Antipope Innocent II

I think you'll find yourself in good company here then. Very few people here regard the Jesus presented in the gospels as anything other than fictional or at least fictionalised. Whether this means no such person ever existed, on the other hand, is another question. There are a wide range of opinions on that one as well.

That's quite a testament to you, if you don't mind me saying so. I know many people who managed to shake off the familial and social constraints that kept them from looking objectively at the evidence in their teens or even their twenties, but to do so in your late forties is a testament to your objectivity.

The Christians on the board will, of course, disagree with me there.

Strobel and McDowell are simply preaching to the dumbest end of the choir. To be blunt (and I usually am), Wright is merely couching much of the same stuff in slightly more sophisticated terms for the smarter end of the same choir.

He's overstating things. Thomas is generally dated to seventy to one hundred years after we know the canonical gospels were being used, but to say that was "widespread use" is moving beyond what we can say based on the evidence. That the canonical gospels are the earliest gospels and that they came to be widely used is beyond reasonable doubt, but we simply can't say they were in "widespread use" that early. We just don't know.

That's a considerable overstatement of the evidence.

While the canonical gospels were never in any real dispute (apart from later exceptions like Marcion), we can't say they were "intimately familiar" with them. Some communities may have known one of them, others may have known several, others still may even have known them all.

And/or other gospels entirely. In a couple of his books Ehrman relates the story of Bishop Serapion visiting the church at Rhossus and being perfectly happy with them using a Gospel of Peter. After all, Peter was an apostle and he couldn't see any problem with them using a text by him. It was only later when he found this text contained docetist ideas that he wrote a letter to them condemning the use of that "gospel". That indicates that there was any uniform idea that the four canonical gospels were exclusive or even had a degree of primacy, let alone were widely known and accepted is untenable.


That, on the other hand, is certainly a reasonable statement of why these gospels gained authority. As the example of the Gospel of Peter above shows, however, pseudepigraphical works gained authority for the same reason. The difference was that the canonical gospels were (i) free of abvious later theological additions and (ii) in circulation longer. That's ultimately why they came to be considered canonical and later gospels didn't.

David L. Dungan makes a convincing case for how Third and Fourth Century Christian scholars used the techniques and criteria of the Greek philosophical schools, following their criteria of what were "canonical" writings of philosophers, to determine which gospels were authoritative in his Constantine's Bible: Politics and the Making of the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk).
That they were aware of the canonical gospels (and others) is beyond doubt. That this awareness was as widespread or as primary as Wright makes out is another story.

As for whether they were aware of a "HJ" - well, that's beyond reasonable doubt outside of the bubble of forums like this one, but there are all kinds of highly "imaginative" people here ... :Cheeky:

Roger Pearse

This isn't quite what Eusebius says, iirc.

There was dissention in the church at Rhossus over whether this GoP should be read in church. Serapion was written to, and replied that if that was the only issue, then read it. However later he obtained a copy and discovered that it was docetic -- i.e. a fake, and so should not be read.

The Decretum Gelasianum, written in the 5-6th century, indicates that many things might be read in church without being scripture, since it condemns some of martyr-stories as foolish and liable to provoke pagans to jeering.

As such this in fact doesn't indicate anything about canon.

There must have been a period at which the 4 gospels were newly written and starting to circulate, a period at which their status as authoritative is not what it is today. But the conclusions drawn from this should be cautious.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Huon

welcome eheffa !
You could have a look at this thread :
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=227013
in which almost the same question as yours is asked :
was luke reporting eye witness accounts ?

GakuseiDon

Perhaps you should move away from apologetics?

Perhaps you should move away from apologetics?

Arguably the earliest reference to some kind of gospel is in Luke:

"Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us"

dog-on

Of which the earliest reference seems to be in the hands of Marcion...

GakuseiDon

Marcion wrote both Paul and Luke?

aa5874

The Paul of Acts appears to be a product of the author of Acts.

dog-on

The ealiest reference to a form of Luke seems to be in the hands of Marcion. This may even be the case for the Pauline epistles, (if, as I favor, Clement is spurious), as well. Marcion's Apostolicon (sp?) seems to have been the impetus for the development of the Christian canon.

It is possible that Galatians, in it's original form, was a product of Marcion or his circle.

dog-on

The author of Acts may well have been the "editor" of Luke, both, IMO, mid-second century occurances.

eheffa

Thanks Judge,

I see this is a pretty active group. I'll be a while in responding to many of these thoughtful replies...

Yes, I would think perfect evidence is not forthcoming but for writings supposedly inspired by God himself one would expect a more complete and compelling record of the incarnation.

I have considered many of the arguments for & against the existence of god to be outside the issue of the gospels' veracity etc except that for me, my faith in God essentially rested on a belief in the HJ. The cosmological, philosophical arguments and questions of origins etc. have all pushed me towards an atheistic or agnostic position but I was content that the HJ was enough to counter these arguments. I am no longer content or convinced that this is a tenable position but need to lay some of these lingering objections to rest.


I agree wholeheartedly. We may not know what the truth is, but I do believe that it exists & is worth pursuing.

-evan