[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Timotheist

I am not sure what you are saying. Your posts tend to ramble a bit. Copying without citing the source is plagiarism. Not sure how biblical authors are supposed to get a pass on this.

If I though I was someone of special intelligence, I would think you are trying your best to insult mine.

I asked you about the "Q" source. You either missed this, chose to ignore the question or you're clueless about it. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the first. Questions and issues surrounding the Q source probably belong on "the research" part of these threads, but since many of the questions and issues have already been conflated, and there has been no action on the research thread for quite some time, I would suggest we just combine the two.

Lets get back to the basics, shall we? There are virtually no scholars who think that any part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (The narrative of his life and times and his collected sayings) were recorded in writing during Christ's time on earth, nor during the subsequent 3-5 decades. Aside from the accepted canon of Jewish Scripture (and presumably some rabbinical writings of the time) the Jews at the time of Jesus' life were largely an oral society. The original apostles of Jesus were Jewish, as were the vast majority of the early disciples. Everything was dependent upon eye witnesses. If one did not actually see an event with his own eyes, or hear a spoken word with his own ears, his testimony was suspect at best, and probably considered worthless. And as a regular course of action, it had to be at least two witnesses to confirm an event or spoken word. Even the Lord Jesus followed this principle - "Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me". John 8:16-18.

It was at the end of the lives of the first generation apostles and disciples - the original eyewitnesses of the events and direct hearers of the prayers and sayings of Jesus Christ - in which the Gospel was recorded in writing. (Luke did not claim to be an eyewitness but stated clearly: "Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word"-Luke 1:2) It was essential, it was urgent, that the Gospel, the complete Gospel, be recorded in writing before this first generation passed away. The wise and knowledgeable men who decided what was to be included in the canon of the New Testament, and who no doubt had access to many manuscripts which we have since lost, included the Virgin Birth narrative. DEAL WITH IT. Just because it doesn't fit your "Jesus didn't become the Son of God until his baptism" theology, doesn't mean you can pull a Witness Lee and try to remove some major event or recorded words in the accepted canon post facto.

END OF RAMBLE.