LogicandReason

Eusebius wrote in the 4th century. While the Gospels contain Paul's writings, Paul writings contain none of the Gospels.

Acts was written to try and merge the two churches, Jerusalem and Asia Minor. Christian Richard Pervo has written more about dating Acts than any other biblical scholar and he dates it in the 90's as the earliest possible dating.

Your attempt to early date the Gospels defies the vast majority of biblical scholars and even what is referenced in my Nelson Study Bible. The overwhelming majority give Mark priority and believe it to be written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.

Eusebius and Constantine were working to create a unified, "Orthodox" church and to stamp out all other "Heresies." Both had the rare opportunity to create church history after Diocletian all but wiped it out. Through Marcion we know of the writings of Paul and Luke and he predates even Martyr.

Eusebius projects Luke back into history...maybe he does not know that the names of the Gospel do not appear in any document until "Against Heresies."
Further, Eusebius copied others but had little to say on his own. Without Constantine, he is obscure in history.

Lastly, how do you write against the majority of biblical scholars on the Gospel dating? Revelation?

bacht

The traditional dating of the NT texts is based more on wishful thinking than evidence. Apologists want to claim that some or all of these pseudepigraphs were created by first generation apostles.

Afaik there is no unambiguous mention of the gospels until the mid-2nd C, when the heretic Marcion used a version of Luke. The rest of the authorized books we have were revised or invented in response to Marcion's first "canon" of Pauline texts as well as gnostic heresies.

LogicandReason

Yes...but I notice that Paul delineates his "Gospels" from others (without reference) in Galatians. Maybe "Q"? Maybe competing start-ups? Christians who accept the Acts version of Church unity in the 1st century are doing so in spite of what little historical evidence we glean from these extant documents. Clearly the Gentile "Paulist" were the largest group, followed by Gnostics and then splinters of a group that originated in Jerusalem. If not for Matthew and later John, there would probabluy not even be a Jerusalem connection. It takes someone clever and knowledgeable enough to create theology to get from a dead preacher to the Cosmic Son-of-Man. I say it was the writer of Thessaolnians and Galatians (and notice how much clearer the story develops as time goes along in his writings).

bacht

There are at least two uses of the word "gospel" in the NT: the preaching of the first generation apostles, and the literary genre of Jesus biography usually thought to have started with Mark. Paul was in conflict with the Torah Christians led by James, as well as other preachers to the gentiles like Apollos.

The reconstruction which posits the original Christians as apocalyptic Jews who were later supplanted by Torah-free gentiles seems reasonable to me. FWIW I don't think there ever was a "real" Jesus: the cosmic Son came first, later morphing into our familiar Galilean carpenter.

aa5874

This cannot be shown to be true. The letter writers claimed they had revelations fom Jesus in heaven about the Last Supper, this is most likely false. It would appear the letter writers read the gospel of Luke.

Acts is fundamentally a book of fiction to distort the the true history of Jesus believers. The author claimed the disciples actually witnessed Jesus going through the clouds on his way to heaven.

Please show me where I have dated the gospels early?

I think the entire NT was written after the writings of Josephus.

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No, not at all. We have nothing from Marcion.

We have information about Marcion from the very same writers who do not know the letter writers that founded their own Churches.

Maybe Eusebius knew what he was doing. Maybe Eusebius knew that the Church had no history in the 1st century.

Yes. It has been revealed to me by flesh and blood (real people) that many biblical scholars worship Jesus, and are evangelists, missionaries, and ministers for Jesus. These biblical scholars want to go to heaven and expect a reward from Jesus, they all want the gift of eternal life from Jesus.

bacht

Do you think there were any gentile churches in the 1st C, or would you place their foundations later?

LogicandReason

It is equally possible that Luke read the letter writers. Do we have any evidence of either? Luke is a Gentile and would have known little about OT scripture.

100% agree!

I misread your intention when you wrote:

My mistake! :huh:

I would enjoy reading your thoughts on this...can you link me to your discussion on this matter? So you believe that Paul is the voice of many (I would agree but 5 or so books look very similar in style and content). Everywhere I have studied Paul is dated to the 50'a and his death to the time just before Nero's pogrom after the fires. Is all this based on Eusebius?


True, besides "Against Heresies" do we see Marcion in other materials?

So how does this work? The Gospels and Acts are written in the 2nd century and when and where did the voices of Paul come into the story?

gurugeorge

I think it's a requirement of the reversal of the Messiah trope - everything about the traditional Messiah is inverted in this Messiah idea. Not a king but a nobody, not a great victor but died an ignominious death.

Why? I think the answer is in Paul and the other early writers - the idea was that (as I like to put it) he "slipped under the Archons' radar" because they were expecting a kingly victorious, famous guy.

But this inversion of the tropes of the traditional Messiah is also a "stumbling block" to the Jews (who are of course mostly expecting the great kingly victor).

I don't know, I think for me that suffers from the same implausibility as the notion that this guy would be famous enough to start a movement, yet not famous enough for anybody to remember anything of him at the time, his sayings, etc. Either he made a big splash, in which case we should hear more of him in the historical record outside the cultic documents, or he was a nobody, in which case why all the fuss?

Again, in the long view, what we have is what appears in the first writings (e.g. Paul, Hebrews) to be a spiritual figure who seems to gradually get clothed in biographical detail as time goes on (culminating in the gospels).

Is that really what you'd expect of a human Messiah claimant who died (or a great preacher who had Messiahship subsequently thrust upon him)? Some think it is plausible, I don't see it.

LogicandReason

Jesus is definitely the intentional object of wishful desire - especially for those who lived in the chaotic Hellenistic 1st century.

gurugeorge

Yes and as an intentional object, as a personal saviour, he does seem to be in some measure an exotericisation of the Mysteries. IOW the personal relationship with a Divine being who will assure some kind of initiation into a life beyond death, seems to have been the nub of the Mysteries, and it's pretty clear that this was a popular form of religion in the ancient world at that time. Christianity was a variant on, and exotericisation of, a well-known trope in the ancient world.

Of course this could be as true of a heavily-mythologized historical Jesus as it would be of a purely mythical Joshua Messiah. The thing is, Joshua the Anointed early on, in "Paul", appears as a full-fledged Saviour deity, with little biography, and the historical details start to fill in gradually after that.