JES

I have been reading a lot on the reliability of the NT and came across the following assertion:

A further witness to the New Testament text is sourced in the thousands of quotations found throughout the writings of the Church Fathers (the early Christian clergy [100-450 A.D.] who followed the Apostles and gave leadership to the fledgling church, beginning with Clement of Rome (96 A.D.).

It has been observed that if all of the New Testament manuscripts and Versions mentioned above were to disappear overnight, it would still be possible to reconstruct the entire New Testament with quotes from the Church Fathers, with the exception of fifteen to twenty verses!



Is this true? Can the entire NT be reconstructed from Church Father quotes? This is the first I've seen this argument and I'm wondering how to verify it.

Chris Weimer

How late are we talking about here? What's the cut-off date? You should check out Peter Kirby's E-Catena for listings of quotes by church fathers.

Julian

I haven't done a count but it might be true. The problem is that we would end up with a very poor text most likely. Patristic quotations rank rather low in the hierarchy of witnesses when doing textual criticism.

Julian

JES

Great resource...Thanks!

Doug Shaver

I wouldn't be surprised.

Trouble is, apologists who cite this factoid try to suggest that it is evidence for truth of what is in the document. All it proves is that it got quoted a lot. And from that, we may infer that early Christians considered it authoritative. What apologists need to prove is that they had good reason to so consider it. They never have done that, so far as I know.

Tigers!

Why would it be quoted so much unless it was considered authorative by those people?

mountainman

Correct, but not when it got quoted.

There are two separate inferences packed into the above:

1) that there were early (pre-Nicaean) christians before Eusebius.
2) that such people (if they existed) considered it authoritative.

We can be pretty sure that christians after Nicaea considered it with
a great degree of authority via Constantine's involvement.

However it may also be inferred that that there were indeed no
christians on the planet before Eusebius. See the list of inconsistencies
which have been levelled against this inference:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_070.htm


Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/namaste_2006.htm
NAMASTE: “The spirit in me honours the spirit in you”

Diogenes the Cynic

That they considered it authoritative is not in dispute. The fact that they considered it authoritative still does not prove that they had any basis for that consideration. Millions of people consider the Book of Mormon to be authoritative? Does that prove anything about the BOM?

Vorkosigan

I don't see how. If you use Kirby's E-catena, even though it is incomplete, it is nevertheless indicative. Looking at Mark, there are only two cites of Mk 8 outside Mark 8:30-8. Most of the chapter would be lost. In Mark 2 the last seven verses are not cited anywhere. Etc. Yes, it is not complete, but the boast looks like bragging to me

Kirby's E-Catena

and further, the cites are often paraphrases.

Michael

Angrillori

Have you seen how many Simpsons quotes get bandied about around here?

I wouldn't be surprised if you could reconstruct The Simpsons from available quotes. This, of course, doesn't bouy the claims of divine inspiration or factualness or inerrancy for this particular animated work.