Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I guess the next question is whether anyone really believes that Justin, Tatian, the author of the Epistle to the Apostles, Marcion and the rest of the single long gospel users all 'knew' that their text was composite or derived from orthodox originals? Don't think so. On the separated gospels - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curetonian_Gospels

And any discussion of the Syrian Christian attitude toward the four gospels as 'heretical' texts has to include Marutha's preservation of a Roman origin for these texts:

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). They are all sorcerers. A thread of scarlet and of the rose (color) they bind at the neck like the priests (of Rome). The ancients plated the hair of their heads and were occupying themselves with incantations and strange affairs.

No I can't prove these people are right (other than an appeal to aesthetics). But do I believe the Semitic Christians were right that in the beginning one gospel was separated into four by someone in Rome. Yeah I do. But can I prove they were right. No. So there isn't much to say other than I subscribe to an ancient tradition about the gospel being originally one not four.

Secret Alias wrote:In Syriac the name given to our collection is that of the 'separated gospels' (Evangelion Dampharshe).

Yes....

Since Jesus (or Christianity) came from that part of the world (at least theoretically) it might be worth considering what Justin's original followers must have thought about these new 'separated' texts. Don't know how, don't know why, don't know when, but someone made four texts out of one bad, evil dangerous original - at least that's what the followers of Justin and Justin must have thought (minus the 'bad, evil dangerous' business).

Well, just as you reminded the forum that you think that the multiple gospels were edited out of one gospel, I am reminding the forum that this is not a hard datum. It is a hypothesis.

No. But 'hard datum' is the gift from the winners writing (or 'righting') history. Strange for a religion which begins in one part of the world to be 'righted' by the very Imperial hegemony that intuition, logic, common sense would dictate was antithetical to the founding principles of the religion. But there we have it. Hard datum from the conquerors. So what we are left, where we start from is the Melkite (= of the king) form of Christianity. Maybe that's the right form of Christianity independent of what was going on in Imperial courts and meeting rooms. But that's what we always start with. No wonder Arius's writings were publicly burned and all the writings of the heretics we must assume too. Leaving us no choice to start with the conquerors texts and traditions.

But then you have Islam which begins with - they falsified your religion, they made four gospels for you in their quest to obscure the real gospel which predicted a human paraclete, a fully human comforter. And some of their readings (like this associated with the human paraclete) do seem to be the original reading, the original interpretation. Whatever happened to those who believed in the human comforter ... Paul, Marcion, Montanus, Mani. They got their vengeance against half a millennium of being under the rulers boots with the coming of another Paraclete, some might argue the real, true Paraclete.

So there are always two sides to the story and I don't believe that the Roman gospels were 'accidentally' reconstructed to obscure the expectation for a fully human, fully messianic comforter being announced by Jesus. No I don't. Because it's the meaning any Hebrew would ascribe to an announced 'comforter.' But that's just one example where hard datum is (deliberately) misleading.

Secret Alias wrote:No. But 'hard datum' is the gift from the winners writing (or 'righting') history. .... But there we have it. Hard datum from the conquerors.

Well, to the extent that the winners are able to destroy inconvenient manuscripts, coins, inscriptions, and other artifacts (= hard data), this is true. But it still does no one any good to write about hypotheses as if they reached the certainty of hard data.

Am I certain what the particulars were of the ur-gospel? No and have gone to great lengths to argue against the reconstruction efforts of various Marcionophiles. But am I certain the ur-gospel was corrupted as part of a broader reform of Palestine religious forms in the late second century? As sure as I am that the reform efforts of Judah haNasi was the product of an Imperial collusion effort which is very. There's enough evidence to see broad cultural reforms as the Roman Empire disintegrated in the age of Commodus. I think al Jabbar "remembers" this owing to dependance on a fourth or fifth centiry source. In short efforts were taken to "encourage" monarchian forms of the various Palestinian religions. The Mishnah is a Jewish product of this collusion effort, Christians taking Acts seriously is another. But again what do my opinions matter anyway.

Isn't Papias evidence that at least Mark and Matthew were separate gospels in the early second century?

https://books.google.com/books?id=SbpVq ... ng&f=false

Which Mark and which Matthew? Not our Matthew and not our Mark. Not our Matthew because he means a series of 'oracles' not a narrative gospel. Irenaeus certainly tried to make it seem as if Papias was referencing our Matthew (or his Matthew) but most people (Watson most recently) see a disconnect. And if you mean 'our Matthew' in what way does Mark contradict the order of Matthew?

But why couldn't the oracles in Papias' Matthew have the sense of narrative like it does in Rom. 3:2 and Acts 7:8?

"Much in every way. For chiefly indeed, that they [the Jews] were entrusted with the oracles of God."

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/romans/3-2.htm

"This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us."

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/acts/7-38.htm

Secret Alias wrote:Which Mark and which Matthew? Not our Matthew and not our Mark. Not our Matthew because he means a series of 'oracles' not a narrative gospel. Irenaeus certainly tried to make it seem as if Papias was referencing our Matthew (or his Matthew) but most people (Watson most recently) see a disconnect. And if you mean 'our Matthew' in what way does Mark contradict the order of Matthew?

I agree that Papias' Matthew is not our canonical Matthew (but because the languages are not the same, not because of your argument about the word λόγια). Papias' Mark may or may not be (some recension of) our canonical Mark. But does not Papias provide evidence that different sets of gospel materials were in existence at that time, not just a single megagospel?

To be frank, I have never really understood your argument that some megagospel preceded the other gospels. The materials in our present canonical gospels certainly do not look like they were derived from a single longer text, at whatever remove. If anything, they look like they were cobbled together from shorter scraps of this or that, if anything.

Example 1: If the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke were extracted from a single, longer infancy narrative, then either Matthew or Luke must have known or seen which extracts the other was taking and decided to take virtually none of the same ones. But why bother? What problem do the combined and harmonized infancy narratives present that breaking them up in this conspiratorial fashion solves? Why not just rewrite or omit the offending parts, if any, altogether?

Example 2: Gospel texts (like our canonical John) which locate resurrection appearances both in Galilee and in Jerusalem do not appear to be reflecting an original text which had both; rather, they appear to be harmonizing two completely different sets of appearances. Luke's little verbal trick in 24.6 (contrast Mark 16.7) is how changes are made. Again, what problem does breaking things up into separate texts solve that rewriting or omitting does not?

Ben.