Iasion

Greetings judge et al,

An interesting question indeed.
The earliest Christians show no clear knowledge of the Gospels or even their contents.
(I do not count spiritual references to the Risen Christ, a la Paul.)

Here is my rough list of early Christian writings (dated approx. to the decade) which show no knowledge of the Gospels or their stories :

Paul (50s)
Hebrews (60s)
James (80s)
1 John (80s)
Paul2 (80-90s)
1 Peter (90s)
1 Clement (90s)
Revelation (90s)
Didakhe (100s)
Jude (100s)
2,3 John (120s)
ap.Peter (120s)
preachPeter (120s)
2 Peter (130s)
Pastorals (130s)
g.Peter (130s)
Mathetes (140s)
2 Clement (140s)
dial.Saviour (150s)
g.Mary (150s)


And some writings whihc help to show the development of the Gospels :

Barnabas (110s) - earliest mention of "pierced".

Papias (130s) - first mentions of proto-Gospels.

Hermas (130s) - first mention of the empty tomb.

Epistle of the Apostles (140s) - some Gospel stories, 1st mention of virgin Mary

Ignatius (130s?) - claims that Jesus was "truly" crucified etc. - 1st mention of Pilate.

Marcion (140s) - early proto Gospel.

Justin (150s) - mentions the anonymous "memoirs of the apostles" also called "Gospels".
1st to quote Gospel material at length (not quite like our modern copies.)

Aristides (138-161) - describes the Gospel as being preached "a short time".

Irenaeus (180s) - 1st to name the Gospels.


I think the evidence is pretty clear -
the Gospels and their stories were unknown in 1st century,
arose during the early 2nd century,
developed over the mid 2nd century,
then were finalised in late 2nd century.


Iasion

Ulrich

I was going on my spotty memory alone, and I did say "120 CE give or take", I will defer to Iasion on his more accurate version of when the gospels were mentioned. I was likely thinking of Papias' mention in Exegeses of the Logia of the Lord around 130 CE. And of course 130 CE would have been within 100 years of the time the supposed events happened. I apologize for the inaccuracy of my memory.

Clivedurdle

Is he their author?

cognac

You've done gospels mentioned by date. What about attempting to reconstruct the gospels from quotes. What is the earliest date that we can reconstruct the gospels (as we have them now) from quotes? Or come close enough to them to say they existed in final form by that date?

Side note: didn't Josh McDowel quote some guy from the 1700s who asked just this sort of question and claims that he could do it by the second century?

andrewcriddle

Ignatius almost certainly knew something like the present gospel of Matthew.

See for example the reference to Matthew's birth narrative in 'To the Ephesians' to Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism in 'To the Smyrnaeans' and to Matthew 10:16 in To Polycarp'.

Andrew Criddle

Peter Kirby

Try looking up "The Patchwork Gospels," a book in which the author lines up the gospel verses with their earliest quotations.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

Thanks Andrew. I agree.

However, I disagree with the assumption that one can push the date of a document forward to the earliest demonstrated reference to it.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Chris Weimer

The Pastorals knew Luke, and were probably written by him, or a person in his community.

judge

Thanks for the reply :wave:

Why would we expect Paul to have quoted the gospels?

S.C.Carlson

The book's website with a couple of samples is right here: http://www.jlc.net/~aretee/aretee/pwg.html