rlogan

I am not yet convinced of this yet and wish to study the point more. An announcement will appear on CNN when I have done so. In the meantime I am pondering something that is of more immediate importance to me.

I do not see how the text reflects full development of the final iterations of the gospel stories, and in addition it is very heavy on the HB. This pushes us in the direction of earlier dating, although I want to be careful about evaluating this in conjunction with what I see as the motivation.


oh for sure the problem is that there was no "conspiracy" conceived at the outset of the Christ eschatology that directed everything in a coherent way. Rather, a clumsy set of after-the-fact forgeries and interpolations was pasted over the existing structure, such as it was.

The way I see the "calamities" spoken of is just a vague, convenient, and believable excuse for the "letter" in fact being out of place with any real events. Searching backward in time to fit the vague "oh times were tough on us then" silliness is just as useful as looking forward for fulfillment of Nostradamus prophesies. It can fit in to many proposed places but the fact of the matter is that the letter does not anchor itself in reality and is part of the reason why I reject it as a forgery. If it was an earthquake, volcano, or plague, then it would say so.

The letter produces its own excuse for being out of synch with any actual history of turmoil by being "late" in arrival - apparently some are willing to stretch this lateness out to a number of years. But on the face of it I don't see the merit in such excuses.

At any rate I don't see any more "genius" than the letter being a "long time ago". The comment on Judas is on point I feel. And not just Judas. Why the lack of reference to the HJ material in general.



Very interesting. In keeping too with the lack of gospel material.

Doherty is a bum.

In terms of relative chronology you might have to put I Clement before the final iterations of the gospels given what I have said above. Doherty kinder on gospel dating than I am.

Perhaps I am not understanding your use of "dismiss". To me it is evidence, in conjunction with what else we know, of the fabrication of early church "history".

I have been alluding to Peter's site for the Dutch Radicals.

http://www.hermann-detering.de/clem_engl.htm


Been meaning to evaluate the assertion of the dating on the book of Judith before tendering it here, so will do my homework before getting back.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Nostri,

Excellent points. Thanks.

We first have to look at Praxeas 15 to recognize what Tertullian is saying about seeing the father and the son.

In the passage the phrase "without having seen him you love him" refers to the invisible God. The term "Jesus" has been added by the translator who does not understand that Tertullian is telling us that the Apostles have not seen the Father. That this interpetation is correct is confirmed by the Irenaeus quote of the text --

I suspect Ireneus is actually a name Eusebius applies to Tertullian's work "Against Heresies." So, in fact we simply have Tertullian quoting himself again here.

Clement of Alexandria doesn't have any firm date. He might have died in 220 as is often supposed or he might have died in 250, so we may assign his writing to the second or third centuries as we like.

Is there anything really striking in any of the other possible citations which undercuts a third century dating for the epistle of Peters?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

andrewcriddle

Sorry that should be
while Marcus Aurelius was Caesar (147-161).
his reign as Emperor obviously only began in 161

Andrew Criddle

S.C.Carlson

I think the attribution to a single individual is mistaken. This document attributes itself to the "Church of God residing in Rome" and its use of the first person plural throughout supports the concludes that it was conceived of as a corporate letter.

The corporate authorship of the letter, though technically not anonymous, was nonetheless subject to the same pressure over time that other anonymous or obscurely attributed documents face: there is a tendency for a weak attribution to be upgraded and concentrated into one (famous) individual. As church governance became centralized in a monarchical bishop (which seemed to have happened sooner in Corinth than in Rome), so too did later generations' assumptions about attribution. So, when the document's attribution became sharpened and its corporate authorship became ignored, Clement was the name that became the focus and got attached as the sole author.

That being said, I happen to think it probable that one of people involved in the production of 1 Clem was someone named Clement. Hermas knows of a Clement around this time who was responsible for foreign correspondence, and Dionysius's letter to Soter (160s) says that it was sent "by Clement" (διὰ Κλήμεντος in Eus. HE 4.23.11) and even Irenaeus's phrasing (170s) was indirect, e.g. that in the time of Clement, the Church in Rome sent the letter (AH 3.3 = EH 5.6.3).

A composition date earlier than his traditional episcopate in the 90s, assuming that was when this Clement rose to fame or some position of (joint) leadership, actually makes it more reasonable in my view that a more junior Clement in 81 got saddled with the grunt work of producing the first draft.

So, sorry to answer "yes" to your either-or question.

Stephen Carlson

Notsri

Hi, Jay.

Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians has definite parallels to 1 Peter. Certain passages correspond directly to 1 Peter 1:8, 21; 2:11, 22, 24; 3:9. And there are other, less certain parallels with 1 Peter 1:13; 2:12, 17, 21; 3:13; 4:7; 5:5.

The Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons has IMO a less striking affinity with 1 Peter than does Polycarp. Nevertheless, to my knowledge, the consensus has generally been that the Epistle's author(s) was influenced by 1 Peter. One passage e.g. reads: "[The martyrs] humbled themselves under the mighty hand, by which they are now greatly exalted." Cf. 1 Peter 5:6: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you." (Incidentally, the Epistle is found in Eusebius' H.E. 5.1-2.)

As mentioned before, it's much less certain whether 1 Clement and the Epistle to Diognetus were actually quoting 1 Peter.

1 Clement 49:5 contains the words from 1 Peter 4:8, "love covers a multitude of sins."

The Epistle to Diognetus 9:2 contains 1 Peter 3:18's "the just for the unjust."




Some interesting thoughts, Jay, but, with all due respect, it's just too speculative for me. It feels like you're sort of putting the cart before the horse, trying to make the evidence fit the conclusions.

One problem is that 1 Peter 1:8's "without having seen him you love him," is applied expressly to Jesus in a 2nd century document, namely Polycarp's letter. This of course would seem to imply that the words "Jesus Christ" from v. 7 were original, or at least part of the early 2nd-century text, and not the product of 3rd-century interpolation.

Another problem concerns the Irenaeus quotation. I think the passage actually militates against your argument.

As your excerpt bears out, 1 Peter 1:8 is used in reference to "Christ and [the] Son of God." Since he was something of an early Trinitarian, I can hardly imagine that Irenaeus would apply to the Son a verse actually about the Father. But his application indeed of the verse to Christ, would suggest to me that "Jesus Christ" was in Irenaeus' text of 1 Peter 1:7, that again, the phrase was not a 3rd-century interpolation.

Of course, even if we accept your proposition that Irenaeus' Against Heresies is actually Tertullian's, we're still not out of the woods; for the same argument as above applies. Tertullian, another proponent of nascent Trinitarianism, would hardly apply to the Son (in Against Heresies) a verse about the Father (in 1 Peter), especially in the context of a passage in Against Heresies wherein the Father is mentioned as well.

Regards,
Notsri

S.C.Carlson

Your IMHO is very interesting. Has this idea been developed in the literature particularly well?

Stephen Carlson

andrewcriddle

Something like this was IIUC suggested in J Ruis-Camps The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius the Martyr Rome 1979 Although I haven't read the book myself.

Schoedel in Ignatius of Antioch Philadelphia 1985 defends the authenticity of the full middle recension against these sort of challenges

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

Hi Nostri,

Thanks for the observations and quotes.

Here is the pertinent quote from Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians:
The author calls the Phillipians "the true elect of God and of our Lord." We may take it that the author is talking about two separate things when he says "God" and "our Lord," i.e. there is God, the creator and there is "our lord" Jesus Christ, who is the son of God. The statement "God raised from the dead" makes this clear. Obviously the author does not intend to say that Jesus raised himself from the dead. So we may assume that God in this passage does not refer to Jesus Christ who is called "our Lord." The term "will of God through Jesus Christ" is the third indication in this passage that God is intended to be separate from Jesus Christ.

Now we read the beginning of the following paragraph:

Note the term "believing on him who raised up our Lord Jesus" It is quite evident that the Phllippians believe in God -- the God who raised up our Lord Jesus. Recognizing that the Philippians believe in God, the God who raised our Lord Jesus, we may now go back to the first paragraph and ask who the author is talking about when he says the Philippians do not see "In whom, though now ye see Him not, ye believe, and believing, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory;"

It is clear that the Philippeans do not see God and yet believe in him. Why, because they believe he has raised Jesus Christ.

Once again we have a reference to God the father being unseen. We thus have references to God the father being unseen in Tertullian's "Against Praxeas," Irenaeus's "Against Heresies" and here in Polycarp's "To the Philippeans" It would be strange indeed if these three documents were talking about God and 1 Peter (1.8) was talking about Jesus Christ as being unseen. We may take it that all four documents are talking about God being unseen.

Because of the similarity in expression and ideology, we may also take it that all four documents were written by Tertullian circa 210 C.E.. The key is really understanding Tertullian's "Against Praxeas." It is there that the ideology gets developed clearly.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

rlogan

The Dutch Radical position on Judith placed the writing at 138 CE whereas its presence in the Septuagint would either make that an error of grave magnitude, or else I misunderstood and there was a version of Judith in question. I can't get my hands on the original paper.

At any rate, absent this possibility the I Clement reference to Judith, IMAO, cannot stand as a means of later dating. Basically valueless to dating.

CNN film at 11.

andrewcriddle

According to http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/vi...tid=8&letter=Q and http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Gospels...-Century2.html Volkmar and others held that the book of Judith refers under pseudonymns to the Jewish-Roman conflict of 116-118 CE.
Hence it cannot have been written till 118 at the earliest and Clement must be several years later ie around 125 at the earliest.

This may be a weird position but it does seem to be what Volkmar held.

Andrew Criddle