Was Judas an afterthought?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:23 am. . .

I'm not saying that every detail of thought between the NT and Justin matches. The NT was created from existing material. That existing material already had various agendas and perspectives. I'm saying that the revisions to the material change it in the same direction as Justin. If you compare Marcion's Gospel and Marcion's letters vs Luke and the Catholic letters, then the change between the two is in the same direction as Justin's framework. And of course, if the NT was not created by Justin himself (which I'm not suggesting), then of course whatever did the editing may have been informed by Justin, but not of exactly the same mind as Justin.

But as for the case that Justin used Paul instead of Paul having been interpolated with Justin's arguments, I don't think the case is nearly so clear as you suggest. . . ..
Thanks for the detailed response, RG. I must take more time to rethink some points.

Meantime, given your scenario -- forgive me if I missed it -- where did Marcion, or Paul, come from? Was it a Jewish base that either or both were responding to? Was there anything Jewish about Paul's letters?
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by Giuseppe »

In Marcion's Evangelion, there is no mention of Judas. I refer you to André Wautier's reconstruction of the Evangelion, where he gives textual evidence about the creator playing the role of istigator (not Judas), in the Evangelion.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:56 pm In Marcion's Evangelion, there is no mention of Judas. I refer you to André Wautier's reconstruction of the Evangelion, where he gives textual evidence about the creator playing the role of istigator (not Judas), in the Evangelion.
Where is that reconstruction available?
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MrMacSon
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:53 am
Giuseppe wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:56 pm In Marcion's Evangelion, there is no mention of Judas. I refer you to André Wautier's reconstruction of the Evangelion, where he gives textual evidence about the creator playing the role of istigator (not Judas), in the Evangelion.
Where is that reconstruction available?
Here? http://misraim3.free.fr/gnosticisme/l_e ... ionite.pdf
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:41 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:53 am
Giuseppe wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:56 pm In Marcion's Evangelion, there is no mention of Judas. I refer you to André Wautier's reconstruction of the Evangelion, where he gives textual evidence about the creator playing the role of istigator (not Judas), in the Evangelion.
Where is that reconstruction available?
Here? http://misraim3.free.fr/gnosticisme/l_e ... ionite.pdf
Not only that. There was a pdf before available with the complete text reconstructed. I have saved it and I will post it here.
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Judas' Last Supper vs Boaz and Ruth having supper

Post by mlinssen »

Ruth 2:14

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/rth ... ncl_234014

2:14 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ Βοος ἤδη ὥρᾳ τοῦ φαγεῗν πρόσελθε ὧδε καὶ φάγεσαι τῶν ἄρτων καὶ βάψεις τὸν ψωμόν σου ἐν τῷ ὄξει καὶ ἐκάθισεν Ρουθ ἐκ πλαγίων τῶν θεριζόντων καὶ ἐβούνισεν αὐτῇ Βοος ἄλφιτον καὶ ἔφαγεν καὶ ἐνεπλήσθη καὶ κατέλιπεν

John:

https://biblehub.com/texts/john/13-26.htm

Ἀποκρίνεται 〈οὖν〉 ὁ Ἰησοῦς “Ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν ᾧ ἐγὼ βάψω τὸ ψωμίον καὶ δώσω αὐτῷ.” βάψας οὖν τὸ ψωμίον λαμβάνει καὶ δίδωσιν Ἰούδᾳ Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτου.

https://biblehub.com/texts/john/13-27.htm

καὶ μετὰ τὸ ψωμίον τότε εἰσῆλθεν εἰς ἐκεῖνον ὁ Σατανᾶς. Λέγει οὖν αὐτῷ ‹ὁ› Ἰησοῦς “Ὃ ποιεῖς ποίησον τάχιον.”

https://biblehub.com/texts/john/13-30.htm

λαβὼν οὖν τὸ ψωμίον ἐκεῖνος ἐξῆλθεν εὐθύς· ἦν δὲ νύξ.

Boaz and Ruth - a great scene, and an even greater story. Ruth, the ancestor of King David! The foreigner, coming to Israel, willing to learn its customs, ready to adopt its religion.
The dining scene there, and the Last Supper: I could write a whole paper on it. Oh wait!
https://www.academia.edu/39976842/Judas ... g_of_heels

Didymus Judas Thomas: twin Judas twin, and it's already proven by the Oxyrhynchus papers, who don't have the Greek word, that Thomas indeed at least intended to write twin copies of his Coptic text - and if ever a Syriac copy is found, it will not contain the Aramaic Thoma

The author of the text of Thomas was first known as Judas, and later as Thomas - hence the double whammy in John, and the more than magnificent character evolution of judas in the canonicals:

Where Mark portrayes him as a heathen foreigner (using the dipping of the bread) as well as a traitor (by having Judas kiss Jesus), Luke has none of those two events and merely suggests the kissing without actually letting it happen. To downplay the role of Judas even further Luke invents Judas being possessed by Satan. Matthew entirely sticks to Mark but mitigates Judas betraying Jesus by having Jesus refer to the dipping of the bread scene right after Judas kisses him, reinforcing the image that he still welcomes Judas as a friend. John mitigates it all even further by also having Judas be possessed, and then putting so much emphasis on the dipping as well as the bread that the entire scene almost collapses under its weight. John then tops it off by going even further than Luke did: the word 'kiss' doesn't even exist in the gospel of John. The motive of money also is completely absent in John, and the gospel of John really does depict Judas as just a bit of a thief, nothing more, and a harmless Satanic tool in the hands of God.

I really like Neil's OP viewtopic.php?p=129013#p129013, that's good detective work. Needless to say, the effort directed towards Judas is seen by me as discrediting the author of the text the canonicals had hijacked, and Justin seemingly being unware of that is more than striking.
I have the following works by Justin:

DialogueWithTrypho_JustinMartyr.TXT
Discourse_JustinMartyr.TXT
FirstApology_JustinMartyr.TXT
GovernmentGod_JustinMartyr.TXT
HortatoryAddressToGreeks_JustinMartyr.TXT
LostWritings_JustinMartyr.TXT
Octavius_JustinMartyr.TXT
Resurrection_JustinMartyr.TXT
SecondApology_JustinMartyr.TXT

None of them contains the word Judas

There is awfully little Mark to the first MSS that we have, most of it is Luke, John, Matthew (in no particular order, I haven't done the exact math)
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Judas in Marcion: BeDuhn, Harnack, Roth, Tertullian

Post by mlinssen »

BeDuhn:

6.14–16
Epiphanius, Scholion 4; Tertullian, Marc. 4.13.5 (cf. 2.28.2; 5.1.1); Adam* 1.5. In Adamantius, the names of the twelve emissaries are said to be read out from the Evangelion, but the names are not given. Likewise Tertullian alludes to “the list of the apostles in the Gospel” at Marc. 5.1.1 in order to make a polemical point against Marcionite exaltation of Paul, whose name does not appear in the list. Thus we cannot be sure if Marcion’s text followed Mark’s order or Matuhew’s; Luke corresponds with the latuer in one of the “minor agreements.” Epiphanius mentions only “Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor”; he has Iskariōtēs, which is a Hellenized form found in most manuscripts of Luke (but not Gk ms D or many OL manuscripts, which have Skariōth) instead of the form Iskariōth closer to the original Aramaic or Hebrew term. Tertullian refers merely to Simon’s name being changed to Peter. The reading of Gk ms D (“fjrst Simon, whom he also renamed Petros”) might stand behind Tertullian’s “mutat et Petro nomen de Simone.” This is the last (only?) use of “Simon” in the Evangelion, which from here on uses “Peter”; Luke has reappearances of “Simon” in 22.31 and 24.34.

22.3
Tertullian, Marc. 4.40.2; cf. 5.6.7. Tertullian merely alludes to Jesus’ betrayer being no stranger, but further along he provides the name Judas. Tertullian, Marc. 5.6.7 implies the absence from the Evangelion of the statement that “Satan entered into” him (“for in the gospel as I have it, it is writuen that Satan entered into Judas”). While this verse is present in most witnesses to Luke and John 13.27, it is not in the gospel’s probable source text for this passage, Mark 14.10.

22.47–48
Epiphanius, Scholion 66; Tertullian, Marc. 4.41.2; P 69 . In v. 47, P 69 joins the OL, SSyr and CSyr in reading “approaching, he kissed Jesus” (harmonized to the other Synoptics in stating that Judas actu- ally kissed Jesus) rather than “he approached (Jesus) to kiss him” (i.e., with the intent, but not expressly carried out); but the latuer is the reading atuested for the Evangelion by Epiphanius, who actually gives an anomalous reading in these verses: “And Judas approached to kiss him and said . . .” (Kai ēggise kataphilēsai auton Ioudas kai eipen). The placement of ‘Judas’ at the end of the fjrst clause might be taken as a copying mistake by Epiphanius himself or in the transmission of the Panarion, since many witnesses to Luke read auton Iēsous de eipen. On the other hand, Epiphanius’ text brings to mind Matu 26.49, where Judas says to Jesus “Greetings, rabbi,” and Mark 14.45, where he says merely “rabbi.” The fact that the verb used for “kiss” has also been harmonized to Matuhew and Mark may suggest that the Evangelion did indeed have a statement of greeting from Judas to Jesus here, as in the other Synoptics but unlike other witnesses to Luke. For v. 48, Tertullian reports Jesus’ remark about being betrayed with a kiss.

Harnack:

Harnack points to Judas in the index, I can't search my digital copy. Page 27:

Therefore, not only through the choice of Judas but also, though in a different way, through the chice of the twelve, Christ experienced a grievous disappointment.

Roth:

Although Tertullian does not refer to v. 16 (attested by Epiphanius) in Marc. 4, he does refer to Iudam traditorem in 2.28.2.65 There the reference is used in a series of “anti-antitheses” created by Tertullian to counter accusations leveled by Marcion against the creator, where Tertullian contends that the charge against “our God” (the Creator) is also true of “your God” (the God revealed by Jesus). Thus, Tertullian may also attest the presence of the reference to Judas as the betrayer in Marcion’s Gospel.
- footnote 65: On the reading in 2.28.2 cf. Braun (trans.), Contre Marcion ii, 210. Tertullian also refers to Iudam . . . traditorem in An. 11.5 and to Judas as traditor Christi in Praescr. 3.11.

5.89 Luke 22:3–5
4.40.2—Poterat et ab extraneo quolibet tradi, . . . Poterat et sine praemio tradi.385 | 5.6.7—. . . scriptum est enim apud me Satanan in Iudam introisse. In the account of Judas’s intention to betray Jesus, v. 4 is also attested by Epiphanius. Tertullian’s reference in 5.6.7 reveals that the statement concern- ing Satan’s entering into Judas was not in Marcion’s Gospel.386 Tsutsui argues that on the one hand one may surmise that the verse was omitted, but that on the other hand the name “Judas,” as required by the context of Tertullian’s discussion, somehow appeared in the text.387 This view, however, does not take into account that Tertullian’s reference to an extraneus and the citation of Ps 41:9 (Qui mecum panem edit, levavit in me plantam) seem to have the final ele- ment of v. 3 (ὄντα ἐκ τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν δώδεκα) in view, even if the precise word- ing is unrecoverable.

6.4.8 Luke 6:16–17
42.11.6 δ (4)—Ἰούδαν Ἰσκαριώτην, [V M read Ἰσκαριώθ] ὃς ἐγένετο προδότης. ἀντὶ δὲ τοῦ [V M read ἀντὶ τοῦ δὲ] κατέβη μετ᾿ αὐτῶν ἔχει κατέβη ἐν αὐτοῖς. | 42.11.17 Σχ. δ (4)—Ἰούδαν Ἰσκαριώτην, ὃς ἐγένετο προδότης. ἀντὶ δὲ τοῦ κατέβη μετ᾿ αὐτῶν ἔχει [ἔχει omitted by V M] κατέβη ἐν αὐτοῖς. | 42.11.17 Ἔλ. δ (4)—Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης, ὃς ἐγένετο προδότης. . . . ἐλεγχθήσεται δὲ ἡ ὑπόνοιά σου ἀπὸ τοῦ γεγράφθαι Ἰούδαν προδότην. προέδωκε γὰρ καὶ παρέδωκεν εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων τὸν ἑαυτοῦ δεσπότην. οὐδὲν δέ σε ὤνησε τὸ κατέβη ἐν αὐτοῖς λέγειν αν̓τὶ τοῦ μετ᾽ αὐτῶν. These verses are also attested by Tertullian, though Luke 6:16 only in an allu- sion in Marc. 2.28.2. Epiphanius’s testimony is very difficult to evaluate since the manuscript tradition of the Panarion attests variant spellings of Judas Iscariot, with the elenchus even reading Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης, which prompted Holl/Dummer to note “lies Ἰούδαν Ἰσκαριώτην?”85 Though Harnack recon- structed Ἰσκαριώτην, and na28 lists this as Marcion’s reading according to Epiphanius, the variation in the witnesses to the Panarion prohibit a definitive conclusion.

6.4.66 Luke 22:47
(...)
Epiphanius is the only source for Luke 22:47, and it is obvious that he has offers an abbreviated reference to the verse as he is interested in mak- ing the point that one can kiss only a corporeal body. In addition, it may be that Epiphanius initially did not include the explicit reference to Judas, as it is not found in the manuscript tradition for the first scholion.
(...)
It seems that both Zahn and Harnack may have been too hasty in their assessment. First, there is no manuscript evidence for Luke ever containing the reading καταφιλῆσαι.228 Second, Epiphanius seems to have omitted the universally attested τῷ Ἰησοῦ after ἤγγισε. Third, in both Matthew and Mark, the reference to Judas saying something precedes the kiss. Finally, and most significantly, in Epiphanius’s two other references to this scene in 38.4.13 and 66.63.9–10, he clearly draws from Matt 26:48–50 and in both instances cites Judas’s words. It seems quite possible that Epiphanius may have seen this verse in Marcion’s text, but then simply jotted down the gist of the verse under the influence of Matthew’s version.

Tertullian (just a quickie really, only meant to give the exact pointers and some context):

Book II.
Chapter XXVIII.—The Tables Turned Upon Marcion, by Contrasts, in Favour of the True God.
the issue, he would not have chosen the traitor Judas. If you allege that the Creator practised
Chapter XXIX.—Marcion’s Own Antitheses, If Only the Title and Object of the Work Be Excepted,
Book III.
and mortal flesh: then the devil resisted Him, as the instigator of the traitor Judas, not to mention
Chapter XXIII.—The Dispersion of the Jews, and Their Desolate Condition for Rejecting Christ,
treachery of Judas, as well as from the lying report of the soldiers that His body had been taken
vengeance except for His own Christ; nay, He must have rather had a reward for Judas, if it had
Book IV.
Chapter XL.—How the Steps in the Passion of the Saviour Were Predetermined in Prophecy. The
Passover. The Treachery of Judas. The Institution of the Lord’s Supper. The Docetic Error of
which on Judas’ remorse was recalled from its first purpose of a fee, 5080 and appropriated to the
Chapter XLI.—The Woe Pronounced on the Traitor a Judicial Act, Which Disproves Christ to Be
Judas was to escape with impunity after so vast a sin. If he were meant to escape with impunity,
Book V.
Chapter VI.—The Divine Way of Wisdom, and Greatness, and Might. God’s Hiding of Himself,
hesitate to slay their masters. For it is written in my Gospel 5447 that “Satan entered into Judas.”

Justin:

I have the following works by Justin:

DialogueWithTrypho_JustinMartyr.TXT
Discourse_JustinMartyr.TXT
FirstApology_JustinMartyr.TXT
GovernmentGod_JustinMartyr.TXT
HortatoryAddressToGreeks_JustinMartyr.TXT
LostWritings_JustinMartyr.TXT
Octavius_JustinMartyr.TXT
Resurrection_JustinMartyr.TXT
SecondApology_JustinMartyr.TXT

Judas is present... nowhere.
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Marcion started picking on Judas. But at the time that there was an NT, the author of Thomas had become known as Thomas

Post by mlinssen »

There. Concise little wack theory there in the title, yet very plausible. Listen

1) Thomas started it all with his explosive anti-religious anti-establishment text on self-seeking and liberation, free from any and all bounds
2) Marcion hijacked that text and composed a narrative around it, putting its content into his context
3) The canonicals hijacked Marcin and affixed it to Judaism and that's how Christianity came into being

I'm being awfully concise but you'll read more about that in the coming years, by an increasing amounf of various authors from various "bloodgroups" so to say - and if you don't well then I was wrong and you may rub that in whenever you please

If - and only if - Marcion started the death of Jesus (in whatever way possilbe), then I surmise that he introduced Judas as the traitor, and (proto-)Mark is his usually feeble, reluctant witness to that:


Mark 3:16 Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot; 19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Then he came into a house.

Mark names the disciples for the very first time and starts off with Simon, elaborating on his other name Peter and reserving one entire sentence and verse for him; then the next 10 disciples including Thomas are named in two verses and Judas has his own sentence and verse just like Simon. Why does Judas betray Jesus?

Mark 14:10 Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went away to the chief priests, that he might deliver him to them. 11 They, when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him money. He sought how he might conveniently deliver him.

Money - but that's not his motive, certainly not a quantifiable one in Mark's case. Mark leaves a lot of loose ends, probably most if not all unintentional, and this may be one of them: the chief priests promise Judas money in return, but Judas doesn't ask for it; he betrays Jesus out of the blue. He doesn't think of money when going to the priests, he doesn't bring it up before talking to them, and the money is entirely the initiative of the priests. There is no enmity between Jesus and Judas, no scenes, no nothing - there certainly isn't the motive of money for betraying him.

Mark 14:43 And immediately while yet He is speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, comes up, and with Him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. 44 And the one delivering Him up had given to them a sign, saying: “Whomever I shall kiss is He; seize Him and lead Him away securely.” 45 And having arrived, having come up to Him immediately, he says, “Rabbi!” And he kissed Him.

But where does that kiss come from, is that Marcion? Or are 44 and 45 added by Mark?
We can only answer that question when we find out what the kiss represents, and I think that I have done so:

Samuel 20:9 Joab said to Amasa, "Is it well with you, my brother?" Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. 10 But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand. So he struck him with it in the body, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and didn't strike him again; and he died. Joab and Abishai his brother pursued Sheba the son of Bichri.

Now that is quite a scene - isn't it? Impressive, extreme, vile; so utterly ugly that it is almost beautiful, in a sense - beautifully ugly. Joab certainly is not a nobody, he is a son of the sister of David. When Joab's brother gets killed in a fair fight, Joab murders his killer while pretending to want a quiet chat with him, against the wish of David. Against the wish of David, Joab kills David's son Absalom: Absalom gets stuck with his head in a tree, and is hanging there defenceless; Joab thrusts three darts in his heart, just like that. When David replaces Joab as commander of his troops with Amasa, Joab kills him - this is that very scene right here. When David is to be followed up by his son and promised king Solomon, Joab sides with his eldest brother in stead. Joab is the prototype of the betrayer, and a vicious and vile killer at that.
And that is the pointer to Judas, when he kisses Jesus: he personifies Joab, the traitor of traitors. Vicious, vile and ruthless. There are 36 verses in the Tanakh where a kiss is mentioned, and usually there is weeping and embracing going along with it, next to blessing. There is only one violent scene with a kiss in it, and this is it: the utmost despicable act of Joab, traitor of all traitors

If my theory is right, then this is overwhelmingly Tanakh material, solely "property of" the canonicals, and certainly not Marcion's. But the canonicals were discrediting Marcion, not Thomas, and they wouldn't have a motive for picking on Judas / Thomas. So I think it went the usual way: they liked the traitor part, it dind't mean much if anything to them, and they just slapped on Scripture "in order to make it work (even better)": the morsel, the kiss - that's all they needed to add.
Then after that, after Mark, again, history has been written and it can't be undone; it's very much like the baptism of Jesus (oh and how much doth protest Matthew and John), like the abolishing of food laws (fixed by Matthew by committing blasphemy) - but it's there now, chiselled into rock, and they just have to deal with it - and again we see great wiggling of asses, enormous variation here and there, and of course Luke is scared shitless!
His audience will immediately recognise "Judas" for what he is meant to be - so he invents the Satanic possession because all of us are free from blame when we do things while possessed by Satan. I tried that trick once after a wild night out in town but no one would fall for it, alas (I'm just kidding).
And Matthew doesn't give a damn about Judas so he makes it even worse, slaps on even more Scripture, and "has a ball", as they say.
And John? I'm still mulling on the duality of John, who takes away any and all blame and blemish from Judas, turning him into a peace-loving hugger-of-man, who doesn't have a motive, doesn't even kiss Jesus, and is merely an innocent puppet in the hands of Jesus who willingly, knowingly, and purposely drives every single aspect of his Satanic possession - only to dump it all on Thomas! Poor Thomas, who gets used as a stage prop in the final scene where Simon - of all people!!! - gets the prize, with the beloved disciple as the silent witness. Thomas, whose only purpose it is to name-drop the word 'nails' for the first and only time in all the four gospels - Θωμᾶς ὁ λεγόμενος Δίδυμος; was there ever a harder pointer than that?!
Then there also is Thomas who wants to die with Jesus, and Thomas who doesn't know the way - those two little hints can only point to the author of the text, and they're not really that vile, just attesting to his failure to understand, they're actually turning him into one of his own disciples in his own text.
Yet the first two scenes - that's not John, there's clearly a Churchian hand behind it

There - and that's why Judas has the rollercoaster ride that he does have, and the only people that care about him are Luke and John; Luke, who is intended to serve the Marcionite / Thomasine audience, and John, who is somewhat of a fusion between Thomas and the Jesus of the canonicals.
Was Judas an afterthought? He was absolutely irrelevant in Mark, anyone could have played his part
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by Irish1975 »

I don't know if it has been noted already, but the Christian part of the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah (3:13ff) seems to have no mention of Judas Iscsariot.
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Re: Was Judas an afterthought?

Post by John2 »

GakuseiDon wrote: Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:14 pm
I think that you'd first need to think of his audience before weighing the problem of what an author knew or didn't know.

Of the three letters generally thought to be genuine to Justin:

(1) Two were addressed to the pagans: now known as "First Apology" and "Second Apology"
(2) One was a reconstructed debate with a hypothetical or actual antagonist Jewish scholar named Trypho: "Dialogue with Trypho"

Given the arguments that Justin uses in those texts, it's hard to see a case for Justin to refer to the letters of the NT. Certainly not in his works addressed to the pagans. Possibly in his Dialogue with Trypho. But where would the contents of the letters of the NT be useful in his reconstructed debate against a Jewish scholar, such that the Gospels (interestingly Justin much more often refers to "memoirs" of the apostles which may well include the NT letters anyway) didn't suffice?

I suppose Justin's "memoirs" could include the NT letters. I'd never thought about that possibility before. In any event, I agree with you that the NT letters don't seem like they would have been as useful to Justin as the gospels (which is what I think he means by "memoirs," though I might also include the gospel of the Hebrews). 1 Clement, for example, seems to mention one of Paul's letters only because it was specifically addressed to Corinthians (47:1-2: "Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached?"). But the gospels are intended for Christians in general so I figure that's why Justin mentions them (and since the information in the gospels is presented as predating Paul and the NT letters, he thus doesn't mention or allude to either of them).

Is there persuasive evidence that Justin knew any NT letters (Pauline and non-Pauline)? I'm on the fence about Paul and I don't know about the other NT letters, but being someone who thinks for other reasons that the NT letters were written before the gospels, I'm inclined to think that Justin knew at least some NT letters, because the idea that a guy in the mid second century CE didn't know any NT letters (and/or that the NT letters didn't exist by the mid second century CE) is not an argument I would want to make.
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