gurugeorge

Yes, but where is the evidence in the Paul writings in and of themselves that he thought of those people as disciples (as having a personal human relationship with the cult deity)?

It's only if you import the gospel sense of those Apostles into the Paul writings, that there's an illusion that he met "disciples of Jesus."

But why do that? For you, it's because you apparently think the Paul writings are later than the gospel writings, and you have your reasons for it, strongly based on the silence in Justin Martyr and others at that time (which I have argued against in the post above).

But IF THE PAULINE WRITINGS ARE EARLIER THAN THE GOSPELS ...

IF, if, if, I say;

THEN it's pretty clear that there's nothing in the earlier writing to suggest that these characters (Apostles, Pillars, Cephas, Peter, etc.) were conceived of by the writer of the Paul material as personal disciples of the cult deity while he was on earth.

All you have is a chain of "revelations", of "seeings" in a mystical or visionary sense, with those before him being on the same footing as the writer himself claims (i.e. as being in visionary, mystical contact with the cult deity).

Duvduv

AA, you are grasping at straws again. Big deal if one text says it. Does that make it the gospel truth? Is there any evidence for the actual existence of "Ebionites" who accept only GMatt? The answer is no.

What kind of religion is it that bases everything on one short text anyway? The Church simply needs to show on the one hand who is boss, and who are out of line, and on the other, that the canonical gospels were SO "authentic" such that even heretics approved of them.

After all, the Ebionites are never said to accept the Gospel of Stanley or the Gospel according to Jeffrey, are they?! Isn't it peculiar that all these heretics essentially accepted something of the orthodox imperial canon?!

aa5874

I have EXPOSED your error. It completely erroneous that Christian groups ONLY accepted 4 Gospels and a Set of Epistles.

You don't know what you are talking about. You don't seem to understand that Apologetic sources did admit that there CHRISTIANS GROUPS who did NOT accept the Jesus stories and the Pauline letters.

That is precisely why there are writings called "Against Heresies", "Refutation of All Heresies", "First Apology", "Against Marcion", "Plea for the Christians" and "Prescription Against the Heretics"

There were many, many Christian Groups in antiquity that did NOT have 4 Gospels and a set of Pauline Epistles.

Duvduv

Subjective evidence from an apologist is not evidence, it is an opinion.

Toto

The answer is yes - the same quality of evidence that you find for any other item for this era of history, or better.

This is a truly bizarre argument. But it is also factually wrong. There were heretics who used non-canonical material, such as the Gospel of Peter or the Didache.

I think you need to start documenting the source of your assertions. What do you know about heretics and the Christian canon?

Duvduv

How do you know what heretics ACTUALLY believed or didn't believe since there is no independent corroboration? Are you so wedded to the statements of the church apologists? Of course it can be argued that the author was simply pushing the "authenticity" of the official gospels by showing that they were also accepted by heretics.

aa5874

How can you CORROBORATE your claims?? What sources are you going to use?? Eusebius, or Irenaeus!!!

Toto

Let's stop going around in circles.

Most people are willing to accept the idea that the statements of an enemy are a different quality of evidence than self-serving statements in your own interest.

Before the Nag Hammadi cache of manuscripts was discovered, we had only the statements of these heresiologists as to what gnostics believed. The discovery tended to validate the idea that the heresiologists did give a trustworthy account of what their opponents believed.

If you don't accept this, at least recognize that your view is way off the charts. It is your individual, unsupported, unreasoned belief. And until you can come up with some better support for it, please stop inserting it everywhere.

No, this argument does not work. No early apologist makes this argument. Often, they charge the heretics with rewriting the gospels, or following other gospels, such as the Gospel of Peter that you keep avoiding.

Duvduv

If the "Ebionites" are one class of enemy who were so large to deserve mention and who accepted the GMatt, which happened to be one of the canonical gospels, it is a backhanded way of establishing the authenticity of the gospel of the orthodox isn't it, since even the heretics accept it?!

And if heretics are accused of "rewriting" well, they are REWRITING WHAT?! The "authentic" gospels of course!
Of course here are no remnants of rewritten gospels (or epistles), only the claims, i.e. that it must be the case that "Marcion" altered the epistles, etc.

I never claimed that ALL ostensible heretical groups accepted canonical texts. On the other hand, there is NO WAY of claiming that the authors of the Nag Hammadi texts either specifically opposed the canonical texts or followed a serious alternative of their own theology.

Toto

No. This is a totally unpersuasive argument. You seem to like it, but it doesn't fit anything about the history of the era.

Besides which, it is not at all clear that the Ebionite's gospel was actually the same as our Matthew.

From earlychristianwritings

So the only evidence is that the Ebionites used a gospel that they called "according to the Hebrews" which a much later commentator assumed must have been a mutilated version of gMatthew, because he erroneously assumed Matthew had been originally written in Hebrew . .

That's the point - the so called proto-orthodox assumed that their gospels were the original, and any other gospel must be a mutilated version of a canonical gospel, just as all religions other than their version of Christianity were false and were bad parodies of the true religion. This does nothing to support your original point, which seems to have gotten lost.

The last sentence is unclear. Have you read the Nag Hammadi texts? How can you seriously claim that they do not oppose the canonical texts or have a separate theology?