Did Papias use 'Gospel according to the Hebrews'?
Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2017 1:38 am
.
Michael J. Kok (2017) 'Did Papias of Hierapolis Use the Gospel according to the Hebrews as a Source?' Journal of Early Christian Studies 25(1); 29-53
Abstract:
There is a recurring patristic tradition that Matthew composed a gospel in the Hebrew language and that Jewish sects such as the Ebionites or the Nazoreans had access to it. A Papian fragment preserved by Eusebius (h.e. 3.39.17*) credits a story about Jesus’s encounter with a sinful woman to the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Nevertheless, this paper will argue that Eusebius was responsible for this ascription and that Papias of Hierapolis was active before the Jewish Christian gospels that bore this title were composed. Instead, this anecdote was available to Papias and the evangelist Luke from a pool of oral traditions in circulation in Asia Minor.
* Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16-17
Michael J. Kok (2017) 'Did Papias of Hierapolis Use the Gospel according to the Hebrews as a Source?' Journal of Early Christian Studies 25(1); 29-53
Abstract:
There is a recurring patristic tradition that Matthew composed a gospel in the Hebrew language and that Jewish sects such as the Ebionites or the Nazoreans had access to it. A Papian fragment preserved by Eusebius (h.e. 3.39.17*) credits a story about Jesus’s encounter with a sinful woman to the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Nevertheless, this paper will argue that Eusebius was responsible for this ascription and that Papias of Hierapolis was active before the Jewish Christian gospels that bore this title were composed. Instead, this anecdote was available to Papias and the evangelist Luke from a pool of oral traditions in circulation in Asia Minor.
* Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16-17
- “Now this is reported by Papias about Mark, but about Matthew this was said, Now Matthew compiled the reports in a Hebrew manner of speech, but each interpreted them as he could… and [he] had also set forth another story about a woman who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains”
https://jesusmemoirs.wordpress.com/2017 ... e-hebrews/
- There is debate among scholars about whether there was one, two, three, or more Gospel texts being cited by the church fathers who refer to the “Gospel according to the Hebrews.” I follow Luomanen and Gregory that there were two: a Jewish Christian source cited originally by Christians in Alexandria (Clement, Origen, Didymus) and a Gospel harmony attributed to the Jewish Ebionite sect by Epiphanius, while Jerome may have had access to other fragments from the Jewish Nazoraean sect’s translation of Matthew’s Gospel.
- There are fragments of the Jewish Christian Gospels that show signs of harmonizing Matthew and Luke and, thus, postdate the Synoptic tradition and Papias.
- Papias got the story of the accused woman from the oral traditions in Asia Minor. Interestingly, many of Papias’s oral traditions are multiply attested by the author of Luke-Acts, while this particular episode evolves into the familiar story of Jesus rescuing an adulteress from getting stoned to death that was interpolated into John 7:53-8:11.