andrewcriddle

I agree it is about Christians preaching the Gospel, but I think that to Aristides the content of the Gospel was not changed by being written down.

His point surely is that the Gospel message is relatively recent, not that it has only recently been committed to writing.

(We may hold that the nature of the Gospel message was radically changed by transition from an oral to a written form but 2nd century Christians don't seem to have thought like that, to them the Gospel is the message about Jesus whether written or oral.)

The fact that this Gospel is now available for Antoninus Pius to read, does not imply that the preaching of this Gospel only started when it was written down.

Andrew Criddle

Iasion

Greetings,

Nonsense.

Aristides refers to Christians preaching from a written Gospel about a virgin birth etc.

Did Jesus preach from a written Gospel about a virgin birth etc?

No.

Roger, and others, consistently ignore the part "which you may READ there-in" because it clearly means a WRITTEN Gospel.


Aristides is clear evidence of a WRITTEN Gospel that had only been preached a short time in 138-161.


Iasion

Iasion

Greetings andrew,

Why do you think that?
Aristides says nothing of the sort.


His point is the Gospel had only recently been preached - there is NO mention of anything earlier at all.



There is clear evidence the Gospel was changed over the years.


Rubbish.

Aristides makes NO MENTION of any earlier oral phase.
Aristides makes NO MENTION of preaching before the written Gospel.

But Aristides directly STATES the preaching about Jesus (from the written Gospel )only just started a short time ago.

This is clear and present evidence that the Gospels were late productions.


Iasion

Amaleq13

Unfortunately, his summary doesn't really match any of the four included in the Bible. Specifically, he appears entirely ignorant of any story about one of the disciples betraying Jesus since he pretty clearly states that the same twelve disciples who followed the living Jesus continued to preach about him after his death. He only knows a written gospel that has a virgin birth but no betraying Judas.

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure what you're claiming.

Aristides presumably believed that the preaching of the Gospel started before the middle of the 1st century CE. (He clearly traces this preaching back to the 12 apostles)
(Whether he was right or not is not the real issue although I would claim he was.)

This must be what his short time ago means ie only about a century ago.

The date when this preaching was written down is not the issue.

(Could you clarify whether you're suggesting that Aristides held that there was no preaching of the Gospel at all until much later than 50 CE or that he regarded preaching based on say Mark's gospel as fundamentally different from earlier preaching based on oral tradition ?)

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

This is a possible interpretation; but in view of the dual meaning of 'gospel' -- a) the message and b) one or more books in which it is written down -- it sounds much more to me as if he has meaning a) in mind, and then refers to the existence of a written form.

In my experience trying to squeeze answers out of half-a-sentence relating to a topic which is not in the mind of the author is a risky business, and one prone to mistakes. We mustn't force meanings on such a text, if we want to see what it says.

This seems upside down to me. How do you preach a book? You preach a message, which is contained in the book. As for 'a short time', since Aristides is preaching a gospel which is a century old by that point, does he not mean a 'short time relative to Judaism and paganism?'

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I've just referred to what happens if you try to extract answers from an author on a question which he is not addressing. This is another example. He wasn't interested in telling the emperor about Judas, so skips over it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13

No, this is an example of a strained apologetic attempt at harmonization.

What I provided is simply a description of what the text gives us. The author clearly states that the same group of twelve (ie "these twelve disciples") who followed Jesus preached the gospel after his death.

Clivedurdle

What if Aristides is before the other Gospels?

andrewcriddle

It's very difficult to see how Aristides could have known about the tradition of the Virgin birth, while not knowing about Judas.

If we assume that Aristides is deliberately avoiding saying 'the twelve went out and preached (except for the one who went bad betrayed his master and killed himself)' then this might point to an embarassment with the story of Judas. If so this might be relevant as to whether or not earlier writers such as Clement of Rome, who also don't mention Judas' betrayal, did or did not know of this tradition.

Andrew Criddle