The most significant thing in the whole document, when all is said and done, is that the Biblical Commission calmly and frankly admits that what is contained in the Gospels as we have them today is not the words and deeds of Jesus in the first stage of tradition, nor even the form in which they were preached in the second stage, but only in the form compiled and edited by the Evangelists.
~Joseph A. Fitzmyer
From Dr. G
ReplyDeleteThanks for this useful quote. I'm particularly interested in references to the "editors" of the Bible.
It is always amazing to me just how many statements like this there are by serious scholars - and how completely ignored they are by so many others.