aChristian

As far as it sounding like a salad, when you take six accounts of the same events, each one mentioning different details, and then you recount the event in chronological order, you have to jump back and forth as you progress in time. What else would you expect?

gregor

Which is why your dime-store, cut-and-paste apologetic arguments (as well as your statements that the challenge has been met) should be ignored.

aChristian

Papias is referring to the Mark we have and probably to the Matthew we have.

Polycarp was John's disciple and thus had intimate knowledge of the history of the time and Clement lived then (in the 90s) and thus also probably knew some of the early followers being a bishop in Rome. They quote the NT and no one from that time mentions some wacky theory about redactors and editors.
We have evidence of the people I have listed in addition to others, including Eusebius (who had an excellent library with books from the period in question and is considered the father of early church history) and the people he quotes. No one writing at the time seems to be aware of any editors and redactors. They just name and quote Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Keith&Co.

Nothing better, as long as you're open to the idea that scripture is merely the product of man, with no supernatural (omniscient) inspiration, editing, direction or dictation.

Keith&Co.

There are a number of gospels from the first century that we know of only because people of the time discussed whether or not they were authentic.

My favorite was one that was proclaimed to be authentic until the authority read it. Once he found out that the theology of the document was gnostic, he changed his mind.

People at the time were certain aware of frauds and various 'wacky' agendas being spread around as divinely inspired gospel.

When's the first time we know of anyone accepting Matthew & Co.'s gospels as authentic? Or even questioning their authenticity?

Toto

Nope. You have to support this. Papias talks about Mark transcribing what Peter said, out of order, but that isn't even remotely close to the gospel known as Marks.

Maybe they were the redactors? or knew them? Or just made stuff up?

Eusebius is considered the inventor of early church history.

aChristian

You are putting your faith in a strange view of history.

aChristian

The point you are missing is that salad is exactly what is being asked for.

Keith&Co.

I dunno. Maybe it's me?

The authors of the Gospels report on a number of incidents they were not eyewitnesses of. Jesus talking with Satan, Mary with an Angel, Jesus with Pilate, Judas with the Men in Black, and so on.
When i ask my Faithful friends about that, well obviously someone told them what happened.
Ah, so they were writing down gossip? How do you tell the gossip verses from the historical events?
Oh, no, I'm usually told. God made sure that they wrote down what actually happened. Either inspired them or dictated to them or otherwise kept any word-of-mouth accurate rather than allow gossip. They talked it over among themselves before writing it down, to make sure it was correct. The methods vary by the Faithful, but the upshot is that God Made Sure.

So. With this editorial safety override in place, when we get to the reporting of an event they were actually witnesses to, suddenly they're reduced to these guys that saw a car accident, and their reports are varied exactly because, you know, no one sees everything the same way. Cops don't have a problem with it, why should you?

angelo

aC you seem to be of the opinion that Mathew's gospel was written before Mark's.

What evidence have you that reputable bablical scholars don't?

The consensus seems to be that Mark was written around 70 Ce. Mathew, maybe ten or twenty years later.