Against who was the Earliest Gospel written?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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arnoldo
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Re: Against who was the Earliest Gospel written?

Post by arnoldo »

Man, it's a shame all of this gnostic stuff got burned up by the proto-orthodox faction of christianity allegedly in the second century onwards. Tertullian/Origen may provide some clues about the gnostic's beliefs however filtered this may be. I find it is an important question who the audience of the gospel was and what was the intentions of the gospel writer(s).

Perhaps you may find of interest Alan Culpepper's Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design and then apply it's methodology to your hypothesis. The following is from the table of contents of the book.

  • Introduction
  • Narrator and Point of View
    Definitions
    Expositional Mode
    Point of View
    Relationships within the Text
  • Narrative Time
    Order
    Duration
    Frequency
  • Plot
    What is Plot?
    Does a Gospel Have a Plot?
    What is John's Plot?
    Plot Development in John
  • Characters
    Characterization in Contemporary Criticism
    Characterization in the Gospel of John
    Jesus and the Father
    The Disciples
    The Jews
    The Minor Characters
  • Implicit Commentary
    Misunderstanding
    Irony
    Symbolism
  • The Implied Reader
    Readers and Narratees
    John's Readers
    Synthesis of the Portrait
  • Conclusion
http://fortresspress.com/product/anatom ... ary-design
Giuseppe
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Re: Against who was the Earliest Gospel written?

Post by Giuseppe »

arnoldo wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 8:47 am Perhaps you may find of interest Alan Culpepper's Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design
Thanks, but sincerely I am satisfied about April De Conick's way to nail the Fourth Gospel as a late catholicized version of a already late gnostic gospel.

When I read fully the Jean Magne's book, I will post more about it.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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arnoldo
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Re: Against who was the Earliest Gospel written?

Post by arnoldo »

Interesting, I once was considered studying religion at Rice University but instead went for philosophy at University of Houston. The Professor has an interesting pdf available on her website. Thanks for the info.
Tertullian.PNG
Tertullian.PNG (60.79 KiB) Viewed 6556 times
2013. “Who is hiding in the Gospel of John? Reconceptualizing Johannine theology and the roots of Gnosticism.” Pages 13-29 in Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions. Edited by April DeConick and Grant Adamson. Gnostica Series. Durham: Acumen..
iskander
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Re: Against who was the Earliest Gospel written?

Post by iskander »

arnoldo wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 2:58 pm Interesting, I once was considered studying religion at Rice University but instead went for philosophy at University of Houston. The Professor has an interesting pdf available on her website. Thanks for the info.
Tertullian.PNG
2013. “Who is hiding in the Gospel of John? Reconceptualizing Johannine theology and the roots of Gnosticism.” Pages 13-29 in Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions. Edited by April DeConick and Grant Adamson. Gnostica Series. Durham: Acumen..
Thank you Arnoldo, :thumbup:

The resurgence of the Hidden God : Luther's The Theology of the Cross, Alister E. McGrath.
From; the perspective of the Johannine author, Jesus came down out of the heavens to straighten out the religion, to teach that the just God is a god who resides in the heavens. He is a God of love and righteousness, grace and truth, whom no one knew about prior to Jesus' advent when he revealed himself through his Son.
CHAPTER 1
w h o is h i d i n g in the gospel of john?
reconceptualizing johannine theology and the roots of gnosticism
April D. DeConick
https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/ ... sequence=1

The Father Liberated:
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2.PNG
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https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5hQ ... nt&f=false
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MrMacSon
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Re: Against who was the Earliest Gospel written?

Post by MrMacSon »

arnoldo wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 7:02 am
... now the OP appears to support what may be called a Gnostic Fiction Postulate(GFP).

According to the GFP my guess is that the earliest gospel was written against the Pauline writer(s). In this case the antithesis would be the gospel writers reacting against the original gnostic Pauline writer(s)1 (thesis) in the first century. In the second century, according to the Proto-Orthodox Postulate (POP) a synthesis resulted2 in what came to be known as the Roman Catholic Church (RCC).
.
Giuseppe wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 7:18 am ... in terms of scientific respectability of the my thesis I may appeal to Robert M. Price, and especially to Jean Magne (reviewed positively by Jacob Neusner).
1 A few people have proposed the Gospel named Mark was based on the Pauline epistles -
  • Tom Dykstra, Mark Canonizer of Paul: A New Look at Intertextuality in Mark's Gospel, 2014
  • R.G. Price, Deciphering the Gospels, 2018
2 Such a synthesis was postulated [first?] by some of the Dutch Radicals in the mid to late 19th century (after supposed decades of adversary), but now, with both (i) the proposal that the G.Mark is based on the Pauline epistles and (ii) the advent of what might be called the 'Marcion-priority' of the gospel originsa, one might wonder if such a synthesis was not overt or even necessary, so happened naturally. That, in turn, might give more weight to propositions that the Pauline texts were written or modified in and around the Marcionite community, as proposed by Hermann Detering and Robert M Priceb (and, if not, the Marcionite's collection of them prompted the writing of the gospels).

a by Joseph B Tyson, Jason BeDuhn, Markus Vinzent, Matthias Klinghardt +/- others

b see Robert M Price's The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul, 2012.
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