To reiterate, Roman Catholics are instructed to never read the Bible without the supervision of an expert to properly translate the text. This might well be the reason for this injunction; if the Bible and the Gospels were written not to reveal the truth but to obscure the truth, then a simple reading would lead the reader far astray. The mystery would be forever hidden until the subtle, inferred sub-text, allusion, mythical aetiological and literary artifice could be tweezed from the written word to reveal the ‘secrets’ of the cult.
If such is the case – and I contend that it is – the necessary encoding of a fictional tale of the son of god on earth would require years to accomplish. If the gospel of Mark had been an effort to tell an accurate tale of an itinerate preacher’s time on earth, it would have been far more advantageous to put pen to paper as soon as possible so as to retain details in memory and to call upon eye-witness testimonies. That would have been the process if a simple journalistic, historic account was intended. Moreover, if, as evidenced by recent scholarship that Jesus was a mythic character who never actually lived, then that would explain why there hadn’t been even a rudimentary biography written on the Man from Nazareth; there simply was nothing to write.
The stylistic, enciphered renderings of ‘teaching parables’ were never meant to be simple reportage of events. The Gospels were never meant to be a simple telling of the story of ‘Our Lord’. What was required of a mystery cult in a service to preserve its secrets yet offer parable to the ignorant masses would take far longer than a simple biography. A mythos based on the Biblical tales - with faint clues encrypted slyly into the text – would be necessary to present the sect’s tenets and at the same time protect the cult’s mysteries. This would explain why the Gospel of ‘Mark’ wasn’t finished until two generations after the purported events (c. 66–70 CE); the writer(s) were constructing a new encoded fiction based loosely - if at all – on the events of an earlier time while simultaneously writing for the ages.
This notion also goes far to explain why the other three evangelists waited until after Mark completed his gospel (c. 66–70 CE) before writing their own. They were waiting for a template to be provide by which both the parables of Jesus’ earthly life and the mysteries of the celestial creature of the Redeemer and his heavenly kingdom could be written. Matthew based his gospel (c. 85–90 CE) on what Mark presented; changing and redacting the Markan gospel to be more alluring to the Torah observant Hebrews. Luke (c. 85–90 CE) then took both Mark’s rendition and Mathew’s version and spun his Gospel back to a middle-ground between the Gentiles - who Saul/Paul had been preaching to - and the Jews.
‘John’ (or whoever) then came along long afterward (c. 90–110 CE) and added some miracles which aren’t mentioned at all in the other three Synoptic Gospels; the wedding at Cana and the famous water-to-wine for one. (By the way, the Mystery Cult of Dionysus (the god of wine) had the miracle of turning water the wine in its temples.) Another of the miracles which ‘John’ talks of is the recounting of the resurrection of Lazarus, the ‘Beloved Disciple’ and of his presence at the crucifixion. (Spoiler alert! Lazarus is a totally fictional character. John also invents other fictional characters such as Nicodemus.) ‘Luke’ only speaks of dead Lazarus in a parable involving Abraham and a ‘rich man’. Lazarus is not raised from the dead in the Lucan parable. John, on the other hand, refutes Luke’s parable and reverses Luke’s message about resurrection and the triumph of over-coming death. ‘John’ also included loads of tidbits and details of Jesus’ life which were apparently manufactured from whole cloth. A further difference which sets ‘John’ apart is that ‘John’ completely avoids all of the exorcisms which the Synoptic gospels reported.
Casting out demons evidently was not to the collective taste of the anonymous team who produced the Johannine Gospel.
Paul/Saul’s epistles were written about a decade before Mark’s Gospel (c. 50 and 58 CE) with only 7 or so being actually written by Paul/Saul. Each of the other three Gospels, plus Acts, followed Mark’s and were redacted and embellished by each/all of the anonymous author(s); Matthew was second, followed by ‘Luke’ with ‘John’ coming up behind with his own special re-wording and stylistic embellishments – such as miracles and characters never seen or mentioned before or after - that served to flesh out the story, supposedly, with humanistic notes. ‘Acts’ is generally assumed to have been written by the same anonymous team that composed ‘Luke’.
Of course, it must be held in mind that this is a very simplistic telling of the tale of the New Testament. The in-depth story of the who/what/when/how the Gospels, Acts and Epistles were produced is one that has occupied historians for centuries and has filled volumes. As stated before, writing about a fictitious man created to obfuscate the mystery teachings embedded and disguise by unhistorical parables composed and compiled by a slew of anonymous writers has been a trial. Hopefully, there has been enough presented here to lead the more intrepid to further pursue a truer telling of the New Testament.
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