Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Dec 01, 2018 12:10 pm Which assumptions, apart the single assumptions that:

Logia = oracles (=predictions of actions) about Jesus or by Jesus (=instructions via revelation)

To interpret a Logion = to give context (time and place) for it
There seem to be rather many more, but I already disagree with both of those assumptions. I gave my reasons. You rejected those reasons, which is fine. We disagree, as usual. And I do not understand you, as usual.
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Dec 01, 2018 11:40 amPapias’ explanation of why Mark and Matthew differ in wording is that: “each [of the evangelists Papias has been discussing, Mark and Matthew] translated them [the logia about the Lord] as best he could.”
I am not sure how this works with what Papias expressly says about Mark: to wit, that Mark wrote down the logia from Peter's preaching. If Mark is one of the "each" in the sentence about Matthew, then Mark is also translating the logia into Greek from Matthew's Hebraic original. This seems unnecessarily confusing and complicated.
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by Ken Olson »

Ben Smith wrote:
If Mark is one of the "each" in the sentence about Matthew, then Mark is also translating the logia into Greek from Matthew's Hebraic original. This seems unnecessarily confusing and complicated.
That would seem unnecessarily confusing and complicated, but I'm not reading it that way. Must I? I take the logia to be the tradition/gospel/divine communication that underlies Peter's and Matthew's renderings of it, so Mark is not using "Matthew's" Hebraic original. I take the MEN ... DE construction of the sentence to suggest something like: Matthew, for his part, made an arrangement of the logia in Hebrew, but each [of the evangelists] translated them [the logia, which Matthew knew first hand and Mark received from Peter] as best he could." Do you take the sentence to require that that Mark is using the logia from Matthew?
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Dec 01, 2018 8:45 pm Ben Smith wrote:
If Mark is one of the "each" in the sentence about Matthew, then Mark is also translating the logia into Greek from Matthew's Hebraic original. This seems unnecessarily confusing and complicated.
That would seem unnecessarily confusing and complicated, but I'm not reading it that way. Must I? I take the logia to be the tradition/gospel/divine communication that underlies Peter's and Matthew's renderings of it, so Mark is not using "Matthew's" Hebraic original. I take the MEN ... DE construction of the sentence to suggest something like: Matthew, for his part, made an arrangement of the logia in Hebrew, but each [of the evangelists] translated them [the logia, which Matthew knew first hand and Mark received from Peter] as best he could." Do you take the sentence to require that that Mark is using the logia from Matthew?
That seems to me to be the sense of the passage (not Mark, but "each"). Matthew composed something in Hebrew, and others translated that Hebrew into Greek. It would be seem "off" to me to point out the original language of Matthew's composition, and then immediately speak about people translating, but somehow not intend to say that those people were translating Matthew's composition.

(I do not take the statement about Matthew to have immediately followed the statement about Mark in Papias, either. First, there is no indication that it would be so; must all quotations on similar topics be contiguous? Second, I am not sure what the οὖν would be doing in the statement about Matthew. What concept in the statement about Mark is it developing in a causal sort of way?)
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by DCHindley »

While Ben, I believe, has already laid out somewhere the accounts of Papias, I always do a little research on my end to lay out those passages "in order" and then subject them to a little analysis.

Going from the ANF translation of the fragment found in Irenaeus, chapters 32-36 seem to be regarded by the editor(s) as all related to Papias' Exposition. The cited fragment of Papias, from Irenaeus book 5, which is supposed to be from ch 32, is actually from ch 33. It has to do with the nature of the inheritance promised to Abraham's seed, in which it is described as an earthly paradise akin to the Garden of Eden. There are many many proof texts supplied, mainly from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Psalms and occasionally the NT books of Acts, the four Gospels and Hebrews.

Unfortunately the editor(s) do not elaborate on why they seem to think so. However, going back to earlier posts, I have to wonder if these are not the "logia" about Jesus that Papias elaborated upon. There is a clear citation of Papias in bk 5 ch 33.1-4, and again in ch 36.1-2, although by subject the narrative starts in ch 32 (unless ch 32 is Irenaeus' own elaboration).

As Irenaeus is a lot closer to the source (Papias) than Eusebius, I attach more weight to Irenaeus' account than Eusebius'.

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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

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Now I realize why I had previously threw up my hands and gave up understanding Papias references in 2015!

What a morass regarding Judas' ass! <Pun's over, but there was a big stink over it ...>

And no more or less modern authority seems to have agreed on anything.

I think that I would rank the reliability of the following authorities as follows:

1) Irenaeus AH 5.32-36 (ca. 180 CE, at least parts of ch 33 & ch 36)
2) Eusebius HE 2.15.1; 3.36.2; 3.39.1-17 (written 300-325 CE, several direct quotes & one possible regarding gospel of Mark)
3) Appollinarius, (d 390 CE) as cited in a Catena
4) Andrew of Caesarea, (563-637 CE) sometimes still attributed to Oecumenius (ca 990 CE)
5) Maximus the Confessor, (died Aug. 13, 662), Scholia on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
6) Theophylact of Bulgaria (11th century)

I would bet money on #1 & #2, but am not thrilled by the odds for #4 and up.

Butwhatdoiknow?

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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:57 am
gmx wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 4:49 amAnd as I've remarked previously, of the quotations we have from Papias' Expositions.... very few seem to have anything to do with the "sayings of the Lord". They're about Philip and his daughters, or Judas and his entrails, or as Eusebius says, "some other more fantastical things". If Papias' 5 volumes was primarily concerned with the sayings of the Lord, why is it only Papias' tangential content has been preserved ?
What we get from Eusebius on Papias is pretty much what we would expect, I think: the weird stuff (the bits about the millennium, for example), the first stuff (Papias being the earliest extant writer to link Peter with the gospel of Mark, for example), the unique stuff. I do not know why we would expect Eusebius to quote Papias quoting the gospels; that is not his usual tactic elsewhere. Nor would we expect Eusebius to quote Papias' interpretations at any length, Papias being a chiliast and all. Eusebius does sometimes quote writers quoting from more obscure New Testament books, especially the ones being debated in his own time (the Apocalypse, James, Jude, 2 Peter), but the gospels (along with the Pauline epistles) he regards as bedrock. No need to establish their authority in the church!
I take your point Ben but I'm not completely convinced. Eusebius records Papias' statements about Mark and Peter and Matthew because it strengthens the authority and antiquity of the apostolic succession. I'm sure there would have been similar value in the earliest recorded interpretations of the Lord's words for the similar weight of their antiquity.
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

gmx wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 12:44 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:57 am
gmx wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 4:49 amAnd as I've remarked previously, of the quotations we have from Papias' Expositions.... very few seem to have anything to do with the "sayings of the Lord". They're about Philip and his daughters, or Judas and his entrails, or as Eusebius says, "some other more fantastical things". If Papias' 5 volumes was primarily concerned with the sayings of the Lord, why is it only Papias' tangential content has been preserved ?
What we get from Eusebius on Papias is pretty much what we would expect, I think: the weird stuff (the bits about the millennium, for example), the first stuff (Papias being the earliest extant writer to link Peter with the gospel of Mark, for example), the unique stuff. I do not know why we would expect Eusebius to quote Papias quoting the gospels; that is not his usual tactic elsewhere. Nor would we expect Eusebius to quote Papias' interpretations at any length, Papias being a chiliast and all. Eusebius does sometimes quote writers quoting from more obscure New Testament books, especially the ones being debated in his own time (the Apocalypse, James, Jude, 2 Peter), but the gospels (along with the Pauline epistles) he regards as bedrock. No need to establish their authority in the church!
I take your point Ben but I'm not completely convinced. Eusebius records Papias' statements about Mark and Peter and Matthew because it strengthens the authority and antiquity of the apostolic succession. I'm sure there would have been similar value in the earliest recorded interpretations of the Lord's words for the similar weight of their antiquity.
I guess I am not sure what part of Eusebius' approach is giving you that impression; to me it does not sound like something Eusebius would do at all.
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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Dec 01, 2018 11:40 am
................................................................

I’m rejecting at least two common interpretations of Papias:

Papias’ logia were sayings (which would be logoi) or oracles, in the sense of prophecies about the future (I would suggest logia meant something more general, like “divine communications” ).

Papias actually had good historical information about how Mark and Matthew wrote their gospels. On the contrary, I’m suggesting that Papias (or the Elder on whom he depends) did not have good information about how the gospels came to be written, but is trying to deduce the reasons for their differences in wording and order in their extant Greek versions. I’m not particularly going out on a limb in saying this, as he has missed the fact (as I take it to be) that Matthew is dependent on mark in Greek. More radically, I would suggest that Papias had no direct knowledge of a Hebrew Matthew, and, moreover, is not saying that such a document ever circulated, only that Matthew put the Hebrew logia in order (prior to the time he translated it into Greek) unlike Peter who gave teaching as occasion required.

Best,

Ken
Maybe Papias knew of an Aramaic paraphrase of Matthew (similar to the apocryphal gospel of the Hebrews) and wrongly thought it was the original of Greek Matthew.

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Re: Did Papias report not the "sayings of the Lord" but "the oracles concerning the Lord"?

Post by Secret Alias »

Surely Matthew is not the original. Matthew is clearly not a Jewish (or Jewish Christian for that matter) text. This is where faith gets in the way of lucidity.
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