perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 3:49 pm
People didn't just randomly start saying the Gospel According to X says Y, it was a deliberate publication event.
But the first person to mention any gospels by name is Papias (Mark and at least three versions of Matthew) and he is presented as writing before Justin's time. That Justin doesn't name any gospels makes sense if he used a harmony like his student Tatian did. And in that case it would be quite fitting to call them memoirs of the "apostles and those who followed them" rather than by their individual names (just like Tatian's harmony was called "of the four" rather than "Mark, Matthew, Luke and John").
perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:35 pm
But you have no independent dating of Papias, quoted by churchmen with agendas.
Well, Irenaeus calls him an "ancient man" and Eusebius says that "he shows by the words which he uses that he received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their [the apostles'] friends," and that fits the context that Eusebius places him (i.e., no later than Trajan's time).
And what do you suppose was Eusebius' agenda in citing someone he disagreed with?
I suppose he got these ideas through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in figures. For he appears to have been of very limited understanding, as one can see from his discourses.
perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:57 pm
Contextless quoting? That's what political/ideological opponents do. That explains why Eusebius quotes what is useful to him and nothing more.
perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:58 pm
But I accept your tacit admission that there is nothing in the Papian quotatians that date him.
And by Papian quotations, in case you don't understand, I mean the words directly attributed to Papias. Nothing in them provides a firm or reasonable date, even your justifications rely on what others said about when he said it.