This is a sequel to my previous post:
1. Due to Markan priority, which is the mainstream view in NT scholarship across the theological spectrum (liberal, moderate, conservative), the date of Mark is a lynchpin for dating Matthew and Luke. Liberals usually assign Mark a post-70 AD date. Moderates and conservatives usually date Mark to the 60s, although some date it to the 50s, and a handful to the 40s. NT introductions by Guthrie (81-86) and Carson/Moo (172-82) have a useful overview of the patristic evidence and respective positions on dating and provenance.
Among conservative and some moderate scholars, a key factor in dating Mark is the way patristic testimony tethers Mark to Peter. This goes back to the testimony of Papias, who says Mark was Peter's "interpreter". Variations on this testimony are found in other early church fathers. However, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria apparently disagree on whether Mark's Gospel was written during or after Peter's lifetime. This raises a number of methodological issues:
1. If Peter is Mark's sole informant, the question is when and where Mark and Peter cross paths. Rome? Caesarea? That affects dating schemes.
2. Even if Peter is Mark's informant, it doesn't ipso facto follow that he wrote his Gospel at the time he met with Peter–although he might take notes.
3. To what extent is subsequent patristic testimony independent of Papias? Do they have their own sources of information, or are these secondary notices, dependent on Papias? Are they simply repeating and passing along the tradition of Papias? Or does it dovetail with other available information?
4. How early in church history would there be a constituency for a biography about Jesus? Seems to me people would be interested in the life of Jesus from the outset. And as the Christian movement rapidly radiated out across the far-flung Roman Empire, there'd be a need for a written life of Jesus.
5. I'm struck by the neglect of Acts 12:12 is discussions of Mark's Gospel. There's an entrenched scholarly tradition that takes patristic testimony as the starting-point, but while that's important, evidence gleaned from the Book of Acts is more important. That should be the point of departure.
Scholarship often gets stuck in a rut. Scholars influence other scholars, so that has a conditioning effect what how the issues are framed–which in turn, selects for the range of answers.
But according to Acts 12:12, Mark's mother hosted a house-church in Jerusalem, which was known to Peter. That carries a number of highly suggestive implications:
Jerusalem was Mark's hometown. Presumably, he was living in Jerusalem during the public ministry of Christ. In addition, he had access to apostles living in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was a polyglot city, and Mark himself came from a Greek-speaking family (immigrants from Cypress).
6. If we run with Acts 12:12, Peter might well be one of Mark's informants, but Mark would have access to other informants.
7. It's quite likely that Mark first met Peter in Jerusalem, early on.
8. In addition, it's stands to reason that Mark was an eyewitness to some events involving the public ministry of Christ.
9. Therefore, I see no good reason to tether the date of Mark's Gospel to the whereabouts of Peter. And even if Peter was his primary informant, Mark could have gotten his information from Peter when they were both living in Jerusalem–back in the 30s. But the inertia of mainstream scholarship makes it hard to turn the ship.
You've convinced me of the earliest possible date for Mark.
ReplyDeleteAren't you assuming that Papias' reference to a "Mark" necessarily means the "canonical Mark" that we have today? The name Markus or Markos were very common Greco-Roman names. As far as I'm aware Papias never quotes from the work and the claim is, at best, thirdhand since it relies on an unknown "presbyter."
ReplyDeleteWhile Acts 12:12 and 12:25 knows of a "John Mark" in Jerusalem, who happened to be the personal associate of Peter and Paul, the author (Luke) also used Mark's gospel (Markan priority) and never chose to link the two!? This shows that the association hadn't been made in Luke's time, but rather, most likely came about in the second century.
Also, important to note is that there is no internal evidence whatsoever in Mark that this testimony was based on Peter's preaching. The author nowhere indicates this or claims that he even knew Peter. Therefore, the only reason people attribute Mark's source to Peter comes from what looks like a second century unverified guess.
Lastly, in response to your #8 "it's stands to reason that Mark was an eyewitness to some events involving the public ministry of Christ." Papias explicitly states that Mark "neither heard nor followed the Lord."
Regarding your last statement, since I didn't base my position on Papias, that has no bearing on my postion.
DeleteReynold Himes,
DeleteYou're repeating arguments that have already been answered. See the collection of responses to skeptical myths about the church fathers here.
Your framing of the issues is wrong from the start, since you begin by referring to how Papias wasn't "necessarily" referring to our gospel of Mark. Identifying Papias' document with canonical Mark only has to be a probable conclusion. It doesn't have to be necessary. We don't normally begin with an assumption that there were two highly similar documents, one of which was universally lost and universally replaced with a second document that kept getting mistaken for the first one. And if the two were so similar as to be so easily mistaken for each other, then how much significance is there in distinguishing between the two? We have no reason to believe the other document you're appealing to existed, the document Papias describes aligns with a known document (canonical Mark), and multiple ancient sources who had access to Papias' writings tell us that he was referring to canonical Mark. If you want us to believe he was referring to something else, you bear the burden of proof. That's the same sort of reasoning we all apply in other contexts in life. We're just asking you to be consistent.
Your assertion that "The name Markus or Markos were very common Greco-Roman names" is answered here. Your claim that Papias refers to an "unknown" presbyter is also dubious, as I've explained elsewhere. The idea that attributing the second gospel to Mark was "a second century unverified guess" is problematic for a lot of reasons, like the ones discussed here, here, and here.
I thought you were using Papias to establish that Mark was based on Peter's preaching (since that is where the tradition seems to originate from). My mistake.
ReplyDeleteMy argument was the opposite. I used Acts 12:12 to establish that Mark probably had multiple informants, in addition to the fact that Mark was probably an eyewitness in his own right.
DeleteWhere does the author of Acts connect this "John Mark" as the author of Mark's gospel (which he used as his main source for gLuke) or as the interpreter of Peter?
DeleteYou mention the testimony of Papias (Mark was Peter's "interpreter") in #1.
Not sure if this helps:
Delete[W]e must first identify the "Mark" intended by Papias and the other early Christian writers. That they refer to the (John) Mark mentioned in Acts (12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37) and in four New Testament epistles (Col. 4:10; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11; 1 Peter 5:13) is almost certain.10 No other early Christian Mark would have been so well known as to be mentioned without further description.11 Son of a woman prominent in the early Jerusalem church (Christians had gathered at her home during Peter's imprisonment [Acts 12:12]) and cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10), "John, also called Mark," accompanied Paul and Barnabas as far as Pamphylia, in Asia Minor, on the first missionary journey (Acts 13:5, 13). For whatever reason (and speculation has been rampant), Mark left Paul and Barnabas before the first journey ended, and Paul therefore refused to take him along on his second extended preaching trip. Barnabas disagreed with Paul's decision and separated himself from Paul, taking Mark along with him (Acts 15: 36–40). Yet Paul and Mark were eventually reconciled: Paul mentions Mark's presence with him during his Roman imprisonment (Philem. 24; Col. 4:10). Peter, writing from Rome, also mentions that Mark was with him, calling him his son (1 Pet. 5:13), perhaps implying that Mark had been converted through his ministry.12 Mark has also been identified as the "young man" who "fled naked" from Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:51–52). It has been argued that this enigmatic reference, peculiar to Mark's gospel, is an autobiographical reminiscence.13 This may be the case, but the identification may call into question Papias's claim that Mark was not an eyewitness.14
Does the little we know of John Mark from the New Testament present any difficulty to identifying him as the author of the second gospel? Some scholars think so, pointing to Mark's alleged ignorance of Jewish customs and errors about Palestinian geography.15 But neither difficulty stands up to scrutiny; careful and sympathetic interpretation of the alleged problem passages reveals no errors in such matters. In contrast, two features of Mark and his career as they are presented in the New Testament fit the author of the second gospel. The Greek style of Mark's gospel is simple and straightforward and full of the kind of Semitisms that one would expect of a Jerusalem-bred Christian.16 And Mark's connection with Paul may help explain what many scholars have found to be a Pauline theological influence in the second gospel. Both features are far too general to offer any positive evidence toward an identification. But the important point is that nothing in the second gospel stands in the way of accepting the earliest tradition that identifies John Mark as its author. Our decision, then, will rest almost entirely on external evidence, and especially on the tradition handed down through Papias and Eusebius from the unnamed presbyter. Those who are skeptical of the reliability of Papias conclude that the author of the gospel is unknown.17 Yet as we have seen, there is nothing in the New Testament that is inconsistent with Papias's claim that Mark wrote the second gospel. And since we have no indication that anyone in the early church contested Papias's claim, we see no reason not to accept it.
(Carson & Moo, chapter 4 "Mark", An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed.)
i) You keep misreading the argument. I begin by stating the position I intend to critique. #1 isn't my position. A necessary preliminary step in assessing a position is to state it, logically at the outset of the argument.
Deleteii) I didn't argue that Acts 12:12 is the only evidence for Markan author. There are multiple lines of evidence. Take the titles in the Greek MSS. And I don't discount patristic testimony. But it needs to be sifted.
In church history (NT history, patristic testimony), it's not like there's a plethora of different individuals named Mark who are viable candidates for the Gospel bearing his name.
I added footnotes to the above excerpt from Carson & Moo here.
Delete"Aren't you assuming that Papias' reference to a 'Mark' necessarily means the "canonical Mark" that we have today? The name Markus or Markos were very common Greco-Roman names."
DeleteIn the same context he refers to Matthew. What are the odds that they just coincidentally match the named authors in our extant MSS of the canonical Gospels?
He refers to a document by Matthew written in Hebrew but canonical Matthew is a Greek document. The titles "according to" Mark and Matthew are not conventional for historical writing and since Irenaeus is the first church father to quote the gospels with the names attributed to them, then it seems they weren't attached until around 180 AD.
Deletei) The canonical Gospels had been in circulation for decades by the time Papias gave his testimony. There wouldn't be any other candidates for Matthew and Mark by that time.
Deleteii) It's not feasible for the canonical Gospels to circulate anonymously until the late 2C AD, then have titles attached. That fails to explain the uniformity of the authorial ascriptions in the MSS record. Ancient Christian scribes operated independently of each other, and were widely separated in the far-flung Roman Empire. There was no mechanism to standardize the titles of the Gospels, if those were late scribal/editorial additions. You're regurgitating Bart Ehrman's conspiracy theories.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/04/papias-on-matthew.html
DeleteReynold Himes wrote:
Delete"I thought you were using Papias to establish that Mark was based on Peter's preaching (since that is where the tradition seems to originate from)."
Papias refers to an earlier source, probably the apostle John, so the tradition can't be said to have originated with Papias. And given how little influence Papias seems to have had on the earliest Christians, the idea that they all got their information on the gospel of Mark from him is highly unlikely. Papias is rarely even named among the Christians of the first two centuries. The degree to which some people today attribute early Christian beliefs to Papias is ridiculous. It tells us more about the lack of evidence for the views of those modern individuals than it tells us about a supposed lack of evidence for the views of the earliest Christians. Furthermore, the diversity of the early traditions about Mark (traditions that have a lot of common ground, but accompanied by some differences) is better explained if those traditions didn't all come from one source. The nature of life in general and early Christianity in particular make it very unlikely that everybody would have been getting their information about the gospel of Mark from one source, especially one like Papias.
Reynold Himes wrote:
Delete"He refers to a document by Matthew written in Hebrew but canonical Matthew is a Greek document."
See here.
Besides, the passage in Papias that you're citing isn't the only one that refers to Matthew. There's another likely allusion to the gospel of Matthew in Papias, and your objection to the first passage isn't relevant to that second one. For a discussion of the second passage, go here and do a Ctrl F search for the relevant section.
You go on:
"Irenaeus is the first church father to quote the gospels with the names attributed to them, then it seems they weren't attached until around 180 AD."
No, the gospels are attributed to the traditional authors in sources earlier than Irenaeus. And claiming that the traditional authors "weren't attached until around 180 AD" offers a terrible explanation for why the authorship attributions were so widely accepted not only among the early Christians, but also the early heretical, Jewish, and pagan sources. In addition to what my posts on Irenaeus linked above refer to, see here and here.
i) The canonical Gospels had been in circulation for decades by the time Papias gave his testimony. There wouldn't be any other candidates for Matthew and Mark by that time.
DeleteWouldn't? As in "impossible"? What about the "sayings" or "Q" source?
"ii) It's not feasible for the canonical Gospels to circulate anonymously until the late 2C AD, then have titles attached."
Sure it is.
Didache - 85AD, quotes gospels anonymously
1 Clement - 95AD, quotes gospels anonymously
Epistle of Barnabas - 100AD, quotes gospels anonymously
Polycarp - 110AD, quotes gospels anonymously
Ignatius - 110AD, quotes gospels anonymously
Papias - 125 AD, mentions a "Mark" and a "Matthew" but the testimony is questionable due to the descriptions not matching the canonical versions. Papias doesn't quote from the gospels.
Justin Martyr - 155 AD, quotes from the gospels but refers to them as the "memoirs of the apostles."
It's not until Irenaeus - 180AD that we get explicit quoting with authorial attribution.
Clement of Alexandria - 190AD, explicit quoting with authorial attribution.
Tertullian - 200AD, explicit quoting with authorial attribution.
This data is quite hard to explain under the hypothesis that the names were known from the beginning of circulation but it's easier to explain under the hypothesis that they originally circulated anonymously. Why is it, before 180AD, that we have no explicit quoting with authorial attribution but then after 180AD, we do?
There is a simple solution for this. By the time Irenaeus was writing, there were many "heretical" gnostic gospels, and the like, circulating. Therefore, this would motivate him to distinguish what he considered the "true teachings" from what was deemed heretical.
"That fails to explain the uniformity of the authorial ascriptions in the MSS record.
You have no verified first or early second century manuscripts and you certainly don't have any with "authorial ascriptions" dating that early. The earliest full manuscripts with titles date to the 4th century. Most manuscripts come from the 9th/10th centuries. P75 has recently been shown to most likely come from the 4th century by Brent Nongbri so it's lost it's "early" status. So, in reality, the "uniformity" can only be said to come from the 4th century onwards.
Papias refers to an earlier source, probably the apostle John, so the tradition can't be said to have originated with Papias.
DeleteEusebius, the one who preserved Papias' testimony, says it was not the apostle John.
"But Papias himself in the preface to his discourses by no means declares that he was himself a hearer and eye-witness of the holy apostles, but he shows by the words which he uses that he received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their friends." - Church History 3.39.2
"It is worth while observing here that the name John is twice enumerated by him. The first one he mentions in connection with Peter and James and Matthew and the rest of the apostles, clearly meaning the evangelist; but the other John he mentions after an interval, and places him among others outside of the number of the apostles, putting Aristion before him, and he distinctly calls him a presbyter." - 3.39.5
"And Papias, of whom we are now speaking, confesses that he received the words of the apostles from those that followed them, but says that he was himself a hearer of Aristion and the presbyter John. At least he mentions them frequently by name, and gives their traditions in his writings. These things, we hope, have not been uselessly adduced by us." - 3.39.7
So that kind of puts a dent in your "probably the apostle John" hypothesis.
"No, the gospels are attributed to the traditional authors in sources earlier than Irenaeus."
I've already provided a chronological list above. Most of the sources in your posts are from near contemporaries of Irenaeus, who were most likely writing when the traditional names would have been added. The others are either too late (Origen) or don't actually mention explicit authorship in conjunction with quotes at all (Papias, Justin Martyr).
As for Against Marcion, 4:3, Marcion's point seems to be that Matthew, Mark, John got the teachings of Jesus wrong! Since Marcion dates to 140AD then this is actually earlier testimony than any of the other church fathers who mention the authors! But the argument ends up being circular because Tertullian doesn't actually tell us which gospels Marcion was referring to. As you know, there were plenty of other gospels circulating (Peter, Thomas for example). Moreover, Marcion edited Luke's gospel but never included a title of "Luke" as the author, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the document was originally anonymous.
"Wouldn't? As in 'impossible'?"
DeleteThat's not intellectually serous.
"What about the 'sayings' or "Q" source?"
Two sayings sources or Q sources, attributed to Matthew and Mark, and we just happen to have Gospels with the same authorial attributions? What an amazing coincidence!
"This data is quite hard to explain under the hypothesis that the names were known from the beginning of circulation but it's easier to explain under the hypothesis that they originally circulated anonymously. Why is it, before 180AD, that we have no explicit quoting with authorial attribution but then after 180AD, we do?"
i) Either you don't grasp the argument or you're changing the subject. I didn't say anything about quoting Gospels anonymously, but about your claim that the titles are scribal additions from the late 2C or beyond.
ii) Then there's your non sequitur. Quoting Scripture without giving attribution doesn't imply that it was anonymous. Consider how often the NT quotes the OT without citing the author. Nowadays, Christians often quote Scripture without giving chapter and verse.
Indeed, someone may quote Scripture without citing the author, not because it's anonymous–but just the opposite: because it's so familiar that explicit attribution is unnecessary. The listener is expected to recognize the source.
"There is a simple solution for this. By the time Irenaeus was writing, there were many "heretical" gnostic gospels, and the like, circulating. Therefore, this would motivate him to distinguish what he considered the "true teachings" from what was deemed heretical."
i) Which isn't any kind of evidence that the canonical Gospels circulated anonymously until the 2C. Rather, it wasn't necessary to name the authors when quoting them until apocryphal Gospels came into circulation.
ii) Moreover, Irenaeus was in no position to unilaterally change scribal practice or recall MSS with textually variant titles.
"You have no verified first or early second century manuscripts and you certainly don't have any with "authorial ascriptions" dating that early."
i) That's a diversionary tactic that ignores the argument. How do you account for the uniformity of the titles if the Gospels circulated anonymously until the late 2C? How would that be coordinated? Were all the textual variants destroyed?
ii) Scribes copy a text. They copy what they see or hear. Our MSS have titles because the text they copied had titles. We don't need to have 1C MSS. The process of transcription is inherently regressive.
Justin Martyr calls the four canonical gospels "Memoirs of the Apostles." It would be very strange to call "Memoirs of the Apostles" to anonymous documents. It is implicit that he knows the authors.
DeleteTwo sayings sources or Q sources, attributed to Matthew and Mark, and we just happen to have Gospels with the same authorial attributions? What an amazing coincidence!
DeleteNot really if the logic from Irenaeus was "hey Papias mentions a Mark and Matthew, therefore these must be the documents he was referring to!" He certainly provides no evidence or methodology in how he came to the conclusion that these were the documents "according to" Matthew and Mark other than:
"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds...the four living creatures [of Revelation 4.9] symbolize the four Gospels...and there were four principal covenants made with humanity, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ." (Against Heresies 3.11.8)
What an astute and sober analysis!
i) Either you don't grasp the argument or you're changing the subject. I didn't say anything about quoting Gospels anonymously, but about your claim that the titles are scribal additions from the late 2C or beyond.
Again, what changed between 85-180AD? How come all the earlier quotes have no direct authorial attribution then after 180 that changes?
Quoting Scripture without giving attribution doesn't imply that it was anonymous.
The gospels weren't considered "Scripture" until the 4th century.
Consider how often the NT quotes the OT without citing the author.
Lots of the OT books were anonymous - Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, for example. So it makes sense that the gospel authors would continue the "anonymous" tradition in composing.
Indeed, someone may quote Scripture without citing the author, not because it's anonymous–but just the opposite: because it's so familiar that explicit attribution is unnecessary. The listener is expected to recognize the source.
If you're implying that the gospels were "so familiar" to everyone and that the authorship was just assumed prior to 180 AD then where is your evidence for it?
i) Which isn't any kind of evidence that the canonical Gospels circulated anonymously until the 2C.
The evidence is the lack of mention of any direct authorial attribution, despite quotation, until 180AD. If the gospels were originally anonymous then there is a 100% probability that they would have been quoted anonymously, which is exactly what we find! On the other hand, if the authors were known then that 100% probability goes down. So the lack of mention is more expected under the hypothesis that the gospels originally circulated anonymously.
Rather, it wasn't necessary to name the authors when quoting them until apocryphal Gospels came into circulation.
Which is what we would still expect if they originally circulated anonymously...
ii) Moreover, Irenaeus was in no position to unilaterally change scribal practice or recall MSS with textually variant titles.
Do we have any verified fragments with titles prior to 180 AD?
How do you account for the uniformity of the titles if the Gospels circulated anonymously until the late 2C?
Would that be the "uniformity of titles" in manuscripts which all happen to date after the 4th century?
Were all the textual variants destroyed?
Again, it would be helpful if we had a sample of variant manuscripts prior to the 4th century to compare to but we don't do we?
ii) Scribes copy a text. They copy what they see or hear. Our MSS have titles because the text they copied had titles. We don't need to have 1C MSS. The process of transcription is inherently regressive.
Copies from the 4th century don't necessarily imply the original documents c. 1st and 2nd century had the titles though, right?
Moreover, Reynold's argument either proves too much or too little. If it was important to entitle the canonical Gospels to distinguish them from apocryphal gospels, it would also be important to entitle the canonical Gospels to distinguish them from each other. Things are given names to identify them for ease and clarity of reference. It's preposterous to suppose that for over a century (give or take), Christians had no means of referencing the canonical Gospels.
DeleteReynold Himes wrote:
Delete"Papias - 125 AD, mentions a 'Mark' and a 'Matthew' but the testimony is questionable due to the descriptions not matching the canonical versions."
We have evidence for Papias' naming of three of the gospels' authors, not just Mark and Matthew. You haven't demonstrated "descriptions not matching the canonical versions" for any of those three, much less all of them. The closest you've come is with Matthew, but your comments on that gospel are mistaken, for reasons I explained earlier.
You write:
"Why is it, before 180AD, that we have no explicit quoting with authorial attribution but then after 180AD, we do?"
You've changed your argument. You've added the "explicit" qualifier without justifying it. Why would a quotation have to be explicit? It wouldn't.
Furthermore, I've documented that the gospels were being attributed to the traditional authors prior to Irenaeus. I linked a series of posts on the subject. Your responses so far have been highly inadequate. As I explain in that series just linked, Irenaeus himself makes references to earlier sources discussing those authorship attributions, so your citation of Irenaeus is all the more unreasonable accordingly.
And why would we limit the discussion to gospel quotations? It's not as though the documents have to be quoted in order to be described, much less do they have to be explicitly quoted, as you're now irrationally demanding.
You also keep failing to explain why the heretical, Jewish, and pagan sources I documented earlier would corroborate the traditional gospel authorship attributions if those attributions not only were false, but didn't even originate until the second half of the second century. Your hypothesis not only poorly explains the evidence we have from Christian sources, but also is terrible at explaining the evidence we have from non-Christian sources.
You write:
Delete"Eusebius, the one who preserved Papias' testimony, says it was not the apostle John."
That's a bad argument, for reasons I explained in some articles I linked for you earlier (here and here). So, not only are you using a bad argument, but you're also using a bad argument that's already been refuted.
And it's disingenuous of you to give preference to Eusebius under these circumstances. He's contradicted by the internal evidence we have from Papias, by a source much closer to Papias chronologically and relationally (Irenaeus), and by the large majority of the sources who had access to Papias' writings and comment on the subject. I doubt that you'd be so favorable to Eusebius' testimony if he weren't saying what you want to hear.
Besides, my main point in this context is that Papias was referring to an earlier source. Even if the elder he refers to isn't the apostle John, my point stands. Papias cited an earlier source for his view of Mark's gospel, so you can't claim that the view originated with Papias.
You write:
"I've already provided a chronological list above."
Your list does nothing to interact with what I wrote.
You write:
"Most of the sources in your posts are from near contemporaries of Irenaeus, who were most likely writing when the traditional names would have been added."
Even if all of my sources were near contemporaries of Irenaeus (which isn't the case), your hypothesis would be bad at explaining why such a wide diversity of sources (diverse in location, beliefs, personalities, etc.) were corroborating the traditional gospel authorship attributions around the time of Irenaeus.
You write:
"The others are either too late (Origen)"
I didn't cite Origen regarding his own views. I cited him because of what he says about other sources. Like what you've done with Eusebius. You know, the Eusebius who wrote even later than Origen did.
You write:
Delete"As for Against Marcion, 4:3, Marcion's point seems to be that Matthew, Mark, John got the teachings of Jesus wrong! Since Marcion dates to 140AD then this is actually earlier testimony than any of the other church fathers who mention the authors!"
You're changing the subject. The issue is who Marcion attributed the gospels to, not whether he agreed with the gospels or thought their authors were right about what Jesus taught.
You write:
"But the argument ends up being circular because Tertullian doesn't actually tell us which gospels Marcion was referring to."
No, Tertullian does tell us which gospels are under consideration. In the section of Against Marcion under discussion here (4:3), Tertullian explains that he's addressing "those gospels which are the apostles' own and are published under their names, or even the names of apostolic men". He goes on, in the same section, to refer to how "our copies are derived" from the original gospels Marcion argued against. Do you want to maintain that Tertullian had gospels other than our canonical ones in mind?
Furthermore, the idea that Marcion was responding to other gospels than the canonical ones fails for the same sort of reasons I cited when responding to your suggestion that Papias was referring to a document other than our gospel of Mark. Are we to believe that, as late as Marcion's time in the middle of the second century, there were three documents widely circulating that were attributed to Matthew, Mark, and John, all of which were universally lost and universally replaced by others that were so similar as to be so easily confused with the earlier ones? And if the latter three were so similar to the former three, then what does your anti-Christian belief system gain by arguing that the original gospels were so similar to our canonical ones?
You write:
"He certainly provides no evidence or methodology in how he came to the conclusion that these were the documents 'according to' Matthew and Mark other than: 'It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds...the four living creatures [of Revelation 4.9] symbolize the four Gospels...and there were four principal covenants made with humanity, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ.' (Against Heresies 3.11.8) What an astute and sober analysis!"
That's another false argument I refuted years ago. Are you just repeating arguments you've picked up from other skeptics, without doing much research yourself?
Reynold Himes
Delete"Lots of the OT books were anonymous - Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, for example. So it makes sense that the gospel authors would continue the "anonymous" tradition in composing."
Suppose (arguendo) that's true:
The anonymity of the NT historical books should not be regarded as peculiar to early Christian literature nor should it be interpreted in the context of Greco-Roman historiography. The striking fact that the NT Gospels and Acts do not mention their authors' names has its literary counterpart in the anonymity of the OT history books, whereas OT anonymity itself is rooted in the literary conventions of the Ancient Near East. Just as in the OT, where the authors of books that belonged to the genre of wisdom and prophetic literature were usually named while historical works were written anonymously, only the NT letters and the Apocalypse were published under their authors' names while the narrative literature of the NT remained anonymous. The authorial intent of the Gospels' anonymity can also be deduced from its ancient Near Eastern and OT background. Unlike the Greek or Roman historian who, among other things, wanted to earn praise and glory for his literary achievements from both his contemporaries and posterity, the history writer in the Ancient Near East sought to disappear as much as possible behind the material he presented and to become its invisible mouthpiece. By adopting the stylistic device of anonymity from OT historiography the Evangelists of the NT implied that they regarded themselves as comparatively insignificant mediators of a subject matter that deserved the full attention of the readers. The anonymity of the Gospels is thus rooted in a deep conviction concerning the ultimate priority of their subject matter. (Armin D. Baum. "The Anonymity of the New Testament History Books: A Stylistic Device in the Context of Greco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern Literature". NT 50 (2008), pp 120-142.)
"Do we have any verified fragments with titles prior to 180 AD?"
1. A fragment of John's Gospel (P52) is dated c. 125. A fragment of Matthew's Gospel (P104) could arguably be dated c. 125 too.
2. To my knowledge, paleography is the major and most common method of dating ancient mss including the Gospels. However, paleography has inherent limitations.
1. The manuscript evidence. Although we possess a limited number of gospel manuscripts from the second and third centuries that preserve the title pages, the ones we do possess have the title present. In other words, we do not find "title-less" gospel manuscripts from this time period. Examples of early gospels manuscripts with titles are P66 (John), P4-64-67 (Matthew and Luke) and P75 (Luke and John). Put simply, as far back as we can see in the manuscript tradition the titles are present.
Delete2. The uniformity of the titles. Perhaps one the most compelling reasons to think the titles were added early is the fact that there is such uniformity in these titles within the early centuries of the faith. If the titles were added late, we would have expected a substantial amount of diversity to have developed. After all, the users of these gospels had to have called them something (especially if they had more than one gospel), and since they were anonymous it is reasonable to think they would have called these gospels by different names. In fact, when the ancient writer Galen published his works without a title, he acknowledges that "everyone gave them a different title." But, incredibly, the titles of these four gospels are consistent-Mark is always called "Mark," Luke is always called "Luke," etc. Such uniformity cannot pop into existence over night. It suggests these titles had been there a while.
3. The inclusion of Mark and Luke. If the titles were added in the late second century, as some suppose, then it is difficult to imagine that Mark and Luke's names would have been included. If names were arbitrarily chosen, we would hardly expect these two. If one wanted to get quick credibility for a gospel, it would have been named after an apostle-indeed, this is what happened with so many of our apocryphal gospels (e.g., Thomas and Peter). Yet, here we have two gospels named after non-apostles. It would have been especially easy to name Mark's gospel after Peter, given the historical connections between the two men, but the early church resisted. This, I would suggest, is a sign of authenticity.
All of these factors suggest that the titles were added very early-if not from the very beginning. If so, then we have very good reasons to think these titles reflect the actual authorship of these books.
But, this still leaves the question of why the gospel writers didn't just include their names in the actual gospels accounts themselves. Why write a gospel that is formally anonymous? For one, this did happen from time to time with Greco-Roman biographies. We do have examples of formally anonymous biographies, so this would not have been unheard of (e.g., Lucian's Life of Demonax, Secundus the Silent Philosopher, Lives of the Prophets, Arrian's Anabasis, and Sulpicious Severus' Life of St. Martin). But, Armin Baum has suggested another, and even more fundamental reason. Baum has argued that the Gospels were intentionally written as anonymous works in order to reflect the practice of the Old Testament historical books which were themselves anonymous (as opposed to other Old Testament writings, like the prophets, which included the identity of the author). Such a stylistic device allowed the authors of the gospels "to disappear" and to give "highest priority to their subject matter." Thus, the anonymity of the Gospels, far from diminishing their scriptural authority, actually served to increase it by consciously placing the Gospels "in the tradition of Old Testament historiography."
In the end, we have little reason to doubt the titles of these gospels and thus little reason to doubt the authorship of these books. The evidence still suggests that the most likely authors are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
http://www.michaeljkruger.com/10-misconceptions-about-the-nt-canon-9-the-canonical-gospels-were-certainly-not-written-by-the-individuals-named-in-their-titles
"Not really if the logic from Irenaeus was…"
DeleteThat's a bait-n-switch tactic. I wasn't discussing what Irenaeus said but what Papias said. Moreover, the OP wasn't based on Papias. You keep laboring to change the subject.
"Again, what changed between 85-180AD? How come all the earlier quotes have no direct authorial attribution then after 180 that changes?"
Nothing changed since you're comparing disparate things. Quotes aren't MSS titles.
"The gospels weren't considered "Scripture" until the 4th century."
Now you're adopting tinfoil hat Da Vinci Code conspiracies. Sorry, but I'm not chasing you down that rabbit trail.
"Lots of the OT books were anonymous - Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, for example. So it makes sense that the gospel authors would continue the "anonymous" tradition in composing."
i) You're equivocating. There are no untitled OT books, yet NT authors often quote OT books without attribution even though the books had well-known titles. Therefore, the fact that early church fathers may quote the Gospels without citing the author/title doesn't imply that the Gospels originally circulated without titles. So your retort backfires.
ii) In addition, when there are four different accounts of the life of Christ, it will be necessary to label them so that readers can refer to them and distinguish them from each other. Moreover, readers will naturally be curious about authorship as that bears on the background of the informant. And not coincidentally, the NT supplies background information about all four authors.
"If you're implying that the gospels were 'so familiar' to everyone and that the authorship was just assumed prior to 180 AD then where is your evidence for it?"
No, I'm exploding the fallacious nature of your argument from silence by giving obvious counterexamples.
"The evidence is the lack of mention of any direct authorial attribution, despite quotation, until 180AD."
i) You're obsessed with Irenaeus, which is a red herring since my argument wasn't based on patristic citation practice but the MS tradition.
ii) As far as quotes go, people often quote Shakespeare without attribution. That doesn't mean his plays are anonymous. People often quote lines from Hollywood movies without attribution. That doesn't mean the movies are anonymous.
"If the gospels were originally anonymous then there is a 100% probability that they would have been quoted anonymously, which is exactly what we find!"
Circular argument alert!
"Which is what we would still expect if they originally circulated anonymously..."
You deliberately and chronically confound quotation practice with MS evidence.
"Do we have any verified fragments with titles prior to 180 AD?"
I already refuted that fallacy.
"Would that be the 'uniformity of titles' in manuscripts which all happen to date after the 4th century?"
Nothing "happened" in-between. It's not like we have anonymous MSS of the Gospels from the 1-3C, then 4C MSS suddenly have titles.
Rather, it's simply the random result of what survives the ravages of time that we have samples from the 4C. By your twisted logic, if some 4C MSS more complete than 2-3C fragments, that means the scribes interpolated all the extra material.
"Copies from the 4th century don't necessarily imply the original documents c. 1st and 2nd century had the titles though, right?"
Individual scribes may interpolate or omit information. But that doesn't begin to explain the uniformity of the textual witness to the Gospel titles. You keep evading that issue because you have no realistic alternative explanation.
We should keep in mind that the naming of an author isn't the only means of identifying him. For example, we can tell a lot about the author of Luke from the "we" passages in Acts. Sources outside of the fourth gospel tell us a lot about John the son of Zebedee, such as his career as a fisherman and his close relationship with Peter. That information helps us identify the author of the fourth gospel. See, for example, here and here. So, it's misleading to single out the naming of an author, as if that's the only means by which the early sources can identify an author for us. It's even more erroneous to demand "explicit quotations" accompanying the naming, as Reynold Himes does.
ReplyDeleteIt's also misleading for Reynold Himes to make comments like the following:
ReplyDelete"You have no verified first or early second century manuscripts and you certainly don't have any with 'authorial ascriptions' dating that early. The earliest full manuscripts with titles date to the 4th century."
We don't have to possess manuscripts in order to have justification for reaching certain conclusions about what was in the manuscripts. Historical sources often describe manuscripts for us. For example, individuals like Origen and Eusebius inform us of certain textual variants that existed in their day. And scholars take that information into account when making textual judgments.
So, it's significant when Tertullian tells us that the gospel manuscripts of his day had the author's name on them (Against Marcion, 4:2). Irenaeus, writing around the year 180, appeals to the text of "ancient copies" (notice the plural) of the book of Revelation and the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses of John (the author of Revelation) on the textual issue in question (Against Heresies, 5:30:1). Bruce Metzger notes that some patristic sources refer to the preservation of some of the original copies of the New Testament documents (The Canon Of The New Testament [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], n. 4 on 4-5). He cites the example of Tertullian's claim that the church of Thessalonica still possessed the original copies of the letters Paul sent them. So, we know that Christians were interested in consulting older manuscripts, not just the latest ones, at least as early as the second century. We don't have to possess the manuscripts that men like Irenaeus and Tertullian possessed in order to know some things about those manuscripts. And what the sources tell us about the manuscripts of their day contradicts what Reynold Himes has been arguing.