rlogan

Very nice Diogenes.

I wonder if you wish to observe that the four gospels that remain are also the result of a winnowing process, and there were scads of other gospels floating about by the late 1st century.

It is therefore appropriate to ask what process resulted in these four, and in particular if alleged "eyewitness" stature had anything to do with it. But the "winners" were based on ideology and not historicity.

We have Irenaeus in Against Heresies making the absurd claim, for example, that there can only be four gospels because, uh - there are four directions. (I guess there was no "up" or "down" in those days).

At any rate, a review of the formation of canon dispenses with the "big bang" view of Jesus -> disciples -> holy canon, and that instead these four are just the surviving politically correct screeds. Not "eyewitness" of anything.

Carrier has a dandy formation of canon piece here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html

Look forward to the other sections.

Meatros

Good job Dio, good job.

Crowley

Wow!! This is some interesting and useful stuff. It is amazing how many Christians assume the story of Jesus is rock solid and completely gloss over the differences between the Gospels. Back in my Christian days, not once did a preacher approach this subject.

show_no_mercy

Has anyone read this before:

"We have conclusive evidence that an empire-wide (in decree, not necessarily execution, of course) registration occurred in the time frame described by Luke!

Martin [CKC:89-90] summarizes the literary, archeological, and iconographic evidence for this: " A sixth reason for placing the nativity of Jesus in 3 or 2 B.C. is the coincidence of this date with the New Testament account that Jesus was born at the time when a Roman census was being conducted: "There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the IRoman] world should be registered" (Luke 2:1).

Historians have not been able to find any empire-wide census or registration in the years 7-5 B.C., but there is a reference to such a registration of all the Roman people not long before 5 February 2 B.C. written by Caesar Augustus himself: "While I was administering my thirteenth consulship [2 B.C.] the senate and the equestrian order and the entire Roman people gave me the title Father of my Country" (Res Gestae 35, italics added).

This award was given to Augustus on 5 February 2 B.C., therefore the registration of citizen approval must have taken place in 3 B.C. "

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/quirinius.html

Diogenes the Cynic

1. Herod was still dead in 3 BCE
2. Judea did not become a Roman province until 6 CE and hence was not subject to a census in 2 BCE.
3. A registration of citizen approval would only have applied to Roman citizens, not to the peasants residing in client kingdoms.
4. The case made at the linked page for such a registration is exceedingly weak anyway. It's extropolated entirely from a statement by Augustus that "the entire Roman people" gave him the title, "Pater Patria." It doesn't actually say there was a formal registration, but even if there had been, it would not have affected any carpenters in Palestine.

Julian

There is no way reconcile Herod/Quirinius/Census although the apologists try very hard. No matter what year you put it in you cannot overlap Herod and Quirinius. The claim has been made that Quirinius was govenor twice, which is part of the argument from the link you posted, but that seems like wishful thinking. Carrier effectively blows away any apologetics in this.

Julian

PhilosopherJay

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the quotes from Clement Papias and Irenaeus. They are strong evidence when brought together this way, as Eusebius knew and thus cobbled them thus in his History. However, we should certainly not take anything Eusebius says at face value.

At H.E. 4.5, Eusebius tells us:

How marvelous to have five books by an actual disciple of the Apostle John. But at H.E. 4.10-11, Eusebius tells us

Oh, wait, he wasn't a disciple of the disciple John but only a hearer of the Presbyter John. That's a bit disappointing. But why did Eusebius just tell us before this he was a disciple of the Apostle?

Now how are we to answer this? Should we say, "Oh he only meant that Papias was a disciple of the Apostle John metaphorically," like anyone who loves the Gospel of John is metaphorically a disciple of John? Or Should we give the old apologetic schema about poor Eusebius being such a trusting soul that he merely repeated whatever anyone told him without investigating anything for himself. Did he not find it strange that he read the five books of Papias and he did not find anything about his master the Apostle John in it? Or should we say that he found something, but decided that Papias did not get any really good information from the Apostle and so he tells us that Papias only got his information from the Presbyter John?

For me the obvious conclusion from this contradiction is that Eusebius made up the character and the imaginary five books of Papias. At one point he wanted Papias to be getting his information directly from the Apostles, but later decided that Papias was more useful as a second hand source, so he inserted the imaginary Presbyter John as the link between the imaginary Papias and the disciples.


I would also suggest that the reference to Peter and Paul in Rome, a favorite theme and argument of Eusebius, strongly suggests that Eusebius has interpolated the Mark-Peter reference in Ireneaus.

This leaves us with the remarks by Clement of Alexandria (circa 200) as the first probable reference connecting Mark and Peter. Although we can cannot rule out a Eusebian interpolation, there is nothing obviously Eusebean about it.
In Comments on the First Epistle of Peter, Clement says:

It appears that Clement is deriving the fact that Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark from the similarity of style between it and the Epistle of Peter. Since the Epistle was taken down by Mark word for word, we can be sure that the Gospel of Mark was taken down from Peter word for word. This seems to be the logic that Clement is invoking.

Eusebius tells nearly the same thing in H.E. (2.15)
Eusebius adds this at 4:14

We should note that Eusebius has again contradicted himself, with Peter sanctioning the Gospel of Mark in the first reference and "neither hindered nor encouraged" in the second reference. Since the History was written over many years, we may assume that Eusebius changed his position on whether the gospel of Mark was Peter (i.e. Church) endorsed or simply a neutral document (it's reading neither hindered nor encouraged).

In any case it appears that Eusebius got his information from Clement who deduced it using the latest in scientific methodology for the year 200 C.E., textual comparison of style. There appears to be no tradition of linking the Gospel of Mark to Peter before Clement invented it.

It appears that Eusebius has taken the idea of a Mark-Peter connection from Clement. He has reinterpreted and interpolated it into Papias and Irenaeus. Thus a wild conjecture by one person (Clement) becomes an historical fact with four independent sources (Clement, Eusebius, Papias and Irenaeus). At least it does if we do not look too closely at all the contradictions.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

S.C.Carlson

I think you may need to double-check your references. That quote is not found in Eusebius, H.E. 4.5, and was actually made by Anastasius of Sinai (died c. 700).

PhilosopherJay

Hi S.C.,

Thank you. you are quite correct. I based my hypothesis on the fragments of Papias at

http://www.ccel.org/fathers/ANF-01/p...sofpapias.html

I thought that the numbers above the quotes referred to Eusebius's History. The page gave no indication that they were quoting other writers. Still, I should have checked the source in the History. I apologize.

While my specific references disqualify most of my arguments in this regard, I would still investigate why Eusebius feels the need to distinguish which John Papias got his information from. It is quite difficult to understand how Papias could have written so ambiguously that others would have gotten the impression that he was talking about the Apostle John rather than the Presbyter John. Eusbius does not give an explanation how this could have occurred.

Yours warmly,

Philosopher Jay

S.C.Carlson

The reason I think that Eusebius promotes the Two-John hypothesis is that he wanted to disparage the apostolic credentials of the Revelation to John.

As for ambiguity of reference, the surviving bits of Papias indicate that he referred to his John as the "presbyter" and as a "disciple of the Lord." Neither of these references unambiguously identifies Papias's John as John of Zebedee or even, one of the twelve apostles.