An index of Christian gospel texts.

[Secret Alias]

If this really was a 'harmony of the four canonical gospels' i.e. created FROM the four the author certainly would not have contradicted the order of the canonical texts. There is clearly a basic canonical 'order' with respect to Matthew, Mark and Luke. IF these gospels formed the source for this 'proto-John' one would expect a canonical ordering for the new 'harmony.' As such, given Irenaeus's repeated statement that heretics allegedly created re-ordered canonical 'cento' gospels coupled with Papias's statement that Mark had things in the wrong order AND Luke's interest in the correct order COUPLED with Mark and Luke's sharing of a basic order with Matthew we have plain evidence that this 'proto-John' gospel in the Epistle of the Apostles suggesting that BEFORE the end of the second century a whole different ordering to the same gospel narratives existed and may well have been 'canonical.'

The reason the Epistle of the Apostle is unconsciously ignored is owing to the implications on the study of Marcionism and our inherited pre-supposition regarding the primacy of the inherited canonical four gospel set.

IF this proto-gospel of John (clearly a 'harmony') was the gospel of Papias (notice Papias's allusion to John in his statement about Mark's incorrect order) THEN how far are we away from accepting it also as the gospel of Justin, the author of the original anti-Marcionite treatise that gets re-worked as a 'Marcion corrupted the gospel of Luke' argument by the time of Tertullian? In other words, what evidence is there that Marcion's gospel actually followed the order of Luke (and thus the ordering of the Catholic 'canonical' gospels) as opposed to the proto-John 'harmony' and thus our existing canonical texts would clearly demonstrated to be developed from a fraudulent enterprise in the age of Irenaeus.

This knife cuts both ways. It doesn't just cut against the apologists but also the haters (Carrier, mythicists, Joe etc) because all we are left with is a massive unknown, unknowable situation with respect to the origins of the gospels and Christianity. As Nietzsche noted at the end of one of his books, man would rather will nothingness rather than not will at all (= anything but passive acceptance of the hopelessness of our situation).

[Peter Kirby]

Would you like to see any of this on the Early Christian Writings website (credited to you of course)?

[re: Ben C. Smith and the Christian gospel texts]

[Secret Alias]

Of course. It puts to shame those assholes who pretend that absolute knowledge is possible in this field. Indeed this field of study is a complete joke. So thank you. Anything I can do to help blow things up (metaphorically of course) and encourage us to start over again.

[Secret Alias]

And now that we've looked at the evidence of the Epistle we can laugh and enjoy how complete fucking imbeciles turn facts on their head and come up with this nonsense:

At the beginning of the century Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, “the hearer of John” and “companion of Polycarp,”57 knew at least Matthew and Mark, and possibly also John.58 More significantly, both the Longer Ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) and the Epistula Apostolorum (both best dated pre-150)59 make use of all four gospels later accepted in the canon.60 These texts testify, therefore that a fourfold collection was becoming established in the churches by the middle of the second century.61 Moreover, to this literary evidence must be added that of the gospel manuscripts themselves.

Although it is true that the earliest four gospel codices date from the end of the second century,62 the nature of these manuscripts makes it quite likely that they reflect earlier editions dating back at least to the middle of the century.63 Taken cumulatively, then, this evidence suggests that the fourfold gospel collection had been adopted—at least in some of the churches—by around the year 150. As such, although it is often asserted that the development of the fourfold gospel was a reaction of the early church to Marcion, it is more likely that Marcion's radical excision of the gospels only served to consolidate a process that was already well underway. https://books.google.com/books?id=UNIel ... 22&f=false

How does any of this 'uphold our canonical set of four'? Papias? Really? Justin? The Epistle of the Apostles!!!

Can you believe the sheer mental disorder here that notices that the Epistle uses the four gospels but not (somehow!) that the gospel of the Marcosians is also 'included' and more importantly that THE FUCKING GOSPEL ORDER CONTRADICTS THE SYNOPTICS!!!! How can that be ignored? How can you not notice that the order of this gospel doesn't agree with Matthew, Mark and Luke? Yet, somehow, we can - by virtue of there being a 'harmony' which doesn't actually agree with the canonical set (because it has the wrong order and heretical pericopes) - somehow use this to 'disprove Marcion.' Even though, as we have noticed time and again in other threads along with Andrew Criddle that our chief work(s) against Marcion develop from Justin Martyr's work against the sect which was founded on a 'harmony gospel' (of no certain ordering). Somehow 'all of this' serves to confirm our inherited biases from the Church Fathers (= Irenaeus) that Marcion corrupted Luke. Brilliant, fucking brilliant.

[Ben C. Smith]

Would you like to see any of this on the Early Christian Writings website (credited to you of course)?

[re: Ben C. Smith and the Christian gospel texts]

Sure. Go ahead. The whole point is to make electronic versions of these materials more easily available in their original language(s) online, and your site has a very broad reach.

And that goes for any and all materials I add to the collection and link to from this thread. Cheers.

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

Have recently added the gospel of Thomas, papyrus Oxyrhynchus 210, papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840, and papyrus Oxyrhynchus 4009.

[Aleph One]

I just wanted to throw a little love Ben's way and commend him for all the hard work on this stuff lately. Keep it up, please!

[Ben C. Smith]

I just wanted to throw a little love Ben's way and commend him for all the hard work on this stuff lately. Keep it up, please!

Thank you for this kindness.

I do have more texts on my mind, but will be on a brief vacation this weekend and all next week.

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

Most recent texts: the Didache and the gospel of Mary.

[DCHindley]

Most recent texts: the Didache and the gospel of Mary.

Do you consider the Didache a kind of "gospel" or merely contains indications of what was being treated as "gospel" teaching. I have always grouped the Didache with the Apostolic Constitutions, the Pseudo-Clementine literature and maybe the Epistle of Barnabas, that is, "fictional" = ideal = proto-orthodox best-guesses regarding what the early Christian movement should have been saying or behaved like. Of course, they will say or behave as the writer's own group does in the writer's time. They are anachronistic.

But it is true that parts of the Didache contain something approximating "gospel-like" text, although it is a mish-mash of phrases we know from the canonical gospels (no heterodox gospels IIRC), much like we encounter in 1 Clement (which does also contain extra-canonical quotes/allusions) and Justin. Could these just be on the fly attempts at conflating various texts that are floating about in the early Christian consciousness, and not citations of a then-existing, written "diatesseron" or "diapente"?

Jus' axin'

DCH