The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

[Kapyong]

Gday Secret Alias and all

Glad to see you back, there are some issues waiting for you back up-thread.

I think spin's point is the same as my general observation about many of these 'new atheist' positions.

Pardon ?
You dismissed me as an 'atheist' (as if that mattered) then skipped town when I pointed out your error(s). I am not a new atheist.

The fact that we can't prove that Jesus existed doesn't mean that Jesus didn't exist.

True.
Just like God, angels, faeries, BigFoot and leprechauns.

The fact that our earliest evidence for texts of the gospel comes from the middle of the second century doesn't mean that this is when they were first published.

Well, here is a summary of the evidence we all agree to (I think) :

• Papias 100-130 knows rumours of two Gospel-like writings - by Mark (from Peter), and Matthew.
• Aristides 120-130 knows of a single un-named Gospel, mentioning a virgin, which can be read somewhere.
• Justin Martyr c.150 - has several books 'called Gospels', the memoirs of the Apostles, and the memoir(s) of Peter.
• Justin Martyr dies c.163 - his pupil Tatian inherits the books
• Tatian c.172 - produces the 'FromFour' Gospel harmony, still no names.
• Irenaeus c.185 - first to name all four Gospels.

When do YOU think that shows publication ?

We can't allow ourselves to confuse 'can't prove definitively what something was' or 'how exactly it was defined' (= in the manner that a Big Mac is two all beef patties, special sauce, cheese, sesame seed bun) with that something should only be defined by evidence which is firmly defined and available for us.

Well, I believe in starting with the evidence, basing my arguments on the evidence - with minimum speculation and possibilities.

Such as all those discussions about Jesus Christ being purely a spiritual being. All that oral tradition about how Jesus Christ never came to earth. All those speeches that Paul gave about the heavenly Jesus Christ. All those meetings the early proto-Gnostics had discussing the attributes of the purely heavenly Jesus Christ. So many many possible pieces of evidence for a purely heavenly Jesus Christ who never came to earth. Let's make sure to add all those possibilities to the mix, right ?

Look -
you disparage your opponents as atheists and new atheists, so it's pretty obvious you're a believer. Now you're arguing that we should not limit ourselves to the evidence, but be more open to the possibilities - presumably possibilities that are all in accord with your religious beliefs ?

Sorry Secret Alias but a believer (apparently) who argues we should believe BEYOND the evidence is not particularly convincing

Especially considering your previous forays in that area, such as the Gospel Division Theory. Perhaps you can be more specific about that - when did the division occur in my time-line above ? Who wrote your monolithic ur-Gospel ? When ?

I'm not quite sure I understand your Gospel Division Theory, did it start with M, M, L & John or not ? Was it like this :

• M, M, L & John 70-100
• Four combined into one 110 ?
• The Big Division into Four 120 ?
• Papias 100-130 knows rumours of two Gospel-like writings - by Mark (from Peter), and Matthew.
• Aristides 120-130 knows of a single un-named Gospel, mentioning a virgin, which can be read somewhere.
• Justin Martyr c.150 - has several books 'called Gospels', the memoirs of the Apostles, and the memoir(s) of Peter.
• Justin Martyr dies c.163 - his pupil Tatian inherits the books
• Tatian c.172 - produces the 'FromFour' Gospel harmony, still no names.
• Irenaeus c.185 - first to name all four Gospels.

Or did it START with the monolithic ur-Gospel :

• ur-Gospel written 70-100 ?
• The Big Division into Four 110 ?
• Papias 100-130 knows rumours of two Gospel-like writings - by Mark (from Peter), and Matthew.
• Aristides 120-130 knows of a single un-named Gospel, mentioning a virgin, which can be read somewhere.
• Justin Martyr c.150 - has several books 'called Gospels', the memoirs of the Apostles, and the memoir(s) of Peter.
• Justin Martyr dies c.163 - his pupil Tatian inherits the books
• Tatian c.172 - produces the 'FromFour' Gospel harmony, still no names.
• Irenaeus c.185 - first to name all four Gospels.

I look forward to hearing your explanation

Especially on the issue of Justin's harmony. Which turns out to be just speculation, less solid than Q. Your cite giving information on Justin's harmony turned out to be a lone scholar citing himself on speculation based on a two useless reasons.


Kapyong

[Peter Kirby]

Peter Kirby was wrong, but I think he finds it very hard to admit error, especially to a mythicist.

While Peter Kirby calls us all personally morons and idiots and stupid etc.

some of you are abusing me like an idiot just because I am a mythicist,

without really reading my posts.

I'm just a 'mythicist' here, and the dominant clique, including the leader, are anti-mythicists.

Hey, sorry about getting off on the wrong foot and all that.

None of those statements are true... some of them are completely off, especially the assumption that there is special abuse (from me anyway) for mythicists or that I am an anti-mythicist... and so I'm sorry that you think so. For all practical purposes I have been frequently called a mythicist on this forum (just ask Bernard Muller), although from a methodological viewpoint I guess I'm technically agnostic.

(On the other hand, I've mentioned the falsehood of some of those things already, so I have no idea if this comment will be considered informative or just feed your narrative about distortion, abuse, gaslighting, or whatever else you think is going on.)

You think I find it hard to admit error because you have this one example that you believe proves it. Well, that depends on what I'm "refusing" and whether that's something in error. I freely admitted that I forgot the details of that old thread (when you mentioned that I used the dreaded word "comparand") and said I'm sorry but I'm not really concerned about the language used in that thread. I'm not defending my old thread posts as inerrant or something. They can have flaws and errors. It doesn't change the underlying facts or logic about which we should be concerned. So, sure, score yourself a point -- I for whatever reason used some words in that old thread. But I'm not lying about what I intended to do by bringing up that thread again, now, and that was just to point out a difficulty with using arguments from silence.

So am I "refusing" to "admit error"? Or are you willing to make accusations like the ones above freely?

Also, I'm not playing "word games." The word "comparand" was and is confusing because it led to the wrong interpretation of the criticism of the argument from silence. I've been abundantly clear about that in this thread. I think it's playing word games to be caught up on particular words and try to score points with them, without paying attention to the logic of the matter. I'm hardly doing that...

You can keep making all these accusations if you want, but the tone of these exchanges probably will not improve that way.

[Kapyong]

I AM right about the historical evidence :

• not one Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr had his hands on any Gospels

From which it directly follows :

• no-one could have challenged the newly published Gospels as not historical

WRONG. It does NOT follow directly. All that follows is that no one who was aware of ONLY 'on record' writings could have challenged it. But EVERYONE who was aware of it through any other means could have challenged them.

Who TedM ?
Who was your EVERYONE exactly ?

There is NO evidence for those people, it's just a POSSIBILITY :

• It's possible there was an oral tradition,
• It's possible there was NO oral tradition.

But now it's clear that you firmly believe those people existed. You abused me for being too ignorant to understand an oral tradition was possible, but I agreed it was possible, or possibly not too. But you then ignored the possibly not and leaped straight to the conclusion that it DID exist.

You are trying to invert the Argument from Silence to make YOUR beliefs into plausible evidence. There is NO evidence for your Oral Tradition Theory at all.

The only reason to believe in this Oral Tradition Theory is if one already assumes the Gospels WERE being passed around - which is the very argument in question.

Please lay out your evidence for us all TedM - why do you believe in your Oral Tradition Conspiracy Theory from Silence ? We're all listening to hear the evidence for your argument, in detail, with dates and names etc.

Why is this so hard for you to grasp?

It's not hard to grasp at all. But you keep doing that - abusing me for being stupid when I challenge and refute your claims. I think the evidence of this thread shows I grasp at least as much, if not more, than you TedM. You have made plenty of mistakes and errors which I have addressed without abusing you. I refuted your arguments - accusing me of being too stupid to understand them is a childish tactic.

Please stop rudely abusing me as a stupid mythicist.

SKEPTICS?

So now you're getting picky about British / American spelling ?

What are you NOW talking about? Non-historical? Again, what are you talking about? You keep moving the poles. You have now added in "Skeptics", and "who challenge the view that G.Mark is non-historical".

No I didn't.
Christian believers would obviously NOT reject the Gospels as non-historical would they ? You tried to argue that e.g. Aristides the new Christian convert was an example of someone who could have rejected the Gospel as non-historical, based on his full memory of all the events in Jerusalem back in the 30s. As if a Greek from Athens around the 120-130 (or maybe 140) would remember Jerusalem from a century prior !

Such an argument is plainly ridiculous.

Firstly, there is obviously NO chance at all that Matthew, John, and Luke would have publically rejected G.Mark as non-historical. I mean, seriously TedM !

There is no way Christian Papias could and would, have rejected the rumours of the writings he had heard about from afar.

That's why I clarified with the term 'sceptic', because obviously only a sceptic would reject the Gospels - believers woudn't, else they wouldn't be believers, would they TedM ?

Let's recap two relevant dates :

• First writer on record to have access to the Gospels was Justin Martyr c.150
• First pagan writer on record to have access to the Gospels was Celsus c.180

Which supports my claim about challenging the Gospels as non-historical based on historical recollections :

• There is no records of anyone having access to the Gospels before c.150
• So no-one could have considered challenging the Gospels as non-historical until c.150
• By c.150 no-one could possibly remember Jerusalem c.30
• Thus - the Gospels could not have ever been challenged as non-historical based on persons who remembered better

I'm done. You seem like a nice guy but I can't reason with you due to this kind of approach to a subject.

Oh
Bye then.


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday Ben C. Smith and all

I AM right about the historical evidence :

• not one Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr had his hands on any Gospels

Kapyong, I think your way of phrasing things is having an effect on how people respond to your argument. For example, to the above assertion the reasonably knowledgeable person on this forum very naturally replies: "But whoever wrote Matthew was a Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr, and he had the gospel of Mark in his hands...." You have tried to vary your wording for the evangelists (whoever they may be), and perhaps you also mean something special by "on record", but the meaning that you personally are pouring into these terms is not always obvious to me, at any rate, and I imagine they are not always obvious to others reading your words. It becomes difficult to tell, therefore, when someone is disagreeing with your logic and when someone is disagreeing only because of semantic issues.

Thanks for your feedback Ben C. Smith
It does seem to be an issue, here are my comments to clarify -

I do see a clear distinction between the Gospels, and books e.g. the Didakhe. About availability, but 'publish' is not a very useful word I can see. The distinction involves :

• privately available
• publically available

As an example of how that might have worked in practice -
G.Mark was written in Rome by an educated person (who knew the Tanakh and the Greek myths and also Paul.) It was kept in a private library of some rich person, as an interesting piece of religious literature, nothing more. A few people read it and liked it. Years later Luke and Matthew could conceivably have read the original in Rome, and decided to write an updated version then take it back to their own congregation. Or perhaps a copy was made in Rome and taken to Antioch were it was copied. So G.Mark was available only privately, there was no public copy in a library.

G.Luke, G.Matthew, and G.John clearly had access to G.Mark - perhaps the original (it's only a decade or so in a private library) or perhaps a copy that came to their home town. But they were PRIVATE books, not deposited in any library, and probably not intended to be so, and probably not intended to be considered historical. They were somewhat like a Sherlock Holmes book - set in a real time and place, but with a fictional hero.

The Gospels are not 'on the record' from c.70.
They were privately available,
but not publically available (until Justin)
according to the remaining records.

Would it be possible, then, for you to rephrase the statement above ("not one Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr had his hands on any Gospels") to take account of these confusions in advance? Is there some way you could phrase it, for example, to distinguish between, on the one hand, the author of the Didache as a Christian writer of the kind you propose and, on the other hand, the author of Matthew, for example?

Sure -
G.Matthew was only available privately, not widely and publically.
The author of the Didakhe did not know of the Gospels.
But the Gospels are critical to Christian belief - they certainly would be mentioned if known.
The Didakhe itself is not critical, so mention is not expected.

Which still leaves the question -

• Is the Didakhe itself a publically available document ?

I'll think more about all that Thanks for the instructive feed-back Ben C. Smith.


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday Secret Alias and all

And I don't think Kapyong has thought through his apparent 'acceptance' of Jesus as a god in terms of its impact on openly disseminating the gospel.

Well, I don't 'accept' Jesus as a god in a faithful believing sense
But I do acknowledge early Christians did so.

If Jesus was a god (let's suppose for a moment he was a Jewish god) would the gospel (= the story of the Jewish god coming to earth) have been a doctrine which was openly disseminated in public?

Well yes, it's possible the Gospels were kept secret to avoid offending (Jewish) people, yes. That could conceivably explain why the Gospels do not appear in the Christian record until Justin Martyr.

So for instance when we see our first glimpses of references to the narrative in Justin Martyr who lived in the middle of the second century, let's suppose that Justin knew the person who wrote the gospel - a man who was a contemporary of his - what would have been the public reaction to the claim that the Jewish god (or any god for that matter) walked the earth and met historical figures like Herod or Pilate?

Well, the obvious example would be Celsus c.180 who attacked the Gospels as fiction based on myths :
"Clearly the christians have used...myths... in fabricating the story of Jesus' birth...It is clear to me that the writings of the christians are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction" (From Hoffman's recreation.)

On the one hand you might argue that a fitting 'space' must have existed in order to create a 'god meets humans' narrative - i.e. that no one living in the age of the people mentioned in the gospel could have claimed that god actually came to earth. But I would turn that around. I think that people can claim all sorts of crazy things AND DO everyday. The important thing is that people want to avoid shame so the idea of secrecy moves into the foreground (i.e. this god meets human narrative could have been written in ANY AGE but it was a narrative which circulated PRIVATELY as Clement of Alexandria repeatedly suggests).

OK, so how do you explain that in terms of the evidence,
when did secrecy move into the foreground ? :

• Gospels 70-100 presumably
• Papias 100-130 knows rumours of two Gospel-like writings - by Mark (from Peter), and Matthew.
• Aristides 120-130 knows of a single un-named Gospel, mentioning a virgin, which can be read somewhere.
• Justin Martyr c.150 - has several books 'called Gospels', the memoirs of the Apostles, and the memoir(s) of Peter.
• Justin Martyr dies c.163 - his pupil Tatian inherits the books
• Tatian c.172 - produces the 'FromFour' Gospel harmony, still no names.
• Irenaeus c.185 - first to name all four Gospels.

Have you abandoned your Gospel Division Theory ?


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday oleg

Thanks for joining my thread, the more the merrier

I AM right about the historical evidence:

• not one Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr had his hands on any Gospels

Then, which writer, prior to "Irenaeus" (whose existence is known because of which secular document?) claims to have read "Paul's" epistles? How did "Paul" send a message to Corinth, Kapyong? Who was there to receive it?

I don't know oleg, are you going to tell us ?
Are you also going to tell us why you think it's relevant ?

What kind of archaeological evidence do you have, Kapyong, for existence of a Christian presence in Corinth, prior to 4th century CE?

Nothing at all oleg, what do you have ?
Hmmm ... did you accidentally click on the wrong thread, oleg ?

This thread is about the Gospels, and when they were published (although we are moving on from that ambiguous term to say 'publically available' or other terms.)

Here is the summary of key evidence, some positive, some negative :

• Gospels 70-100 presumably
• Papias 100-130 is aware of two Gospel-like writings - by Mark (from Peter), and Matthew.
• Aristides 120-130 knows of a single un-named Gospel, mentioning a virgin, which can be read somewhere.
• Justin Martyr c.150 - has several books 'called Gospels', the memoirs of the Apostles, and the memoir(s) of Peter.
• Justin Martyr dies c.163 - his pupil Tatian inherits the books
• Tatian c.172 - produces the 'FromFour' Gospel harmony, still no names.
• Irenaeus c.185 - first to name all four Gospels.

Yes, 500 years after the common era, Kapyong. Not five years. Not fifty years. And, that data simply attests to the repopulation of the city post annhilation, it says nothing about the composition or ethnic profiles, nor linguistic preferences of the inhabitants.

OMG ! Really ? 500 years ? Not 5,000 ? Not 50,000 ? Not 5 million years ?
Seriously oleg
why on earth do you think a repopulation of the city post annhilation or the composition or ethnic profiles or the linguistic preferences of the inhabitants is in anyway related to the topic of the Gospels being publically available to Christians ?


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday Bernard Muller and all

Well, no-one really KNOWS do we ?
I just think it's the best conclusion to be drawn from the evidence. I'd be just as happy to say that he knew of the two books, or that he was aware of the two, sure. But his description is so poor, that his connection seems distant. It's quite odd that he doesn't use the word 'Gospel'.

But you KNOW ...

FFS Bernard Muller !
I just said explicitly that no-one really KNOWS. I specifically noted I just think it's the best conclusion to be drawn from the evidence. I did NOT say I "KNOW" for 100% sure and certain, I clearly said the exact opposite.

I simply made a statement, like you do, like everyone does. When you challenged me on it I clarified it was just a conclusion, that I did not know for sure. Then you bizarrely responded by abusing me for claiming to KNOW !

What dishonest bullshit. Do you believe it's OK to use stupid arguments against mythicists because they are all stupid ? Or do you really think you have a good argument there Bernard Muller ?

And from where do you think Papias knew about Judas the traitor?

Well, we all know where YOU think he did, don't we Bernard Muller ?
Because this is your well-known peculiar bias :

Papias mentions Judas.
The Gospels mention Judas.
Therefore, Papias MUST have taken it from the Gospels.
Even though Papias' Judas story is different to the Gospels.

Papias' intent was not to describe the writing of a Mark in details, just to explain why it was out of order.

Really ?
How do YOU know Papias' intent Bernard Muller ?
How many other ancient authors' intents do you know ?

Our G.Mark is NOT out of order. What was Papias explaining do you think ?

As for the word "gospel", it means "good news", which is hardly adequate, rather strange, to name this kind of book about pseudo-history. No wonder "gospel" was not used immediately to name these books. The use of "gospel" for these books was progressive. Even much later, Justin Martyr preferred to call these books, most of the time, "memoirs of the apostles".

Indeed.
The title 'Gospel' seems to have arisen between Papias and Justin Martyr.

Well, he may be aware of a book that might be an early version of G.Mark

What is your evidence Papias knew only an earlier version of gMark, but not the real gMark itself?

Well :

• It does not yet have the title 'Gospel',
• Papias says it is out of order, but ours is in order
• It is still named for Peter from Mark, like Justin, but from Irenaeus on it is just G.Mark.

But anyway, it could conceivably have been an almost fully developed G.Mark, I'm NOT making a specific claim about the particular version that Papias knew.

I do not think "gospel" in Mk 1:1 "The beginning of the gospel [good news] of Jesus Christ" would be understood as establishing the type of book in the time of Papias. Paul used the same word, but it was not to appeal to these pseudo-histories.

And so ?

I do not see why Papias had to provide quotes.

I do not see why you said that. No-one claimed Papias 'had to' provide quotes. The issue is that Papias did NOT provide quotes, and did not give a good description. Papias is aware of those two books, but he does show any sign of actually seeing or accessing them himself.

And his description as "the sayings or deeds of Christ" is more adequate as describing gMark than just "gospel".

And so ?

Obviously the other three Gospel authors knew G.Mark. But that's it. They spread no further for 50-80 years - on the evidence. Because an argument from silence can be strong IF :

• the author should know the information, and
• has a motive to mention it.

How do you know?

A book like the Didakhe e.g. clearly fits :

• the authors should know the Gospels, as they've apparently been around for up to 30 years,
• the authors have a very strong motive to mention the Gospels and their teachings, such as the Lord's Supper

You think if someone read gMark, he/she had to write a new gospel. So if someone did not write a new gospel, that means that this person was not aware of gMark!

Sorry that's crazy talk. I don't believe that at all.


Kapyong

[Peter Kirby]

The thread concluded

But when I reported that in my thread summary

instead of admitting

Okay, this explains perfectly why your initial post kinda annoyed me, something that poisoned the rest of that discussion.

The "thread" cannot make a valid conclusion. The "thread" is just a bunch of old posts. The people in that "thread" are of unverified expertise, objectivity, *gasp* intelligence, etc. There's no guarantee that the "thread" provides you with a reliable conclusion from a panel of reasonable people trying to keep bias in check somehow, at least by having varied interests and motivations represented. Actually there's a strong likelihood that most of those people have a lot of bias and not a few errors in their thinking, if you actually look at the details of what motivated them and what their "reasoning" was.

Look at this "thread," for example. Would you be upset if I quoted a bunch of people in this thread to prove that you're wrong? Possibly, even probably, especially if I just quoted the most dismissive summary statements from people who might not even have made any real intelligent insight.

Nobody asked for a thread summary. I asked that people who wanted to argue (hoping to reduce argument because I find this argument pretty tedious) look in the thread to find my posts, with my responses to some of the most common things people said. That way, if they wanted to develop a conversation, they could use my responses as a springboard for a new conversation.

Do you see the difference? When you just quoted the highlights of the most common things people said -- and some fairly "abusive" ones at that (that seems to be the hot word to use now) -- you annoyed me. More importantly, you failed to prove anything.

And in this thread, you use the argument that I used the word "comparand" or "compare" (so I cannot do anything other than make comparisons, there's a law about that, if you use the word once you cannot ever do take-backs or clarify your intent...) and that the 17th century Rutherford was in a totally different situation than the 1st century Paul (yep!), so that's a bad comparison because obviously 17th century != 1st century (duh!). Oh, and somehow you know that Rutherford has absolutely no "motive" and Paul necessarily has "motive," because you know. (Yeah, I think it's lame that we keep talking about Rutherford, but we really lack initiative in trying to think critically and seriously about better ways to analyze arguments from silence...) And presumed "motive" proves that it would be said (does it?). So the argument from silence is proven correct and I should feel bad for not just agreeing with you.

Gee, I'm such an abusive jerk for not just agreeing with everything you say ... and for using some mild language about some of the participants in that forum (not towards you).

[GakuseiDon]

[*]Aristides 120-130 knows of a single un-named Gospel, mentioning a virgin, which can be read somewhere.

I think that Aristides tells us a little more than this. He mentions Christian writings about a half dozen times, and seems to urge Hadrian to read them. This suggests to me that Christian writings were expected to be available to the pagans of his time, even if only to the educated.

As for his Gospel: he writes:

• And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it.

If that is a reference to a virgin-birth, then that eliminates the Gospel of Mark and Gospel of John as his only sources, at least in the form we have them today.

[TedM]

I AM right about the historical evidence :

• not one Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr had his hands on any Gospels

From which it directly follows :

• no-one could have challenged the newly published Gospels as not historical

WRONG. It does NOT follow directly. All that follows is that no one who was aware of ONLY 'on record' writings could have challenged it. But EVERYONE who was aware of it through any other means could have challenged them.

Who TedM ?
Who was your EVERYONE exactly ?

I'm sure you know who they COULD be so that's really not the right answer Kapyong, and again shows the source of my frustration. I just stated why your 'directly follows' statement is flat out wrong. Even if it is true that not one Christian writer on record before Justin Martyr had his hands on any Gospels it simply does NOT follow that no-one could have challenged the newly published Gospels as not historical. The reason it does not follow is that you are not taking into account all of the other other Christians who weren't writers, and you are not taking into account all of the non-Christians who were either writers or who weren't. The group of people that could have challenged the newly published Gospel was many many times greater than the small number of Christian writers you you claim were the only ones who could have challenged it. Evidence that those who could have challenged it existed isn't required. It's common sense that they existed. Was everyone a writer? Was everyone a Christian? If they existed, they could have challenged it. But you say they couldn't have SIMPLY because no Christian writers did. Why do the actions of person A 100% guarantee the actions of person B?

It has been pointed out several times now that the way you word things misleads people. I don't think it is intentional but is certainly is frustrating.

I do apologize if I offended you. It wasn't my intention. It just seemed like you were not trying to be open minded. I don't know if your inability to see what appears to me to be errors is due to stupidity, ignorance, something psychological, a language difference, dogmatic thinking, carelessness or something else. I don't think you are stupid and I"m sorry it sounded that way.

You are trying to invert the Argument from Silence to make YOUR beliefs into plausible evidence. There is NO evidence for your Oral Tradition Theory at all.

IMO some things just don't require evidence Kapyong. This is one of those things. Gospels pre-existed Justin. They were known by people other than Christian writers prior to Justin. Therefor, they could have been challenged for being non-historical. Period. I suspect they were too. The record doesn't have to show it and even if the record doesn't mention such a challenge or such gospels by name (it does - Papias), we still can conclude that they could have been challenged. You, by saying the COULD NOT HAVE BEEN challenged relies not on evidence but on assumptions. "COULD NOT' excludes possibilities. You claim you understand and know that there were possibilities but that's not what your claim does - it actually EXCLUDES those possibilities from even being possible.

Christian believers would obviously NOT reject the Gospels as non-historical would they ?

I don't agree with that. What if mythicism was how Christianity started? Those Christians absolutely would have rejected the Gospels as non-historical.

You tried to argue that e.g. Aristides...

wasn't me.

Firstly, there is obviously NO chance at all that Matthew, John, and Luke would have publically rejected G.Mark as non-historical. I mean, seriously TedM !

There is no way Christian Papias could and would, have rejected the rumours of the writings he had heard about from afar.

I completely disagree. People reject privately and publicly what they don't agree with all the time. "NO chance" again excludes reasonable possibilities. You again are making the assumption that something that is quite possible - if not probably even - is impossible. That's why I have such a hard time relating to most of what you are saying here.