Chris Weimer

Hey great Richbee! You have just shown yourself fully capable of using the fallacy of appeal to authority. Now if only you learned the languages in question and read up on the necessary history perhaps we can have a decent conversation around here.

pharoah

I asked you for proof that the disciple Thomas didn't write GThomas. None of the above is proof. What your argument appears to be is that you don't like the contents of GThomas, therefore a disciple of Jesus couldn't have written it.

Diogenes the Cynic

There isn't any internal textual evidence to indicate the name of the author.
Thank you. I know Greek. I doubt that you do.

How old do you think the extant manuscripts of Matthew are? Do you actually think that 3rd or 4th century mauscript titles mean anything?

Matthew wasn't the first Gospel, by the way. It copied Mark.
Why would that be necessary?
There is no internal evidence. The text does not say that the beloved disciple was John, nor does it say he was the author of the text, nor does even the interpolated appendix in 21 say that the disciple it refers to was John.

The identity of the beloved disciple is unknown. It is only 2nd century tradition which identified him as John and claimed he was the author of the book.

pharoah

All the internal evidence is against John being the author. The author never mentions John or his so-called brother James by name. No mention of the Transfiguration, which John was supposedly an eyewitness to. Placing the temple scene early in the ministry is so preposterous that it betrays the fact that the author was not an eyewitness. Furthermore, there is good reason to suspect that John and James are literary creations of Mark, paralleled after the Heavenly Twins of Greek mythology.

Toto

Dignified as in, say, working as a prostitute and wiping Jesus' feet with one's hair?

The NT reflects the culture of its time. Women were generally second class persons as far as religious practice went, not allowed to be priests or hold religious office in the Jewish practice of the time. Why are there no named women disciples of Jesus?

Julian

Riiiight...

1 Tim. 2:11-12
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1 Peter 3:1
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;

The list goes on and on about how 'dignified' their treatment is...

Julian

Doug Shaver

On the grounds that it's a circular argument unless there is a clear connection with independent external evidence.

Iasion

Greetings Richbee,

Regarding the authorship of the Gospels, I refer you to my post in the other thread :

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...88#post3265988

This shows that the earliest references are to SINGULAR, UN-named Gospels.

Especially note Justin - who refers c. 150 to the "memoirs of the apostles" which are also "called Gospels" - he quotes from them at length (they are not quite the same as our modern versions, but very similar.) He never once mentions the author's names, which argues strongly that they were still UN-named in his time.

Also note Aristides who referred to a SINGULAR "Gospel as it is called" (without mentioning an author) which had only been "preached a short time" in his day (138-161). This argues that the Gospel was still un-named in that period, and still fairly new to Christians.

Several other references show that only a single, UN-named Gospel was known as late as mid 2nd century.

The current names are LATER additions - probably by Irenaeus in c.185


Iasion

Richbee

IMO, Elaine Pagels is a Neo-gnostic witch! :smile:

Gnosticism is dualistic - Lightness/darkness, with two gods. One Good and one Evil. And, Gnosticism comes from Syria or Persia and predates Christianity.

Paul wrote many Apologetic aguments against these ideas.

Richbee

Heretics are within the Church, teaching a different Gospel. See Galatians, when Paul asks, who taught you a different Gospel. Paul corrects many errors in his letters.

These never was a "Gospel of Thomas" and dead men don't write books.

In Christianity there is only the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and Paul does mention the Gospel message.

I have studies the early Gnostic history and it is far off, and way out of of bounds. Practically anti-semitic, against Jews and against the Old Testament. (e.g. Marcion)