Toto

There is a scan of a short article that Trobish published in Free Inquiry here (pdf format)

Trobisch gives his reasons for thinking that the New Testament was published shortly before 180 CE by Polycarp.

avi

Thank you Toto, for the link.

Very interesting.

No quarrel here, he seems right on target, to my way of thinking.

avi

discordant

The artwork is pretty funny.

stephan huller

I love David Trobisch very much and actually just finished speaking with him about an hour ago. Yet he is a little off the mark with his analysis. What he overlooks is that (a) Polycarp's gospel citation in the Letter to the Philippians is unlike any from the canonical texts and conforms closest the Diatessaron of all existing texts and (b) Irenaeus does not witness either Polycarp or 'the presbyter' (the manner in which Irenaeus seems to make reference to Polycarp in AH) when introducing the concept of the fourfold gospel to his readership in AH 3.11. If Polycarp or any other apostolic figure introduced the fourfold canon one would have expected that they would have been referenced here. Instead Irenaeus basically brings forward his collection on his own authority. Moreover Irenaeus can't decide what the right order of the gospels are. There are at least two major variants in Against Heresies - i.e. the familiar Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as John, Matthew, Luke and Mark. Moreover Trobisch mistakes the Irenaean claim that Polycarp was a stalwart of orthodoxy for his rival Florinus's implicit witness that he wasn't (i.e. that he was tied with the Valentinians). Who should we believe? Even Irenaeus can't impugn Florinus's authority on the beliefs of Polycarp. As such his testimony should be preferred to Irenaeus.

I am even now thinking that Irenaeus might have developed the fourfold canon in the Commodian period as a series of centos compositions but it was only established in its current order in the third century or toward Irenaeus's last days (assuming that date is somehow different). Irenaeus's orthodoxy was questioned by Photius. It should also be noted that Hengel disagreed with Trobisch's theories. I prefer Trobisch to Hengel but it is worth point that out.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

This article is very heartening.

I investigated the matter around 2004 and came to the conclusion that Tertullian had published the New Testament in the Summer of 206. The number of arguments that I had to make to refute wrong evidence was so great that I didn't really pursue it, except in a couple of posts on the internet at Jesus Mysteries.

Much of Trobisch's reasoning is similar to mine. The main difference is that I think Irenaeus wrote much later than commonly accepted, probably around 207 or 208. He places Irenaeus at 180 based on the information in Eusebius. My best argument for later dating Irenaeus was, as I recall, that he showed an understanding of certain of Tertullian's works that were written in the early 200's.

I am not sure if Trobisch is saying that Polycarp put it together or Crescens, Polycarp's assistant actually did it.

Still, the theory that it was put together by a single person around 180 certainly is a major step in the right direction.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Littlejohn

Much more realistically, Polycarp of Smyrna was a member of the team of expert theologians (mostly so-called 'Lower Flaminii'), which was given the task of laying the foundations for the new 'catholic-Christian' cult. The operation, sponsored by the secular power (Emperor + Senate) with about 200,000 sesterces, happened between 140-150.

So it was in this context that the canonical gospels saw the light. Was it dealing, however, of 'prototypes', since the texts were rewritten 4 or 5 times also, as the writer informs us Celso, through the extensive quotations that the Christian writer Origen did about his work ('Of the truthful speech'). Today we have even an Arabic source, about the fact that the gospels were rewritten several times, exactly as stated by Celsus.

All this shows that Celsus drew not only the Diaspora Jewish sources for the information and data that put him in his book, but probably also in gnostic-jesuan environment: probably the environment of the valentinian gnosticism, by far the most informed about the 'backstage' who hid behind the birth of the Catholic faith, since that Valentine was a candidate for election to the chair of the bishop of the newly formed Roman Catholic Church, after the abandonment of Pius I (156-157). The election for Bishop was won by Anicetus, through 'simoniac' methods.


Greetings


Littlejohn

.

avi

Thank you Jay, much appreciated.....Well done.

avi

hjalti

I think the evidence clearly points to the rosicrucian, montanist bishop Lucian of Mediolanum being the compiler of the proto-catholic canon in 208.

aa5874

David Trobish appears to have made a fundamental error. His basis for the claim that Polycarp wrote the New Testament is based on the words in John 21.24-25..

Now, based on Tertullian's "Against Praxeus", John 21, the entire chapter, was NOT even in gJohn up to the END of the 2nd century or early third century.

In effect, John 21.24-25 was written AFTER Polycarp was supposedly DEAD.

Examine "Against Praxeas" where the author IMPLIES that gJohn ENDS at chapter 20.31.

"Against Praxeas" Those are the words of gJohn 20.31.

Astonishingly David Trobisch uses an INTERPOLATED passage, a FORGERY of an ENTIRE chapter in gJohn, made some time AFTER the end of the 2nd century, to make a most FLAWED conclusion that Polycarp wrote the New Testamant in the 2nd century.

Roger Pearse

I must confess to feeling some considerable irritation on reading this.

I think we all have a pretty good idea of what sort of data exists about the second century. I'm sure I am not the only one to know that this sentence -- uttered with total certainty, as if it was a fact -- is completely untrue.

Surely we have a responsibility, when we post on historical matters online, to ensure that we do not mislead others. Yet imagine some newbie reading this, all innocent of the detail that it is completely fictional? Do we all really want to have to deal with a trail, downstream, of atheists repeating this crap in all good faith, under the pardonable impression that it was true?

We need no lies of this kind.

All the best,

Roger Pearse