Thoughts on Maurice Casey's new book

[DCHindley]

But I will say that the gospels claim to be 1st century products, and they're frequently quoted by 1st, 2nd and 3rd century sources.

what 1st century sources quote the gospels?

Jose O´Callaghan (¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrân? = "New Testament Papyri in Cave 7 at Qumran?", 1972), and Carsten Peter Thiede (The Earliest Gospel Manuscript?, 1982), who identify DSS fragment 7Q5 as a quote from the gospel of Mark 6:52-53. I doubt the fragment is big enough to have been c14 dated, but the script is "Herodian" which is usually dated between 50 BCE and 50 CE. I am not advocating this identification (there are a number of grammatical and textual problems with it) but some evangelical Christians buy into it, although most academic critics do not buy into it.

What 2nd century sources quote the gospels?

The "apostolic" fathers. These are far from securely dated. In fact, nothing before Irenaeus (including Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Justin) can be securely dated. The Dutch Radical critics rejected them as all apocryphal, and there are still a lot of "freethinkers" who agree. My personal opinion is that they may have some original elements but have been heavily redacted. Of course, that is the opinion of someone who thinks, with good reason naturally, that all the Pauline epistles are likewise actual letters redacted to add commentary. I am not so sure that the "authentic" parts of these letters of "apostolic fathers" originated with the authors ascribed by tradition, but their composite nature seems to be exhibited by weird changes in argumentative direction with evidence of literary seams, similar to what we get in the Paulines.

This "choppy" nature of the Pauline letters was noticed by the author of 2 Peter:

RSV 2Pe 3:15 ... So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand ...

I get the impression that he was not too impressed by them, as he says that Paul wrote "according to the wisdom given him," which is a backhand compliment similar to how Eusebius at the same time can praise Papias but state he was unintelligent for presenting Jesus as advocating a millenarian age of plenty here on earth (not the theology of Eusebius' time).

Church History bk 3 ch 39:12 To these belong his statement that there will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this very earth. I suppose he got these ideas through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in figures. 13 For he appears to have been of very limited understanding, as one can see from his discourses.

The author of 2 Peter would probably feel that I fall into the category of "the ignorant and unstable [who] twist [them] to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures."

DCH

[robert j]

Hi DCH,

The author of 2 Peter might very well have put you in that category --- he pulls few punches in chapter 2 going after those he finds unacceptable.

By saying that some things in Paul's letters were hard to understand, I tend to think that the author of 2 Peter was trying to inoculate the readers from what he considered to be heretical interpretations of the letters by competing groups that he referred to as “ignorant and unstable”.

Whether or not the author of 2 Peter was personally impressed by Paul's letters we'll likely never know, but he was impressed enough to acknowledge Paul's letters as “scripture”.

2 Peter is an odd and under appreciated part of the NT. The author presents his magical-mystery-tour version of the transfiguration in chapter one --- then mercilessly attacks some enemies in chapter 2 ending with “A dog having returned to its own vomit, and a sow, having washed, wallows in the mud” --- immediately followed by “Dear friends” to start chapter 3.

robert j.