Re: Papias and the disciples of the Lord.
Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 2:33 pm
I wrote (re: my division of NT writings into "Jewish Christian" and "Pauline":
If we go by this list, I'm starting to think Papias might qualify as being "Jewish Christian" too. Elmer discusses the situation in the link below, noting (as I do) that the books Papias is said to (or appears to) have known (like for Hegesippus) fall into my "Jewish Christian" category (Mark, Matthew/Gospel of the Hebrews, Revelation, 1 Peter, 1 John), and, like Hegesippus, he doesn't mention Paul. Plus he lived in a region with a sizeable Jewish Christian population (where 1 Peter and Revelation are addressed).Jewish Christian:
Mark
Matthew
James
1 Peter
Jude
1-3 John (maybe)
Revelation
Pauline Christian:
Luke/Acts
John
Letters of Paul (authentic and not)
Hebrews
2 Peter
... commentators have proposed a Christian-Jewish context for Papias. For example, Tim Hegedus has detected evidence of midrash in the fragments of Papias suggesting that Papias and his sources may have been heavily influenced by Judaism, most probably via a connection to Johannine Christianity. Others have noticed that Papias' millenarian views owe much to Jewish apocalyptic eschatology. Given that later Christian Jewish texts were openly hostile towards Paul, we might reasonably expect something similar in Papias.
While Nielsen is aware of the dangers of making an argument from silence, he suggests that the absence of Paul's name from the list of Jesus' disciples and their presbyters might have some bearing on Papias' views on the origins of the Gospels. After all, Paul, even by his own admission was not an eyewitness to the Christ event (e.g., Gal 1.17; 1Cor 15.9). His relationship with the original disciples of Jesus was ambiguous, as I have argued more fully elsewhere. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the Biblical and extra-Biblical books with which Eusebius claims Papias was familiar are ones that we might traditionally ascribe to Christian Judaism -1John; 1Peter; Matthew's gospel; the Gospel to the Hebrews (H.E. 3.39.16-17). Missing from that list are any texts from the Pauline corpus.
https://books.google.com/books?id=7pboB ... an&f=false