Reply #35: Eh, okay, maybe Mark, LOL. [View All]

[tjdee]

There are miracles in Matthew, which I admitted (I meant to, if I didn't)--but Matthew's main concern was proving that Jesus was a Jew (and yeah, the Jewish Messiah). Actually, I'd argue that that's where the Herod baby killing comes into play (as a throwback to Moses). Mattie begins with a genealogy involving Abraham and David leading to Jesus, showing that he is a man, and he is a Jew. (what's weird about that, though, is--doesn't family go through *women* in Judaism?)

There are numerous allusions to fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, he goes into the John/Jesus baptism thing (to make sure everyone knows Jesus is the messiah, not John). Mark had written the first gospel as a sort of quick "there's this guy Jesus, he's the son of God" pamphlet--he had done some work with Barnabas and Paul...in Rome presumably. Matthew drew on that and did a "Hey and he was a Jew!" thing. Hmm, perhaps I should have recommended Mark. READ MARK, WTMUSIC! :)

I did some study of Matthew vs. John in college...Just to make sure I wasn't too far off the mark, I did just google and found a neato table comparison of the gospels, with who the audience was, how many miracles are in each one (the one with the fewest is John, which strikes me as funny.)

http://www.lifeofchrist.com/life/gospels/glance.asp

Oh, and let me end this obnoxiously long post by just saying that I take a number of things in the bible with a grain of salt--realizing that they were trying to get people excited. I am pretty comfortable with the actual words and actions of Jesus as recorded, and the resurrection (for reasons I'll spare you right now!). Everything else
I think about.