spamandham

Hold on! This makes the genre religious propaganda if what you are saying is true. How many times have you claimed it was 'fiction'? I'm encouraged to see you stepping outside the "virgins don't give birth, therefor it's fiction" box.

Sheshbazzar

I've read all of that in a hundred other posts, even agreed with most of it.
I'm still wondering what the crucial difference is to you, that requires the memoirs to be a single book, rather than a employment of a collection of Christian writings?

Do you think this means that the entire Christian church was limited to only one single NT book, "The Memoirs" of Justin?

And that that one single book contained every NT writing accepted by the then present Christian church?

Could no other NT writings have ever been produced before, or have co-existed with it?

These questions are important to the clarity of your position.
By your arguments, I am not at all certain that you have entirely read Justin's First Apology or his Dialogue with Trypho?
That is one hell of a large quantity of very complex but well organized Christian apologia for a single individual to have put together based on the OT, and only one single NT book of memoirs.
You have recently expressed your doubts about the authenticity of 1 Clement, and the writings of most other church Fathers, but you have no such doubts about Justin's writings? or about the existence of a early first century of a book named "The Memoirs of The Apostles"?
One might wonder why bother? If Justin is "credible", was real, and lived at the time claimed for him, and really by himself gathered all of that Christian apologetic material from one single NT book of the memoirs, This would not serve to much discredit the Christian religion, only the "history" claims of a latter church.
Justin's Gospel, and his witness to Christian teachings circa 100-165 CE would still stand intact, unassailed, and unblemished.
And today, although Christians in defense of their faith, will pay token lip service to the existence of these early Church writers, very few put much if any trust in those stories and claims surrounding them. You could invalidate most of them, but if you leave Justin and his writings uncontested, to them their faith in those Gospel stories that he witnesses to will remain unshaken.
If Justin is credible, it seems like you are doing a lot of just spinning your wheels to get almost nowhere to me.

Julio

It is Justin who contradicts Luke’s Nativity happening in Bethlehem, by referring to the Protenvangelium’ birth of Jesus in a cave nearby [not in a manger]. Could that be the "real facts" by the time of Marcion/Justin?…
http://books.google.co.za/books?id=5...um=7&ct=result

*The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers: A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Howard W. Clarke, on googlebooks usa for those who can't get to that link

andrewcriddle

It may be worth noting that some scholars believe that Justin used a harmony of Matthew Mark and Luke. According to this theory, Tatian formed the Diatessaron by harmonizing John's Gospel with this earlier harmony of the Synoptics.

Andrew Criddle

kcdad

"Which at the end also tells us that -these memoirs also included additional writings NOT written by the apostles-, but also those memoirs that were written by
-"those that followed them"
This being so, Justin was correct by not referring to the entire collection of NT writings as being "Gospels"."

There are hundreds if not thousands of writings NOT in the Bible that he might have been referring to, such as the Gospel of Thomas or Mary... Besides...How are Hebrews, Romans, Corinthians, and Acts not "good news"? Of course they are, and the good news is not limited to Jesus birth, life and death. It is not limited by who wrote it or when. Does Justin Martyr ever define what he means by Gospel?

Julio

It was a long time ago I read the Diatessaron. I don’t remember how much of John is included. Is anything from chapter 21 harmonized? And if so, how could that be? Harmonized with what?…
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...atessaron.html

andrewcriddle

One problem with the Diatessaron is that our evidence is somewhat indirect.
The link you provided is to the Arabic version of the Diatessaron which (mostly) preserves the original order of material but in which the text has been largely assimilated to the Syriac Peshitta.

However from the Arabic version and other sources Tatian appears to have included almost all of John's Gospel (He did not include the Woman taken in Adultery John 7:53-8:11 which was not part of his text of John.) John mostly occurs as large chunks inserted between blocks of synoptic material.

In the case of John 21 the Diatessaron goes from Luke 24:49 to John 20:20-John 21:24 then returns to Matthew 28:16

Andrew Cridle

ETA

John 21:25 occurs at the very end after Mark 16:20

Sheshbazzar

"Hundreds if not thousands of writings NOT in the Bible....."
That is pretty much what is being argued here, aa5874 back in post #10 of this thread stated;

"Justin directly quoted from the Memoirs of the Apostles several times in "First Apology" and "Dialogue with Trypho".

In post #12 I raised my objection to the implied characterisation of the memoirs as being a single book.
And our subsequent debate ensued.
In post #38 and again in post #42 I allowed for the existence of the unavailable and unprovenanced book that he seems to finds crucial to his argument.

I asked him these specific questions to clarify his position;
As aa certainly seems to have been attempting to imply that there were no other NT writings, nor any previous Christian writings that were of unknown authorship, beyond whatever it was that may have been in the book "The Memoirs of The Apostles",
And thus, that all individual Gospels must have been latter derived from Justin's book "The Memoirs", with no actual separate Gospel writings existing before.

My position has been that these writings did not originate as a single book, but as separate documents of unknown authorship.

I am still awaiting his reply to these specific questions.

Julio

That’s very interesting, thanks.
Is it possible, since it had to be copied by hand, that some parts would have been inserted later?
Another thing: What about Matthew 28:17-20? When was that section inserted in Matthew, then?

andrewcriddle

Matthew 28:17-20 follows Matthew 28:16

Andrew Criddle