Doug Shaver

He didn't write fiction, either. He wrote fables. There is a difference.

aa5874

You mean fables are historical accounts of fiction?

A fable is a non-historical account.

mountainman

The issue (following the Acts of Pilate) is what genre are the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc".
The following summary index has been gleaned from a number of sources.
All sources appear to characterise the "Gnostic Gospels, etc" as fables.

They are not just quasi-historical fables but are "OUTRAGEOUSLY FABULOUS".
They are characterised by high fiction and impossible scenarios.
Paul finds a taliking lion in the wilderness, and baptises it.
Like Aesop's mouse, Paul is saved from death in the Colleseum by the same lion.

While the canonical Gospels and Acts etc may possibly hold some form of obscure "historical truth" the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc" are almost universally accepted as being some form of romanitisisation of the canon and are thus several steps removed from even being considered to hold any historical truth.

Of course this does not preclude people believing in the narrative legends presented in the "Gnostoc Gospel, etc" and if you were to examine all the legends of early christianity you will find that if the source of the legends do not exist in the canon, then they will surely (in most early cases if not all) be found within one or more of the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc".

The "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc" ......
An Index of Summary Comments of Academics and Scholars

"insipid and puerile amplifications" [Ernest Renan]

"excluded by their later and radical light" [John Dominic Crossan]

"severely conditoned responses to Jesus ... usually these authors deny his humanity" [Robert M. Grant]

"they exclude themselves" [M.R. James]

"The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history" [Bart Ehrman]

"The Leucian Acts are Hellenistic romances, which were written to appeal to the masses" [Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard]

"The key point ... [NT Apocrypha] have all been long ago considered and rejected by the Church.

"The names of apostles ... were used by obscure writers to palm off their productions; partly to embellish and add to ... partly to invent ... partly to support false doctrines; decidedly pernicious, ... nevertheless contain much that is interesting and curious ... they were given a place which they did not deserve." [Tischendorf]

"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ... making fun of traditional biblical beliefs"[April Deconick]

"heretics ... who were chiefly Gnostics ... imitated the books of the New Testament" [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"enterprising spirits ... pretended Gospels full of romantic fables and fantastic and striking details, their fabrications were eagerly read and largely accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity." "the heretical apocryphists, composed spurious Gospels in order to trace backward their beliefs and peculiarities to Christ Himself." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"the fabrication of spurious Acts of the Apostles was, in general, to give Apostolic support to heretical systems, especially those of the many sects which are comprised under the term Gnosticism. The Gnostic Acts of Peter, Andrew, John, Thomas, and perhaps Matthew, abound in extravagant and highly coloured marvels, and were interspersed by long pretended discourses of the Apostles which served as vehicles for the Gnostic predications. The originally Gnostic apocryphal Acts were gathered into collections which bore the name of the periodoi (Circuits) or praxeis (Acts) of the Apostles, and to which was attached the name of a Leucius Charinus, who may have formed the compilation." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

Doug Shaver

No, I don't mean that.

Doug Shaver

[Premature posting]

darstec

P52 has a date based upon paleography. Recently it has been shown that newly discovered fragments were dated to well within the third and fourth century having the exact same handwriting. Besides there is only one undisputed complete word in the fragment, the word "and" and from that they have determined it is part of a gospel.

As to Papias and those other early writers, we don't even have evidence they actually existed. We have nothing of them, no personal items and no writings, not even people claiming to be relatives nor descendants of them. What we have is fragments from Eusebius claiming to be things he read from Papias and other early Christian writers.

That makes a huge difference. Furthermore we have nothing from even Eusebius was wasn't copied almost a millennium after the fact.

aa5874

Well, then you must agree or mean that a fable is a non-historical account or, in other words, fiction.

Doug Shaver

Wrong again.

aa5874

You post fables.

mountainman

Is this fiction or is this history?


If this is an historical account then it proves beyond
a shadow of a doubt that the apostles could fit a
camel through the eye of a needle.

IMO this - Acts of Peter and Andrew - represents a fiction.
All the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc" are of the same genre.


SUMMARY

While the question of the genre of the canonical gospels and acts
is a separate question -- perhaps they are historical, perhaps not ---
as far as I have determined, the question of the genre of the non
canonical gospels and acts is reasonably very certain ---
they are plain and simple gross fictions and monstrous tales.

And they were intended to amuse the masses.
They amused the Greek masses until their reading was prohibited in the 4th century.
They became verboten.
Pope and Pontifex Maximus Damasius might have said after Julian died ....
"You cant speak like that about Jesus and Peter"!

At that point (if not well before) they went underground, to the Coptic and to the deserts of Syria.
They became the "new testament apocrypha".
The "Hidden Books" which recorded a contempt of the state canon of the state Christian religion.