Amaleq13

I agree that every Christian can be said to have an indirect connection to Peter but that tells us absolutely nothing about whether Papias' claim of a direct connection is reliable. Given that Papias' information was second-hand, at best, and we only know Papias by way of yet another intermediary, I would say distinguishing between signal and noise is a "somewhat problematic venture".

Agreed.

I can only assume the "certain mind" is one predisposed to viewing the evidence in a way that is favorable to "orthodox tradition".

The Historicist taking a more objective approach might wonder if the rumors Papias gathered are not simply evidence of a growing desire to establish the appearance of a continuous "orthodoxy" from his beliefs all the way back to Jesus, himself.

TedM

Your response works if person A is KNOWN to be the MOST prominent member, and if the author had NO relationship to person A. If the story told is considered true by the author and comes from a source the author personally knew, then ABSENT anything that shows that person A SHOULD BE the MOST prominently featured person, it is more likely that the source was person A than any other person, EVEN THOUGH we might still EXPECT person A to be prominently mentioned. Your point has some validity, but it assumes that person A would be the MOST significant person to be featured. We have no reason to assume that Peter would be MORE prominent than John or James. In fact, James barely mentioned at all, even though he was the MOST prominent one in the Christian community.


Who is talking about "establishing a personal relationship"? As usual, I'm talking about establishing a degree of probability that is higher than random chance.


Again, it is a matter of probability to me. I think it is probable that Papias was passing on both traditions (Judas and Mark) with some degree of reliability for each, and some degree of unreliability for each. I consider the likelihood of reliable information about Mark to be MUCH HIGHER than for Judas REGARDLESS of WHO was passing it along, simply because of the fact that less time had elapsed since the event in question, and people LIKE Papias would have placed MUCH GREATER importance on the authorship of material like GMARK than the specific details about how Judas had died.

IMO my approach is the MORE rational and logical one because it accepts the fact that we can't REALLY ESTABLISH much of anything. Everyone here is bringing assumptions to their analysis. The assumptions I bring in (off the top of my head) are:

1. miraculous accounts likely include myth
2. true accounts are distorted to contain less truth over time
3. unless there is clear reason to conclude that an account is entirely untrue or entirely made up, there likely is SOME truth in it

ted

Amaleq13

My response works with only the first part assumed and we have evidence from Paul to establish that assumption.

That assumption is established by the evidence from Paul who tells us that Peter was the first to witness the risen Christ and that Peter was one of the "pillars" of the movement. That is all our anonymous author needs to know in order to depict Peter as a prominent in his story.

According to whom? Have you bothered to actually look at the evidence, Ted?

Paul mentions Peter/Cephas 10 times, James 4 times, and John 1. Peter is identified as the First Witness and "pillar" while James is simply included by name in the list and identified as a "pillar". He also has the "special title". John gets recognition as one of the "pillars". All of this suggests to any goddamn author who wanted to write a story about the Incarnation that Peter should be depicted most prominently followed by James and John.

Mark specifically identifies Peter 19 times in his story and identifies James 11-13 times depending on how many actual guys by that name one thinks were involved. John is named 11 times. The only inexplicable aspect of Mark's story is the inclusion of Andrew (4 times) along with the Big Three. You might feel compelled to speculate about Andrew as Mark's "real source" but, even though he is depicted in Mark's story as Peter's brother, that does absolutely nothing to recommend Papias as a reliable source of information.

Everyone in this discussion should be focused on the alleged personal relationship of Mark's author to Peter. Papias claims it and some of you accept it as reliable but for no apparently good reason. You have clearly shown yourself to me to be too prone to conjure "probabilities" from thin air rather than from established facts so I continue to be uninterested in your unsubstantiated and entirely speculative pseudo-probabilities.

On the contrary, your approach is LESS rational and logical because it clearly IGNORES that fact and procedes to engage in speculative attempts to preserve a preferred a priori conclusion DESPITE IT.

pharoah

I'll have to diasgree with you here Ted. Sorry to derail here, but it seems to me that Papias' Judas comment has ominous implications for either the dating or integrity of the gospels. If Papias was familiar with Matthews and Acts then we would hardly expect him to introduce yet another tradition. To me that means either that the gospels that we have today either didn't exist then or that they have been heavily redacted since Papias.

TedM

I really don't know what you mean by "establish". Yes, if the author of Mark knew Paul (for which the evidence is weak IMO), AND he knew ALL of Paul's references to early Christians AND he wanted to make up a story about Jesus' disciples AND he relied on either the MOST frequent usage OR the first resurrection appearance to set up his criteria, then yes, there is grounds to say that Mark picked Peter to be the most prominent on the basis of reading Paul.

However, we don't know that Mark knew Paul. Even if he did, we also know that Paul depicted James as the leader of the Christian pillars--ABOVE Peter. Yet, Mark only mentions James, the brother of Jesus ONE TIME--though some other James (clearly not the brother of Jesus) was mentioned more, but still less than Peter. If Mark didn't know Paul at all, then we would have even MORE reason to expect a James to be the most prominent one--since he was the LEADER above Peter. Instead he isn't.

What does all this mean? Just that you are making an assumption based on the evidence in Paul that may not be justified. You don't seem to be able to recognize your own speculations here. I simply stated a fact about probabilities and backed it up with a logical example. If you don't think it is justified in this case because of your assumptions with regard to what Mark had read and how he processed it, that's your perogative.

ted

TedM

I'm not aware of any claim that Papias was familiar with Acts, nor the final version of Matthew, so yes, I think it is reasonable to conclude that he wasn't familiar with them at that point. But, I also think his comment about Matthew likely was also based on truth, and I suspect that the Matthew we have today is the result of combining the sayings Papias knew about with an "Mark's" account, or a similar one, along with some additional traditions--such as one about Judas.

I think you misunderstood my comment to mean that there is little consequence to the reliability of the gospels. All I meant is that there is little consequence to the reliability of the things Papias said.

ted

Amaleq13

establish: To cause to be recognized and accepted

Your unnecessarily convoluted contingency paragraph can be completely replaced with the single assumption that Paul is accurately describing the prominent leaders of the early movement.

That is really only a problem for you since you believe that James the Pillar is also James the Literal Brother. It is utterly irrational to ignore the fact that Mark depicts the same three names as part of the Inner Circle as Paul depicts the "pillars". As I've already said, it appears as though Mark's author has split Paul's James into two characters. Either that or it is simply a coincidence of common names that he chose the same name for one of the entirely irrelevant brothers.

TedM

Thanks. Of course it doesn't "establish" the criteria and assumptions which go into such a conclusion

Nope, you have to add to it that Mark knew Paul's works also in order to "establish" grounds for his story to depict Peter as the Top Dog. It still doesn't explain why he would treat James, the brother of Jesus, as basically no more than James the brother of Jesus, in one minor reference.


If Mark knew Paul it is indeed problematic for you to have to conclude "coincidence" that he chose the name a brother of Jesus James, though he was aware of the TOP LEADER of the Christians as both being named James and being called a brother of Jesus! What a ridiculous slip-up! On top of that you'll have to conclude that not only was Mark making things up and doing so with recklessness, but the author of Acts was also making things up, and doing so brilliantly: He must have felt the need to explain why Mark's James who was the brother of the pillar John, wasn't the same James as the leader of the Christians, since "Luke" apparantly accepted the idea that the leader was the brother of Jesus. So, he has James, brother of John, killed before the other James makes an appearance! Yet, "Luke" sees no need to identify the Christian leader James as Jesus' brother! What a sneaky conspirator "Luke" was!

So, on the one hand we have a really stupid coincidence, and on the other a brilliant correction to the stupid coincidence! I think THAT is an unlikely scenario, Amaleq.

ted

Afghan

Papias has nothing at all to do with the signal-to-noise from Peter to Mark unless you subscribe to the as yet unpopular "time-travelling 2nd Century Church Fathers" hypothesis except that he makes a claim that implies that it is low. But even if we ignore Papias, how indirect was the Peter-to-Mark connection likely to be? The 1st Century Church just wasn't that big.

Well perhaps. But, more basically, Papias claiming it because it was true also has an elegant simplicity as an explanation. Is it speclative? Yes. Is it doubtful? Yes. But is there a simpler way to account for what we do know about Mark and what Papias claimed about him? You haven't proposed one yet. Nor have I you suggested why the "Papias was right" explanation is inadequate unless you're asserting that Papias making a claim is evidence for its falsehood rather than just unreliability. You know something along the lines of...

He was a hearer of John [Presbyter] and a companion of Polycarp and told the most outrageous cock-and-bull stories when he had a couple of pints in him.

Diogenes the Cynic

The Papias has no explanatory power at all. It actually raises more questions than it answers and Papias can be regarded as a dubious source for other reasons (he had no connection to any apostles, his description of Matthew doesn't match the Canoical Gospel, his Judas story differs from both Matthew and Acts). Even if it's true that he heard this story from John the Presbyter, who is John the Presbyter? Why should he be in any position to know anything?

Even if J the P was correct, what reason is there to connect what he describes with Canonical Mark? How do you get from "Mark wrote down Peter's memoirs" to "This is that book?"