The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

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Kapyong
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The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Kapyong »

Greetings all,

Considering the early Christian writings, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the Gospels were not published until c.150.

While I agree the Gospels were probably WRITTEN c.70 - c.100, their authors and origins are unknown, and they remained hidden and private. They were not available to other Christians until Justin Martyr had his hands on them c.150.

Here is the evidence - all the Christian writings from 70-160, by each decade (with a count for each decade) :

70s :
(First war with the Romans, Temple destroyed.)
G.Mark written.

80s (3) :
Colossians, 1 John, James.
G.Luke and G.Matthew written.

90s (5) :
Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Peter, 1 Clement, Revelation.
G.John written.

100s (2) :
Didakhe, Jude.

110s (1) :
(115-7 Minor war with the Romans)
Barnabas.

120s (5) :
2 John, 3 John, Apocalypse of Peter, Secret James, Preaching of Peter.

130s (7) :
(132-5 Bar Kochbar major war with the Romans - Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jews are razed, erased and expelled.)
2 Peter, Titus, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp to Phillipians.
Papias knows rumours about Gospel-like writings.

140s (3) :
Mathetes to Diognetus, Epistle of the Apostles, 2 Clement.

150s (3) :
Ptolemy, Dialogue of the Saviour, Martyrdom of Polycarp.

Justin Martyr - first to have Gospels in hand c.150.


Summary -
29 books written from 70 to 160 do NOT show knowledge of written Gospels (counting Ignatius as one.)

Of course, not all of these books could necessarily be expected to mention the Gospels, but they are also silent on most historical details about Jesus Christ - e.g. Justin Martyr is the very first Christian writer on record to mention the Empty Tomb, or Nazareth, or the baptism in the Jordan river.

Being un-mentioned by any one of these 29 books is good evidence that the Gospels were unpublished and generally unknown to Christians during this time.

A comprehensive table showing early Christians citations of key words and phrases can be found here :
http://kapyong.info/ChristianTable.html


Possible Objections :


1 Clement.
Does not really quote the Gospels, but merely gave a few SAYINGS attributed to Jesus, which are SIMILAR to what's found in the Gospels. He DID quote scripture, and Paul, many times, often by name. My analysis of Clement is here :
http://kapyong.info/ClementRome.html

Barnabas.
Does not quote the Gospels, just has a phrase similar.

Polycarp to Phil.
Does not quote the Gospels, but has some similar phrases.

Ignatius.
He does know a few details of the story (e.g. the very first to mention Mary), and is the very first to claim Jesus Christ was historical. But he does not have any Gospels, nor mention any.

Papias.
According to Eusebius in the 4th century, Papias wrote in early-mid 2nd century that he had heard that :
  • Mark had written down recollections of Peter, in Rome, but they weren't in order.
  • Matthew had written down the Sayings of Jesus in Hebrew (probably meaning Aramaic)
But he doesn't have the books, he didn't call them Gospels, and his descriptions do not match our Gospels well - G.Mark is not the recollections of Peter, and it is in order; G.Matthew is not Sayings but a narrative, and it was written in Greek.
These are rumours at best, a couple of decades before Justin Martyr got his hands on actual Gospels.

Someone Knew the Gospels
Yes, the authors knew them, and probably their immediate circle knew them. But they were hidden and unknown - NOT PUBLISHED.

Writers Didn't Mention What Everyone Knew
Ridiculous. How would readers ever learn anything new ? How would writers know what the readers knew ? Anyway - from Irenaeus on, writers like ClementAlex, Tertullian, Origen, and Hippolytus repeat the well-known Gospel details over and over. So do most Christians from then on, so do most Christians to this day - repeating and discussing the Gospel stories is a common favourite topic.

My conclusion is supported by the evidence - the Gospels were not PUBLISHED until c.150 with Justin Martyr the FIRST to have them.

Kapyong
Secret Alias
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Secret Alias »

You have hit upon the logic of most people here at the forum and twisted it in a new direction. It all comes down to this obsession with taking 'what we know' and the limits of knowledge. It is a very interesting ontological problem. How do we know what we don't know and can never know? The short answer is that we can never know all the things we don't know so - it follows apparently according to these men -that we should only deal with or pay attention to what we think we know for certain when determining the origins of Christianity.

Of course we know that our earliest sources speak of lots of sources and traditions which are no longer available to us. Sometimes we have only fragmentary knowledge of these same sources. Irenaeus speaks of a version of Matthew which was written in Hebrew. What do we do with that? What do we do with reports of the existence of the gospel of Marcion? How do we determine when a text which is completely lost to us was written?

I think it is madness to pretend we have any absolute knowledge about anything in Christian antiquity. The Marcionites spelled the name Jesus in a way that was distinct from their Catholic (or Palutian) counterparts. Do both names go back to the same etymology root? I don't know.

The Marcionites identified Jesus as a god and the Catholics a historical man who was also a god. Is there a historical 'fact' behind the parallel information in the Marcionite and Catholic gospels? I don't know and I don't think we can ever know that.

The list goes on and on. The one thing I am certain of is that we should stop pretending to be certain about our conclusions. We should be able to change what we think and what we believe to be true on a daily basis because there is so much we don't know, there is so much information unavailable to us. How much? I don't know.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Secret Alias »

As soon as you find yourself fixed to a conclusion too long flee from that opinion. You are mistaking comfort for true knowledge.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by MrMacSon »

Kapyong wrote:Greetings all,

Considering the early Christian writings, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the Gospels were not published until c.150.

While I agree the Gospels were probably WRITTEN c.70 - c.100, their authors and origins are unknown, and they remained hidden and private. They were not available to other Christians until Justin Martyr had his hands on them c.150 ...


Someone Knew the Gospels
Yes, the authors knew them, and probably their immediate circle knew them. But
they were hidden and unknown - NOT PUBLISHED.
Hi Kapyong, I think you have a problem [Houston] -

If the gospels were not available to 'other Christians', how could there be other Christians??
  • ie. if people hadn't seen or heard the key or core Christian messages, how could they be Christians??
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by MrMacSon »

.
I mostly agree with this -
Kapyong wrote:
Possible Objections :
  • 1 Clement.
    Does not really quote the Gospels, but merely gave a few SAYINGS attributed to Jesus, which are SIMILAR to what's found in the Gospels. He DID quote scripture, and Paul, many times, often by name. My analysis of Clement is here - http://kapyong.info/ClementRome.html

    Barnabas.
    Does not quote the Gospels, just has a phrase similar.

    Polycarp to Phil.
    Does not quote the Gospels, but has some similar phrases.

    Ignatius.
    He does know a few details of the story (e.g. the very first to mention Mary), and is the very first to claim Jesus Christ was historical. But he does not have any Gospels, nor mention any.

    Papias.
    According to Eusebius in the 4th century, Papias [supposedly] wrote in early-mid 2nd century that he had heard that :
    • Mark had written down recollections of Peter, in Rome, but they weren't in order.
    • Matthew had written down the Sayings of Jesus in Hebrew (probably meaning Aramaic)
    But he doesn't have the books, he didn't call them Gospels, and his descriptions do not match our Gospels well - G.Mark is not the recollections of Peter, and it is in order; G.Matthew is not Sayings but a narrative, and it was written in Greek.
These are rumours at best, a couple of decades before Justin Martyr got his hands on actual Gospels.
  • < .. snip .. >
... from Irenaeus on, writers like ClementAlex, Tertullian, Origen, and Hippolytus repeat the well-known Gospel details over and over. So do most Christians from then on, so do most Christians to this day - repeating and discussing the Gospel stories is a common favourite topic.

My conclusion is supported by the evidence - the Gospels were not PUBLISHED until c.150 [AD/CE] with Justin Martyr the FIRST to have them.

Kapyong
I think David Trobisch1 and Richard Carrier2 would agree (or at least have agreed) that the Gospels were not published as a collection until c.150. There is still, however, the vexing question of what happened before 150 AD/CE.

I would disagree, however, with the idea of a c.150 AD/CE Christian Bible. I think there needs to be further evaluation of Vinzent's & Klinghardt's arguments that the Synoptic gospels are post-Marcion, and dismissal of those arguments, before we can say there was a c. 150 codex/Bible.

eta: Although it's interesting that Carrier says, in that article I linked to^, --
  • "In a subsequent article Trobisch even made a case that the editor of this [mid 1st C] edition of the NT, the sole ancestor of all other versions known to us, in all other manuscripts, may have been the Christian leader Polycarp himself. I’m not as certain, but the case he makes for that conclusion is good enough to warrant at least the suspicion."
.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by MrMacSon »

.
Carrier does agree with Kapyong's time-frame for production of the individual texts making up the NT in this series of slides he used in a debate with JP Holding
  • (youtube video of said debate)
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Blood
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Blood »

I've always wondered how Irenaeus got his hands on such a large number of texts to criticize. It suggests free and open borrowing of texts of Christians until "heresiology" became an idea. Through the latter method a so-called "orthodoxy" was established.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Kapyong
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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Kapyong »

Gday Secret Alias and all :)
Secret Alias wrote:You have hit upon the logic of most people here at the forum and twisted it in a new direction. It all comes down to this obsession with taking 'what we know' and the limits of knowledge. It is a very interesting ontological problem. How do we know what we don't know and can never know? The short answer is that we can never know all the things we don't know so - it follows apparently according to these men -that we should only deal with or pay attention to what we think we know for certain when determining the origins of Christianity.
Well yes, it's unknown if there are more unknown unknowns than known unknowns,
but I'll go with the known knowns :)

I chronologically tabulated citations in the early Christian writings to key words and phrases, showing who mentioned what, when :
http://kapyong.info/ChristianTable.html

Here is what it looks like up to Justin Martyr :
Image
The orange box shows how the resurrection ('r') goes back to the earliest writings, but the red box shows how the Empty Tomb ('T') is un-mentioned until Justin Martyr.

And here, overlapping, is from 100 to about 200 :
Image
Note that from Irenaeus on, ClementAlex, Tertullian, Origen, Hippolytus et seq DO mention all the details.

Justin leaps out to the eye - he is the first to have his hands on any Gospels.


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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Kapyong »

Gday MrMacSon and all :)
Kapyong wrote:Greetings all,

Considering the early Christian writings, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the Gospels were not published until c.150.

While I agree the Gospels were probably WRITTEN c.70 - c.100, their authors and origins are unknown, and they remained hidden and private. They were not available to other Christians until Justin Martyr had his hands on them c.150 ...

Someone Knew the Gospels
Yes, the authors knew them, and probably their immediate circle knew them. But they were hidden and unknown - NOT PUBLISHED.
MrMacSon wrote:Hi Kapyong, I think you have a problem [Houston] -

If the gospels were not available to 'other Christians', how could there be other Christians??
  • ie. if people hadn't seen or heard the key or core Christian messages, how could they be Christians??
Well, there were certainly Christians before the Gospels, such as Paul. All the books I listed are considered Christian, yet show no knowledge of the Gospels, or their particular contents.

Consider Hebrews, a pre-Gospel Christian writing which has a rather heavenly view of Jesus Christ :

4:14 ' Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. '... 8:1 'Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, ...' 8:4 'Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. '

Jesus 'passed through the heavens' ? And 'if he were on earth' ? No suggestion there he ever was on earth. Some ambiguous passages do suggest a physical life on earth :

2:9 ' But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, ' 5:7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. ... 12:2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.


What strange phrases - how much 'lower than the angels' ? How odd 'the days of his flesh ' (sometimes even mangled into 'the days of Jesus' life on earth ' e.g. the dubious NIV.) There is mention of death and suffering and 'enduring the cross', without the slightest hint of anything historical on earth - no dates, places, names, no empty tomb, no trial.

Before Justin Martyr received four books, no Christian writer on record had his hands on a Gospel.

Even then, some Christian writers did NOT include Jesus Christ in their version of Christianity :

A letter from Mathetes To Diognetus c.140 has plenty to say about the Word, the Son of God, but no mention they had anything to do with a Jesus Christ, who is never mentioned.

Minucius Felix' Octavius c.150 describes a Christianity without any Jesus Christ, and even seems to reject the Gospel stories by insisting Christians do NOT worship a 'criminal crucified on a cross'.

Tatian c.160 (just before his mentor Justin Martyr died c.163) wrote an Address to the Greeks describing Christian beliefs in terms of the Logos, the first-born Son of God - without mentioning Jesus Christ.

Athenagoras c.170 wrote a Plea for the Christians which says much about the Logos, the Son of God, but nothing of Jesus Christ. Athenagoras even wrote a lengthy work On the Resurrection in which he discusses Christian beliefs about resurrection - without ever once mentioning Jesus Christ or his resurrection.


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Re: The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

Post by Kapyong »

Gday MrMacSon and all :)
Thanks for your comments,
MrMacSon wrote: There is still, however, the vexing question of what happened before 150 AD/CE.
Indeed :)
It has long puzzled me.

Where-ever the Gospels were, they apparently didn't appear publicly until sometime after the Bar Kochbar war, perhaps even as a response to it.


Kapyong
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