The Gospels Were Not Published Until c.150

[Kapyong]

Gday all,
What a week that was. Thanks to all contributors, especially GakuseiDon and Ben C. Smith who provided intelligent honest feed-back And a few who popped in briefly - Blood, gmx, Kunigunde Kreuzerin, MrMacSon.

Over all, I have come away disappointed though
I remember when this place rang with the cut and thrust of challenging debate, but what I saw here had the emotional maturity and honesty of a school-girl's beauty pageant back-stage.

Secret Alias popped in to falsely abuse me as a biased atheist, and for being ignorant of 'Justin's harmony', then disappeared for ten pages when I pointed out his mistake, especially Stephan Huller's Gospel Division Theory - which he is even more reluctant to mention than my name.

Bernard Muller abused and ridiculed me as usual. No discussion on why he accepted my friendly assistance at first, then rudely rejected me. He is prepared to abuse me with falsehoods when I try to engage him, like the "KNOW" nonsense, but simply ignores any of his mistakes I point out.

TedM emotionally abuses and snipes at me, frequently blames me for his own mis-understandings, apparently because I only want to stick with the evidence, and won't go along with his beliefs in possibilities and possibilities of beliefs.

Then Peter Kirby dumped on us a 13 year old thread that preached his Gospel of the Holy Argument from Silence. A thread in which he called members who disagreed with him idiots and morons and stupid - the very epitome of the ad-hominem attack. A thread which showed he was wrong 13 years ago.

Peter Kirby asked us to read the thread and report on any conclusions. So I did just that - read the thread and reported the conclusion (with a thread summary) - the conclusion that his argument failed because he chose a bad comparand.

But Peter Kirby did not admit his error.
Instead he lied that it was not really a comparison at all, just to avoid admitting his mistake.

Then accused me of poisoning the discussion for daring to point out his failure (can't seem to find that comment now, but it was there yesterday.)

Then said - ' I didn't ask you to summarise the thread ' - as if we are only expected to do what Peter Kirby asks. This was simply a slap in the face for daring to show he was wrong.

He abused us as being to too stupid to understand his Gospel of the Holy Argument from Silence - a Gospel shown wrong many years ago. Another slap in the face.

Peter Kirby said ' who cares ? ' after HE brought it up. Another slap.

Peter Kirby ridiculed us for only having an AfS, continuing to ignore the positive evidence we keep bringing up. Slap.

And the posters who dared to criticise his argument - Peter Kirby simply rejected them as 'dismissive summary statements from random idiots' and 'random whoevers'.

Spin dropped in to congratulate Peter Kirby on preaching the Gospel of the Holy Argument from Silence - putting the idiots and morons and stupid mythicists in their place. Then falsely accused me of ad hominem and flew away. I invited him to return to address his mistakes and false accusation.

To his credit, Peter Kirby did apologise - twice :
First this fake apology :
"I don't really have the time right now to polish every phrase for you. Take my apology -- I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time to do this."
As if the problem was just 'polish'.
Followed by another fake apology :
"Hey, sorry about getting off on the wrong foot and all that."
Followed by a page of ifs-and-buts explaining why he really wasn't wrong about anything after all.

Spin did come back, like a dog returning to his own vomit - rudely displaying his failure to apologise to me, or address the failed Gospel of the Holy Argument from Silence.

I posted the summary of the evidence for discussion about a dozen times recently - none of the abusers will address it, being far more interested in insulting me.

Frankly, the behaviour of the abusers here has been appalling - the level of insults and personal abuse and bullying is shocking. It's been like arguing with teenagers.

But worse - you guys openly make false statements, then simply ignore or deny it outright. Do you really think it's OK to lie to stupid mythicists ? Have you no personal standards ? I grew out of denying my mistakes decades ago. Don't you care that you lied in print ?

I do agree with Peter Kirby on one issue - it's not really mythicists he despises. It's actually all the morons and the idiots and the stupid children playing in sand-pits who wet their pants when challenged. It seems clear where the toxic attitude prevalent here comes from - Peter Kirby.

Because what I have seen here is that Peter Kirby abuses his powerful intellect to walk all over normal people - the morons and idiots of everyday life, the unter-menschen without his brains. Spraying his superiority in people's faces, behaving like an arrogant egg-head over-inflated with his own sense of self-importance.

Peter Kirby may well be a scholar, but he is certainly no gentleman.
He gives a black eye to the reputation of all intelligent people.

Pull your socks up Peter Kirby !


Kapyong

[arnoldo]

Had to look up the meaning of the idiom you referred to which led me to the following idiom.

If the judge said to a man, 'Take the splinter from between your teeth*,' he would retort, 'Take the beam from between your eyes.'

*This is the reading in 'En Yakob. In the text of the Talmud the word is 'eyes', which does not seem to make such good sense.
http://www.come-and-hear.com/bababathra ... tml#15b_20

Does this sound familiar to you?

[Bernard Muller]

to Kapyong,

Bernard Muller abused and ridiculed me as usual. No discussion on why he accepted my friendly assistance at first, then rudely rejected me. He is prepared to abuse me with falsehoods when I try to engage him, like the "KNOW" nonsense, but simply ignores any of his mistakes I point out.

When did I request your friendly assistance? And if I did, would that mean I should be your follower forever and agree on everything you postulate?
I rejected you new ideas, not you.
What falsehood?
About that "KNOW so-called nonsense", you finally agreed that Papias knew about gospel-like writings, rather than just rumors of them.
What mistakes are you talking about?

BTW, you never answered this kind of questions:
Egerton gospel, "Clement", "Barnabas", Didache, Revelation, Cerinthus, Papias, Aristides, Quadratus, Basilides, Marcion's gospel, "Ignatius", 1 Timothy, Naassene fragment, Polycarp, the secret book of James, the gospel of Thomas, Epistula Apostolorum.
All of them have or allude to (canonical) gospel-like material. And that's a high proportion among the writings we know from before Justin's times (and after 80 AD).
HOW do you explain these authors incorporated (canonical) gospel stuff in their writings if they did not know about the gospels?

Another question:
If gMark was secret, how did "Luke", "Matthew" & "John" knew about it and used it?
And if three gospels author knew about a gospel & its content, how do you explain any other writers (or even non-writers) could not have known about the gospels & their content?

Cordially, Bernard

[TedM]

Gday all,
What a week that was. Thanks to all contributors, especially GakuseiDon and Ben C. Smith who provided intelligent honest feed-back And a few who popped in briefly - Blood, gmx, Kunigunde Kreuzerin, MrMacSon.

Over all, I have come away disappointed though

Kapyong I have started a lot of threads over the years with various tantalizing (or so I thought) hypotheses. In many cases I thought my argumentation and logic was a 'lock' - pretty much unassailable. Often as people chimed in and sometimes took me to task - and sometimes in a nearly overwhelming fashion volume-wise - I would conclude that I wasn't nearly as confident in my original position, nor enjoying it much anymore. It can be disheartening and a bit humbling to realize I don't know as much as I think I know and that others know much more in certain respects. But, as they say - that realization can open the door to much greater knowledge or wisdom.

It can also be quite frustrating and I've had my share of what seemed like 'abuse' directed toward me. Undeserved. So from a personal standpoint I can appreciate the frustration you have shared in your latest post.

Often I think it's a matter of each side not really understanding the other's position. In the spirit of honesty I will say that I was surprised by your following recent post when I read it today as clearly it showed a different Kapyong than I felt I had engaged with:

I appreciate that constructive criticism, and others too. I hear you. I will respond by :

Being more careful to distinguish between - the actual evidence, well accepted implications, and MY conclusions or speculations.
Being more clear about 'publishing' and being available etc. - which are key points

I do sometimes make a claim from speculation in a way that makes it sound like a fact - sorry, I will address that (I usually imagine the unspoken proviso 'in my opinion' added unless otherwise noted.)

I honestly wasn't sure if you were aware that you do this, as your statements sound very definitive, and as though in your mind they are not subject to question.

BTW - there is a view that I am pushing my 'pet theory'. I reject such a silly notion. Everyone here has a view on the issues, based on their reading of the evidence.

I was the one who used that phrase. Perhaps the phrase is a bit 'silly' sounding but the notion that you had a theory you were very set on seems to be what you say everybody does when you say 'everyone here has a view on the issues'. My intent was to emphasize that it is JUST a theory. It was not at all clear to me that you considered your claims to be anything other than irrefutable FACT.

The Gospels were only Published C.150 is really a HYPOTHESIS, which we are testing -

see above

I'm arguing for, others are arguing against.

But as we go, I am learning and responding and even adjusting my argument and claims in response. Isn't that the normal way ? If I am shown wrong, then I change my claims to match.

Several times I questioned why your account/view seemed to be changing in response to my attempts to get clarification as well as to show an opposing view, yet I didn't ever see where you acknowledged that you had changed a single view as you are saying here. That creates a great deal of frustration with those of us who are responding to you and was a factor in my quitting the thread. I think it is definitely helpful when engaging in this kind of back and forth discussion to IMMEDIATELY acknowledge the moments one has adjusted ones argument and claims in response. I will add another reason I quit was that I made a number of statements that you appeared to ignore, that were crucial to my position. I interpreted that as another indication that you were not willing to be flexible.

My hypothesis in it's current form is still firm :

The Four Gospels were not publically available until c.150.

I was glad to see Bernard and others continue with much of the kinds of thinking that I had been offering, and am willing to let them continue without me.

All the best,

Ted

[Bernard Muller]

to Kapyong,

Believers claim the Gospels would have been rejected by sceptics as non-historical when they were released, because people knew it never happened - largely due to personal memory of the times.
The evidence suggests The Gospels were not publically available until c.150 (maybe one with Aristides 120-130.)
Therefore the could NOT have been rejected by sceptics as non-historical when hey were released, and people knew it never happened - due to personal memory

I would correct your second point as such:
The evidence suggests The Gospels were available before c.150.

Were the gospels not criticized as non-historical before 150? We just do not know for sure but we have clues they likely were subject of criticism:

The gospels content was alluded to by writers through mentioning elements in them or paraphrasing and quoting (albeit inaccurately) them. But these writers did not want to look close to them because of the gospels flaws and perceived mythical parts. More so when Christian apologists then were criticizing the pagan own myths.
For example, "Matthew", "Luke" & "John" treated gMark with different degree of respect (high for "Matthew", low for "John"). They even "corrected" gMark material at times or deleted part of it.
Certainly none of them considered gMark as sacred and not subject to manipulations.

Cerinthus rejected the godly conception.

Papias tried to explain why the writing of Mark, about sayings and deeds of Jesus (most likely gMark with or without the long ending) was out of order. That means to me he knew a critique about Mark's writing, then accepted that critique as right, and then provided an explanation which did not throw a bad light of this writing and Mark. He did the same thing on the Logias of Matthew, blaming translators for the differences, again responding to critiques he heard.

I also suspect the dispute about fables and endless genealogies in 1 Timothy is caused by the content of the gospels, more so gLuke & gMatthew. At the end of the 2nd century, Tatian acknowledged the Christian narrations looked like mythical accounts.

I also note that Justin never mentioned Jesus walking on water and the two miraculous feedings of thousands.

Anyway, that's enough to assume there were critiques on the gospels before 150.

Food for thought.

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

... Papias knew about gospel-like writings, rather than just rumors of them.

BTW, you never answered this kind of questions:

Egerton gospel, "Clement", "Barnabas", Didache, Revelation, Cerinthus, Papias, Aristides, Quadratus, Basilides, Marcion's gospel, "Ignatius", 1 Timothy, Naassene fragment, Polycarp, the secret book of James, the gospel of Thomas, Epistula Apostolorum.

All of them have or allude to (canonical) gospel-like material. And that's a high proportion among the writings we know from before Justin's times (and after 80 AD).

HOW do you explain these authors incorporated (canonical) gospel stuff in their writings if they did not know about the gospels?

a. They could have been working from proto-gospel/ur-Gospel texts that had passages or pericopes that got incorporated in the canonical gospels.

b. Some or many could have gospel passages or pericopes inserted in them by copyists or redactors in later editions

[Bernard Muller]

deleted

[Bernard Muller]

to MrMacSon,

a. They could have been working from proto-gospel/ur-Gospel texts that had passages or pericopes that got incorporated in the canonical gospels.

It's easy to postulate something even if there is no evidence for it. What are the odds all these writers were working on something else than our "canonical" gospels? These are Egerton gospel, "Clement", "Barnabas", Didache, Revelation, Cerinthus, Papias, Aristides, Quadratus, Basilides, Marcion's gospel, "Ignatius", 1 Timothy, Naassene fragment, Polycarp, the secret book of James, the gospel of Thomas, Epistula Apostolorum.
If that proto-gospel was so popular, even after, or during the "canonical" gospels were written, we would certainly know about it, one way or another.
And this proto-gospel would contain parts of the four gospels, because these writers, at least, mentioned elements of several gospels between themselves.
Even so, that proto-gospel is still a gospel, and one has to wonder why this one would be so public, while the other "canonical" gospels would be hidden.
Crossan proposed one gospel preceding all the others, the gospel of Peter. But I do not think he has many takers.

b. Some or many could have gospel passages or pericopes inserted in them by copyists or redactors in later editions

That's a very slim possibility. When they have enough context text around them, these "canonical" gospels elements seem to be well embedded.

Cordially, Bernard

[Ben C. Smith]

What are the odds all these writers were working on something else than our "canonical" gospels?

Before examining the evidence up close, it is hard to determine those odds. But here are some reasons for thinking that early Christian writers had texts in hand that we no longer possess.

First, these writers sometimes give quotes which are not a part of texts which are extant. For example, Justin Martyr in Dialogue 106.1-2 writes that, after the resurrection, while staying with the apostles for a while, Jesus "sang hymns to God, as is also made clear in the memoirs of the apostles." Jesus does no such thing after his resurrection in our extant gospels. (Justin also records a baptismal fire or light at the Jordan at Jesus' baptism, which event appears only in two Old Latin codices, Vercellensis and Sangermanensis, at Matthew 3.15, along with a host of Diatessaronic witnesses.)

Second, there are many examples of words attributed to Jesus which we do not find in the gospels (these sayings are often called agrapha). While many of them may have been simply invented, and others transmitted orally, some can lay a decent claim to having been found in gospel texts no longer extant. Take the popular saying, "be approved moneychangers," for example. It is often presented simply as an agraphon ("Jesus said"), but Clement of Alexandria says in Miscellanies 1.28 that it was actually written down: "With reason, then, the scripture... exhorts: But become approved moneychangers, rejecting the [evil] things, and embracing the good."

Third, and finally, there is a methodological consideration. All too often investigators will deal with the canonical gospels exclusively, coming to important conclusions about their composition, their interconnections, and their relationships to the historical Jesus, and only then take into account the other gospel texts (Thomas, Peter, Egerton, and all the rest). While it is possible that all four canonical gospels are primary compared to all the rest, which are accordingly secondary and dependent upon them, this possibility ought not to be assumed beforehand; but dealing with the canonical texts first implicitly does just that. I myself have done this before, as I have mentioned on this forum: creating elaborate synopses of the canonical four, especially the synoptics, and only after that adding in the noncanonical texts. I did this even while not actually intending to exclude those texts from consideration; but my methodology belied my good intentions. The evidence we are dealing with when it comes to these unprovenanced, unsigned texts is extremely subtle, unable to absorb huge methodological errors. Treating the canonical four in any special manner will tend to trample whatever evidence there may be that those canonical texts are secondary to other texts.

One of my favorite treatments of a purported saying of Jesus is that of Dennis R. MacDonald in his doctoral thesis, in which he traces the "neither male nor female" saying that we find in Galatians 3.28. His discussion takes all of our sources as potentially equal, right from the start, in an effort to determine whether it all started with Paul in Galatians or whether Paul himself was fitting an existing saying, more fully preserved in other sources, into his epistle. Crossan is also pretty good about treating our sources equally from the start, though his conclusions can often be eccentric.

My own effort at methodological fairness on the parable of the talents/pounds can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2159. Spoiler alert: certainty cannot be had, but I suspect that the version found in a now lost gospel of the Hebrews preceded the canonical versions. Lest it be automatically thought that I overcompensate and unfairly privilege noncanonical gospels over the canonical four, I can state that, despite my efforts to be fair to the gospel of Thomas (as one example), I always or at least nearly always seem to find it to be late and derivative. That does not mean that I now conclude, with fanfare and a flourish, that Thomas has lost its right to consideration; for any given saying, it may potentially have preserved the earlier/earliest version. How would we know unless we keep it in the loop every time?

[MrMacSon]

If that proto gospel was so popular, even after, or during the "canonical" gospels were written, we would certainly know about it, one way or another.

There are several scenarios -eg. (i) maybe we do; (ii) not necessarily; (iii) perhaps there was more than one proto-gospel.

What are the odds all these writers were working on something else than our "canonical" gospels? These are Egerton gospel, "Clement", "Barnabas", Didache, Revelation, Cerinthus, Papias, Aristides, Quadratus, Basilides, Marcion's gospel, "Ignatius", 1 Timothy, Naassene fragment, Polycarp, the secret book of James, the gospel of Thomas, Epistula Apostolorum.

Moreover, that^ is not just some wild list of disparate texts or individuals.

1. Marcion & Polycarp are probably aligned. Robert M Price thinks they are mostly responsible for the Pauline epistles. Vinzent, Tyson, & Klinghardt think the Synoptics arose after Marcion. So, Marcion may be the source of some or a lot of 'proto-gospels' (+/- Polycarp).

2.a. The earliest surviving account of Cerinthus is that in Irenæus' Adversus Haereses (wr. ~170 AD). According to Irenæus, Cerinthus, a man educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, claimed 'angelic inspiration'.

2.b. The Epistula Apostolorum, part of the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, upheld orthodox Christian doctrine. It refuted Gnosticism - in particular the teachings of Cerinthus - and docetism.

3. You've included canonical texts in your list - ie. Revelation & 1 Timothy (and 'Barnabas' if one considers Codex Sinaiticus as canonical).

4. There are probably groupings or significant gnostic components among the rest of your list (I haven't got time to look; I may come back to that)

5. The Egerton Gospel (British Library Egerton Papyrus 2) refers to a collection of three papyrus fragments of a codex of a previously unknown gospel, found in Egypt and sold to the British Museum in 1934; the physical fragments are now dated to the very end of the 2nd century CE.

• "The surviving fragments include four stories: 1) a controversy similar to John 5:39-47 and 10:31-39; 2) curing a leper similar to Matt 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45, Luke 5:12-16 and Luke 17:11-14; 3) a controversy about paying tribute to Caesar analogous to Matt 22:15-22, Mark 12:13-17, Luke 20:20-26; and 4) an incomplete account of a miracle on the Jordan River bank, perhaps carried out to illustrate the parable about seeds growing miraculously.[1] The latter story has no equivalent in canonical Gospels:
  
  • "Jesus walked and stood on the bank of the Jordan river; he reached out his right hand, and filled it.... And he sowed it on the... And then...water...and...before their eyes; and it brought forth fruit...many...for joy..."

And this proto-gospel would contain parts of the four gospels, because these writers, at least, mentioned elements of several gospels between themselves.

• Not necessarily. There could have been many proto-gospels. Many were likely to be gnostic or gnostic-like. Like some of the Johannine texts or aspects of the Paulines.

.