Walking through Birmingham yesterday I was surprised to see a large photograph of Sears Tower. Looking around I discovered that it's part of an exhibition in the city centre of photographs of Chicago, around eighty of them celebrating the city.

What I didn't discover was why this exhibition is currently in Birmingham.

I wonder if it has something to do with Birmingham and Chicago being "sister cities."

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/chicago.bcc

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_IT...M_TYPE=9&MENU_ID=276

I prefer Chicago!

Arnie, somehow I missed this post. That first link has a picture of the wonderful Crown Fountain that was creatively designed by Jaume Plensa. Here is another link for it. If you get the chance to see Millennium Park in Chicago, it is well worth the trip.

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I prefer Chicago!

I agree in many ways - but the pubs are better, and more common, in Birmingham.

Come to our Convention and try a few!

You are right, Richard. Shu and I were in Birmingham briefly when we were in England, and I just loved it. The White Rose was exceptional!

We will have to try a few more in October. The Crooked House is fun, although a bit touristy these days. See here http://www.sharpos-world.co.uk/mainindx/oddments/crooked/crooked.htm

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"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.

We wonder how much money was paid, and by whom, to inspire Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John to produce their writings. Or were they blockheads?

But what proof is there that they even wrote the epistles attributed to them? So far as I know the earliest known transcriptions anteceded them by many years.

So far as I know the earliest known transcriptions anteceded them by many years.

I think you meant the other way around. The gospels are usually considered to have been composed in the second half of the first century CE (50-110 CE; with some scholars pushing them earlier in this range and others later). When looking at the age of the collection of texts called the New Testament, one needs to take into consideration when all of these individual texts were accepted as part of a canonical collection / one book. (This process is usually thought to have happened between the third and fourth centuries CE.) Indidivual texts were accepted by different authors earlier than that date, but then some non-canonical texts were accepted by these same authors. The oldest MSS of the Old and New Testaments (aka the Bible) date from the fourth century: e.g., the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus.

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Originally posted by jerry thomas:

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"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.

We wonder how much money was paid, and by whom, to inspire Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John to produce their writings. Or were they blockheads?

I do my best to stay out of political discussions here. DO you really think I'm likely to get involved in theological ones?

My post was not meant to be theological but rather simply to call attention to the inconsistency. Samuel Johnson quotes are usually bits of Wisdom, whereas this one is such a sweeping generalization that is almost makes Sam'l look like a blockhead.

Is the traditional belief that the gospels were written by the apostles? Or rather, that they were oral accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, written down by their followers?

Written by.

[Note by Wordcrafter: I attempted to comment, and by mistake edited. Post restored to its original form as written by CW.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordcrafter,

by Apostles

The author of the Gospel of Luke is by tradition associated with a friend of St Paul's mentioned in some of his epistles. He is also thought to be the author of Acts. The other three gospels are associated with named Apostles.

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Originally posted by shufitz:
Is the traditional belief that the gospels were written by the apostles? Or rather, that they were oral accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, written down by their followers?

An obscure author named Papias, writing about 120-130 CE, claimed that Peter would tell stories about Jesus as the occasion demanded, and that his secretary Mark (Peter was illiterate, according to Acts) wrote them down, but "not in order". Papias claimed to have gotten this information from an elderly christian. He also said that Matthew wrote down the sayings of Jesus in Hebrew, and "everyone interpreted them as they could". This account of Mark he is referring to could very well be the Gospel of Mark, but his book of Matthew is clearly not the Gospel of Matthew. Mark, by the way, was not one of the 12 apostles.

Ireneus, a Christian bishop in Lyons, writing around 185 CE, was the first to attribute the four gospels we know to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Almost all scholars agree that Luke and Acts were written by the same person. Just who that person was is still a completely open question. Whoever he or she was, the author of Luke was writing with the intention of convincing Romans that Christianity wasn't necessarily anti-Roman.

The author of Matthew was probably Jewish, since he copies from Mark and corrects his mistakes about Jewish practices, among other reasons.

John looks like an bunch of separate manuscripts edited together, probably around 95 CE.

About forty years ago, in Fort Collins, Colorado with time on my hands, I stumbled across the street to Colorado State Unversity and signed up for a course in Fiction Writing at the Continuing Education Department. Our teacher wrote that famous Johnson quotation about blockheads on the chalkboard and I began writing a whimsical scene where John, Luke, Mark, and Mathew were discussing how much money they inended to make with their writings.

Research was more difficult in those Pre-Google Days than now, but I was able to find that one of his lady friends had asked Doctor Johnson to write about his trip to Italy, and he refused, basing his refusal on the idea that there wasn't any money involved.

Samuel Johnson (often referred to as "Doctor Johnson"), literary titan of the 18th century — essayist, lexicographer, poet, editor, critic, and famous talker — is the second most quoted person in the English language, after Shakespeare. More than a thousand quotes and snippets are
here, organized by theme (see the Topical Guide), and Searchable.

Actually I don't care who wrote The Gospels. I simply chose that as one example out of millions -- of writers who might be thought of as blockheads because they wrote for non-monetary rewards.

I wish now that I had not mentioned the idea here.

~~~~ jerry (community blockhead)

Hey, Neveu, it is wonderful to see you back! We have missed you!

As for CW's "Written by." comment, I suspect we'd get all kinds of opinions on that, just as with any other religious discussion.

Incidentally Jerry, I don't know if you noticed, but the quote was originally raised in response to Richard's views on art where he seemed to be suggesting that it was somehow less art if it were being done for the money. (Yes, I know I'm over-simplifying your position Richard and that you said no such thing. The implication was nevertheless there.)

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I wish now that I had not mentioned the idea here.

~~~~ jerry (community blockhead)

Jerry, you are sounding like Asa now. The fact is, we all bring up subjects from time to time that we later wish we'd left alone. Most recently for me was my absolute stupidity of bringing up Edison again.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
As for CW's "Written by." comment, I suspect we'd get all kinds of opinions on that, just as with any other religious discussion.

Shu asked, so I answered. It's not a religious discussion (I'm not a Christian) it's a historical one.

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Jerry, you are sounding like Asa now.

Hey, no fair horning in on my persona!

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The fact is, we all bring up subjects from time to time that we later wish we'd left alone. Most recently for me was my absolute stupidity of bringing up Edison again.

Nothing stupid about bringing up Edison. It woulda taken several more months before we had the phonograph if it weren't for him!

Asa, slinking off to read that shocking novel, Tesla of the D'urbervilles under a light powered by alternating current.

PS: Sunflower works for a company that sells replicas of Edison bulbs. They suck twice the power and produce 1/8th the light of a modern bulb, but they're neat to watch in their clear globe.http://www.rejuvenation.com/typepageLight%20Bulbs/templates/houseparts_group.html

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Shu asked, so I answered. It's not a religious discussion (I'm not a Christian) it's a historical one.

I was referring to CW's comment, not yours. However, Shu reminded me that he had asked about the traditional view, so that comment of mine was irrelevant. Some days it doesn't even pay to get out of bed!