The Elders of Papias never existed

[Ben C. Smith]

Bartholomew appears only twice in the Coptic text I am consulting: once in the aforementioned "first" list, and again by himself, asking Jesus about the penalty for pederasty.

[Ben C. Smith]

I have checked all references to Matthew, as well, and he appears in only one list: the list of the three that I have mentioned before (Thomas, Matthew, Philip).

[Ben C. Smith]

Your move, Giuseppe. Please point me to the text(s) you are referring to.

The list of 6 I have found (your "first" list) is in book 5 of the online version by Mead: http://gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/ps141.htm, but it is still in chapter 136, both in Mead and in Schmidt & Macdermot.

The list of 3 to which I have referred is found in chapters 42 and 43: http://gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/ps046.htm and http://gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/ps047.htm, both in Mead and in Schmidt & Macdermot.

[Giuseppe]

I am sorry but I will find tomorrow these lists.

They should be there, since I think that the my information is good.

Excuse the disturb and thanks until now for the patience.

Good prosecution.

[Joseph D. L.]

Giuseppe's game is up. Everyone one on this forum recognizes all the fallacious tactics and leaps in conclusions he makes.

His arguments are laced with fallacies, he offers zero evidence for his claims; he argues in circles, and acts smug and superior to anyone who calls him out and labels them as being "intellectually dishonest" and "willfully ignorant." No, Giuseppe. You are those things.

Ben, don't wait for a source from Giuseppe. It's not forthcoming, because it doesn't exist.

[Giuseppe]

By list in the Book 1 I don't mean a list of consecutive names. Simply the names in the following first list:

first list	second list
Thomas	Thomas
Andrew	Andrew
James
Simon the Canaanite	Peter
Philip
Batholomew (Matthew)	Bartholomew (Matthew)
	John

...appears in different points. The author doesn't know other names of apostles.

What I don't know is if the my source means a list of consecutive names for the his "second list" in Book 2, or only names sown in different places.

At any case we can already conclude that exactly these names appear in Pistis Sophia, hence the question: why did these names coincide perfectly with the 7 names given by Papias and with the 7 given by the Gospel of Ebionites?

The simplest solution is that Papias knew only these 7 names as names of Apostles, therefore the gospel read by him was not one of the our 4 gospels.

[Ben C. Smith]

By list in the Book 1 I don't mean a list of consecutive names. Simply the names in the following first list:

first list	second list
Thomas	Thomas
Andrew	Andrew
James
Simon the Canaanite	Peter
Philip
Batholomew (Matthew)	Bartholomew (Matthew)
	John

...appears in different points. The author doesn't know other names of apostles.

Bartholomew does not appear in book 1. Matthew does, but Matthew and Bartholomew are not the same person. Simon the Canaanite does not appear in book 1.

What I don't know is if the my source means a list of consecutive names for the his "second list" in Book 2, or only names sown in different places.

Bartholomew does not appear in book 2. James appears again in book 2.

At any case we can already conclude that exactly these names appear in Pistis Sophia, hence the question: why did these names coincide perfectly with the 7 names given by Papias and with the 7 given by the Gospel of Ebionites?

Papias: Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew.
Pistis: Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew, Simon the Canaanite, Bartholomew.
Ebionites: Andrew, Simon, —, —, James, John, Matthew, Simon the Zealot, —, Thaddaeus, Judas.

The compiled list of Papias and the overall list of the Pistis Sophia are similar; they always were, and I never disputed that; I have been on the lookout for collocations of the Papian names for years now: decades, really. Even so, however, the Pistis Sophia throws in Simon the Canaanite (not giving us any hint that he is the same as Peter) and Bartholomew (not giving us any hint that he is the same as anyone else), so we are dealing with extra names. We have to do more work than the author did if we want to reduce the names down to Papias' seven.

It is the list from the Ebionite gospel that I mentioned before as being more different:

And the list from the Ebionite gospel does not match either Papias' list or the Pistis Sophia list, even according to your own chart.

It lacks both Philip and Thomas but adds Thaddaeus and Judas Iscariot. Note also that it definitely treats Simon (Peter) and Simon the Zealot as two different people.

Of course, my current view on the Ebionite gospel is that it probably did not lack Philip or Thomas. The author said 12 apostles, and he originally named 12 apostles. This is a common hypothesis concerning this text, and it is insane to think that your idea of clumsily lining up the names with Papias or with the Pistis Sophia fares any better than it does.

There may well be a connection between Papias and the Pistis Sophia, based on the selection of names. What I question is that the Ebionite list is of similar standing.

[Giuseppe]

"Simon Peter" could be easily simplified to only "Simon". And Peter is famous for the his zeal (qana) for the Lord ("etsi omnes ego non").

About Bartholomew as different from Matthew, I will report the my source more in detail, if there is some connection between the two names.

At any case, why do you think that Papias deliberately mentioned 7 Elders? Implicit in the view of Papias's choice as "deliberate" is the false assumption that he omitted deliberately other names of his knowledge.

In addition:

7 is a gentilizing number and Papias is a Judaizer. Do you think that the so-called "proto-orthodox" were gentilizers and so Papias also?

[Ben C. Smith]

At any case, why do you think that Papias deliberately mentioned 7 Elders? Implicit in the view of Papias's choice as "deliberate" is the false assumption that he omitted deliberately other names of his knowledge.

So your view is that he just happened to know the names of exactly seven?

[Ben C. Smith]

"Simon Peter" could be easily simplified to only "Simon". And Peter is famous for the his zeal (qana) for the Lord ("etsi omnes ego non").

About Bartholomew as different from Matthew, I will report the my source more in detail, if there is some connection between the two names.

Bartholomew = son of Talmai.

7 is a gentilizing number and Papias is a Judaizer. Do you think that the so-called "proto-orthodox" were gentilizers and so Papias also?

I think that there are far too many of your assumptions buried in the question to allow for anybody besides you to give a good answer.