Only Fantastically Amazing People Think We Have The Ur-Canon

[Bernard Muller]

To this end, we have already demonstrated that Irenaeus lied when he developed a back history for 'according to Matthew.' He took what Papias said about another text and passed it off as his own. People like Bernard want to 'give the benefit of the doubt' to Irenaeus's intentions. I say, when we look at the case for Irenaeus's 'faithful' preservation of earlier material is actually examined, the evidence on balance suggests he was consistently dishonest and therefore it is highly unlikely that textual difference between 'our gospels' and 'their gospels' (those before Irenaeus and outside the Catholic faith) are for the most part accidental. Indeed Irenaeus throws the first salvo when he suggests that the differences amount to his opponents changing the commonly held material in favor of their theological presuppositions (thus indicating that changes were made for theological reasons).

I said it was my opinion that Irenaeus "borrowed" "Matthew" from Papias in order to attribute an author to an existent gospel. Did Irenaeus know the logias were not about an unnamed gospel or did he jump on the opportunity to get an eyewitness of Jesus to one of the unnamed gospel at the times, I do not know. Regardless that does not mean Irenaeus fabricated gMatthew or heavily added up on it (if it is what you mean by "developed a back history for 'according to Matthew"), nor that Irenaeus "was consistently dishonest" when and where you want it to be. All the rest you wrote is the product of your imagination. Again your thinking seems to be if Irenaeus said the heretics modified the gospels, the opposite must be true: It was Irenaeus who did.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to Huller,

Oh God really. You have one group (Irenaeus's) actively preserving a set of four texts and actively condemning (and destroying) the rest and you want to pretend that's all there is. Well Justin's testimony witnesses the 'harmonized' readings of a 'Diatessaron-like' text and his beloved student Tatian is directly associated with a harmonized text. What more do you need?

Sure there were dozens of gospels out there. That was ridiculous. Irenaeus tried to eliminate most of them and keep only four. That makes sense. And then many of these unselected gospels were heretical from Irenaeus viewpoint.
I can agree with what you wrote here about Justin and Tatian. But I do not see Marcion in the picture and his alleged own (and much earlier) Diatessaron.

Irenaeus argued that Marcion's gospel was a mutilated version of 'according to Luke' but the Marcionites denied that and said they had the text Paul refers to when he declares 'my gospel.

From where did you get what I bolded?

I would say he is prone to misrepresent the origins of his sacred texts

I would say Irenaeus was prone to assign authors (under dubious justifications) to existent (for a long time) Christian writings. I have no evidence to go farther than that.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to Huller,

Marutha of Maiperqat. People in the east continued to use the Diatessaron until the time he wrote. The dating is irrelevant to the point being made.

Late 4th to early 5th century. So what does that prove?
And referring to your next post ("Those of the movement of Simon made for themselves a gospel in four parts and they called it the Book of the Quarters (of the world).), I am not convinced these quarters (or regions according to you) refer to the canonical gospels. Most likely not.
Anyway, if it was about the four canonical gospels, those Simonians would be not be considered heretics, wouldn't they?

Cordially, Bernard

[Ulan]

I can agree with what you wrote here about Justin and Tatian. But I do not see Marcion in the picture and his alleged own (and much earlier) Diatessaron.

Justin quotes from what Irenaeus identifies as Marcion's text, at least according to M. Vinzent here.

But he sees Marcion at the base of many gospels, see here.

[Stephan Huller]

Honestly I wish I could attract more interesting questions than yours. You so adamantly refuse to budge from you idée fixe about this fucking canon even though you acknowledge that Irenaeus was 'dishonest' who would do 'anything' to justify his aims. Why? Because I think it's a psychological condition on your part, a resistance to admitting how little we really know about anything - let alone the origins of Christianity. That's why you settle on this secondary canon as the 'ur-canon.' Your objections are little more than conditioned responses. For instance:

Late 4th to early 5th century. So what does that prove?

Marutha himself has been identified to have used the same Diatessaronic text employed by Ephrem http://books.google.com/books?id=gsZu1G ... ha&f=false. From a theologian (so someone you'd expect to share your basic outlook except that's he knowledgeable and relatively open-minded):

from the fifth century, orthodox bishops replaced the work wherever possible in the churches under their control. So the Diatessaron was suppressed, at least in the sense of being excluded from official church worship, and indeed no full copy survives intact today.

Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousben ... z3IK2sPGPX

By your logic because the text doesn't exist NOW it never existed and we can just go back to the 'tried and true.' It's fucking silly. You don't engage in real research. You try and 'explain away' phenomenon for the sake of firmness. Sometimes we just don't know.

And referring to your next post ("Those of the movement of Simon made for themselves a gospel in four parts and they called it the Book of the Quarters (of the world).), I am not convinced these quarters (or regions according to you) refer to the canonical gospels. Most likely not.

Really? That's why the critical edition of Marutha says its a reference to Irenaeus. I am beginning to think you have basic comprehension problems. Look at the sentence:

made for themselves a gospel 24in four parts and they called it the book of the regions25

From the footnote in Voorbus's translation at the end of the sentence -

"24 euagellion. -25'' tessara klimata tou cosmou , IRENAEUS, Adversus haereses 111, 1 I, 8, vol. 11, p. 42f. -

There is no one who has ever read the passage and commented on it that this anything other than an allusion to the fourfold gospel from a heretical group who used a single long gospel. Get the wax from between your ears (and eyes) cleared.

Anyway, if it was about the four canonical gospels, those Simonians would be not be considered heretics, wouldn't they?

You have fundamental comprehension difficulties. If it doesn't come prepared for you in a package you can't make sense of anything. Marutha has compiled a list of heretics (as all Church Fathers were wont to) from older material. He isn't walking around with a pencil commenting on sects in his region. For God's sake Bernard, really, is there something wrong with you? Do you have some sort of cognitive disability?

[Stephan Huller]

Do you now need me to demonstrate that people who used the so-called early Diatessaron didn't call it that? That only outsiders referred to the text this way? Or perhaps do you want me to provide you with the actual name that the text was referred to? Or that Epiphanius identified it with the Gospel according to the Hebrews? How can serve your edification in this matter - or maybe you might like to take time off and actually read a book on the subject before continuing to say stupid things.

[Stephan Huller]

I want to also make clear that it is impossible to convince a 70 year old man like Bernard 'new tricks.' I am going through the motions with perhaps the most rigid thinking participant at the forum (one who would change his opinion about Irenaeus's dishonesty just to avoid losing an argument) in order to benefit the entire forum. At 70 no one comes up with new ideas (or gets a boner for that matter) unless stimulated by chemical means. Again I labor here for the benefit of the few reasonable and open-minded people who will recognize the ultimate defeat of the old and the triumph of new.

[Stephan Huller]

For the group I put Voorbus on my Scribd page - https://www.scribd.com/doc/245774223/Voobus-Englisch-1

[Stephan Huller]

As I am not here for the expressed purpose of performing cunnilingus exclusively to Bernard Muller I will consider the question of whether Marutha is referencing Irenaeus's four gospel closed through a reference to Hennecke and Schneemelcher's definitive collection of the Christian apocrypha with reference to Marutha's testimony. It is noted there with respect to this work:

The title (recalls the famous theory of Irenaeus (adv. haer. III. 11. 11 Harvey) on the fourfold Gospel: "It cannot be admitted that there are either more or less than four Gospels. For since there are four regions of the world (quattuor regiones mundi, tessara klimata tou cosmou ) in which we live, and four winds from the four cardinal points (quattuor principales spiritus, tessara katholica pneumata), Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel, and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, which from every part breathe out immortality and vivifying men."

[Stephan Huller]

but the Marcionites denied that and said they had the text Paul refers to when he declares 'my gospel.'

Marcion 101 my friend. The first thing you learn when you get your diploma:

"Moreover, taking up Paul's references to "my gospel" in Galatians, Marcion concluded that he used one written gospel" http://books.google.com/books?id=OD3Onk ... on&f=false
"What of his insistence that there was only one true Gospel, the book which Paul referred to as 'my gospel'? Marcion was of course anachronistic in thinking that Paul meant a written gospel book" though Eusebius took the expression in the same way and also though it meant Luke" http://books.google.com/books?id=U6rJXg ... 22&f=false

he [Marcion] seems to have interpreted Paul's mention of “my gospel”6 (Rom 2:16; cf Gal 1:6 - 9) as a reference to this book. http://books.google.com/books?id=PFHlmI ... on&f=false