Amaleq13

I asked you to support the following assertion with evidence:

Based on the quote you offered, you don't appear to understand what constitutes evidence of the authenticity of authorship.

Subjective opinions about the "sacred character" or their "tone of simplicity and truthfulness" or their "purity of their teachings" are not evidence of anything let along evidence of authorship. Early origin also does not provide evidence of authorship. It isn't until the last sentence that authorship is even mentioned but we still aren't given any evidence but the same assertion you've been making. Do you really not understand that a request for evidence supporting an assertion is not a request for a source that simply repeats the assertion?

Orthodox_Freethinker

Is this Catholic source the said Catholic Study Bible? Does this particular Bible represent the majority opinion of Catholic scholarship? Why not question the motives of a scholar given how much philosophical bias can influence one's research and conclusions?
The bonus question - Why didn't Crossan even bother to defend his assertions against Craig in formal debate while Craig actually provided evidence for his claims?

Actually, it does. If no serious challenge was placed on to authorship of the Gospels until it became philosophically fashionable to do so, that does raise a few legitimate questions.

That is actually not true. There is no evidence against the testimony of the early church fathers. Otherwise, it would be provided. Furthermore, the internal evidence of the Gospels has still been ignored.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

I don't understand why I should provide a source on something which should be common knowledge, especially among people who feel able to discuss New Testament scholarship. If you haven't already done the research on your own, now is the goood time to start and hopefully not solely from skeptical sources. I am not going to change your diapers for you.

Julian

I can't take this ignorance anymore. OF, you don't know the first thing about scholarship and the scientific method. Your posts have grown insulting and you have yet to contribute anything intelligent to this thread. Continue with your trusting delusion, without people like you the church could not exist.

You surely are orthodox but a freethinker you ain't.

Julian

Amaleq13

Why do you ask this question when that is the only source I have quoted in this thread?

I have no idea but your question is irrelevant since that isn't a claim I have made. I have told you the specific reason I have produced quotes from this source but you keep throwing out red herrings rather than address the point. This practice of yours is getting quite tiresome.

Do you question the motives of the editors of The Catholic Study Bible? I asked you before what philosophical presupposition motivated the stated conclusions but you ignored the question. Once again, it appears that you only question the motives of scholars who do not claim to share your faith and that is a double standard.

I don't know and I don't care. You appear to have a serious problem identifying what constitutes relevant evidence supporting your assertions.

No, you are wrong. As has already been pointed out, there are obviously other possible explanations. Besides, there is apparently nothing to challenge except an unsubstantiated assertion of "tradition". You certainly haven't offered any evidence to support the claim so I can only assume that the same is true of the 2nd century church fathers. OTOH, we do have Christians feeling it necessary to deny that the Gospel stories are myths so somebody must have been calling into question their validity as history.

I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying because your response seems to miss the point. You have not offered any evidence to support their claims and, instead, have repeatedly insisted they are reliable. If you have no evidence to support this conviction about their reliability, then it can only be faith that supports it. If it is not true, please provide the evidence supporting your confidence in those men.

You continue to misplace the burden. It is upon the early church fathers for making the claims and/or upon you for accepting their claims.

Please describe the specific internal evidence for Matthew that you believe is sufficient to carry the weight of the conclusion.

Amaleq13

The burden of proof lies with the claimant. I agree that the 2nd century claims of various church fathers is common knowledge among those interested in the subject but it is also common knowledge that there is actually no reliable evidence to support those claims. This is why the Catholic Study Bible feels compelled to acknowledge that modern scholarship has not found certain traditional views sufficiently supported by evidence to be accepted as true.

Your comment is inappropriate and I would have edited it had you addressed it to another member. Please make an effort to avoid such insulting comments in the future. They really only serve to make you look bad.

Your suggestion is pointless since I am already aware of the available evidence. I know that there is really nothing to support your assertions except the equally problematic assertions from Papias but I'm willing to consider anything new you might offer. That you continually refuse to directly address repeated requests for evidence supporting these 2nd century assertions suggests to me that you are fully aware that no such reliable evidence exists. I do not consider that consistent with a "good faith" attempt to engage in a rational discussion.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Why wouldn't the earliest testimony on the authorship of the Gospels be the most reliable?

I am sorry if I unsulted you. What I meant is that this is such a fascinating and complicated subject, one should not rely on others to do their research for them. One should approach both sides with an open mind and take everything in that he can before arriving at a conclusion.

As I've said before, the testimony of the early Church coupled with the internal evidence of the Gospels provides a rather solid case for their authorship. Ultimately, we will never know the authors of the Gospels with absolute certainty. However, what we can find is what's the most likely to be true.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Did you know that there are two competing strains of Catholic thought, modernism and traditionalism?

When the experts on Biblical scholarship from both camps engage in formal debate, it means something if the historicists win. This isn't the buzz and whistles kind of debate like between Kent Hovind and anyone who is willing to tolerate his lunacy. This is one side presenting facts and solid evidence while the other doesn't even bother to provide evidence in favor of his preconceived conclusions. Even supporters of the Jesus Seminar admitted that Craig won the debate hands down.

If the earliest testimony on the authorship of the Gospels remained unchallenged for over a thousand years, that means something. It's possible that those who wrote negatively of the Canonical Gospels had their writings burned but somewhere there should be some record of that happening if it happened.

Given that the earliest testimony on the Gospels is unanimously in favor of their authorship, the burden of proof is on the one who doubts.

"Internal Evidence
The following are seven pieces of internal evidence which suggest, first, that the author was a Jew, and second, that he was Matthew.10

a. Familiarity with the Nation
The author was familiar with geography (2:23), Jewish customs (cf. 1:18-19), Jewish history (he calls Herod Antipas “tetrarch� instead of “king�). He displays a concern for the OT law (5:17-20) and puts an emphasis on the evangelistic mission to the Jewish nation as well (ch. 10). The evidence is quite strong for authorship by a Jew.11

b. Hints of Semitisms in his Language
There are relatively few Semitic traces in Matthew, though one might note the heavy use of tovte (89 times), as compared with Mark (6) and Luke (15), perhaps harking back to the Hebrew za.12 Beyond this, there is the occasional asyndeton13 (a mark of Aramaic influence), use of the indefinite plural (1:23; 7:16), etc. Although Matthew’s Greek is less Semitic than Mark’s, it does betray traces of Semitisms at times—even where none exists in the Markan parallel. If Matthew did write this gospel, one might not expect many Semitisms since Matthew was a tax-collector and would therefore have to be conversant in Greek as well as Hebrew/Aramaic. But the fact of some Semitisms suggests either that the writer was a Jew or that his sources were Semitic. Yet, some of these are so much a part of the fabric of his gospel (e.g., tovte) that it is more reasonable to suppose that the author was himself a Jew.

c. His Use of Scripture
Gundry has ably pointed out how the author used the OT, especially in his formula quotations. Although there are many OT citations which correspond to the LXX rendering, his own introductory formulae (which are not found in either Mark or Luke) all seem to be free translations of the Hebrew.14 If so, then the author most probably is a Jew. Further, he shows great familiarity with contemporary Jewish exegesis in how he uses the scriptures.15

d. Attack on Pharisees
Matthew’s Gospel attacks the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders more than Mark or Luke do (cf. 3:7 16:6, 11, 12; ch. 23). Perhaps the reason for this was, in part, due to how hard these religious leaders were on the tax-collectors (they associated them with sinners and Gentiles). Not much can be made of this however.

e. Frequent Use of Numbers
The author’s frequent use of numbers would be natural for a tax-collector. He divides things into three parts: the genealogy, the trilogies of miracles in chapters 8-9; five parts: five great sermons of Jesus, all with the same closing formula (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1); six corrections on the misuse of the Law (in chapter 5); seven woes, parables (ch. 13); etc. Again, not much can be made of this argument, else one would have to say that a tax-collector wrote the Apocalypse! But at least it is consistent with who Matthew was.

f. His Mention of Money
A more weighty argument is the author’s frequent reference to money—more frequent than the other gospel writers in fact. He uses unique monetary terms (drachma in 17:24; stater in 17:25; talent in 18:24, 25); he alone of the synoptists speaks of gold and silver; Matthew contains the only two parables on talents (chs. 18, 25); and he uses tax-collector-type terminology (“debts� in 6:12 where the Lukan parallel has “sins�); “bankers� (25:27), etc. Especially when one compares the synoptic parallels, Matthew’s use of monetary terms seems significant. The most reasonable hypothesis for this is that the author was quite familiar with money.

g. The Calling of Levi
Both Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27-28 speak of the calling of “Levi� while Matthew 9:9 calls him “Matthew.� But all the lists of the apostles refer to him as Matthew (Matt 10, Mark 3, Luke 6, Acts 1).16 Yet, what is remarkable is that only in the first gospel is Matthew called “the tax-collector� in the list of apostles. It may well be that the author is showing humility in this reference. In the least, however, Matthew’s Gospel is the only one which identifies the tax-collector whom Jesus called with Matthew the apostle. The most logical reason that the writer felt such liberty with his Markan source was because he knew of the identification personally.

Thus he could either be Matthew himself or an associate who later compiled the work. Against the compiler theory is Matt 9:9, which records the calling of Matthew: “it is significant that it is more self-deprecating than Luke’s account, which says that Matthew ‘left everything’ and followed Jesus�17 while Matthew simply says that he got up and followed Jesus. If the first gospel were not by Matthew, one would be at a loss to explain why the author seemed to deprecate Matthew in such subtle ways. A later compiler who knew and respected Matthew (probably a disciple of his), or worse, a “school of St. Matthew,� simply does not fit the bill.18

In sum, each piece of evidence is hardly weighty on its own. But taken together, there is a cumulative impression made on the reader that a bilingual Palestinian Jew, well acquainted with money, wrote this gospel. External testimony has already suggested Matthew as the author; the internal evidence does nothing to shake this impression. There is, therefore, little reason to doubt Matthean authorship."
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=969

Furthermore, all known manuscripts of the Gospel have always had the inscription of Matthew as its author.

Peace.

Amaleq13

I would think that should be obvious given that "earliest" here refers to unsupported claims made about half a century after the first story is thought to have been written or even longer if you believe they were written earlier. To establish the reliability of such late assertions, you need evidence to fill in the half-century gap.

That I disagree with your assertions in no way suggests that I am unfamiliar with the evidence but I think your double standards and mischaracterizations of modern scholarship indicate you need to take your own advice.

Yes, you've repeatedly made this assertion and it is clear that you have a great deal of faith in it. However, you've also asserted that this represents the conclusion of the "best scholarship" and implied that anything else was outside the mainstream. This is clearly untrue. The assertions above are accepted by a minority of scholars who share the same faith as you and feel quite comfortable in allowing it to guide their consideration of the evidence.

Iasion

Greetings,

Such as the examples I gave above?
Which show the Gospels were originally anonymous?



So,
when are you actually going to DO some reseach into the evidence?

What is your take on all the early references being to ANONYMOUS Gospels?

What is your take on Justin referring to the Gospels WITHOUT authors name ?

What is your take on Aristides referring to a singular anonymous Gospel ?

What is your take on Aristides saying the Gospel was only preached a short time in his day?

So far you approach is to ignore the evidence, ignore the arguments, and just repeat your faithful claims, based on nothing more than earlier faithful claims.



The early testimony is all about ANONYMOUS Gospels.

The internal evidence proves no authorship at all.


When are you going to deal with the evidence?


Iasion