Agony in the garden

The Concrete Doctor

If the three apostles were asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, who heard the words spoken by Jesus? Is the account fictional?

Zombrex

The Concrete Doctor wrote: »

If the three apostles were asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, who heard the words spoken by Jesus? Is the account fictional?

One assumes Jesus told them after the fact what was said when he was praying.

The Concrete Doctor

Zombrex wrote: »

One assumes Jesus told them after the fact what was said when he was praying.

Sounds logical, except that Jesus was not really given the opportunity once he was taken away. Plus, why would he tell anyone that he was asking his father to let the chalice pass from him? That is a very personal, emotional plea, not for public consumption. He was annoyed that they fell asleep so a scenario such as you present is not believable.

doctoremma

CD - have you read The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ (Philip Pullman)? This is a discussion point in the afterword, to support the fictional nature of (some parts of) the bible.

Onesimus

In all accounts all the disciples are with him during this ordeal. It is recorded by those who did not fall asleep, Matthew, Mark and Luke. These disciples were not far from Jesus and the three he chose to remain very close to him were not very far from the other disciples. Its not like they got up and marched 100 yards through the garden.

The Greek for sleep also means to lie down and rest. Like when you go for a snooze but are not in a deep sleep and can hear all that goes on around you. Passing in and out of sobriety. The disciples then could have witnessed to the rest of the disciples what they heard in this manner.

But its more likely the other disciples who were awake heard everything also. As Zombrex said as well Jesus himself from the curiosity of the disciples would have told them what had happened after the fact. The arrest might not have taken place straight away but 30 minutes after the agony in the garden. Plenty of time for the disciples to enquire. Even when Jesus arose from the dead and spoke with them for many days, this could be were Jesus spoke to them about it.

There were many things Jesus did and said, not all he said was just sucked into the accounts of the disciples, the Gospel is just the disciples inspired testimony of all the important stuff that was given them to write down.

Gumbi

I'm not sure about "inspired testimony". Didn't some copy off each at some point(s) (and admit it) ?

Fanny Cradock

Jesus may have told the disciples, but there is nothing in Mark and Matthew to suggest that they could not have heard for themselves. Indeed, he actually took part of the group aside to speak with them. Perhaps even pray. And throughout this a plain reading of Luke suggests that Jesus remained but "a stones throw away".

Gumbi wrote: »

I'm not sure about "inspired testimony". Didn't some copy off each at some point(s) (and admit it) ?

No one admitted anything because no one did anything wrong. Words like "copy" and "admitted" make it sound like something underhanded took place.

It would seem that all the Gospels drew from sources other then themselves (both verbal and written), just like a non-religious report of historical events that involve multiple people spread out over a lifetime. Are you suggesting that this is a bad thing?

Gumbi

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Jesus may have told the disciples, but there is nothing in Mark and Matthew to suggest that they could not have heard for themselves. Indeed, he actually took part of the group aside to speak with them. Perhaps even pray. And throughout this a plain reading of Luke suggests that Jesus remained but "a stones throw away".



No one admitted anything because no one did anything wrong. Words like "copy" and "admitted" make it sound like something underhanded took place.

It would seem that all the Gospels drew from sources other then themselves (both verbal and written), just like a non-religious report of historical events that involve multiple people spread out over a lifetime. Are you suggesting that this is a bad thing?

It discredits the oft mentioned comparative consistence ideas.

Fanny Cradock

Gumbi wrote: »

It discredits the oft mentioned comparative consistence ideas.

Why does it discredit them?

Peregrinus

Onesimus wrote: »

In all accounts all the disciples are with him during this ordeal. It is recorded by those who did not fall asleep, Matthew, Mark and Luke. These disciples were not far from Jesus and the three he chose to remain very close to him were not very far from the other disciples. Its not like they got up and marched 100 yards through the garden . . .

Neither Mark nor Luke were among the Twelve, and we have no reason to think that either of them ever met Jesus. In neither of those two gospels does the author claim to be an eyewitness to the events described, and in fact Luke openly acknowledges that he was not. There's internal evidence in Mark which suggests that he wasn't either. Tradition says that he was an associate of Peter's.

Matthew was one of the Twelve, but it's doubtful (to put it no higher) that he wrote the gospel now associated with his name. The gospel text itself makes no claim to have been written by the apostle Matthew or, again, to have been written by an eyewitness. Since the gospel copies large chunks of Mark with little or no alteration it;s very unlikely that it was written by an eyewitness. Why would an eyewitness base his gospel on a text written by someone who was not an eyewitness?

The Concrete Doctor

Onesimus wrote: »

In all accounts all the disciples are with him during this ordeal. It is recorded by those who did not fall asleep, Matthew, Mark and Luke. These disciples were not far from Jesus and the three he chose to remain very close to him were not very far from the other disciples. Its not like they got up and marched 100 yards through the garden.

The Greek for sleep also means to lie down and rest. Like when you go for a snooze but are not in a deep sleep and can hear all that goes on around you. Passing in and out of sobriety. The disciples then could have witnessed to the rest of the disciples what they heard in this manner.

But its more likely the other disciples who were awake heard everything also. As Zombrex said as well Jesus himself from the curiosity of the disciples would have told them what had happened after the fact. The arrest might not have taken place straight away but 30 minutes after the agony in the garden. Plenty of time for the disciples to enquire. Even when Jesus arose from the dead and spoke with them for many days, this could be were Jesus spoke to them about it.

There were many things Jesus did and said, not all he said was just sucked into the accounts of the disciples, the Gospel is just the disciples inspired testimony of all the important stuff that was given them to write down.

If its not written in the bible then we cannot speculate on what MAY have happened. We are told that the three were asleep. We were not told that anyone else overheard what was said. There may have been others present, or perhaps others overheard him or maybe he spoke out loud. Sorry, but perhaps and maybes are not good enough. Any other suggestion is pure guesswork and can't be put forward as fact. We don't know who heard him. This is a fictional account, no matter how hard that is, for some people to grasp.

Fanny Cradock

The Concrete Doctor wrote: »

This is a fictional account, no matter how hard that is, for some people to grasp.

The Mark and Matthew accounts - the most detailed accounts we have - say nothing about when the disciples were asleep in relation to Jesus praying. So you are the one who is providing "maybes".

You could have saved us the trouble by telling us from the outset that you were only pretending to look for opinions.

PDN

The Concrete Doctor wrote: »

Sounds logical, except that Jesus was not really given the opportunity once he was taken away.

Er, 40 days wasn't long enough? :rolleyes:

The Concrete Doctor

You could have saved us the trouble by telling us from the outset that you were only pretending to look for opinions.[/QUOTE]

My opinion is that this is a fictional account, but I am interested in other peoples opinions, of course! What trouble are you referring to?

Gumbi

I'm not versed in the specifics, but I wouldn't go as far as positively claiming that it's fictional just because there doesn't seem to be an explanation of a certain part.

JimiTime

Gumbi wrote: »

I'm not versed in the specifics, but I wouldn't go as far as positively claiming that it's fictional just because there doesn't seem to be an explanation of a certain part.

The thing is, there IS an explanation, in fact there are a few. One of these explanations is that its all made up. The issue though, is when someone then asserts that anyone who doesn't just accept this explanation is in some sort of denial.

The absence of a line saying, 'But someone overheard the following as Jesus was praying' does not fiction make it. It reminds me of the whole 'Bible is full of contradictions' thing. Its not that there is contradictions, its that if you assert a particular meaning/reading, then you can see contradiction. As far as I've ever seen, these assertions are made by people who want to discredit the bible/religion etc and just don't want to accept that there are other options that are not actually contradictory.

Onesimus

The Concrete Doctor wrote: »

If its not written in the bible then we cannot speculate on what MAY have happened. We are told that the three were asleep. We were not told that anyone else overheard what was said. There may have been others present, or perhaps others overheard him or maybe he spoke out loud. Sorry, but perhaps and maybes are not good enough. Any other suggestion is pure guesswork and can't be put forward as fact. We don't know who heard him. This is a fictional account, no matter how hard that is, for some people to grasp.

But maybes are good enough for you when it comes to calling it a fictional account because you've no faith and are obviously going to shout a maybe to suit yourself.

We have to remember that there are many parts of the Bible that do not give us specific details what happened, to the narrator these are not important. Only the story that matters most is important.

For example, ''Jesus prayed in the garden at exactly 8 minutes past 10, he sat down at 9 mins past 10 and when he prayed, these were asleep but only michael heard what he said from a distance in the bushes, later on michael told me everything I need to know.

When looking at the scriptures the inspired author assumes we have faith. What looks contradictory to us always has an answer to it. Something does not have to be in the Bible for it to be true. St.John wrote about this when he said that Jesus said and did many other things that all the books in the world could contain them.

So it is assumed that we can assume that Jesus spoke about this to the disciples at a later date.

The Concrete Doctor

Onesimus wrote: »

But maybes are good enough for you when it comes to calling it a fictional account because you've no faith and are obviously going to shout a maybe to suit yourself.

We have to remember that there are many parts of the Bible that do not give us specific details what happened, to the narrator these are not important. Only the story that matters most is important.

For example, ''Jesus prayed in the garden at exactly 8 minutes past 10, he sat down at 9 mins past 10 and when he prayed, these were asleep but only michael heard what he said from a distance in the bushes, later on michael told me everything I need to know.

When looking at the scriptures the inspired author assumes we have faith. What looks contradictory to us always has an answer to it. Something does not have to be in the Bible for it to be true. St.John wrote about this when he said that Jesus said and did many other things that all the books in the world could contain them.

So it is assumed that we can assume that Jesus spoke about this to the disciples at a later date.

There are several contradictions in the Bible, as you say. But this is not a contradiction. It always seems very likely to me that certain passages were fictionalised to embellish the story. We can't just make assumptions about what may have happened. I believe that this is just one instance where the story was given a more dramatic effect, to make it more interesting.

Onesimus

The Concrete Doctor wrote: »

There are several contradictions in the Bible, as you say. But this is not a contradiction. It always seems very likely to me that certain passages were fictionalised to embellish the story. We can't just make assumptions about what may have happened. I believe that this is just one instance where the story was given a more dramatic effect, to make it more interesting.

But it is ok for you to make assumptions that it is fictional right?

I agree there are several ''apparant'' contradictions in the Bible to the sinful eye, but many have been and can be explained. I'm no scholar so don't know them all.

The problem with yourself is that you are making your own assumptions based on a lack of faith or no faith at all in the scriptures. When someone does this they end up with your kind of interpretation of the narrative.

We are not making assumptions, we simply have faith that the Holy Spirit ( who cannot contradict himself ) has prepared it this way and although all of our assumptions may be incorrect we have faith that there is the right one.

But back to the Sacred text, as I have already explained the Greek word for asleep used in these passages also means to lie down and rest. So when the Sacred text says that Jesus found them sleeping. It can simply mean that they were resting with their eyes shut. Passing in and out of this sobriety or simply just resting with their eyes closed. Jesus is coming over simply to shake them and tell them to stay awake and not to fall asleep. In the course of this happening the disciples are hearing everything and thus have something to tell the other disciples. This is the one I favour the most because if you want to stay true to the text ( as you say ) then this is the better explanation right from the Bible.

To give you another example of how Greek words are seen in the scripture, the Greek word for worship is expressed in scripture to mean ''honor or veneration'' and the same word is used in the context of adortion reserved for God alone elsewhere.

So when we see ( just a imaginary example here as I'm in a rush for bed ) A) Michael worshipped Elijah and Michael Worshipped Jesus

When we look at it we think Michael is idolizing, but when we examine it objectively and seeing as truth cannot contradict truth ( and you need faith to look at the Bible that way and believe it is true ) we find that A) Michael is honoring Elijah and in he is adoring God, the adortion reserved for God alone. Does this make any sense to you?

The same applys with the bone you have picked with the agony in the garden. The greek word is being used in the context here for sleep to mean lie down and rest. And elsewhere in the Bible the same Greek word is being used to mean ''deep sleep'' as in off to dream land altogether.

Does this make sense? Because in order to believe that we need faith.

Peregrinus

We are not told how the gospel writers came to know of the events in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This issue arises even more acutely in relation to the accounts of Christ’s temptation in the desert.

There are a couple of possible answers:

1. There were eyewitnesses, who are the evangelists’ source, but the gospel accounts (which are fairly spare) simply omit to mention the fact. (This is possible in the case of the agony in the garden, but not really very likely in the case of the temptation in the wilderness.)

2. Jesus himself told people what had occurred, after the event, and these accounts have come down to the evangelists.

3. Miraculous but entirely reliable divine inspiration!

4. “Pious fiction”; a literary creation by an author intended to underline a theological point.

The explanations are not mutually exclusive. For example, it’s possible that eyewitnesses confirmed that, at the end his time of prayer in the garden, Jesus had become visibly distressed, and they observed this in circumstances which enabled them to be confident that he had become distressed while praying. Those eyewitnesses could also be the source of the information about “tears of blood”. The words that Jesus is said to have prayed may be an inference of the author, however. Or Jesus himself could be the source for that item of information.

A few points:

All four gospels mention that, after the last supper, Jesus took a walk to pray in a garden, and that this happened immediately before his arrest. Since there’s no evidence that the author of John had ever read Matthew, Mark or Luke, still less that he used them as sources for his own gospel, the inference is that none of the evangelists is the source of this story; they are all recording a story which was well-entrenched in the beliefs of the diverse strands of the Jesus movement before any of the gospels were written. And - Occam’s razor - the most likely explanation for this is that the story was true.

There were numerous eyewitnesses of Jesus immediately before, and immediately after, his time in the Garden, so there are credible sources for his demeanour at this time.

According to John, the garden in question was a place where Jesus often went with his disciples. Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t explicitly say this, but they do record that Judas brought the High Priest’s soldiers there to arrest Jesus, suggesting that he had a pretty good idea that Jesus would be there, which tallies with John’s information.

The story reflects badly on Peter. Mark, the first evangelist to record the story, was a follower of Peter. If he was going to engage in a pious fiction, it’s unlikely that he would create one in which Peter is presented in such a negative light.

All of that suggests to me that the story is basically historical; it’s rooted in a way in which that makes sense. The actual wording of Jesus’ prayer may or may not be historical; ultimately, we have no way of knowing. However from a theological point of view the significance of the prayer doesn’t come so much from the fact that it was actually uttered as from the fact that it is recorded in the gospel.

hivizman

Muslim apologists, who are often quick to point to alleged "contradictions" in the Bible, by and large accept the narrative of the Agony in the Garden in the synoptic gospels. However, they emphasise different points: Jesus' posture in praying, with his face to the ground, is claimed to indicate that Jesus prayed in the same way as Muslims pray (going into prostration or "sujood"), while his statement "Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matt. 26:39, NIV) is taken as evidence that Jesus submitted his own will to that of God, which is the literal definition of "Muslim". All of this is used to support the claim that Jesus was one of the many prophets of Islam, and by implication to deny that he was the incarnation of the second person of the trinity.

This shows that, even if we agree on what happened, we can come up with different interpretations of the events.

The Concrete Doctor

Peregrinus wrote: »

We are not told how the gospel writers came to know of the events in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This issue arises even more acutely in relation to the accounts of Christ’s temptation in the desert.

There are a couple of possible answers:

1. There were eyewitnesses, who are the evangelists’ source, but the gospel accounts (which are fairly spare) simply omit to mention the fact. (This is possible in the case of the agony in the garden, but not really very likely in the case of the temptation in the wilderness.)

2. Jesus himself told people what had occurred, after the event, and these accounts have come down to the evangelists.

3. Miraculous but entirely reliable divine inspiration!

4. “Pious fiction”; a literary creation by an author intended to underline a theological point.

The explanations are not mutually exclusive. For example, it’s possible that eyewitnesses confirmed that, at the end his time of prayer in the garden, Jesus had become visibly distressed, and they observed this in circumstances which enabled them to be confident that he had become distressed while praying. Those eyewitnesses could also be the source of the information about “tears of blood”. The words that Jesus is said to have prayed may be an inference of the author, however. Or Jesus himself could be the source for that item of information.

A few points:

All four gospels mention that, after the last supper, Jesus took a walk to pray in a garden, and that this happened immediately before his arrest. Since there’s no evidence that the author of John had ever read Matthew, Mark or Luke, still less that he used them as sources for his own gospel, the inference is that none of the evangelists is the source of this story; they are all recording a story which was well-entrenched in the beliefs of the diverse strands of the Jesus movement before any of the gospels were written. And - Occam’s razor - the most likely explanation for this is that the story was true.

There were numerous eyewitnesses of Jesus immediately before, and immediately after, his time in the Garden, so there are credible sources for his demeanour at this time.

According to John, the garden in question was a place where Jesus often went with his disciples. Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t explicitly say this, but they do record that Judas brought the High Priest’s soldiers there to arrest Jesus, suggesting that he had a pretty good idea that Jesus would be there, which tallies with John’s information.

The story reflects badly on Peter. Mark, the first evangelist to record the story, was a follower of Peter. If he was going to engage in a pious fiction, it’s unlikely that he would create one in which Peter is presented in such a negative light.

All of that suggests to me that the story is basically historical; it’s rooted in a way in which that makes sense. The actual wording of Jesus’ prayer may or may not be historical; ultimately, we have no way of knowing. However from a theological point of view the significance of the prayer doesn’t come so much from the fact that it was actually uttered as from the fact that it is recorded in the gospel.

That is an excellent, thought provoking reply. So I will give some thought to it. Very little one can argue with though!

philologos

The Concrete Doctor wrote: »

This is a fictional account, no matter how hard that is, for some people to grasp.

Your question in the OP is useless if you're just going to automatically assume we are wrong without basis.

Do you want to listen to what we're saying?

Fanny Cradock

philologos wrote: »

Your question in the OP is useless if you're just going to automatically assume we are wrong without basis.

Do you want to listen to what we're saying?

In fairness to the OP, he(?) has said that he would give Peregrinus's post a thought.