Ben C Smith

Agreed.

Ben.

sschlichter

I do not know what you mean by most historical. Are you referring to it being the most detailed?

I do not know whose tradition you are referring to. Is this assumption because Luke travelled with Paul.

Luke stated that he ...

followed all things carefully from the beginning, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
Luke 1:2

He knew these things...

Luke 2:19
But Mary treasured up all these words, pondering in her heart what they might mean.

Luke 22:44
And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

because he likely interviewed Mary and the apostles.

Pauls "data" was confirmed by the apostles (who also received it from revelation) as Peter clarified in 1Pet 3:15

And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him

unfortunately, I beleive your opinion came before you covered anything.

~Steve

Gamera

Paul had revelations about all kinds of things (where to go next in his ministry, what the meaning of the crucifixion was, what is the nature of the law), but I don't think he claims to have gotten biographical details about Jesus from revelation. It's more likely he got them from all the people he knew who were contemporaries of Jesus, and either knew Jesus or knew somebody who did.

Equinox

Steve, are you familiar with the basic mainstream consensus on the dating, authorship and context of the new testament (NT) writings? If not, a convenient overview is here:

www.earlychristianwritings.com

It may be worth your time.

The only reason to think that is due to Catholic tradition and the “we” passages. Those are both less than solid evidence, and there are many reasons to suspect that Luke never knew Paul, do to disagreements between what luke says and what Paul says about the same events.

You are aware, of course, that “luke” is simply a label for the gospel – it never says who it is by, it’s anonymous?

And you are aware, of course, that many scholars consider Luke 22:44 to likely be later addition that was not in the original gospel?

That seems possible, but unlikely for a number of reasons. First, if he had, would he not likely say who he interviewed? Another reason is the dating. Luke was written around 80- 95 CE, the apostles and Mary would likely be dead by then. Plus, why then would he rely so heavily on the Gospel of Mark (GoMk), which is a second hand (at best) source? A good place to look over the Markan influence is here: http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/luke.html.

Umm, again, we have a concern for basic knowledge of NT scholarship. 1Pet is likely pseudonymous.

I’m interested what source you have for this statement (are you saying that a scrap of each NT book is available from before 150 CE?). I’ve put together a table that lists by chapter when our earliest fragments are, and even rounding to whole books (and therefore counting a whole book even if we have only a few verses from it), I get this:

(I've marked any from 150 or before in Bold for your convenience)

Book Earliest scrap Approximate date:
GMt............ 2nd Cent.
GMk............3rd Cent.
GLk............3rd Cent.
GJn............2nd Cent.
A............3rd Cent.
Rom............200 CE
1 Cr............200 CE
2Cr............200 CE
Gal............200 CE
Eph............200 CE
Plp............200 CE
Col............200 CE
1th............200 CE
2th............300 CE
1Tm............4th Cent.
2Tm............4th Cent.
Tit............200 CE
Phm............3rd Cent.
Heb............200 CE
Jam............3rd Cent.
1Pt............300 CE
2Pt............300 CE
1Jn............3rd Cent.
2Jn............4th Cent.
3Jn............4th Cent.
Jd ............300 CE
ApJ ............2nd Cent.

But, don’t take my word for it. Here is a source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...stament_papyri Please let me know if there is an error on that list. :wave:

Equinox

sschlichter

actually, my quote in context is related to the book of John. this concurs with your chart.

You had a lot of stuff in your reply. I do not mean to ignore it, but I think it is best to pick one at a time. Your choice.

~Steve

Equinox

Yes - as you wish. In fact, my response will be spotty at best, with memorial day weekend and all. You also may like to start a thread on any of the questions you may have. For instance, if you aren't sure about the reasons scholars think that 1 & 2 Tm and Tit are forgeries, that could be a thread topic.

Yes, the scrap you are probably thinking of is P52, which has part of 5 verses (Jn 18 31-33 on one side, and Jn 18:37 & 38 on the back). It dates to the first half of the 2nd century or so - but is only about 0.7% of the GoJ - so it really doesn't tell us much about what additions, changes, or deletions happened over the course of the second century.

Have a fun day, and if we don't talk before it, a great memorial day weekend-

Equinox

Roger Pearse

I would have thought that appeals to authority of this kind -- particularly to an amateur webpage, as a guide as to what the scholarly consensus is -- must always give way to data? After all, it is not so long ago that the uniform consensus of biblical scholars was that the gospels were all compiled in the second century. There never was any evidence for such a position, and it was proven definitely wrong with the discovery of the papyri such as P52.

I don't know of any "Catholic tradition"; surely what we have is statements in the early Christian writers. That isn't what I would understand by 'tradition'. The presence of the "we" passages would seem like evidence to me.

Is there any evidence from antiquity that suggests otherwise?

If so, then most ancient texts are anonymous. Such a position seems very odd to me. The authorship of Luke is attested by all the Fathers who have occasion to mention it.

Another appeal to authority, of the kind to which I referred above.

Appeals to what an author 'must' have said would seem an unsound basis to disregard what the author actually does say, surely?

Such a date seems impossible to me for Luke. Considering the contents of Acts, its silence on everything after 61 AD would suggest it was written then. No doubt there are any number of people who disagree; but then they don't seem to have actual evidence for their views.

This would appear to be an appeal again to speculation. But if he was in Rome when early drafts of Mark were being written, and Peter was still preaching, why shouldn't he use them?

This is another vague appeal to unspecified authority to contradict what all the ancient data says, tho.

I'm not sure why one would suppose such a thing. Surely this is a quick reference to P52, last of the gospels to be written?

What follows appears to be an attempt to create a strawman and then pillory it, so I have snipped it.

Whether these dates are true or not I could not say without checking. But are you saying that you believe that we should treat Wikipedia as an informed source on such matters?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

sschlichter

A 'scrap' of the gospel of John was all that was needed in the context of the discussion. In fact, we do not need any scraps. We can re-assemble it from very early quotes. However, we have many, so that should not be necessary.

I beleive I have some idea as to what 'some' scholars think of Timothy and Titus. I was not really looking for a new topic. I was just stating that your shotgun of premises / assumptions will only hit each of those topics very shallowly and we should address one at a time more thoroughly.

I did think one thing was interesting about the chart you provided. It is not a particularly important issue but I think it speaks to the desire to lead the witness. I point it out because I would hate to think we are wasting our time trying to shove things into history instead of drawing them out.

The issue is this (and you can tell me if I am paranoid). When listing the dates of earliest fragments found for each NT book, it listed the century by number (200, 300, 400, etc.). When getting to those found in the 2nd century, it listed them by the title '2nd century'. Why do you think this is?

I will have a great weekend. You too. I see you are also in michigan. We have much deserved summer weather in store.

~Steve

Equinox

Roger wrote:

How is that an appeal to authority? Early Christian Writings explains a lot of the reasons that people think one thing or the other, and presents many of them directly. If we are going to go by the evidence, and we are keeping things friendly to those who may not have as much experience, then sites that overview the evidence seem like a good place to start.

Well sure (evidence is not proof - after all, the ending of 2nd Thes could be seen as evidence for Pauline authorship), but so is the fact that the author of Luke never says he’s Luke, the fact that acts contradicts Pauls own letters on Pauls actions, and so on. I think the “we” passages have been discussed here before, so if Steve wants to catch up on them, a simple search could be a good place to start.


I don’t see why you find that strange – it’s hardly a rare position.

What are you talking about? The author never says he interviewed Mary and the Apostles. He says “just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word” – or “delivered to us”, or such. Am I missing something here, a verse somewhere where the author says he interviewed Mary or the Apostles? If you have such a verse, please give it.

Quote:
Well, the mention of Bernice suggests a date after around 70 CE, and assuming the earliest possible date is hardly a balancing of the evidence. Is there any evidence suggesting it is earlier than 110 CE? I’m simply guessing in the middle of the range. Saying something "seems impossible to me" is not evidence.

Nearly any interpretation of the evidence can be called “speculation” by those who don’t want to use that evidence. Is not your date of 61 CE above at least as speculative?
No, we it's not. Earlier in the post I pointed to a place where some of the evidence (both for and against) Petrine authorship is discussed. Is that not more based on looking a the evidence than saying "what all the ancient data says"?

Of course not, but that we need to look at the evidence, and here is some evidence - feel free to present other evidence as you wish. Are you saying that one should not use Wikipedia as a part of one’s learning about a topic?

This post hits many off topic ideas that have been discussed here thoroughly. Perhaps a reference to some of those threads will suffice?

Here are some:
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=240642
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=241116
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=238813
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=236943

Have a good memorial day weekend-

Equinox

Equinox

Steve-



You may not be familiar with all the reasons they think that. It'll be good for some other time though.

Right. One topic at a time – and I really don’t even have time for one now. My post was a bit of a shotgun, but notice that I introduced no new topics, only replying to points in your previous post.

Yep, you’re paranoid.

It’s because I grouped everything by the closest 50 year increment (since we don’t have precise dates on these anyway). You can see there are 3rd and 4th century dates on there too. In other words, I used: 1st century (=50, nothing there), 100 (nothing there), 2nd century (=150), 200, 3rd century (=250), 300, 4th century (=350) – nothing after that since Codex Sinaiticus around 350 is nearly complete.


Yep!