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The early church fathers is not an area which I have spent much time studying, but I notice that when one looks for numerous gospel ideas -- knowledge of terms and stories --, they are not to be found in the earliest fathers and only emerge with Justin (circa 150 CE) or later. (I have for example elsewhere argued that the use of "Son of Man" as a title for Jesus can't be found until Justin and in fact Barnabas states clearly that he was not.)

Have there been any studies of when early fathers knew gospel ideas, perhaps to trace a hypothetical evolution of gospel ideas to the stage that the gospels had definitely reached their final forms?


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Julian

While I am sure that there are many, and possibly better, studies of this topic Earl Doherty has quite a few things to say about them in 'Challenging the Verdict' during his refutations. Hardly an exhaustive work on these issues but well worth the read. It has to be read in parallel with Lee Strobel's 'The Case for Christ' and is a good example of a gospel authenticity debate. He uses the early fathers to show that the gospels came into importance rather late.

Julian

Nom

There's a ton of stuff on & linked at Peter Kirby's site, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

spin

Thanks for the thoughts, guys.


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Roland

spin -

Check this site out.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentin...ity/Table.html