [Reply] [Original]

Which gospel in the New Testament is the most interesting from a literary perspective or simply was the most fun read?

I recently heard that the Gospel of Mark originally had a more abrupt ending. Where the story ends with the three women leaving Jesus's tomb without a saying a word about his resurrection, leaving things ambiguous about the future.

>> No.18771282

>>18771271
The Gospel of Mark is frankly somewhat boring.
If you like blatant Jewish propaganda you'll love Matthew
Luke is firmly okay but the first two chapters are kind of tacked on.
John is objectively far better than the rest.

>> No.18771496

>>18771271
Luke is cool because it is the first part of a two-part story, Acts of the Apostles was also written by Luke

>> No.18771523

>>18771496
As long as you recognize that it's a story with a tenuous connection to reality

>> No.18771532

>>18771523
I disagree

>> No.18771578

>>18771532
The whole point of the story is rewriting history to make the early church seem like a unified organization. In reality the early church was highly fractured with the Paul vs Peter vs James the Lesser feud while Thomasines and Johannines had autistic debates.

>> No.18771614

LITERARILY, THE GOSPEL OF JOHN IS THE BETTER ONE; THE RANKING IS THIS:

1. JOHN'S.

2. MATTHEW'S.

3. LUKE'S.

4. MARK'S.


THE LITERARY VALUE OF THE GOSPELS IS TERTIARY TO ITS THEOLOGICAL, AND CATECHETICAL, VALUES; YOU SHOULD READ THE BIBLE AS THE SACRED OPVS THAT IT IS, NOT AS ENTERTAINMENT, AND IN ITS ENTIRETY, NOT ONLY THE PARTS THAT «ENTERTAIN» YOU.

>> No.18771646

>>18771578
>feud
they literally make up kek
>Thomasines
huh?

>> No.18771679

>>18771646
In real life they despised each other and didn't make up.
There are thought to have been a group of Christians who may have followed Thomas. The Gospel of John takes several shots at them; 'Doubting Thomas', Christ having human flesh. etc.

>> No.18771745

>>18771614
>THE LITERARY VALUE OF THE GOSPELS IS TERTIARY TO ITS THEOLOGICAL, AND CATECHETICAL, VALUES; YOU SHOULD READ THE BIBLE AS THE SACRED OPVS THAT IT IS, NOT AS ENTERTAINMENT, AND IN ITS ENTIRETY, NOT ONLY THE PARTS THAT «ENTERTAIN» YOU.
I'm not religious so for me these stories will only be entertainment. Also your ranking is upside down. John is the book that caused later Christians to go crazy by believing that Jesus was God instead of just a man. I'm sure a lot of wars could have been avoided if John didn't exist.

>> No.18771775

>>18771745
The apocalypse is based though, it's just so metal

>> No.18771787

>>18771271
It's John no contest. The gospels have different characters. Luke's is more focused on healing and other physician-type observations. Matthew is more interested in genealogies and prophetic fulfillment and such Old Testament-oriented focus. Mark is pretty short and to the point. But John stands out because it's the mystical gospel, it has a totally different structure from the other three centered on seven miracles Jesus did in his life, it is a lot more esoteric, Jesus often does things in secret or stuff like "the beloved" are said without being identified, stuff like that, and you actually get to see Jesus give a discourse at the Last Supper which appears nowhere else, it's like secret instruction.

>> No.18771829

>>18771745
>I'm not [CHRISTIAN] so for me these stories will only be entertainment.

WHY WOULD YOU READ THE HOLY BIBLE AS «ENTERTAINMENT» WHEN YOU ARE NOT ONLY NOT CHRISTIAN, BUT ANTICHRISTIAN? IT IS AKIN TO A SATANIST READING THE QURAN FOR «ENTERTAINMENT», OR TO A PRIEST WATCHING PORNOGRAPHY «BECAUSE HE WAS BORED».


>Also your ranking is upside down.

NO.


>John is the book that caused later Christians to go crazy by believing that Jesus was God instead of just a man. I'm sure a lot of wars could have been avoided if John didn't exist.

OK, BUFFOON.

>> No.18771846

>>18771271
Secret gospel of John

>> No.18771851

>>18771829
>WHY WOULD YOU READ THE HOLY BIBLE AS «ENTERTAINMENT» WHEN YOU ARE NOT ONLY NOT CHRISTIAN, BUT ANTICHRISTIAN? IT IS AKIN TO A SATANIST READING THE QURAN FOR «ENTERTAINMENT», OR TO A PRIEST WATCHING PORNOGRAPHY «BECAUSE HE WAS BORED».
All this three make perfect sense and happen daily.
Unironically priests should watch more porn and rape less children

>> No.18771890

>>18771851


JUST STOP POSTING; «REDDIT» SEEMS LIKE AN APTER WEBSITE FOR YOU.

>> No.18771926

>>18771890
I WILL read random parts of the Bible for entertainment and there's nothing you can do about it

>> No.18771949

>>18771282
Filtered, hard.

>> No.18771966

>>18771271
Matthew and John. Mark is short, which is good, but Luke seems derivative, though that may be a consequence of the order they are in in the bible. Regardless I did not enjoy Luke.

>> No.18771998

>>18771578
Hilariously pozzed take.

>> No.18772107

>>18771271
John is of course the best written and most mystical.
After that, I like Matthew for the Sermon on the Mount. It really lays out how Christianity is a call to attempt the impossible. It's both inspiring and terrifying.

>> No.18772185

John is the greatest text ever written, religious or otherwise. Alongside Revelation and his epistles, he’s the greatest voice of the Bible next to Solomon, David, and Paul. I say this as someone who wasn’t raised Christian and had no interest in converting, and simply went into the text blind. Its quality is witness to the glory of God. Only the Phaedo comes close.

>> No.18772317

>>18771829
That's a retarded disanalogy but whatever you say.

>> No.18772331

>>18771998
Not an argument

>> No.18772705

Is Jesus Christ a sigma male? Or perhaps something more...

>> No.18772853

>>18771282
This is the best take
John is pretty blatantly superior to the others, of the other three Mark is the least interesting

>> No.18772862

>>18771614
Luke is above Mathews though.

>> No.18772878

>>18772705
Alpha and Omega male

>> No.18773029

>>18771271
"originally had a more abrupt ending" is bullshit. There were additions to the NT but the ending to Mark is not one of them.

Luke is probably the safest "from a literary perspective", and John is the most poetic.

>> No.18773100

>>18773029
>The Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaticus both contain the oldest possible versions of the Gospel of Mark.
>Both end abruptly on verse 16:8
>Which is when the three women leave the tomb after talking to the angel
>Most Christian scholars agree that future versions added longer endings because people were dissatisfied with the original ending
>So get fucked XD

>> No.18773152
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18773152

>>18771271
John is the most accurate to history, but the most pagan

>> No.18773695

>>18771271
John. It's the only one that reads like a coherent narrative and not like a collected patchwork of short episodes. It was also probably written for a more erudite audience, and it shows. It's the most poetic of the Gospels.
>>18771282
Matthew is the opposite of Jewish propaganda. It was written to preach to Jews, but since Christianity was outlawed and Jewish authorities enforced the idea that Jesus was NOT the messiah, it had to demonize them at every turn, while making emphasis on how Jesus fulfilled the messianic prophecies. On the other hand, it was also starting to be seen as a gentile movement and a corruption of Judaism, so Matthew had to emphasize that Jesus had come for the Israelites first and for the Gentiles second.

>> No.18773702

>>18773029
It's absent in all the older manuscripts. It makes sense too, it's as if Mark was trying to get his reader to go Galilee in order to look for the living Messiah.

>> No.18773890

>>18773695
The idea that Jesus came for the Israelites first and then Gentiles is absent in Mark (or at the most subtly implied), but in Matthew Jesus is prioritizing Jews. Now maybe this is because the books were for different audiences, but the idea that Christ came for the Jews first is contradicted several times by Paul’s Epistles (Passages contrary to this are probable interpolations from what I have read). Matthew is less of an addition to Mark and more of a response to Mark (Mark is the probable first written).

>> No.18773918

>>18773890
The Gospels themselves contradict each other at several points. For instance, in the sinoptic gospels Christ is reluctant to announce his divine nature to others while in John he does so openly (John 10:30 "I and the Father are one"). This doesn't really matter, Matthew was probably trying to get his Jewish audience to convert, so he used the things I listed as rhetorical devices.

>> No.18773984
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18773984

I'm re-reading Matthew, it's good, I like it.

>> No.18774062

>>18773918
It was the the result of a struggle for primacy between Greek churches and the Jerusalem church. The fact is that Matthew is a rewrite of Mark.

>> No.18774095

>>18771578
Nice fantasy, faggot.

>> No.18774097

>>18771679
>In real life they despised each other and didn't make up.
>There are thought to have been a group of Christians who may have followed Thomas.
There is literally zero evidence for any of this.

>> No.18774111

>>18771829
Everyone needs to read the Bible if they want to engage with Western culture. It has nothing to do with your religion but with your interests.

>> No.18774121

I find Luke super comfy as it was written by Luke for the Gentiles.

>> No.18774159
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18774159

I only read the synoptic gospels. The rest are propaganda

>> No.18774162

>>18772878
kek

>> No.18774167

>>18773100
>Most Christian scholars agree
Really now? Name one.

>> No.18774255

>>18774097
First of all, there was such a group. We have many books from them dated to the early third century at the latest. Whether they were around in the first century is less conclusive. However, the ‘Doubting Thomas’ narrative is an obvious attack on both the character of the Apostle Thomas, and on the beliefs of the Thomasine Docetic tradition (From their texts it is clear that they did not believe in a physical resurrection).

>> No.18774266

>>18774095
It’s not a fantasy, it’s far more believable than the story where everyone just accepts that Paul is a ‘13th apostle’ and Paul just admits that his attacks on Peter in his epistles were wrong.

>> No.18774410

>>18774062
We can't really say for certain whether Matthew was using Mark as a source, if they both have a common source or even if Matthew was aware of Mark's (or whoever the actual author was) work at all. The synoptic question is an absolute mystery.

>> No.18774469

>>18774255
For years I've had an alternate take on the Thomas episode. I see it as an admirable peculiarity that Thomas is not willing to just believe what others have said about God, but wants to experience God. It reminds me of Job's line "Long have I heard of you, but now I have seen you."
This is a bit of a Gnostic take though I have to admit, with the idea that only experiencing God is true divine knowledge, but I find it more satisfying.
Jesus does say "blessed are those who believe without seeing" but that's not necessarily a condemnation of Thomas, just saying that people who believe without seeing are fortunate. Jesus does grant Thomas his request ultimately also.
Dunno I guess I'm saying its more ambiguous to me. Not that your take isn't plausible.
/blogpost

>> No.18775736
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18775736

John