aa5874

The 'burden of proof' has not been moved anywhere.


Now this hardly makes sense to me, since 'rebels' never reflect the veiw of the establishment of their day, hence the word 'rebel'



Well can you verify the authors of the NT?
The evidence of authorsip of the Gospels has very little bearing on the authorship of other works. The fact remains, a person comes up empty-handed when trying to get evidence of authorship of the Gospels.

There are other factors that may help to determine authorship other than a statement of authorship. It is strange to me that you are so quick to ask what authorship will fail without having gone through an actual test. It is almost certain that the first to fail would be the authorship of the Gospels, this has been found to be so many times by many atheists.

That story is reminiscent of the authorship of the Gospels.

So why wont you accept the fact that the authorship of the Gospels is also a total failure? There is no solid evidence for the authorship of the Gospels, at least no-one can find any.

Amaleq13

Is just one example of someone repeating the tradition attributed to Papias what you would expect if it were true?

If Papias' tradition was true, I would think the connection between those two particular texts and their primary sources would be inextricable and consistent. I can't think of any good reason for anyone to drop the identification of the source if it was known from the outset.

Amaleq13

I meant that an argument from silence is "bad" or "good" depending on how likely it is that something other than silence would be expected. If it isn't likely that anyone would have said anything, an argument from silence is bad. I just don't see how that applies to the situation being discussed since it seems to me that we would certainly expect such a tradition to be repeated often and certainly if it was known to be true from the first publication of the first copy of the first version of the story.

Papias is supposed to be relating oral traditions obtained from disciples of the disciples (or one more step removed). Taking these traditions as fact, they must be as old as the first copy of the first Gospel story, no? That seems like the sort of thing that would get repeated every time the story was mentioned, doesn't it? In fact, I would think it highly unlikely that such a story would ever be referenced without the apostolic connection. It would, from the beginning and in everyone's subsequent reference, be called "Peter's Gospel" or "Peter's Memoirs" or somesuch.

The tradition attributed to Papias, rather than having an established existence as old as the texts, themselves, seems to slowly insert itself into the broader Christian traditions gradually.

Do ancient and true traditions become common knowledge only gradually? Aren't they, instead, more typically part of the first things that are taught?

Word of these specific attributions does not appear to have been common knowledge until many decades later. If this tradition were old and/or true, what possible reason could there be for this delay in transmission?

Ben C Smith

I am going to restrict my comments to the gospel of Mark (partly because I am not altogether convinced that Papias or his elder was necessarily talking about our canonical Matthew).

Not a lot of Christian authors up through Eusebius quote or allude to Mark at all (compared, say, to Matthew; compared to Tacitus, boatloads refer to him). Of the fathers who quote from or allude to Mark, remarkably many (Papias, Justin Martyr, the anti-Marcionite prologues, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Victorinus, Eusebius) name either him or Peter (or more usually both) as the origin of the gospel. The Marcan manuscripts (the complete ones) add another layer of testimony with their titulus.

There is also an early and interesting coincidence within the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. In Luke 1.2 the author affirms awareness of tradition based (A) on eyewitnesses and (B) on ministers (υπηρεται) of the word. Luke elsewhere uses this same Greek word in the purely secular sense of military officers in Acts 5.22, 26; in Luke 4.20 the word applies to a synagogue attendant. The only two instances in the two Lucan volumes where this word is used with a meaning approaching the meaning it has in Luke 1.2 are in Acts 13.5 and 26.16, the latter of which has Paul calling himself a minister, the former of which has, you guessed it, John Mark being called a minister. This may mean nothing; it may just be a nice coincidence. But I think it should at least be considered.

One last item. Clement of Alexandria writes in Miscellanies 7.106.4 that Basilides had claimed that his teacher Glaucias was the interpreter of Peter (recall that the elder, according to Papias, had called Mark the interpreter of Peter). This, I think, also betrays knowledge of the same vein of tradition in which Papias is writing.

I think it is inextricable and consistent. How many fathers even allude to Mark without naming either Mark or Peter (or both) as its origin? I have not counted, but it is not many, is it?

The ancients so often used sources without attributing them. Why it should be surprising in this case is unclear to me. Nevertheless, how many writers dropped the identification, in your judgment?

Ben.

Amaleq13

Isn't that odd if we assume Papias' tradition to be old and true?

Is Iasion's list in error? Where does Justin Martyr name Mark or Peter as the source?

Does it suggest there is any validity to the tradition, though?

What about Iasion's list?

Ben C Smith

Why? Especially with so many gaps in the extant literature (as Stephen pointed out).

In fact, we have a good counterexample to what you are saying in Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Irenaeus gives the full version, as it were, of the tradition of Mark and Peter. Hippolytus, who virtually had to have known of the work of Irenaeus, calls our text the gospel of Mark, but instead of relating his connection to Peter decides to tell us that he was stubby-fingered (a detail also related in the anti-Marcionite prologues). So here an author, Hippolytus, who is most unlikely to be unaware of the Petrine connection, does not tell us about it in his extant works. Ah, you may say, but perhaps Hippolytus mentioned it in some of his works that are not extant. Which would kind of be my point.

There may be reasons for doubting the tradition of Mark and Peter, but the argument from silence is certainly not one of them.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I'm not referring to gaps but to the list of explicit references provided by Iasion. The allegedly old and true tradition has disappeared.

I don't see how what followed was actually a counterexample since Hippolytus provides the sort of reference I would expect to have been the norm given an old and true tradition of authorship. I'm not suggesting that every reference to the first Gospel story would include a repetition of pedigree but that every reference to the first Gospel story would include either Mark or Peter by name if they were known from the beginning to have written it. Instead, we Iasion's list.

Ben C Smith

His list is... of what? Instances of the actual term gospel? How does that help us here? I am speaking only of the gospel of Mark, for one thing, and, for another, these texts were sometimes described with other words (such as memoirs, quite frequently, in Justin Martyr).

Not to me. I think Mark published after Peter had died. (Papias can easily be read in that way, and Irenaeus comes right out and says it.) It was the gospel according to Mark, first and foremost, and I even have reason to think that Mark was not even necessarily on good terms at this point (this is based on a possible translation of a phrase in Papias). I myself am suspicious of later attempts to push the gospel closer to Peter than Papias has it.

Justin does not mention Mark. He mentions only Peter (foreshadowing the days when later churchmen would cut Mark almost entirely out of the picture by turning him into a mere dictation scribe). The reference is Dialogue 106.3:

And when it says that [Jesus] changed the name of one of the apostles to Peter, and it is written in his memoirs that this also happened, with the nicknaming of others as well, two brothers, who were the sons of Zebedee, with the name of Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder, this was a sign....

The Boanerges detail is found only in Mark 3.17; it is absent from the other gospels.

His list, AFAICT, is about all the gospels in general. Where a single gospel is in view, the gospel in question is usually Matthew (for example, the love your enemies statement in Theophilus), Luke (for example, the finger of God statement in Melito), or John (for example, the Mary of Clopas statement, on which more below).

Moreover, the list is not very well assembled. Its compiler attributes the Mary of Clopas statement, with its attendant mention of the gospel, to Hegesippus. But this is Eusebius writing, not Hegesippus. Here is the full passage:

And the same writer [Hegesippus] says that his accusers also, when search was made for the descendants of David, were arrested as belonging to that family. And it might be reasonably assumed that Symeon was one of those that saw and heard the Lord, judging from the length of his life, and from the fact that the gospel makes mention of Mary, the wife of Clopas, who was the father of Symeon, as has been already shown. The same historian says....

There is no indication that it is Hegesippus who is doing the reasonable assuming here; this is Eusebius commenting on Hegesippus. And Eusebius, of all people, is definitely aware of the gospel attributions; yet he frequently refers to the gospel(s) as a generic group. If all we had left of Eusebius were fragments (heaven forfend!), and one or more of those fragments had this generic use of gospel, doubtless Eusebius would have made this list, too.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I am saying it was the norm. Again, how many fathers quote from or allude to Mark without giving some snippet of the traditional ascription?

Ben.

JoeWallack

JW:
Ben has unknowingly confirmed your point Doug (usually you are an Ace at this kind of Logic).

Isn't it obvious that the only reason Christianity attributed the first Gospel to "Mark" is because of what Papias supposedly wrote. There is no Internal evidence for "Mark" and there is no other early External evidence for "Mark". The first evidence for "Mark" is Papias and all subsequent evidence for "Mark" appears to have Papias as a Source. Once Christianity was ready to Ireneously attribute a name to "MarK", "Peter", would have been the logical choice. I mean who attributes a Gospel to an Interpreter when you supposedly have the Source of the Head disciple for Christ's sake. The problem for Christianty at the time is "Peter" was already taken.



Joseph