Kapyong

Gday,

When are the first clear quotes from named Gospels ?


K.

Juststeve

Kapy:

Don't know and don't really care. I accept as a given the first century dates for the Gospels based on a wide ranging consensus of the kind of scholars who get published in peer reviewed journals. If they are wrong then I'm wrong.

Steve

Toto

Can you name those peer reviewed journals and the basis for review?

Juststeve

Toto:

Just in case your question is serious some include:

Harvard Theological Review

Journal Of Biblical Literature

Journal For The Study Of The New Testament

Currents In Biblical Research

Novum Testamentum

New Testament Studies.

The basis for acceptance varies from journal to journal but all would include acceptance of the work by recognized scholars in the field as opposed to the ability to post something on the internet.

I doubt your question was serious though.

Steve

Toto

And you have a reference to an actual peer reviewed article that establishes a consensus?

For example, one finds repeatedly that the consensus date for Mark is 70 CE, but why? It appears that this is an accomodation to believing Christians who want the date as early as reasonably possible. There is no evidence that Mark was actually written before the mid second century.

mountainman

But we have the received tradition! Isn't that enough?

aa5874

Any claims of a consensus for the dating of the Gospels are irrelevant when the dating of the Gospels are NOT certain.

It is PRESUMED by some Scholars that the Gospels were written in the 1st century but there is NO actual Canonized Gospel that have been dated to the 1st century.

And further the earliest Canonized Exant Gospels are DATED to the 4th century

mountainman

Not only that, but it is universally acknowledged that the orthodox canon was not finalised and closed until after the death of Emperor Julian c.367 CE. Therefore the chronology of the field of the critical examination does not stop at Nicaea, but must extend to c.367 CE.

Doug Shaver

You offered them as evidence contrary to my assertion about the nonexistence of unambiguous pre-Ignatian references to Jesus' earthly life.

If they are post-Ignatian, then you are the one with an empty list.

I am not offering the Didache as evidence for anything. Historicists who offer the Didache as evidence for their position have the burden of proof.

It does nothing to my problem, but as a counterargument to my position, it begs the question.

Not unless Kahlil's Gibran's The Prophet is evidence for a historical Almustafa.

I made clear that I don't regard them as pre-Ignatian. In the present context, that is all I need to make clear.

Unless it was intended as biography, its allusions are irrelevant, at least prima facie. If you wish to claim that we should not expect a particular allusion to have been made unless the author believed the thing alluded to was a real event, then you need to present an argument to that conclusion.

I don't know for a fact that that are any, and my argument does not depend on there being any.

ApostateAbe

Thanks for clearing that up, Doug Shaver. I suggest a slight rewrite of your argument. Instead of saying, "In noncanonical Christian writings, there are no unambiguous biographical references to Jesus earlier than Ignatius' in the early second century...", you should say, "There are no certain noncanonical Christian writings before Ignatius," since that is apparently what you mean, and you can build your proposed probabilistic difficulty on that, whatever the difficulty may be. Your claim seems to assume the existence of noncanonical Christian writings before Ignatius, and you are leading the reader to think that such writings are mysteriously empty of the life of Jesus. It would be like me saying, "Out of all of my private jets, none of them can travel backward in time." True, right? Anyway, thanks for hearing me out.