1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Giuseppe
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:51 am
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:39 am It is sufficient to see this link to realize that that particular vogue was current especially under the Antonine time (quasi obsessive, I would say):


http://jeannedepompadour.blogspot.com/2 ... 5.html?m=1

Note how differently from previous emperors, even Hadrian and Antoninus Pius respected that hair style.
Male emperors being interested in this elaborate hairstyle is irrelevant, since the injunctions are for females only.
apart the fact that the link shows also female images, are you sure that you aren't doing here an atomistic approach at the evidence? Is really necessary to point out the fact that "male emperors being interested in this elaborate hairstyle is irrelevant"?

Afterall, it is remarkable to see that the emperors of I century differ in the hair style from the emperors of II century just in the sense I refer about above...
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 9:02 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:51 am
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:39 am It is sufficient to see this link to realize that that particular vogue was current especially under the Antonine time (quasi obsessive, I would say):


http://jeannedepompadour.blogspot.com/2 ... 5.html?m=1

Note how differently from previous emperors, even Hadrian and Antoninus Pius respected that hair style.
Male emperors being interested in this elaborate hairstyle is irrelevant, since the injunctions are for females only.
apart the fact that the link shows also female images....
My comment was in response to your sentence, not to that link.
...are you sure that you aren't doing here an atomistic approach at the evidence?
Yes, quite sure. I want real evidence, not assumptions.
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DCHindley
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:09 amI wonder if someone could help me out here. I'm sure that this subject must have come up before but here goes. In 1 Clement the author is talking at one point about the sacrifices in Jerusalem that are still going on, doesn't this imply a period before the Jewish Roman war?
Lane, hopefully this has not already been offered as a solution to your question, but try this published Doctoral Dissertation by Thomas J. Herron, Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians (1988):

https://books.google.com/books?id=P9N9W ... se&f=false

The critic is a somewhat conservative Roman Catholic, and has an archbishop's imprimatur dated 1988/6/29, so he will not be too far out there. Much like John P. Meier does in his A Marginal Jew series, Herron looks at the various sides of the dating issue and considers the positions of a fair number of then-recent scholars, before settling on the most bland, middle of the road, solution he thinks best.

My quick perusal of the Roberts-Donaldson English translation suggested to me that "Clement" was stressing the fact that the four types of formal sacrifices that can be offered *must* be performed in one place, the temple in Jerusalem. The intended irony is that Jerusalem, along with the temple, was already razed to the ground, and so the offerings of sacrifices cannot be performed, nullifying them. God had allowed the city and temple be destroyed as a punishment to his people for having a hand in the killing of Jesus Christ, but allows private persons to offer prayers as offerings to God, and of course Christians do that better than anyone.

I did not at first see any present tenses being used for the formal sacrifices, as I had been led to suspect, but checking out the above book (an e-book costs $9.99 US) it became clear that the modern translators all took present tense verbs as examples of a "historical present" which is technically describing something that was formerly done.

Most scholars and all the modern English translators, he says, think that the author wrote between 97 & 140 CE. It doesn't really matter whether a scholar or translator believed the author of 1 Clement wrote just after the time of Domitian (ca. 97 CE), or closer to 140 CE. Herron, siding with a minority of critics, believes that there is sufficient good reason to think that the author wrote around 68 CE in Nero's time, although I do not agree with him about that.

DCH
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neilgodfrey
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by neilgodfrey »

On a late date, Wellborn's chapter in: Encounters With Hellenism: Studies on the First Letter of Clement

On NT sources in 1 Clement, chapter 6 in Vol 1 of: The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers
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Jax
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Thank you guys very much! I now have a nice way to fill a grey, crappy rainy, Saturday. :)
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Jax
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by Jax »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:09 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:45 pm [P. Kirby once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time]

Does anyone know where I can find this?
Maybe it is something he wrote on the old FRDB. On his Early Christian Writings page: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html, he cites Alvar Ellegård as having given a Neronian date. Other than that, I have no clue.
I have just recently re-read Alvar Ellegard and he does indeed argue for a date in the 60's for 1 Clement. However his argument is based mostly on the passage in Clement concerning the temple sacrifices in Jerusalem which I feel Peter Kirby as correctly identified as an interpolation. http://peterkirby.com/a-study-in-1-clement.html
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Jax
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by Jax »

DCHindley wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:05 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:09 amI wonder if someone could help me out here. I'm sure that this subject must have come up before but here goes. In 1 Clement the author is talking at one point about the sacrifices in Jerusalem that are still going on, doesn't this imply a period before the Jewish Roman war?
Lane, hopefully this has not already been offered as a solution to your question, but try this published Doctoral Dissertation by Thomas J. Herron, Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians (1988):

https://books.google.com/books?id=P9N9W ... se&f=false

The critic is a somewhat conservative Roman Catholic, and has an archbishop's imprimatur dated 1988/6/29, so he will not be too far out there. Much like John P. Meier does in his A Marginal Jew series, Herron looks at the various sides of the dating issue and considers the positions of a fair number of then-recent scholars, before settling on the most bland, middle of the road, solution he thinks best.

My quick perusal of the Roberts-Donaldson English translation suggested to me that "Clement" was stressing the fact that the four types of formal sacrifices that can be offered *must* be performed in one place, the temple in Jerusalem. The intended irony is that Jerusalem, along with the temple, was already razed to the ground, and so the offerings of sacrifices cannot be performed, nullifying them. God had allowed the city and temple be destroyed as a punishment to his people for having a hand in the killing of Jesus Christ, but allows private persons to offer prayers as offerings to God, and of course Christians do that better than anyone.

I did not at first see any present tenses being used for the formal sacrifices, as I had been led to suspect, but checking out the above book (an e-book costs $9.99 US) it became clear that the modern translators all took present tense verbs as examples of a "historical present" which is technically describing something that was formerly done.

Most scholars and all the modern English translators, he says, think that the author wrote between 97 & 140 CE. It doesn't really matter whether a scholar or translator believed the author of 1 Clement wrote just after the time of Domitian (ca. 97 CE), or closer to 140 CE. Herron, siding with a minority of critics, believes that there is sufficient good reason to think that the author wrote around 68 CE in Nero's time, although I do not agree with him about that.

DCH
Thanks for the book link Dave, that was a very good read. :cheers:
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Jax wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:11 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:09 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:45 pm [P. Kirby once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time]

Does anyone know where I can find this?
Maybe it is something he wrote on the old FRDB. On his Early Christian Writings page: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html, he cites Alvar Ellegård as having given a Neronian date. Other than that, I have no clue.
I have just recently re-read Alvar Ellegard and he does indeed argue for a date in the 60's for 1 Clement. However his argument is based mostly on the passage in Clement concerning the temple sacrifices in Jerusalem which I feel Peter Kirby as correctly identified as an interpolation. http://peterkirby.com/a-study-in-1-clement.html
Quite a bit of Google searching for terms including "Peter Kirby," "1 Clement," and "Nero" have served only, in the main, to lead back to Kirby's ECW page on 1 Clement as quite possibly the source for the claim that Peter Kirby "once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time." I got a lot of hits for an old FRDB discussion of 2 Thessalonians which seems to have turned into a discussion of 1 Clement, and the comments quote from that ECW page. This is a composite image from those searches:

Neronian Date of 1 Clement.png
Neronian Date of 1 Clement.png (95.17 KiB) Viewed 7843 times

You can see that the quotes are from the ECW page:

Alvar Ellegård has argued for a date as early as the sixties of the first century for a few reasons in his Jesus: the Temple cult is mentioned in the present tense (pp. 38-39), Peter and Paul are mentioned as of "our generation" (pp. 39-40), and the letter seemed to have been written during a persecution, perhaps that of Nero (p. 40). On the other hand, as is pointed out with Hebrews, a mention of the Temple cult in the present does not prove that the author was writing before 70 CE. The reference to "our generation" is simply a contrast between the Christian era and the previously mentioned era of ancient Judaism. Finally, the supposed reference to persecution may be a literary device, as pointed out by Welborn. Besides, there were also persecutions under Domitian, Trajan, and other emperors. [Link.]

Another page which came up in the searches was a blog post containing a dialogue with Hermann Detering — I think MrMacSon has recently linked to this page — but Kirby does not even mention Nero in this exchange; Detering does once, but only to cast doubt upon the notion that a persecution of the church (Neronian or Domitianic or otherwise) is in view in 1 Clement. A dead end.

Finally, a page on early Christian martyrdom came up, but again: it contains nothing dating 1 Clement to Nero's reign. Another dead end.

So my best guess for the claim you mention has to be (at least so far): Kirby summarizing Ellegård (and then immediately arguing against him, but the claim merely said that Peter Kirby listed arguments, not that he agreed with them).
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neilgodfrey
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:39 pm
Quite a bit of Google searching for terms including "Peter Kirby," "1 Clement," and "Nero" have served only, in the main, to lead back to Kirby's ECW page on 1 Clement as quite possibly the source for the claim that Peter Kirby "once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time." I got a lot of hits for an old FRDB discussion of 2 Thessalonians which seems to have turned into a discussion of 1 Clement, and the comments quote from that ECW page. This is a composite image from those searches:


Neronian Date of 1 Clement.png


You can see that the quotes are from the ECW page:

Alvar Ellegård has argued for a date as early as the sixties of the first century for a few reasons in his Jesus: the Temple cult is mentioned in the present tense (pp. 38-39), Peter and Paul are mentioned as of "our generation" (pp. 39-40), and the letter seemed to have been written during a persecution, perhaps that of Nero (p. 40). On the other hand, as is pointed out with Hebrews, a mention of the Temple cult in the present does not prove that the author was writing before 70 CE. The reference to "our generation" is simply a contrast between the Christian era and the previously mentioned era of ancient Judaism. Finally, the supposed reference to persecution may be a literary device, as pointed out by Welborn. Besides, there were also persecutions under Domitian, Trajan, and other emperors. [Link.]

Another page which came up in the searches was a blog post containing a dialogue with Hermann Detering — I think MrMacSon has recently linked to this page — but Kirby does not even mention Nero in this exchange; Detering does once, but only to cast doubt upon the notion that a persecution of the church (Neronian or Domitianic or otherwise) is in view in 1 Clement. A dead end.

Finally, a page on early Christian martyrdom came up, but again: it contains nothing dating 1 Clement to Nero's reign. Another dead end.

So my best guess for the claim you mention has to be (at least so far): Kirby summarizing Ellegård (and then immediately arguing against him, but the claim merely said that Peter Kirby listed arguments, not that he agreed with them).
Oh Ben -- you seem to be blind to anything I post here --- we have found Kirby's arguments as per the initial request.....
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:11 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:09 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:45 pm [P. Kirby once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time]

Does anyone know where I can find this?
Maybe it is something he wrote on the old FRDB. On his Early Christian Writings page: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html, he cites Alvar Ellegård as having given a Neronian date. Other than that, I have no clue.
It's in the post above yours, posted 12 minutes earlier. -- both the link and the list of arguments
Here 'tis...
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:57 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:45 pm [P. Kirby once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time]

Does anyone know where I can find this?
It's now MrMacSon's turn to be thanked:
MrMacSon wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:12 pm Regarding 1 Clement (and its authenticity), Peter Kirby has noted Hermann Detering expounded seven arguments, -

First, “Can a document consisting of some 32-35 papyrus pages be accepted without further ado as a writing that was sent from Rome to Corinth with the intention of actual correspondence? …With the passing of one or two months, the situation which the writer presupposes in his writing could be entirely different, and his writing hopelessly out of date.”

Second, “If the party conflict in Corinth and the replacement of the presbyters with younger members of the church was in fact the real incentive for the letter from the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, it is furthermore completely impossible to understand why the writer only comes to speak of this in chapter 44 (!) and in the first two-thirds of the writing exhausts the patience of the Corinthians with discussions of the resurrection, the omniscience and omnipresence of God, and such things, which although edifying, have no importance for the matter at hand.”

Third, “In addition, there is the consideration that the entire controversy addressed by the writer of 1 Clement remains strangely unclear and vague and that the information about it is very contradictory, as even supporters of its authenticity today must concede: He [Clement] emphasizes that the uproar can be traced to a few rash and self-willed persons (1.1; in 47.6 it is only one or two persons), but then accuses the entire congregation (46.9 = your uproar). As motives he identifies jealousy; envy and contentiousness; lack of love, humility and discernment. But he does not identify the actual background of the Corinthian conflict (!), just as little as he identifies the actual motives for the certainly uninvited intervention by Rome in the inner affairs of the Corinthian church (!). Without doubt, these are closely related, but there is nothing else to learn about either.”

Fourth, “If one begins with the presumption that we have to do here with a real letter, all the peculiarities cited here should give one cause for thought! Finally, the conflict as such lacks any inner probability: how can the Corinthian church, founded so long ago, rise up against their presbyters on account of only a few ringleaders? The attempt at mediation that the writer undertakes (from Rome!), in which he onesidedly condemns the troublemakers in Corinth, as if they acted from base motives, is also entirely unrealistic and shows the fictional character of the whole thing.”

Fifth, “The tensions and obscurities revealed here are due to the contradiction between the situation presupposed in the writing and the author’s real intention. The real intention of the author, of course, is not the resolution of an actual conflict in a diplomatic way, but something quite different: his writing, that is directed not to one church, and also not to the church in Corinth, but to all the churches in the Catholic universe, is intended not to mediate, but to instruct and here a typical Catholic tendency of the letter becomes visible to warn against uprisings and disorder in the churches! The writings leads us into a time, most probably the middle of the second century, in which the distinction between priests and laity (40.5: there are much different rules for laity than for ecclesiastical officer-holders) already announces the Roman clericalism. Over against all inclinations to opposition, the authority of the church is enjoined in an impressive example…”

Sixth, “Once one has recognized the writer’s real intention, it will no longer seem strange if there are other peculiarities as well that would look odd in a real letter. Who would expect, for example, in real letter, which moreover is written by the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, to find the exhortation (34.7), Let us therefore come together in the same place with harmony of conscience and earnestly call upon the Lord as from one mouth, that we may share in his great and glorious promises? In view of the geographical distance between Rome and Corinth, one can only wonder how the writer imagined the common visit of a holy place…”

Seventh, “In other places, the author succeeds very well in imagining himself in the role of a letter writer: for example, in the introduction to the letter, where it reads: ‘On account of the sudden and repeated misfortunes and calamities that have befallen us, we have been somewhat delayed in turning to the questions disputed among you, beloved, and especially the abominable and unholy sedition, so inappropriate for the elect of God.’ In these lines, many people have wanted to see a reference to an actual situation of persecution (under Nero or Domitian). As the Dutch theologian Van den Bergh van Eysinga already recognized, however, what we have here is only a conventional apology, which the author of 1 Clement readily employs to give his writing the appearance of an authentic letter. According to the operative Roman law, persecutions did not usually arrive overnight.”

http://peterkirby.com/dialogue-concerni ... stems.html
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Jax
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

Post by Jax »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:39 pm
Jax wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 8:11 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:09 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:45 pm [P. Kirby once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time]

Does anyone know where I can find this?
Maybe it is something he wrote on the old FRDB. On his Early Christian Writings page: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html, he cites Alvar Ellegård as having given a Neronian date. Other than that, I have no clue.
I have just recently re-read Alvar Ellegard and he does indeed argue for a date in the 60's for 1 Clement. However his argument is based mostly on the passage in Clement concerning the temple sacrifices in Jerusalem which I feel Peter Kirby as correctly identified as an interpolation. http://peterkirby.com/a-study-in-1-clement.html
Quite a bit of Google searching for terms including "Peter Kirby," "1 Clement," and "Nero" have served only, in the main, to lead back to Kirby's ECW page on 1 Clement as quite possibly the source for the claim that Peter Kirby "once listed arguments for dating it to Nero's time." I got a lot of hits for an old FRDB discussion of 2 Thessalonians which seems to have turned into a discussion of 1 Clement, and the comments quote from that ECW page. This is a composite image from those searches:


Neronian Date of 1 Clement.png


You can see that the quotes are from the ECW page:

Alvar Ellegård has argued for a date as early as the sixties of the first century for a few reasons in his Jesus: the Temple cult is mentioned in the present tense (pp. 38-39), Peter and Paul are mentioned as of "our generation" (pp. 39-40), and the letter seemed to have been written during a persecution, perhaps that of Nero (p. 40). On the other hand, as is pointed out with Hebrews, a mention of the Temple cult in the present does not prove that the author was writing before 70 CE. The reference to "our generation" is simply a contrast between the Christian era and the previously mentioned era of ancient Judaism. Finally, the supposed reference to persecution may be a literary device, as pointed out by Welborn. Besides, there were also persecutions under Domitian, Trajan, and other emperors. [Link.]

Another page which came up in the searches was a blog post containing a dialogue with Hermann Detering — I think MrMacSon has recently linked to this page — but Kirby does not even mention Nero in this exchange; Detering does once, but only to cast doubt upon the notion that a persecution of the church (Neronian or Domitianic or otherwise) is in view in 1 Clement. A dead end.

Finally, a page on early Christian martyrdom came up, but again: it contains nothing dating 1 Clement to Nero's reign. Another dead end.

So my best guess for the claim you mention has to be (at least so far): Kirby summarizing Ellegård (and then immediately arguing against him, but the claim merely said that Peter Kirby listed arguments, not that he agreed with them).
Nice Ben, thanks. I'm coming to the conclusion that an early dating, while I would love it to be true for my early Paul theory, is in fact a dead end. With the mention of the Temple being probably an interpolation and the persecutions under Domitian or Nero probably having no merit (Dave's book link above has a very good write up on this) the only thing left is the mention of Peter and Paul being of this generation, whatever that means.

Ellegard was also arguing for a Christianity before the common era, but I personally feel that he was going for a bit of a stretch with some of his evidence (like Clement). I'm just glad that I have guys like you all around to help me vet information like this. I agree totally with his Teacher of Righteousness/Essene origin of Christianity, for Paul anyway, but doubt some of his evidence supporting that theory.

The insertion of a completely different letter into 1 Clement is interesting however. The 'letter' is long and boring as it is, why try peoples patience even more with this insertion. What purpose really does it fulfill?
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