aa5874

The word "anonymous" means of "unknown authorship", the author of gLuke is unknown.You are confusing authorship with an assigned title.

It is not known when gLuke was written and that fact makes it even more difficult to deduce the author.

Ben C Smith

You are the one confusing yourself with the terminology. Your argument was that to this day all the gospels are anonymous; therefore it is highly unlikely that Marcion could have known of any gospel named Luke. If this is true, then everyone alive today is in the same boat Marcion was in, and cannot know of any gospel named Luke. Yet we do know of a gospel named Luke; it may be so named incorrectly (pseudonymously), but it is, in fact, so named.

IOW, Marcion may not have known of a gospel named Luke, but it can not be for the reason you gave.

Still unanswered questions:

1. I know where to find the Tertullianic accusation that a former brother penned erroneous information in his name; but where does Tertullian admit that he himself penned and circulated erroneous information on Marcion?

2. Which of the references in Justin to the memoirs includes epistolary material instead of gospel material?

3. How do you know that Justin never mentioned Paul, when much of what Justin wrote has been lost?

Ben.

aa5874

"Anonymous" means "unknown author". The author of gLuke is unknown. There is nothing confusing about my statement.



The word is TRANSCRIBED or COPIED. The brother transcribed or copied Tertullian's second writing, full of mistakes, and published it. The brother basically plagerised part of Tertullian's work.

Against Marcion 1.1 Justin Martyr mentioned "memoirs of the apostles" not "memoirs of the Epistles. I am not aware that Justin knew of any letters to the Churches. He didn't mentioned a single letter or epistle to one single Church in the NT.

I only know what is not in his EXTANT writings. I only know that he never mentioned Paul, or letters to the Churches, by reading his extant writings.

How would you know if Justin claimed that Paul and letters to the Churches were fiction, when much of what Justin wrote has been lost?

spamandham

According to the definition that aa provided, which I would agree with him is pretty much the dictionary definition, and under the assumption that 'Luke' was an arbitrarily assigned name for the author, then I have to agree with aa, in that we would not know who the author was, making it an anonymous work even today (though it is a named anonymous work).

That said, you make a good point in that all extant copies do indeed show Luke as the author of the Gospel attributed to him. A case has to be made as to why that was a fraud, that is of greater weight than the prima facia evidence.

Ben C Smith

Whether your definition of anonymity is correct or not, your logic is flawed, since it is possible, until you argue otherwise, that Marcion knew a gospel named Luke just as we moderns know a gospel named Luke, whether it was published anonymously or not.

You would do yourself, and all of us, a favor by either learning Latin or consulting a good commentary on the text (or at least several translations to get a feel for what is being written). Here it is:

Hanc quoque nondum exemplariis suffectam fraude tunc fratris, dehinc apostatati, amisi, qui forte descripserat quaedam mendosissime et exhibuit frequentiae.

This also, before enough copies had been made, was stolen from me by a person, at that time a Christian but afterwards an apostate, who chanced to have copied out some extracts very incorrectly, and showed them to a group of people.

The translation is by Evans.

The word mendosissime is an adverb; it modifies the verb descripserat; it does not modify the first Tertullianic work itself. It is the copying process that Tertullian is saying was flawed, not his original work, which he says was merely incomplete from his haste to publish.

None of this is to say that the first (or even the last) Tertullianic work against Marcion is free of errors; but you had him admitting a slew of errors where he is actually accusing a former brother of copying his work poorly.

You wrote:

What I am asking you is which of the apostolic memoirs you think maybe at one point lacked the name of Paul but now has it.

You wrote:

Are you now modifying this statement to read as follows? And Justin Martyr never mentioned Paul in his extant writings, but mentioned Marcion?

He may have written this; I do not know for certain. I did not claim to know what Justin did or did not write about Paul. You did.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

His entire point was that Marcion probably could not have known a gospel named Luke because Luke is, even to this day, anonymous. What does argument do for you? If Marcion could not know of a gospel named Luke because Luke is anonymous (even until today), then we cannot know of a gospel named Luke for the same reason. Do you know of a gospel named Luke? I certainly do.

Even if aa___ means something entirely different by the phrase gospel named Luke than what I am imagining, what argument could he possibly be making on the basis of us moderns knowing as much or as little as Marcion knew? How does the argument work, logically speaking?

Thanks. But this is gravy compared to the fundamental flaw(s) in the reasoning above.

Tell you what, spam. Just say the word and I will do exactly what I think aa___ should have done: I will give an actual argument against the idea that the original text of Luke was entitled [the gospel] according to Luke. What do you say?

Ben.

spamandham

Heh. Thanks for the offer, but it was actually intended as a challenge for aa. I could probably come up with such an argument myself and am nowhere near as versed as you.

aa5874

But, you have a major problem, Justin Martyr never used the word Luke at all in his extant writings although he quoted verses that appear to be from what is now called gLuke. And everytime he quoted from what is called Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, today, he consistently and constantly at all times called them memoirs of the apostles" or "memoirs of the Gospels". Not one single time did he give the memoirs the names Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

And it matters whether my definition of anonymous is correct or not, it is illogical to think it doesn't.


Who translates your Latin to English?


Look at this, Against Marcion 1.1

Tertullian claimed he will amend his work, it appears to me that there were mistakes in Tertullian's own work.

"Amend " means to "correct from faults"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith The word mendosissime is an adverb; it modifies the verb descripserat; it does not modify the first Tertullianic work itself. It is the copying process that Tertullian is saying was flawed, not his original work, which he says was merely incomplete from his haste to publish.

Maybe you need a good translator. I only read English and can understand very little Latin.

Ben C Smith

Is this the first stirring of an... argument for your position? (Even if it be yet another argument from silence?) At least the bare assertions have lapsed for the moment.

I sometimes use published translations (for Tertullian, many are available through the Tertullian Project by Roger Pearse) and sometimes make my own translations. I usually check the Latin myself to make sure I am properly understanding the translation.

The former brother (he) makes mistakes and circulates them, and thus the need for an amended work. Where again is Tertullian claiming that the mistakes are his own?

Yes, and in this case Tertullian is claiming that the faults belonged to the former brother. That is what the text says.

You know little Latin, so I need to get a translator? :huh:

Ben.

aa5874

Silence! So, who is asking about "lost works of Justin"? Who is using every ounce of silence? You deal with silence, "lost works", I deal with reality, Justin's extant writings, and they are silent on the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul.



It matters if you know the meaning of the word "amend".

Why would Tertullian amend the brother's work? That makes no sense. Tertullian, according to you, would already have a completed work without mistakes and would just have to continue publishing it.

If the NT is published and someone copies part of it, full of mistakes, and then publishes it, why would the NT be amended, if the NT has no mistakes?