Toto

Can you rewrite this sentence so it makes sense? I am not sure why it is significant to you that Acts calls Mary the mother of Jesus and Justin calls her the Virgin Mary; and I don't recognize what you think I believe.

It is generally agreed that Justin knew some version of a gospel as the memoirs of the apostles, although he didn't know the names Matthew or Luke.

If this is true, and he didn't know Acts, it is not remarkable that he refers to the virgin, Mary, but knows or says nothing about Paul.

There is a lot of clutter here. Don't add to it.

Duvduv

I hope you offer the same recommendation about clutter to some other members....
In any case, I again am stating simply that you offered the suggestion that the term "virgin Mary" was a late development but did not appear early as in Acts. But how late is late considering you would argue that the Dialogue with Trypho was relatively early, and long before there was a Catholic church hierarchy.
"It is generally agreed" doesn't matter. The fact is that Justin can tell us about some obscure text in a dusty Roman archive, but cannot name a SINGLE source name for his "memoirs of apostles" though he does happen to mention the name John or Simon Peter. That's all.

Toto

No, I said that the veneration of the Virgin was a late development.

There was some church organizational structure in Justin's time.

What's all?

Duvduv

How do you know there was some church structure? Justin doesn't mention anything about anybody related to the structure. And how late is late compared to Acts that cannot even mention the miracle of her pregnancy in the only time she is mentioned?

Duvduv

Following on my previous postings about the Dialogue and Apology of Justin, although these writings do not reflect a late church doctrine and canon, they cannot possibly be early apologetical writings. Not only does Justin never discuss his mentor, the old man, and how he found out about a Christ who supposedly lived only a few decades before the old man, but Justin NEVER mentions a single personality who knew his historical Jesus.

Not once does he say anything about someone he knew who he believed saw the historical Jesus in Judea DESPITE the fact that Justin was born only some 65 years after when he believed his Jesus ascended!

Justin was allegedly writing barely more than a century after his Jesus and cannot mention a single anecdote about Jesus, or even how he knew that his Jesus ever lived.
He constantly cites the Jewish Scriptures for support but never people who knew the original followers, including the old man.
There is no way these writings were produced in mid 2nd century.
A real fabrication.

GakuseiDon

I think there is a danger in assuming how people should have written, from our (modern) perspective. The emphasis on the Hebrew Scriptures to justify Jesus as Christ is a feature of early writings, up until the Gospel writings start to take on holy significance late in the Second Century/early Third Century.

When do you think the writings were fabricated? If they were written much later, why didn't the writer describe how the old man was, or mention anecdotes about Jesus, or say how he knew that Jesus ever lived?

Duvduv

I was not making a complicated observation.
The points I made would need an alternative logical view not hypotheticals to simply fit the case into traditional apologetics.

GakuseiDon

Fair enough.

Toto

You conclude that the writings were later than 150 CE based on this circumstantial evidence, but all this evidence is compatible with Doherty's thesis that there was no historical Jesus, no witnesses to a historical Jesus, and the whole Jesus story was a later invention.

Duvduv

I am sorry, I don't understand what you mean. If the Justin writings were a later forgery, what does that have to do with the Jesus story being a fabrication? I am trying to look from the point of view of the author who BELIEVED there was a historical Jesus. Yet he doesn't provide much in the way of information that one would EXPECT from someone who believed in a Jesus Savior who supposedly lived a mere 110 or 120 years earlier.