Gamera

I have heard from various sources that the NT canon can be reconstructed, more or less, from the various quotes of NT passages from Irenaeus and other early church writers whose writings we can date.

An example of this claim is here:

http://www.biblefacts.org/history/oldtext.html

Even assuming some apologist exaggeration is going on, it appears at least a large part of the canon can be reconstructed from patristic quotes.

Does this have any impact on determining the earliest dates of the texts in the canon? In other words, is there some empirical principle that can be applied relating to the occurence of quotations of earlier texts in later texts that is useful in their dating? I'm not aware of any, but it seems like somehow the occurences of the quotes in such profusion might be subject to some law of dispersal that some historical linguist or paleographer has derived.

Iasion

Indeed.
This is a very common claim.

But is it true?
Can you show an actual listing of all verses of the NT and who quoted them?

I can - Peter Kirby did exactly that here :
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/e-catena/

The result is about HALF of the NT (I have not calculated the exact number, nor did Peter) is found in early quotes. There are very many verses, even in the Gospels, which are NOT quoted at all.

The claim is false.


Iasion

Gamera

I believe you. My question isn't dependent on the veracity of claim. The point is some significant percentage of the verses get picked up as quotes in material we can date. Does that help date the earlier material, is my good faith and nonconfrontational question.

Toto

From your link: I think that the quotes from Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement are too general to show that they were quoting from the NT.

Justin Martyr is usually used to determine the latest date for the gospels - mid 2nd century. Later patristic writers quoted the New Testament much more extensively.

I don't see how this could determine the earliest dates. The Christian churches in the second century could have taken advantage of Roman roads, and documents could have been available anywhere within a few weeks of their publication.

Toto

The Clouseau digression has been split off by the bouncer and can be found here

Gamera

I suspect you're right. I was just wondering if there was some "dispersal thesis" about how quickly written texts can get quoted in later texts in various percentages at any given time (in a nonprinting press context).

I know there have been studies on orality that produce some "laws" about degradation of the content, etc. I was just curious if there has been any analogous research that was relevant to the dispersal of whatever known quotes we have in later writers.

judge

One problem is that there is no such thing as the canon.

There are at least three different NT canons.

The one the Roman Catholic Church handed on to protestants. The one used by the Church of the East. At no point is there any evidence they accpeted the 5 disputed books as cononical, and lastly the Ethiopic canon, which IIUC has extra books.

Is one of these groups the real christians and the other not so?

If so how is this decided?

Toto

Bauckham's The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (or via: amazon.co.uk) (he's the editor) discusses this general issue.

But there wouldn't be an issue of "dispersion" as folklorists think of it. A document is produced and transported, and then read in its entirety (or it could be.) It's not that parts of it seep from one area to another.

Gamera

Thanks for the reference.

I suspect there are a great many imponderables in the transmission of texts in the form of quotes (things such as like interest and motivation to do so). However, assuming we can deal with them (I think it's safe to say there was a great deal of interest and motivation to quote the texts in questions in early Christian communities), I wonder if some baseline dispersal rate can be estimated, using studies from more well-documented scribal cultures like pre-Conquest Britain.

Ray Moscow

I would think so, although as I think Toto mentioned this limits us to a few possible (vauge) bits from Justin Martyr (mid 2nd century) and then the others somewhat later -- assuming that the patristic sources haven't been monkeyed around with.

So, it doesn't help us with an early dating for any of the NT.