Dating Papias

[Secret Alias]

Someone should develop a whole stand up routine developed from religious marginalia. Limited audience I admit. But who knows. George Carlin and Bill Maher have made a career of it.

[John2]

No cave birth story is found in the NT Canon.

Any writing which mentions Gospels according to Mark, Matthew, Luke or John must be or most likely after Justin Martyr or after c 150 CE.

The "cave" story is in the Protoevanglelium of James, e.g., 12:13-13:1.

And Joseph took her [Mary] down. And he found there a cave, and let her into it. And leaving her and his sons in the cave, Joseph went forth to seek a Hebrew midwife in the village of Bethlehem.

What this means to me is that a) the NT canon wasn't fixed by Justin's time (and thus the Protoevangelium could have also been viewed by Justin as a "memoir of the apostles"); and b) gospels that became canonized could have been known to Justin via a gospel harmony. And just like Justin's detail about the cave fits with the Protoevangelium, other things fit (what became) NT gospels.

[perseusomega9]

What this means to me is that a) the NT canon wasn't fixed by Justin's time (and thus the Protoevangelium could have also been viewed by Justin as a "memoir of the apostles"); and b) gospels that became canonized could have been known to Justin via a gospel harmony. And just like Justin's detail about the cave fits with the Protoevangelium, other things fit (what became) NT gospels.

Nah, the four canonical were deliberately titled and written with the purpose of setting straight the other christians. Justin's memoirs and marcion's gospel came before these four as we have them.

[John2]

What this means to me is that a) the NT canon wasn't fixed by Justin's time (and thus the Protoevangelium could have also been viewed by Justin as a "memoir of the apostles"); and b) gospels that became canonized could have been known to Justin via a gospel harmony. And just like Justin's detail about the cave fits with the Protoevangelium, other things fit (what became) NT gospels.

Nah, the four canonical were deliberately titled and written with the purpose of setting straight the other christians. Justin's memoirs and marcion's gospel came before these four as we have them.

What do you think Justin's memoirs were if not a harmony of NT gospels?

For me gospel harmonization began with the NT version of Matthew (which combined one or more translations of the original Hebrew Matthew with Mark), then Luke (which combined Mark with one or more translations of the Hebrew Matthew, including the NT version), and this trend simply continued into the second century with Justin using a harmony of Mark, Matthew and Luke, if not also John (hence what he says in Dial. 103, "the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them," with "apostles" being Matthew and John and "those who followed them" being Mark and Luke).

Are you suggesting that Justin is instead saying that the "apostles and those who followed them" (whoever they were) had collaborated on one writing which pre-dated the NT gospels and from which the latter were (at least partly) derived? If so, then why was his student Tatian's harmony called "of the four"? Do you suppose someone created and named the NT gospels after Justin wrote (using Justin's "memoirs") and then Tatian put them together?

[perseusomega9]

First problem is putting too much confidence in Justin. There is a shoddy manuscript trail. Second problem is then harmonizing Justin's 'works', but this is par for the course in NT studies for all collections of the same 'writer'.

[perseusomega9]

People didn't just randomly start saying the Gospel According to X says Y, it was a deliberate publication event.

[perseusomega9]

Once they have titles, they are referred to with such. This happened in a very rapid time frame.

[perseusomega9]

The church fathers were rewritten with later orthodoxy correcting them. How else do you explain Tertullian saying Marcion cut/edited Luke by giving examples from Matthew?

[perseusomega9]

You can have little confidence on reconstructing what a particular gospel looked like/is from paltry vague quotations by these mid 2nd century writers.

[John2]

The church fathers were rewritten with later orthodoxy correcting them. How else do you explain Tertullian saying Marcion cut/edited Luke by giving examples from Matthew?

As I said, I see Luke as a harmony of Mark and one or more translations of the Hebrew Matthew (including perhaps the NT version), and to judge from what Tertullian says in Against Marcion 4.4 there were variant texts of Luke, one of which could have had more examples from Matthew or they could have been added by Marcion.

To be sure, an amender of that Gospel [Luke], which had been all topsy-turvy from the days of Tiberius to those of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone ..."