darth_armot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2024 10:45 am
How does gJohn fits here? I mean, what purpose did it have? Do you agree with, say, Carrier's take that it is a reverse-Luke gospel?
Another topic: How does quartodecimanism fit in here? I used to think that Polycarp was a good candidate for the authorship of the Pastorals and even the final redaction of gLuke&Acts. But, Polycarp was actually a quartodecimanist, and he clashed with the Roman church leaders on the issue, so I doubt he would endorse a story such as Acts which ends with Paul reaching Rome.
The Gospel of "John" appears to be a composite work that has undergone many revisions by people with very different views. It appears to have originally been authored by a "Gnostic" type Christian, who viewed Jesus as having been sent by a god higher than the Jewish god, in order to defeat the Jewish god. This writer presented John the Baptist as a witness to the divinity of Jesus because he did not believe the ancient Jewish prophets had foretold the coming of Jesus. This is also why this writer introduced the miraculous signs, which are again supposed to testify to the divinity of Jesus. So this writer is writing against the claim that Jesus was sent by the Jewish god and that his divinity was proved by fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.
However, the original version of the Gospel of John, so named because this Gospel relied on John the Baptist as its primary witness to the divinity of Jesus, was heavily revised by two later writers. The first being a proto-orthodox writer who made the initial revisions and the second being the editor of the 2nd century New Testament collection who made further revisions and then added John 21, among other significant content. I think the first proto-orthodox revisor is the one who added in the secretive "beloved disciple" and the editor followed up by further modifying the beloved disciple and indicating that the beloved disciple was "John Zebedee". The first proto-orthodox writer seems to have been indicating that the beloved disciple was Mary Magdalene, hence the reason that it is the beloved disciple who goes to the tomb.
As for Acts. Again, we have a work that was developed in stages and has undergone revisions. The original Acts was purely about Paul only and had almost nothing about the other disciples in it, other than discussing Paul's meeting with them in Jerusalem. The original Acts began with Paul's persecution of the "Church of God" and subsequent conversion in Galilee on his way to Damascus.
The version of Acts we have was heavily modified and added to by a later proto-orthodox writer. And again, when it comes to the Gospel of Luke we have a text that has been modified by a later orthodox writer. This writer took "proto-Luke" and added the birth narrative of Luke 1 & 2 and modified the ending. This writer also produced the canonical version of Acts of the Apostles, and, as you say, also likely produced the canonical version of the Pauline letters, adding the Pastorals. Was this person Polycarp? Probably not, but at this point I'm not sure we really know much of anything reliable about Polycarp anyway.
Was Polycarp involved in the production of the first New Testament collection, which included the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the canonical Pauline letters, letters from James, Jude, Peter, and John, and the Revelation of John? Possibly.
I think someone did assemble this collection in the mid-second century in order to counter "Gnosticism" and whoever did assemble it was from Asia Minor and was likely associated with one of the seven churches mentioned in the Revelation of John. Polycarp is a candidate.