Growing up in the Roman Catholic Church and attending RCC schools for 16 years, not a great deal of emphasis was placed on the study of the Bible. I remember when I began to attend Bible study classes being puzzled about a particular dispute in a community mentioned in one of Paul's letters which would have been easily settled by passages in one of the Gospels. When I asked the question of the leader of our group, he said, "Think about it." We had already covered the estimated dates of the parts of the NT, and after I thought for a while, I realized that the Gospel that would have settled the dispute was not yet written at the time of Paul's letter. Since Paul was a not disciple of Jesus before his death, and his conversion was a result of a private revelation, he had not heard all the stories about Jesus, what he said and what he did, that are told in the Gospels which came later. Aha!
Do read the entire article at HP in which Borg explains why it is important to the history of the church to know the order in which the books of the NT were written. Below is the list the books in chronological order according to Borg.
1 Thessalonians
Galatians
1 Corinthians
Philemon
Philippians
2 Corinthians
Romans
Mark
James
Colossians
Matthew
Hebrews
John
Ephesians
Revelation
Jude
1 John, 2 John, 3 John
Luke
Acts
2 Thessalonians
1 Peter
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
2 Peter
Photo from Wikipedia.
I missed this in HuffPo. Thanks, June.
ReplyDeleteI aim to serve, Elizabeth.
DeleteIt's a neat idea - but I really don't see there being any way of getting a majority consensus among theologians!
ReplyDeleteJames, you are, no doubt, correct. I don't advocate changing the official version of the NT to chronological order, but I plan to read through the NT following Borg's sequence to see if my understanding of the books changes.
DeleteI'm surprised that he puts Luke/Acts after Revelation and Jude. I wouldn't have thought this was majority opinion, but then again, I tend to hang out with evangelical NT scholarship, which is a bit different from the Jesus Seminar, of which I believe Marcus Borg is still a member.
ReplyDeleteBorg is still a member of Jesus Seminar. Tim, I am no Scripture scholar. Borg's idea sounded interesting to me, and I decided I would read the NT in the order as listed. I'm not qualified to argue for one position or another for the various books in the list.
DeleteIn the slide show, Borg is open about how subjective the dating is. His is a rough consensus. Putting Paul first (and NOT Romans!) and burying the Gospel supposedly by John should make a big difference in weighing their influence.
ReplyDeleteMurdoch, I watched the slide show. I think Borg's idea is interesting, and I want to try reading the NT in the order of his list. It can't hurt, and I may learn something.
DeleteDoes anyone think Romans is the first of Paul's epistles chronologically? I also think it is well accepted by most scholars that the genuine Pauline epistles predate any of the surviving gospels.
DeleteErp, if you click on the link and follow the slide show, you will see what Borg says about Romans.
DeleteThanks for posting this, I have read his articles and am interested in his perspective but I never found his list.
ReplyDeleteVery helpful. I found another list on another site that had another chronological order.
If anything, it helps us change perspective a bit and maybe hear God's voice in a new way!
Thanks Mimi
You're quite welcome, Kurt. I'll give it a try.
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