Yuri Kuchinsky

Sure, Andrew, the Ebionite Gospel may well have been based originally on a harmony of Matthew, Luke, and Mark. But of which versions of Matthew, Luke, and Mark?

It's certainly highly unlikely that it was based on our canonical versions of Matthew, Luke, and Mark. So it's quite possible that those older versions of Matthew and Luke still lacked the genealogies and Nativity stories.

The Ebionites were early Jewish-Christians, and they didn't believe in Virgin Birth. I believe that it was the Jewish-Christians who wrote the earliest gospels.

Are you suggesting that it was the Gentiles who wrote the earliest gospels? And that, later, Jewish-Christians had to borrow them from the Gentiles, and then tinker with them?

Regards,

Yuri.

andrewcriddle

The Ebionites IMVHO seem to have regarded Jesus as having achieved his Messianic status through his own merits as a human being (Cerinthus who was probably some sort of Ebionite seems to have believed this anyway)

This idea is probably not primitive and would tend to exclude the idea that Jesus' birth was extraordinary.

We also seem to have some Ebionites who believed in the Virgin Birth.

I suspect that the absence of the Virgin Birth in the Ebionite Gospel is not primitive but part of the adaption of Justin's harmony to the Ebionites particular preoccupations.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

I have often wondered how strong the evidence for and against the Tatianic composition of the Diatessaron was.

Your page cites Jerome as saying, or at least implying, that only Against the Greeks was extant in his day. Here is the Latin of the relevant sentence from On Illustrious Men 29:

Porro Tatianus infinita scripsit volumina, e quibus unus contra gentes florentissimus exstat liber, qui inter omnia opera eius fertur insignis.

Tatian moreover wrote countless volumes, out of which one most successful book, Against the Gentiles, is extant, which is deemed his signature work among all that are his.

I can understand your interpretation here, but is it really clear that Jerome is saying that Against the Gentiles is the only surviving Tatianic text? Could he not simply be limiting his comments to one especially prominent book among many (e quibus unus)? Might not the sense be that of those many volumes there is one extant that was especially successful?

It is hard for me to imagine that Jerome, who depended on Eusebius so often and so heavily, would not have known that Eusebius attributed the Diatessaron to Tatian (the Eusebian comments on Ammonius do not appear to be describing the same kind of gospel harmony as the Diatessaron would have been).

BTW, also of interest in this connection is what Jerome had to say about Theophilus in epistle 121:

Theophilus, Antiochenae ecclesiae septimus post Petrum apostolum episcopus, quatuor evangelistarum in unum opus dicta compingens, ingenii sui nobis monumenta dimisit.

Theophilus, seventh bishop of the Antiochene church after Peter the apostle, in compiling the sayings of the four evangelists into one work, left us monuments of his ingenuity.

Ben.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Really, Andrew?

So you believe that all those stories about the Magi, the star appearing in the sky, etc. are real history?

And that someone made an effort to deny them later?

Or is it more likely perhaps that those folk tales were later additions?

From a realistic position, which one is the likelier possibility?

And so you, yourself, actually want to _include_ the idea that Jesus' birth was extraordinary?

Which ones do you mean?

It seems far more likely to me that the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus knew him as a man with a normal mother and father.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Good for you, Ben! You're one of the very few...

It might... but this doesn't seem like the most obvious reading.

This is just one line in Eusebius. Remember, in those days they didn't have indexes in the back of their books, or the search function on their computers.

That's debatable.

Yes, sure, this is quite relevant. So this is consistent with Jerome not being aware of the rumour that Tatian wrote the Diatessaron.

Imagine how it must have been in those days when having access to a substantial library (something similar to any one of our public libraries) must have been a great privilege. They had to keep all these things in memory, and there was no easy way to cross-check references.

Best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, all,

Here's yet another scholar who argued for the lateness of Mt 1-2. His name was Dr. Joseph Priestley, and he was working... way back in the eighteenth century!

So that's when _really_ radical NT scholarship proliferated -- it was in the 18th and 19th centuries...

I guess we can describe the 20th century as the Time of Darkness in NT studies?

Sounds weird, but it's true!

The following was posted by Peter Kirby at IIDB in August, 2003, and it deals primarily with the theories about the lateness of Lk 1-2. But Peter's post also mentions Joseph Priestley, and what he thought about Mt 1-2.

======quote=======

The Hometown of Jesus [Archive] - IIDB
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/archive/index.php/t-61184.html

The idea that 1:5-2:52 are an addition is not a
new one. Hans Conzelmann maintained this view
in his 1960 book The Theology of St. Luke. John
Knox and F. C. Conybeare did the same before
him. The Unitarian theologian Joseph Priestley
in the eighteenth century questioned the
authenticity of both infancy narratives of
Matthew and Luke. But we can trace back the
idea of the addition of Luke's birth story further
still, indeed to the fourth century. Joseph
Fitzmyer writes, "Years ago F. C. Conybeare
pointed out that a note in the commentary of
Ephraem of Syria on Tatian's Diatessaron, which
regards Luke 1:5-2:52 as a later insert into the
Lucan Gospel, confirms this suggestion." (The
Gospel According to Luke I-IX, p. 311) ...

If there were an interpolator, did his work stop
with the infancy narratives? It would be wise to
be on the lookout for more parts of the text that
could have been inserted.

======unquote=======

And of course all this evidence about the lateness of Lk 1-2, that Peter Kirby assembled here, is also quite valuable. The arguments for the lateness of the first two chapters of Lk do tend to parallel those for the lateness of the first two chapters of Mt. But it seems like there has been more interest about the Lukan interpolations in recent times.

And there's still more coming in this area...

All the best,

Yuri.

Chris Weimer

Fortunately, the over-radical NT scholarship which inhibited real progress to be made is now over and done with for the most part. Like all other fields, we've grown up.

No, it's your fanciful opinion, and a rather poor one at that.

The only thing you seem to be able to do is name names. Nothing substantial at all.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Yuri,

In my new book Evolution of Christs and Christianities(Raskin, xlibris, 2006) I deconstruct the beginnings of Matthew and Luke. I start along these lines:

First let's put the angel visitations in a logical chronological order:

Matthew 1.18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit;


Luke 1.26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 1.27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. 1.28 And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" 1.29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. 1.30 And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 1.31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 1.32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,... 1.33


Mathew 1.19 and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 1.20 But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; 1.21 she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."


Note, first of all, that important information is not repeated as we would expect if we were dealing with two tellings of the same story. For example, Luke tells us the place this is happening is Nazareth. On the other hand Matthew does not tell us the name of the place. If these two incidents were not part of the same story, we should expect to find both texts indicating the location where this is taking place. If the two texts were originally one, we should expect to find, exactly as we do, only one location mentioned.

Note that the angel's visits to Joseph and Mary are quite linked stylistically by the similarity of the angel's messages. He tells both Joseph and Mary not to fear, he tells both the child's name will be Jesus, and he tells both what the child will become. This would be an amazing coincidence if this was not originally a single story by a single author.

We may take it that the text from Matthew and Luke was once a single narrative where the angel visited first Mary and then Joseph. Since the angel has already told Mary everything, the visit to Joseph is basically for parallelism, in order to emphasize and repeat a few points.

If this were not the case, we would have to explain why Matthew has an angelic visit to only Joseph and not Mary, and why Luke has an angelic visit to Mary and not Jospeh. If the two texts were independent, it would again be a fantastic coincidence.

Thus we can say that whoever put the text in Luke either cut part of the birth narrative completely from Matthew and placed part of it in Luke, or he took a separate birth narrative and placed part of it at the beginning of Matthew and part of it in Luke. If indeed there are copies of Matthew missing the birth narrative, we may suggest that the latter is more likely.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Yuri Kuchinsky

Yeah, I'm sure you're already breaking out the Champagne...

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

[snip]

That's an interesting take on these things, Jay!

Well, it sure looks like there's some sort of a relationship between these two birth narratives, so your theory just might explain it...

But my major point in this thread is not necessarily to argue for a specific editorial history of these passages, but merely to point out how little has been done in this area in the 20th century.

Mt 1-2 obviously seems like a later addition, but not even one IIDB poster seemed to know anything about it, or who might have suggested this before!

<edit>

Some things that have been obvious even to the commentators of 18th and 19th centuries have now been swept very carefully under the rug...

All the best,

Yuri.