1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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John2
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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But if that doesn't work for you, I recall that there is evidence that sacrifices continued to be made in Jerusalem after 70 CE.

The people continued to bring sacrifices that were offered on a Temple Mount altar that had survived the destructive fire by the Romans. The Mishnah, a central code of Jewish law codified in the early third century C.E., states that "one may offer sacrifices [on the place where the temple used to stand] even though there is no house [i.e., temple]." Some rabbis held that the sacrificial services continued almost without interruption for sixty-five years following the temple's destruction while others suggest that sacrificial services ceased in 70 C.E. but were resumed for the 3-year period when Bar Kochba controlled Jerusalem.


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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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John2 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:29 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:25 am [That does not jive for me at all. It would be like me praising the police force, in the present tense, for dutifully enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).

It reads to me more like praising the police for doing their eternal duties rather than specifically for enforcing only the Eighteenth Amendment.

Isn't it always true (Temple or no Temple) that "Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the freewill offerings, or the sin offerings and the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar, and this too through the high priest and the aforesaid ministers, after that the victim to be offered has been inspected for blemishes"?
"Not everywhere" is a weird way to phrase it if the current fact of the matter is, "Not anywhere." And "but only in Jerusalem" is basically a lie if Jerusalem is no longer the site of such offerings. To continue my analogy, "Not everywhere do the police enforce prohibition, but only in the USA."

"Those, therefore, who make their offerings at the appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed" (40.4) should raise the obvious question, "What if they cannot make their offerings at the appointed seasons? Are they still blessed?"
John2 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:36 am But if that doesn't work for you, I recall that there is evidence that sacrifices continued to be made in Jerusalem after 70 CE.
The people continued to bring sacrifices that were offered on a Temple Mount altar that had survived the destructive fire by the Romans. The Mishnah, a central code of Jewish law codified in the early third century C.E., states that "one may offer sacrifices [on the place where the temple used to stand] even though there is no house [i.e., temple]." Some rabbis held that the sacrificial services continued almost without interruption for sixty-five years following the temple's destruction while others suggest that sacrificial services ceased in 70 C.E. but were resumed for the 3-year period when Bar Kochba controlled Jerusalem.

https://www.meforum.org/3556/temple-mount
This may well be, but 1 Clement 41.2 specifies that the sacrifices are made "in front of the sanctuary upon the altar." What sanctuary? This is an odd thing to say if the sanctuary is no longer standing.

If 1 Clement were a law code, I would get your point. But it is not; it is an exhortation (in this section, anyway), and, if it postdates 70, it is exhorting its readers to follow the example of priests who are no longer physically even able to set an example.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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John2 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:36 am But if that doesn't work for you, I recall that there is evidence that sacrifices continued to be made in Jerusalem after 70 CE.

The people continued to bring sacrifices that were offered on a Temple Mount altar that had survived the destructive fire by the Romans. The Mishnah, a central code of Jewish law codified in the early third century C.E., states that "one may offer sacrifices [on the place where the temple used to stand] even though there is no house [i.e., temple]." Some rabbis held that the sacrificial services continued almost without interruption for sixty-five years following the temple's destruction while others suggest that sacrificial services ceased in 70 C.E. but were resumed for the 3-year period when Bar Kochba controlled Jerusalem.


https://www.meforum.org/3556/temple-mount
Another thing about this contingency (assuming the one set of rabbis is in the right and not the other) is that the author of 1 Clement would have to be presuming that his Corinthian readership would know that there were still sacrifices going on in Jerusalem, and apparently in exactly the correct spot, even though the sanctuary and the rest of the temple stood no more. I am not sure on what basis he could expect his readers to make that assumption.
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Jax
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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John2 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:36 am But if that doesn't work for you, I recall that there is evidence that sacrifices continued to be made in Jerusalem after 70 CE.

The people continued to bring sacrifices that were offered on a Temple Mount altar that had survived the destructive fire by the Romans. The Mishnah, a central code of Jewish law codified in the early third century C.E., states that "one may offer sacrifices [on the place where the temple used to stand] even though there is no house [i.e., temple]." Some rabbis held that the sacrificial services continued almost without interruption for sixty-five years following the temple's destruction while others suggest that sacrificial services ceased in 70 C.E. but were resumed for the 3-year period when Bar Kochba controlled Jerusalem.


https://www.meforum.org/3556/temple-mount
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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John2 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:29 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:25 am [That does not jive for me at all. It would be like me praising the police force, in the present tense, for dutifully enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).
It reads to me more like praising the police for doing their eternal duties rather than specifically for enforcing only the Eighteenth Amendment.

Isn't it always true in the OT (Temple or no Temple) that "Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the freewill offerings, or the sin offerings and the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar, and this too through the high priest and the aforesaid ministers, after that the victim to be offered has been inspected for blemishes"?
Hi again, John. I have had an idea, one which may well be too radical for most to accept, but let me lay it out anyway.

You and I have discussed the following passage before:

Photius, Bibliotheca 232, quoting or paraphrasing Stephen Gobar: Ὅτι τὰ ἡτοιμασμένα τοῖς δικαίοις ἀγαθὰ οὔτε ὀφθαλμὸς εἶδεν οὔτε οὖς ἤκουσεν οὔτε ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου ἀνέβη. Ἡγήσιππος μέντοι, ἀρχαῖός τε ἀνὴρ καὶ ἀποστολικός, ἐν τῷ πέμπτῳ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων, οὐκ οἶδ' ὅ τι καὶ παθών, μάτην μὲν εἰρῆσθαι ταῦτα λέγει, καὶ καταψεύδεσθαι τοὺς ταῦτα φαμένους τῶν τε θειῶν γραφῶν καὶ τοῦ Κυρίου λέγοντος· «Μακάριοι οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ὑμῶν οἱ βλέποντες καὶ τὰ ὦτα ὑμῶν τὰ ἀκούοντα» καὶ ἑξῆς. / [Thesis:] The good things prepared for the just the eye has not seen, the ears have not heard, and they are not found in the heart of man. [Antithesis:] However Hegesippus, one of the ancients, a contemporary of the apostles, in the fifth book of his Commentaries [in I do not know what context], says that these are empty words and that those who say them are liars since the Holy Scriptures say, "Blessed are your eyes because they see and happy your ears because they hear," and the rest.

I suggested that, because Hegesippus knows and seems to approve of 1 Clement, and, because 1 Clement both knows and approves of Paul and contains something very similar to 1 Corinthians 2.9, Hegesippus is not likely to be so conspicuously disagreeing either with Clement or with Paul. I further suggested Stephen Gobar as the weak link above, that perhaps he had pressed Hegesippus in an unfair direction.

Now, what if I was right about the first part (and thus Hegesippus was not disagreeing with Clement or with Paul) but wrong about the second part (and thus Gobar was not such a weak link after all)? What if, indeed, Peter Kirby is correct about 1 Clement 22.1-41.2 being an interpolation into Clement and William O. Walker is simultaneously correct about 1 Corinthians 2.6-16 being an interpolation into Paul? 1 Clement 34.8, the Clementine saying about eyes and ears, is found in the proposed interpolation into Clement, while 1 Corinthians 2.9, the Pauline saying about eyes and ears, is found in the proposed interpolation into Paul. We need now only to imagine that Hegesippus knew the uninterpolated version of 1 Clement (and possibly of 1 Corinthians). He would, then, be disagreeing, not with Paul or with Clement, but rather with any of the many, many promoters of this saying, some of whom we have discussed before. ETA: Hegesippus does, after all (according to this quotation), claim to be disagreeing with "those who are saying these things" (τοὺς ταῦτα φαμένους); he says nothing about them being in writing (which would make the most sense if he did not find them in writing in 1 Clement).

Does anything stand against this reconstruction (besides an often understandable reluctance to accept interpolation hypotheses)?
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Tue Oct 01, 2019 7:12 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:56 pm
John2 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:29 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:25 am [That does not jive for me at all. It would be like me praising the police force, in the present tense, for dutifully enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).
It reads to me more like praising the police for doing their eternal duties rather than specifically for enforcing only the Eighteenth Amendment.

Isn't it always true in the OT (Temple or no Temple) that "Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the freewill offerings, or the sin offerings and the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar, and this too through the high priest and the aforesaid ministers, after that the victim to be offered has been inspected for blemishes"?
Hi again, John. I have had an idea, one which may well be too radical to accept, but let me lay it out anyway.

You and I have discussed the following passage before:

Photius, Bibliotheca 232, quoting or paraphrasing Stephen Gobar: Ὅτι τὰ ἡτοιμασμένα τοῖς δικαίοις ἀγαθὰ οὔτε ὀφθαλμὸς εἶδεν οὔτε οὖς ἤκουσεν οὔτε ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου ἀνέβη. Ἡγήσιππος μέντοι, ἀρχαῖός τε ἀνὴρ καὶ ἀποστολικός, ἐν τῷ πέμπτῳ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων, οὐκ οἶδ' ὅ τι καὶ παθών, μάτην μὲν εἰρῆσθαι ταῦτα λέγει, καὶ καταψεύδεσθαι τοὺς ταῦτα φαμένους τῶν τε θειῶν γραφῶν καὶ τοῦ Κυρίου λέγοντος· «Μακάριοι οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ὑμῶν οἱ βλέποντες καὶ τὰ ὦτα ὑμῶν τὰ ἀκούοντα» καὶ ἑξῆς. / [Thesis:] The good things prepared for the just the eye has not seen, the ears have not heard, and they are not found in the heart of man. [Antithesis:] However Hegesippus, one of the ancients, a contemporary of the apostles, in the fifth book of his Commentaries [in I do not know what context], says that these are empty words and that those who say them are liars since the Holy Scriptures say, "Blessed are your eyes because they see and happy your ears because they hear," and the rest.

I suggested that, because Hegesippus knows and seems to approve of 1 Clement, and, because 1 Clement both knows and approves of Paul and contains something very similar to 1 Corinthians 2.9, Hegesippus is not likely to be so conspicuously disagreeing either with Clement or with Paul. I further suggested Stephen Gobar as the weak link above, that perhaps he had pressed Hegesippus in an unfair direction.

Now, what if I was right about the first part (and thus Hegesippus was not disagreeing with Clement or with Paul) but wrong about the second part (and thus Gobar was not such a weak link after all)? What if, indeed, Peter Kirby is correct about 1 Clement 22.1-41.2 being an interpolation into Clement and William O. Walker is simultaneously correct about 1 Corinthians 2.6-16 being an interpolation into Paul? 1 Clement 34.8, the Clementine saying about eyes and ears, is found in the proposed interpolation into Clement, while 1 Corinthians 2.9, the Pauline saying about eyes and ears, is found in the proposed interpolation into Paul. We need now only to imagine that Hegesippus knew the uninterpolated version of 1 Clement (and possibly of 1 Corinthians). He would, then, be disagreeing, not with Paul or with Clement, but rather with any of the many, many promoters of this saying, some of whom we have discussed before.

Does anything stand against this reconstruction (besides an often understandable reluctance to accept interpolation hypotheses)?
Nice. :cheers:
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Jax wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:01 pmNice. :cheers:
Thanks. That would tie a few loose ends together, I think.
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:07 pm
Jax wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:01 pmNice. :cheers:
Thanks. That would tie a few loose ends together, I think.
As far as interpolations go; I note several Amens in the letter. Compiled letter perhaps? Even without the interpolated letter.
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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While I am not opposed to the idea of a compound letter by any means, I think that "amen" can be used to close out a miniature doxology.
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Re: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:38 pm While I am not opposed to the idea of a compound letter by any means, I think that "amen" can be used to close out a miniature doxology.
Fair enough. It does seem to go on forever though.
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