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

2nd century Indirect evidence

2) Justin Martyr c. 155

Familiar with Synoptics

No evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

3) The Epistula Apostolorum c. 145

One paragraph on the Passion Narrative

No evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

4) 2 Clement c. 145

One sentence on the Passion Narrative

No evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

4) Marcion c. 135

Consists of a version of "Luke" Narrative but gives No Attribution

Evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

No Infancy Narrative

Now on to the next earlier Evil & Wicked Early Church Writing, ARISTIDES, which ECW dates c. 125.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...tides-kay.html

JW:
Fuzzier. No direct quotes from Canon. Refers to a Jesus X-acution, but is it the Canonical Passion? No reference to "The Simontic Problem". Does refer to a Virgin Birth. Clearly Philosophical in Nature.



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

The Necronomicon Of Christianity, From Eldritch Church Elders. Epiphanius' Panarion.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Joe,

Regarding the quote by Aristides, notice the last line:

The phrase and "hence also those of the present day," I suggest, is a telltale sign that this passage is a Eusebean interpolation. Note the reference from Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. IV.3.3. to him.

Aristides also, a believer earnestly devoted to our religion, left, like Quadratus, an apology for the faith, addressed to Adrian. His work, too, has been preserved even to the present day by a great many persons.

Compare it to Eusebean's TF.

Aristides:
TF:
Notice the ideological parallels:

1)The Jews were responsible for Jesus' death: (TF)The principal men among us had condemned him to the cross/(AR)he himself was pierced by the Jews.

2) He was doing the preordained work of God: (TF)The divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderous things concerning him/ (AR)in order that the purpose of his incarnation might in time be accomplished

3 ) He rose from the dead and the disciples stuck with him: (TF)Those that loved him at the first did not foresake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day/ (AR)after three days he rose and ascended to heaven, Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness.

4) Still around in the present: (TF)And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day/(AR) hence also those of the present day who believe that preaching are called Christians, and they are become famous.

In the text as we now have it, Aristides writes:
So then there are, as I said above, four classes of men:--Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians.

In fact, as the text now appears, he goes on to talk about the beliefs of five classes of men: Barbarians, Greeks, Egyptians, Jews and Christians.

It is appears that in the original text, he talked about Barbarians,Greeks, Egyptians and Jews. By introducing the Christians into the text and erasing the term "Egyptian", the Christian editor of the text has made the text surprise us when it suddenly starts talking about the Egyptians as a separate class of men.

It is apparent that Aristides should be classed as a Jewish philosopher who was edited to become a Christian.


Warmly,
Philosopher Jay

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

2nd century Indirect evidence

2) Justin Martyr c. 155

Familiar with Synoptics

No evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

3) The Epistula Apostolorum c. 145

One paragraph on the Passion Narrative

No evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

4) 2 Clement c. 145

One sentence on the Passion Narrative

No evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

4) Marcion c. 135

Consists of a version of "Luke" Narrative but gives No Attribution

Evidence of "The Simontic Problem"

No Infancy Narrative

5) ARISTIDES c. 125

One sentence referring to Jesus' Death and one sentence referring to Jesus' Resurrection. No direct quotes from any Canonical Gospel.

Now on to the next Evil & Wicked Early Church Writing, Papias, which ECW dates c. 125.

http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/...ext/papias.htm

JW:
We have the following reasons to think the above is not referring to Canonical "Mark":

1) "Mark, who had indeed been Peter's interpreter, accurately wrote as much as he remembered". "Mark" looks like an original Greek composition not based on any Aramaic source.

2) "accurately wrote as much as he remembered". "Mark" looks like a Complete composition.

3) "yet not in order". "Mark" is a Narrative and therefore, by Definition, is in Order.

4) "Peter, who would make the teachings anecdotally but not exactly an arrangement of the Lord's reports". Only "Teachings/Sayings" are mentioned here. "Mark" has a Primary theme of Minimizing the Sayings and Maximizing the Passion.

5) "so that Mark did not fail by writing certain things as he recalled". This indicates some Incompleteness but "Mark" is a Complete Narrative.

6) "For he had one purpose, not to omit what he heard or falsify them." This indicates Mark avoided any effort to Connect Sayings yet "Mark" is Connective Narrative.

7) The above gives Credit to Peter's Witness but a Primary theme of "Mark" is to Discredit Peter as a witness to Jesus.

Thus we have it on good Authority that c. 125 Papias has never heard of Canonical "Mark", Eusebius was not aware of evidence of this time for Canonical "Mark" and that what Papias was describing:

1) Crediting Peter as Source.

2) Emphasis on Teachings/Sayings

3) No mention of Passion

is exactly what "Mark" was Reacting to. Therefore Papias is not only Witness that "Mark" did not exist at the time but is Motivation to create "Mark".



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

The Necronomicon Of Christianity, From Eldritch Church Elders. Epiphanius' Panarion.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Joe,

Thanks, for pointing out the Gospel of Marcion as the best evidence for the existence of early gospels. That may be so, but, I do not believe that it is any evidence for such a thing at all.

First, where are you getting Marcion circa 135 from? Tertullian says Marcion wrote his Antitheses around 144 C.E. (Adv. Marc. 1:19.2) in Pontus.

In his Antitheses, Tertullian tells us that on the subject of Christ's death, Marcion introduced "a diversity of opinion" (Adv. Marc. 3:18.1)

Further, also in the same book, according to Tertullian, Macion's Christ "promises to the Jews their primitive condition, with the recovery of their country; and after this life's course is over, repose in Hades in Abraham's bosom." (3:25.1). This is a strange statement to make about Christ from anybody who has read the canonicals. Christ is going to rebuild Israel? Say what? Which gospel contains that notion? That's the gospel of John the Baptist, not any anti-Jewish Christian gospel.

Tertullian exclaims about the Christ that Marcion talks about in his Antithesis, "O what a phantom from first to last!" (3:25.1)

It is apparent from Tertullian's criticisms (book 1-3 of Adv. Marc.) that in his Antithesis, Macion discusses the Jewish Christ and his own version of Christ, but does not speak a single word from any gospel.

When we take into account that Tertullian claims that Marcion was a member of the Apostolic Church till this time, it seems most fantastic that Marcion could write an entire book talking about Christ without mentioning a single line from any canonical gospel. It appears less fantastic if we take this as evidence that as of 144 C.E. no canonical gospel was in existence.

Tertullian tells us (Adv. Marc. 4:2) that "Marcion, on the other hand, you must know, ascribes no author to his Gospel."

Tertullian tells us that it is an adulterated version of Luke. Luke gets his information from St. Paul, St Paul from the gospels of the apostles Matthew and John. (Adv. Marc. 4:2).

According to Tertullian, Marcion, quoting the Apostle Pau,l accuses "false prophets of perverting the gospel of Christ." He takes that to be an attack on the canonical gospels. This is a rhetoric device by Tertullian. There is no evidence that Marcion knew of any canonical gospel.

Tertullian proclaims regarding the Gospel of Luke, "In short, when Marcion laid hands on it, it then became diverse and hostile to the Gospels of the apostles." [Matthew and John]. Yet he offers not a shred of actual evidence for this, just absurdly argued rhetoric.

Marcion's gospel isn't close to the Gospel of Luke. The editors of the Gospel of Marcion (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Itha...7/Gospel1.html) have put words from the Gospel of Luke that Tertullian is reciting in opposition to Marcion's gospel into the text to make it look like the gospel of Luke. Read even the beginning of Tertullian's account and it is clear that Marcion's gospel has nothing to do with the Gospel of Luke. Here is a reconstruction with just the words that Tertullian attributes to Marcion and not any quotes from the Gospel of Luke mixed in.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius he came down to the Galilean city of Capernaum. He entered the synagogue. they were all astonished at His doctrine because his words were with power.

The spirit of an unclean devil" exclaimed "What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus? Art Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God." He (Christ) rebuked him.

They laid hands on him. He was seized and taken and led to the very brink of a precipice. He escaped through the midst of them, He had already experienced their rough treatment, and afterwards went His way. (Adv Marcion. (4:6-7)

He departed and went into a desert place. When "stayed" by the crowds, He said, "I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities" (4:8)

When we carefully distinguish between Tertullian's quotes from Luke and his quotes from Marcion, we see how really absurd is Tertullian's charge that Marcion adulterated Luke.

In any case. There is no evidence that a) Marcion actually wrote the gospel of Marcion. This was simply a gospel by an unknown author which was used by the followers of Marcion circa 206. It is only Tertullian who attributes it to Marcion. It could have been written in 205. b) There is no evidence, except for Tertullian's wild rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims, that Marcion knew of the existence of any canonical gospel. He certainly did not know of any when he wrote his Antithesis circa 144. That work by Marcion contains many references to the Hebrew scriptures, but nothing from any canonical gospel. This would be most surprising if Marcion had indeed rewritten a canonical gospel before this time.

Rather than saying that Marcion's Gospel is evidence for a canonical gospel being known, we should say it is strong evidence for no canonical gospel being known, at least before 144 C.E..

Warmly,

Philosospher Jay.

JoeWallack

JW:
Hi PJ. I Am getting c. 135 as a mid-range from ECW for Marcion's supposed career in a transparent attempt to reduce my bias. I've already said that I think Christian Bible scholarship is like being on TV. It adds 20 years to your life. Neal Godfree is in the process of doing things to Marcion that are so Amazing it's enough to make you turn Jew:

http://vridar.wordpress.com/

I have just named such research on Marcion "The Sinopetic Problem". One of Neal's righteous observations is that the orthodox obviously had Motivation to date Marcion later in Order to move him away from supposed Apostolic Tradition.

What is especially interesting about Marcion is that in addition to appearing to be the first to reference a Canonical Gospel (with your objection duly noted) less noticeable is that he also looks like the first/one of the first to reference Paul! Note that and with Apologies to Bauckham, Papias never mentions Paul and even Justin Martyr never mentions Paul (not usually mentioned by HJs). Marcion looks to be the one who resurrected Paul.

So the Extant evidence indicates that it was Marcion who was first to promote a Canonical Type Gospel and Paul. In the big picture it is Marcion who is Consistent with the Philosophy of Paul and "Mark". All are based on Revelation (Marcion refuses to Attribute his Gospel - just like Paul), and are anti-historical witness. It is the "orthodox" Christianity first fully Manifested by Irenaeus of Lyons (yes, "Lyons") that rejects Marcion's Revelation argument and Reacts with supposed Historical arguments. We can easily cut-off the orthodox claim of a Historical chain before Marcion at Papias since, as this Thread demonstrates, it is very Likely that Papias was not familiar with any Canonical Gospel. In fact, the evidence Papias presents is exactly what "Mark" Reacted to. Papias was specifically selected by Irenaeus because he was before Marcion even though Papias' 5 books were otherwise useless to orthodox Christianity.

JW:
We also have Epiphanius' Panarion (cc Jeffrey Gibson).



Joseph

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

Ben C Smith

I think this is an accurate observation and that this patristic bias has to be accounted for.

I tend to agree that Papias never mentioned Paul, since we might expect Eusebius to have mentioned Papias mentioning Paul in the course of his usual summary of attestations (which in the case of Papias includes Matthew, Mark, 1 Peter, 1 John, and a Hebrew gospel, but nothing from Paul). (I caution, however, that our expectations are not always accurate.)

But I think you have to discuss 1 Clement and Ignatius here in order to avoid charges of being selective with the evidence. Even if only to assert (but hopefully to argue) that both of these are forgeries from later in the century. To ignore them as if they did not even exist seems unkosher.

That Justin Martyr does not mention Paul is fairly frequently mentioned in the scholarly literature.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

From Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.4.4:

Marcion by his Antitheses accuses [a gospel text, evangelium] of having been interpolated [interpolatum] by the protectors of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets....

The law was written; the prophets were written; it stands to reason that the gospel Marcion accused the Judaizers of falsifying was written, too, so as to be combined into one corpus with the law and the prophets.

It is easy to see what is going on here. Marcion knew of two gospel texts, (A) the text that he himself promulgated and (B) a Judaized version of that text.* He accused the proto-orthodox of taking A and Judaizing it into B; the proto-orthodox returned the favor and accused him of mutilating B to create A.

* If you are arguing in your post that Marcion did not abbreviate Luke, but rather canonical Luke expanded Marcion, you are in some fairly good scholarly company. But, if you are arguing that the Marcionite gospel and canonical Luke are not related to one another at all in any real sense, you are simply wrong. The text that Tertullian and Epiphanius describe as the Marcionite gospel is certainly some version, whether earlier or later, of canonical Luke.

Ben.

dog-on

Justin doesn't mention Paul because, (it seems possible that), in Justin's day, Paul may have been viewed as batting for the other, (Marcion's), team.

An earlier version of Luke seems probable when viewed in the context of the Pauline "reprieve" provided by Acts, which is argued, justifiably IMO, as having been written by the same author as canonical Luke.

Using Justin as a marker on one end, with Ireneaus on the other, I think an argument for dating canonical Luke/Acts (along with the pastorals) to mid (150 to 170) 2nd century is feasible.

The case for Ignatius and Clement being later forgeries is laid out pretty well by Detering.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

I have labeled Eusebius the "Master Forger of Christian History." Sometimes people take this to mean that I'm saying that he invented Christianity. That is not exactly what I am trying to convey. I certainly believe that he had a powerful influence on it, but the history of Christianity does go back, I believe to the First century, if not before. Christianity is a complex phenomenon with a complex history.
Sometimes people take it to mean that I'm saying that Eusebius did something wrong or criminal. Actually, I'm just trying to be descriptive and not make a moral judgement. If he corrected a few texts, changing a line or inserting a thought here and there, that's hardly anything to get excited about. He lived in a time and place where the wrong sentence could get his head chopped off and/or all his friends tortured. One has to expect him to be the censor.
The only thing I find disconcerting about his history is that the brilliance and genius of Tertulllian gets lost and/or suppressed in it. If there is one man responsible for the creation of orthodox Christianity, I would say that it is Tertulllian. Under the revisionism of Eusebius, he has been reduced to just another good Christian intellectual fighter against heresy. This hardly conveys his importance. I would say that without Tertullian, orthodox Christianity would never have existed. Further, without reading and understanding him, no real history of Christianity can be known.
Now lets examine the statement you brought up, for I think it is an extremely important statement, as you have grasped. With a proper understanding of it the doorway to the real history of Christianity almost magically swings opens. Without understanding it, we are locked out.

From Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.4.4:

Marcion by his Antitheses accuses [a gospel text, evangelium] of having been interpolated [interpolatum] by the protectors of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets....

It appears that your interpretation is the obvious one. Marcion, in his Antitheses has referred to the gospel of St. Luke as a construction. The only problem is, if you look in the first three books of Against Marcion, where Tertullian discusses Antitheses in detail, no such passage is ever mentioned.

On the other hand, look at the passage directly above 4:3.1. The statement in 4:4.4 can only be referring back to this statement:

This reveals the statement that Marcion has made regarding the gospel. It is simply to be found in the passage in Paul's Galatians that Marcion has published. It is this statement in Paul that the apostles have not walked "uprightly according to the truth of the gospels." Tertullian is taking this statement out of contexts and attributing it, not to Paul, but to Marcion.

From a psychological point of view, what Tertullian is doing is simply "projecting".Tertullian is accusing Marcion of falsifying his gospel of Luke. He must project the same thing onto his arch-enemy. He therefore takes this passage out of contexts and gives it a meaning that mirrors what he himself is doing. It has nothing to do at all with what Marcion meant.

Marcion never criticized the gospel of Luke because the Gospel of Luke never existed in his time (circa 140's). This is why Tertullian never presents this critical passage, (critical to the case he is making). He never presents it because it simply doesn't exist. Tertullian simply invents it by misinterpreting a quite different statement.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Ben C Smith

I deliberately avoided saying that Marcion modifying our gospel of Luke was the obvious interpretation. What I said was that Marcion modifying a gospel (not necessarily our canonical Luke) was the obvious interpretation. I had in mind the following statement of yours:

My claim is that this statement is false on its face. You may dispute the significance of the evidence, but that there is indeed evidence that Marcion published a gospel text is beyond dispute. Your own words are that this is the most obvious meaning of what Tertullian writes; thus, what Tertullian writes is prima facie evidence that Marcion published a gospel.

And, of course, we have Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.7:

But Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God from those [passages] which he still retains.

I understand that you reject this five-book work as a rough draft by Tertullian or some such thing, but nobody else is bound to take such an eccentric position, and it is still evidence.

Why it should be a problem for Tertullian to save a statement about the Marcionite gospel for the section of his work where he actually deals with the Marcionite gospel is, I fear, beyond my logical capacity.

Tertullian does, BTW, in 1.19.4 attribute to Marcion a statement to the effect that the law and the gospel are two very different texts:

For such are the Antitheses, or contrary oppositions, of Marcion, which are designed to show the conflict and disagreement of the gospel and the law, so that from the diversity of principles between those two documents [instrumenti] they may argue further for a diversity of gods.

Ben.