Has anyone attempted a detailed look at the New Testament after removing all references to and assumptions from the Gospels and Acts?

I propose the result is a very different set of documents that make sense in their own terms and that many conflicts and confusions are directly caused by importing later assumptions.

The classic example is that the second coming will disappear - the documents are discussing the coming of the Christ, Yahweh’s anointed saviour, the name above all names without a name.

I am arguing the epistles and revelation are documents written with no input from the Gospels and Acts - as they were not written to later and their purpose was not to provide a history but a back story attempting to conjoin different story lines about a moral teacher (if there was one) and god becoming man. There was no first coming so the epistles and revelation are discussing a first coming.

We continually read stuff that is not there because we assume Gospels Acts.

This thread lends the bible far more respect than it deserves.

Am l? All I am doing is asking precisely what the foundations are and how we got from there the here? A clade diagram. Vast chunks of the planet accept it at face value, maybe it ain’t necessarily so?

Just throw in a couple generic "God is a delusion, of course" and "The Bible is a fairy tale" for good measure and you'll be fine. It would be nice if we were beyond this sort of reflexive chest beating, but is what it is.

I'd imagine it would still be a load of bollocks, just without Gospels or Acts.

With or without...why grown people cling to bullshit fairytales is beyond me ....

No idea. People don't make a lot of sense to me, in general.

Clive Durdle wrote:All I am doing is asking precisely what the foundations are and how we got from there the here? A clade diagram.

The part that worries me is where you imply that this task can meet with success. If I've mistaken your focus, forgive me.

I mean this, Clive:

Clive Durdle wrote:
I propose the result is a very different set of documents that make sense in their own terms

Of course, this "making sense" may just be "making sense to me". Other people try to find the Tetragrammaton buried in the digits of pi.

It's only a Tetragrammaton if you print it in landscape mode on A4 paper with standard margins.

laklak wrote:It's only a Tetragrammaton if you print it in landscape mode on A4 paper with standard margins.

That's not what I heard. I heard that in order to see it, when you look at the data, you have to think like a Vegan. This has nothing to do with soybeans.

The Epistles and the Apocalypse are assumed to be related to the Gospels and Acts. But are they? This is an obvious point to me and makes sense of obvious contradictory views like the epistles seem to be talking of a first coming.

Someone must have explored this.

Clive Durdle wrote:Has anyone attempted a detailed look at the New Testament after removing all references to and assumptions from the Gospels and Acts?

I propose the result is a very different set of documents that make sense in their own terms and that many conflicts and confusions are directly caused by importing later assumptions.

The classic example is that the second coming will disappear - the documents are discussing the coming of the Christ, Yahweh’s anointed saviour, the name above all names without a name.

I think that was more or less the point of Doherty's book, the Jesus Puzzle, there might be another thread on that.

Clive Durdle wrote:The Epistles and the Apocalypse are assumed to be related to the Gospels and Acts. But are they?

Both make use of nomina sacra. Maybe a later editor?

..... the epistles seem to be talking of a first coming.

Maybe the letters were written earlier but there was a postal delay and they were delivered decades later?

Someone must have explored this.

The Letter of Peter to Philip (NHC 8.2) says that Jesus responded
to various questions of the gathered apostles by saying
"Why are you asking me?"

Perhaps this letter from the Nag Hammadi codices summarises the whole Christian message?