JoeWallack

The Papias Smear, Changes in sell Structure. Evidence for an Original Second Century Gospel.

JW:
The purpose of this Thread is to Inventory all reasons to date the Original Gospel "Mark" to the second century as a Resource for the related dating debate. Arguments to date "Mark" to the first century are more over-developed than Arnold Swarzenegger's muscles and smile and therefore should not be a part of this Thread.

I throw out for starters:

1) The Extant Gospel Textual evidence

The Generally considered earliest such evidence is P52. Again, for starters, I throw up Brent Nongbri, generally considered an Authority on the subject, who has given a range of c. 90 to c. 220. The midpoint would be
c. 155.

I don't believe there are any other extant Gospel texts generally dated before the 3rd century.

In Summary than The Extant Gospel Textual evidence seems solidly in the camp of evidence for Second century dating based on the above. It may not be very good evidence compared to other Categories of evidence though.



Joseph

"Statistics remind me too much of the 6 foot tall man who drowned in a river who's average depth was 3 feet." - Woody Hayes

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction

Gamera

One of the problems with this is that even if we date P52 to the third century, there are other papyruses with NT texts from late second and early third century. The existence of these diverse related texts, in the late 2nd and early third century, would tend to lengthen the time between the extent mss and the orignal text, with a first century origin not unlikely.

Thus, P67 c. 200CE; contains (Mtt 3:9, 3:15, 15:20-22, 15:25-28). Since Mtt likely came after Mark, and since this is likely not the Mtt holograph, but a copy (and not likely the earliest copy), the Mark holograph must be significantly earlier.

The Chester Beatty Papyrus c 250AD (P45,P46,P47) contains most of the New Testament. P45 consists of pieces of 30 leaves of a papyrus codex: two from Matthew, two from John, six from Mark, seven from Luke, and thirteen from Acts. P46 contains 86 slightly mutilated leaves (11 by 6 1/2 inches), stemming from an original that contained 104 pages of Paul’s epistles, including Romans, Hebrews, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians. P47 is made up of 10 slightly mutilated leaves of the book of Revelation.

Again, since Acts likely came after Matthew and Luke, and they came after Mark (and one of them likely came after the other), the original Mark must be significantly older than any of these mss.

Bodmer Papyri, late 2nd, early third century, (P66,P72,P75) includes P66 contaning John; P72 includes Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter. P75 is a codex of 102 pages (originally 144); it contains most of Luke and John (the earliest known copy of Luke). But again, since Luke follows Mark, the Mark holograph must be significantly earlier.


In short, you have a group of mss from the late 2nd century of related NT texts, some of which apparently have a genaeological relationship, which means that the first text must be significantly older, 100 years not being unlikely given other factors.

JoeWallack

I Just Go Beserk

JW:
Ya know Germard, when I see Apologists say "there are other papyruses with NT texts from late second" and "In short, you have a group of mss from the late 2nd century" while not presenting a single fragment with a common mid-range date of second-century...I..just..go...BERSERK!

In trying to make the Indirect argument that because we have evidence of later texts there must have been 1st century texts you remind me of the non demolition expert trying to defuse the time bomb and accidentally cutting the wrong wire so that the remaining time immediately goes from 1 minute to 10 seconds.

Likewise, sounding like you, we will see that all of the Direct evidence indicates 2nd century and all evidence for 1st century is Indirect. So the proper question is not which century but rather how much better is the evidence for 2nd century dating than 1st century?



Joseph

"Statistics remind me too much of the 6 foot tall man who drowned in a river who's average depth was 3 feet." - Woody Hayes

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction

youngalexander

"Hello Joe" - that is a notable Australian short story incidentaly!

I have been wondering for some time about why it is that if oral histories of Jesus began ~30CE, and were then written down from 70CE onwards the Christians burying their dead in Callixtus catacombs do not seem to have any interest in them until about 250CE, and then only barely.

Could it be I muse, that there were no oral histories and that the Literary J was perhaps invented rather late, say mid 2nd C, his fame spreading slowly amongst the few literate Christians and not at all amongst the mass of illiterate who still clung to their pagan culture as adapted to their new OT faith in the mystical savior Jesus.

It is just that this seems to be a better explaination of the archeological evidence.

JoeWallack

JW:
Continuing with the Evidence concerning 1st vs. 2nd century Dating of the Canonical Gospels:

External:

1) Extant fragments of Gospel text

2nd century Direct evidence

Key evidence:

1) Earliest fragment is P52 mid-range date of c. 165

2) No other fragment with mid-range in 2nd century.

Now on to the Evil & Wicked Early Church Fathers. The clearest early reference to the Canonical Gospels looks to be from Irenaeus of Lyons (yes, "Lyons"):

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.xii.html (emphasis mine)

JW:
ECW mid-ranges Irenaeus here to c. 180. Thus Irenaeus is more Direct evidence for a 2nd century dating. Not much help in the above excerpt for Indirect evidence for the 1st century as the Groups Irenaeus identifies as users of the Gospels, Ebionites, Marcion, Separationists and followers of Valentinus are either contemporary to Irenaeus, 2nd century or not clearly distinguishable as to century. The indirect evidence actually favors 2nd century as Irenaeus distinguishes between founder and follower as to use of a Gospel. Marcion, the Founder, is said to use "Luke" and Valentinus' followers are said to use "John". Irenaeus does refer to Papais who will be dealt with separately. Note that here, c. 180, we are close to the end of the second century. As we look at Church Fathers gradually earlier in the second century we will see that recognition of the Canonical Gospels gets proportionately worse.



Joseph

"Statistics remind me too much of the 6 foot tall man who drowned in a river who's average depth was 3 feet." - Woody Hayes

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction

JoeWallack

JW:
Maybe we should give Archeological fair go as it's own External Category of evidence for Dating the Gospels. More Direct evidence for Not 1st century. Have you noticed how the Figjam have no problem with Indirect arguments to get back to 1st century here but are fair suck of the sav! when they hear an Indirect argument to the 2nd century?



Joseph

"I am the Light, The Way, The Fair Dinkum." - Australian Rules Jesus

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

JoeWallack

JW:
Continuing with the Evidence concerning 1st vs. 2nd century Dating of the Canonical Gospels:

External:

1) Extant fragments of Gospel text

2nd century Direct evidence

Key evidence:

1) Earliest fragment is P52 mid-range date of c. 165

2) No other fragment with mid-range in 2nd century.

2) Church Father References

2nd century Direct evidence

Key evidence:

1) Irenaeus c. 180

Now on to the next earlier Evil & Wicked Early Church Father, Justin Martyr, whom ECW dates c. 155. As we move back in time we will see that references to the Canonical Gospels get proportionately fuzzier. While this may be a somewhat arbitrary guide at this point, to me what is distinctly Gospel as well as what I think would be of most interest to orthodox Early Church Fathers, would be the Passion Narrative.

In trying to assess the degree of reference by Justin to the Passion Narrative, unlike Paul I have no problem building on (stealing) the Foundation of another man:

http://vridar.wordpress.com/2006/11/...-gospel-story/

http://members.dodo.com.au/~neilgodfrey/justinnarr.htm

JW:

Here are the references Neil Godfree finds:

JW:
Yea, I Am pretty sure Justin was familiar with the Passion Narrative and he references the amount of detail I would expect from a Church Father. Thus Justin is Direct evidence that Canonical Gospels existed by c. 155. Specifically though, Justin shows no direct knowledge of "John" and very little indirect knowledge. While it's possible that "John" did exist at the time and Justin either just wasn't familiar with it or simply preferred the Synoptics, since Justin was a major figure in Rome and had no problem conflating Jesus' stories this would be evidence that "John" was written after c. 155 which is no problem for the previously mentioned range of dating for the "John" fragment c. 120 - c. 210.

We can now use Justin's references above as a benchMark for the level of references to the Passion Narrative by increasingly earlier Church Fathers. Again, restriction here to the Passion Narrative is arbitrary at this point and only intended as a convenient starting point.



Joseph

"Statistics remind me too much of the 6 foot tall man who drowned in a river who's average depth was 3 feet." - Woody Hayes

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction

youngalexander

I am only mildly astonished at the 'maybe'. EC art historians are well aware of an attitude which relegates their studies to that of a supportive role for historians of ECW. I would take it as a given that both physical and literary evidence were equally of value.

I am quite appreciative of your endeavours. There is no archeological evidence pre 180/200 CE. The literary evidence seems to suggest that:
1. Paul & the author of Hebrews knew diddly squat about the gospel, ie. Literary Jesus.
2. Second century apologist seem equally vague on detail and the only clear indications of LJ stem from the mid 2nd C.
3. When physical evidence kicks in it does not contain references to the LJ until mid 3rd C. In fact, of the biblical references only about 15% are LJ for the entire pre-Constantine archeology. In particular, Mary and crucifixion do not appear.

This seems to present a consistent scenario. When art historians consider the points in 3. they provide various explanations, but it never occurs to them (professional suicide?) that the lack of LJ may be due to the simple reason that the majority of ordinary illiterate, lower status christians had barely heard of this LJ fellow. They were on the contrary familiar with their pagan milieu, OT heritage, and the saviour Jesus.

When Jesus does appear he is represented as a beardless youthful wonderworker with a wand. The passion story is nowhere to be seen. What these 3rd C Christians were interested in was 'salvation' - a life expectancy of 19 years would have encouraged that type of attitude.

mountainman

YA: The dude with the wand is sometimes the Healer Asclepius.

JW: Let me know when you work back into the 4th century,


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

JoeWallack

JW:
Continuing with the Evidence concerning 1st vs. 2nd century Dating of the Canonical Gospels:

External:

1) Extant fragments of Gospel text

2nd century Direct evidence

Key evidence:

1) Earliest fragment is P52 mid-range date of c. 165

2) No other fragment with mid-range in 2nd century.

2) Church Father References

2nd century Direct evidence

Key evidence:

1) Irenaeus c. 180

Familiar with all 4 Canonical Gospels

2) Justin Martyr c. 155

Familiar with Synoptics

Now on to the next earlier Evil & Wicked Early Church Writing, The Epistula Apostolorum, which ECW dates c. 145. I mentioned previously that in my mind what is most distinctly Canonical Gospel is the Passion Narrative. What is most distinctly Markan to me is "The Simontic Problem". Note that Justin was either blissfully unaware of "The Simontic Problem" or chose to ignore it as he shows no knowledge of any individually Negative description of Peter.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...ostolorum.html

JW:
Now, instead of numerous references to the Passion (Justin), we have a paragraph. "crucified by Pontius Pilate and Archelaus" certainly reminds one of Paul's "crucified by the rulers". And no mention of "The Simontic Problem".

For TedM we have another Forged first-hand claim of witness (multiple) to the supposed crucifxion:

Perhaps most comical is that the above Groupies know that Paul will turn away from the Dahk side before Paul does!:



Joseph

"Statistics remind me too much of the 6 foot tall man who drowned in a river who's average depth was 3 feet." - Woody Hayes

Ieousiscity.The Argument For HJ. A Skeptical Reconstruction