Evangelion

Toto -

Oh, you probably have. You're repeating all of the usual objections.

I'm not attributing your mistakes to all atheists, and yes, there is indeed a standard atheist line on this. The standard atheist line goes like this:

• Paul was not familiar with the Gospels, and in any case, the Gospels themselves weren't even written until the 2nd Century AD.

You are essentially relying on Paul's ignorance of the Gospels to push the date of their composition into the 2nd Century, by which you hope to disprove their authenticity. That's what you're working with.

I'm very glad to hear it.

I wouldn't expect it to, and it's no skin of my nose either way. I'm not here to convert anybody - I just want them to think a little harder, that's all.

Actually, I got a bit ahead of myself here. Paul's source for the Eucharist tradition is not the Gospels, but the Lord Jesus himself.

He is very clear on this point:

• I Corinthians 11:23-25.
  For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
  And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
  After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

Paul makes a direct claim to divine revelation. This is his source for the Eucharist tradition.

Yes, it does. You're quite right.

As A. T. Robertson has written:

• 1Co 11:23 - For I received of the Lord (ego gar parelabon apo tou Kuriou).
  Direct claim to revelation from the Lord Jesus on the origin of the Lord’s Supper. Luke’s account (Luk_22:17-20) is almost identical with this one. He could easily have read 1 Corinthians before he wrote his Gospel. See note on 1Co_15:3 for use of both parelabon and paredōka.
  
  Note para in both verbs. Paul received the account from (paraapo) the Lord and passed it on from himself to them, a true paradosis (tradition) as in 1Co_11:2.

So also Vincent:

• 1Co 11:23 - I received (εγὼ παρέλαβον )
  I is emphatic, giving the weight of personal authority to the statement. The question whether Paul means that he received directly from Christ, or mediately through the apostles or tradition, turns on a difference between two prepositions.
  
  Strictly, απὸ from or of, with the Lord, would imply the more remote source, from the Lord, through the apostles; but Paul does not always observe the distinction between this and παρά, from the preposition of the nearer source (see Greek, Col_1:7; Col_3:24); and this latter preposition compounded with the verb received, the emphatic I, and the mention of the fact itself, are decisive of the sense of an immediate communication from Christ to Paul.

Oh, I most certainly agree that they were both working from an earlier tradition. Paul had first hand experience with the apostles (as did Luke), and while he received the details of the Eucharist from Christ, he clearly received most everything else from the apostles themselves.

• Acts 9:26-28.
  And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.
  But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.
  And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem.

Well, I Corinthians 11:23-25 makes it clear that my argument does not require Paul to have been familiar with the Gospels at all, as his own confession clearly demonstrates. So you see, I am also ready to be corrected, especially when it is Paul himself who is doing the correcting.

He quotes the Gospels. That is what he does. He quotes the Gospels word for word.

I make no such assumption. And in any case, where is the evidence to support it?

Evangelion

I also.

Toto

I'm sorry for any confusion. I started this thread to discuss Leidner's take on the Passion Narrative, but I have been a bit distracted.

Justin refers to "gospels" although he does not name them, and quotes sayings which track gMatthew. But it is Leidner's contention that the final form of the gospels dates to after Justin, and that Justin has an earlier form of the Christian narrative.

It is not very controversial to think that the gospels did not have their canonical form until after Justin's time, and were still being reworked at the mid-first century.

Leidner describes Justin Martyr's theology as based on God's word in the scriptures (Justin relies on proof-texts). He quotes Justin as saying "This Christ existed and was God before all the ages, and was born and became man and suffered, and was not man by origin."

"Jesus the Christ is the Son and Apostle of God, being formerly the Word. At one time He appeared in the form of fire [i.e. to Moses in the burning bush], and another as an incorporeal image. Now, by the will of God, He has been made man for the human race."

Leidner points out that Justin (along with John) does not connect the sacrament of bread and wine to the Last Supper or the death of Jesus; these sacraments were to celebrate the Incarnation. Justin also omits the Passion Narrative from his gospel quotes.

Leidner concludes from this (and other considerations) that Christianity in Justin's time was based on Scripture (the Septuagint) and a mythology of a divine Son who descended to earth and took human form; but that it was not based on remembered stories of a human Jesus.

Toto

We seem to be cross-posting.

This is liberal scholarship, not confined to atheists. Leidner quotes Bultman and others.

I don't know any scholar of any stripe who thinks Paul knew the canonical gospels.

. . .

Quote:

Actually, I got a bit ahead of myself here. Paul's source for the Eucharist tradition is not the Gospels, but the Lord Jesus himself. . . . Paul makes a direct claim to divine revelation. This is his source for the Eucharist tradition.

Well, that's a statement of faith on your part. Other Christians on this board have argued strenuously that Paul must have gotten those verses from Peter and Company when he met them in Jerusalem.

I suspect that those verses were inserted by someone other than Paul.

Evangelion

Toto -

He quotes Matthew, Mark & Luke with unmistakable clarity.

Where is the evidence to support this conclusion? All I've seen so far is a list of assumptions. Leidner is entitled to his opinion, but I why should I agree with him? He has given me no good reason to do so.

Yes it is. The textual evidence is sufficient to give good reason for an early dating of the Gospels.

Yes, that's correct. Justin does indeed rely on proof texts - but not always, as we are about to see.

There is no passage in the Bible which actually says this. It is merely Justin's opinion.

There is no passage in the Bible which actually says this. It is merely Justin's opinion.

There is indeed a passage in the Bible which describes the appearance of "the angel of the LORD" to Moses in the burning bush, but none of the Biblical writers ever identify this angel with Christ. Again, this is pure speculation on Justin's part. It is merely his opinion. He has no authoritative source for such a belief.

Where is the evidence that he believes the Eucharist to be a celebration of the Incarnation?

So what? Why would he even bother to mention it? That is not the point under contention in his debate with Trypho, and in his Apology he clearly draws on the Biblical tradition for his own account of the passion, even though he makes no reference to specific passags of Scripture.

That is an extraordinary conclusion to arrive at on the basis of so little evidence.

Peter Kirby

Toto: I don't know any scholar of any stripe who thinks Paul knew the canonical gospels.

Several scholars have supposed from its abrupt ending that Luke-Acts was composed c. 62 CE. Some of them would point to 1 Tim 5:18 as a quote from Luke 10:7. (I disagree.)

Frank R. McGuire supposes that Galatians is pseudonymous and written in response to Acts. He has an essay on Detering's site; I am interested in reading more.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

What textual evidence? What I've seen is not very convincing.

...

Justin writes: "This food is called among us the Eucharist. . . . For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.(6) For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me,(7) this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood;" and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. . . .


There is very little hard evidence of anything in early Christianity. I found Leidner's speculations to be of interest, and he seems to have created as coherent a story as any historian or apologist.

Toto

You are right, there is that apologist wing that thinks Acts was written before Paul's death, which would allow Paul to have read the Gospels, while carefully hiding his own letters from the gospel writer(s).

I Timothy is one of the Pastorals, which are usually assumed by liberal scholars at least to not be the work of Paul. I have read speculation that the Pastorals were in fact written by the author of Luke-Acts, and were intended to be the third volume of that set.

Peter Kirby

Toto: Justin also omits the Passion Narrative from his gospel quotes.

This is usually classed with the passion narrative:

Dialogue 103. For in the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them, [it is recorded] that His sweat fell down like drops of blood while He was praying, and saying, `If it be possible, let this cup pass:'

This is found in Luke, and the drops of blood part are often thought to be an interpolation into canonical Luke.

Other references to the passion narrative, not specifically attributed to gospel accounts, are found in Justin.

Dialogue: For when Christ was giving up His spirit on the cross, He said, `Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit, '

Dialogue: having taken three of His disciples to the hill called Olivet, situated opposite to the temple in Jerusalem, He prayed in these words: `Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.'

First Apology: For when He was crucified, they did shoot out the lip, and wagged their heads, saying, "Let Him who raised the dead save Himself."

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

But Justin omits the elements of the Passion that Leidner traces to borrowings from Philo: the betrayal by Judas, the arrest by armed Roman soldiers, etc.

And there are those who think that Justin's work has been interpolated.