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Author | Topic: Authorship of the Gospels | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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Not a complete reply at all, but.
Papias claims to have talked with people who talked to the Disciples, but with the probable exception of John, doesn’t claim to have talked with the Disciples themselves. The two quotes concerning Mark you present from Papias seen to be different renditions of the same material so I have no idea why you think they are distinct. You give no source for either. While the author of Luke talks of investigation he never cites sources - unlike the better ancient historians. This part may also be boiler-plate text and not really truthful. The differences with Matthew are also quite serious and call into question the reliability of both Gospels. There is also the question of whether the author used a common source with Matthew (called Q) or simply took material from Matthew and rewrote it. One of the major arguments for Q is that the author of Luke would not do such rewriting, but since he appears to have done so in the case of the Olivet Discourse - despite it’s appearance in Mark - I don’t think that argument is tenable. Papias explicitly sought out second-hand accounts and apparently did not speak to many eye witnesses at all. Note also that the document he ascribes to Matthew is written in the Hebrew tongue which is a serious problem since the Gospel according to Matthew we have is written in Greek. Moreover the literary dependency between Mark and Matthew mean that it is not possible that the two are independent creations. Either Matthew was always written in Greek, and derives large amounts of its material from Mark - or if you want Papias account of Matthew to be accurate Mark is almost completely derived from a translation of Matthew, and not Peter’s teaching at all. If Bauckmann did not deal with this issue I cannot see that his book can be trusted at all - however I believe in this case the fault is yours. The bolded material from John clearly continues We know that his testimony is true - people do not generally speak of themselves in the third person so it seems that this part is an insertion by another writer. That this writer believed that some of the text came from the Beloved Disciple is not the same thing as the author himself claiming to be the Beloved Disciple.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Aristion is obscure, not mentioned in the Gospels or any other source (excepting a late 10th Century Armenian version of Mark) so we have to question if he actually was a disciple.
quote: How can it possibly confirm it? And why do you try to present them as two different texts when they are obviously versions of the same one? Moreover your source is not Eusebius, since Eusebius did not write in English and I do not believe you did the translation.
quote: It is very unlikely that Peter wrote 1 Peter.
quote: One or two, more likely since 2 Timothy is unlikely to be Pauline and Colossians is doubted.
quote: Then you have Matthew intentionally disagreeing with Luke - and even more certainly writing in Greek, and even more certainly not an eye witness. Even if you insist that an eye witness would copy someone else’s account - someone who wasn’t even a witness - we still can’t count that copying as eye witness material.
quote:. We don’t know that Aristion is an eyewitness and I don’t think that we should trust an impression you get from Polycarp over Papias’ own words.
quote: Which means that Matthew’s work is largely lost. Moreover the idea that an eye-witness would construct his account by copying - and translating! - two second-hand (at best!) sources is bizarre indeed. So, no, your solution only created more problems. If you want to say that Matthew was an eye-witness account, the author cannot copy material from Mark or Luke. And no translator can either because copying material from another work entirely isn’t translation.
quote: The claim about Matthew probably came from Papias and probably isn’t referring to the book we call the Gospel according to Matthew. The claim about Mark likely has the same source (and may be true). The claims about Luke and John came from somewhere.
quote: That is a speculation. And a rather questionable one. The use of the third person in most places distinguishes between the author of the main text and the beloved disciples. In this place - by your reading - it affirms that those two are the same person but conceals the fact that the writer of that piece is the author of the main text. That is somewhat bizarre, compared to taking it at face value. That is bad apologetics not scholarship.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Mark is usually considered the oldest. Paul of Tarsus never knew Jesus, so if Luke is based on his words it would be third-hand at best.
quote: That last is well known as a late addition to the text, and not much of a reason to doubt the bulk of it. Oh, and the earliest copy of the Gospel of Judas seems to be carbon-dated to 280 AD +/- 60 years. In comparison, the earliest Gospel fragment is dated at 125 AD (the Rylands Papyrus). The Egerton Gospel would be a better comparison as it is a similar age - and completely unknown before the fragments were discovered in the early 20th Century.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: So, not one of those usually counted as the disciples. Maybe a follower, but not an important one.
quote: No you didn’t and it doesn’t. You gave two translations of the same text. They are far too close to be anything else.
quote: And in all likelihood it was written by someone else entirely. Despite the text’s claim to the contrary.
quote: Which doesn’t help much, since for all you know the name was attached to the Gospel because of those references.
quote: Unfortunately for you it is a matter of copying.
quote: We know that it is highly unlikely that the author of Matthew was either an eye witness or Matthew the tax collector. There are also questions of whether the we passages of Acts reflect actual experience. Not that a brief meeting years before writing would be of much use anyway.
quote: That’s what it says, whether it is true is another matter. Again the fact that the author never tells us which source his claims come from is a count against him. We only know that Mark is a source because the copying can be detected by literary analysis.
quote: So where does Papias claim to have met disciples other than Aristion and John (if John the Elder really is the Disciple)? If you are going to claim that comes directly from Papias you have to back it up. I think that the omission of any others is a strong indication that he didn’t meet them.
quote: It’s rather clear that he would have to use Mark instead of his alleged eye witness experience which makes far less sense.
quote: If he did, that document is lost to us. It’s not our Gospel of Matthew.
quote: Sure there is - the Gospel of Matthew is not an eye-witness account and it was written in Greek.
quote: Then let us see some actual scholarship saying why that text should not be taken at face value. If all I can see is an opinion that doesn’t make much sense to me I am not about to prefer it to an obvious and simple alternative. So far as I can see it is nothing more than a lame excuse.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: This is literally insane. Plenty of people are referred to in the third person, including Jesus, Judas and Pontius Pilate. The most you can say is that it doesn’t prove that Matthew wasn’t the author.
quote: And the above shows how that happened. And it wasn’t because of the evidence.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: All I can find easily is the assertion that Aristion was likely Bishop of Smyrna. And it is entirely possible to be a bishop without being a disciple.
quote: Scholars argue that the author was not only fluent in Greek, but clearly had an education in Greek which is unlikely for Peter. The usual answer is that it was largely written by someone else for Peter, but even that means that it was largely the creation of another. And of course the evidence is entirely inadequate to show that.
quote: Let us note that it is use of the first person, not third that you claim as evidence of authorship here. However, as I have already mentioned it is not as sure as you think.
quote: It is a matter of copying. This is agreed amongst scholars.
quote: It is a product of your prejudice and irrationality as is absolutely clear.
quote: This is a massive non-sequitur. I did not suggest that the passages were later additions, I suggested that the use of the first person might not indicate that the author was actually present.
quote: Or he was using a boilerplate dedication that happened not to be literally true.
quote: While it is possible that Papias may have met disciples and forgotten it, it would be unlikely if there was significant interaction between them. And it is entirely possible for Polycarp to meet people that Papias did not.
quote: No, it is generally accepted that Matthew was written in Greek and you don’t have good evidence that it was written by an apostle.
quote: It is not that he writes about himself in the third person that does that. It is the fact that he writes about himself (I.e. it relies on us knowing that the Josephus of the text IS the author). The use of the third person is NOT evidence of authorship - because the use of the third person applies to everyone but the author or the reader and it is insane to suggest otherwise,
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Your willingness to write ridiculous falsehoods - as well as your rejection of evidence contrary to your views - is proof that your belief is not at all based on the evidence. And Lewis’ awful apologetics shouldn’t convince any rational person. (Yes, I did read Mere Christianity and yes it is really, really bad)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: But of course what I say is true and I have supported it. Your claim that authorship can be inferred from use of the third person is arrant nonsense. Many people are referred to in the third person in Matthew because that is the way to refer to everyone but the author and the reader. Thus use of the third person must be evidence that the person referred to is NOT the author. Now maybe you simply have no idea what third person is or maybe you just haven’t thought about it, but it really doesn’t matter. Your claim was obviously false, anyone with enough knowledge of grammar to understand what third person is can see it is false. The arrogance is therefore all yours.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I think that GDR really needs to learn to think about what he says.
Referring to someone in the third person is not evidence that you are that person. Even if we restrict ourselves to pronouns, the first chapter of Matthew refers to Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the third person. Is this meant to make us think that they wrote the Gospel? If the author of Matthew wasn’t Matthew the tax collector would he refer to the tax collector in the first person? The second? At best GDR has happened across an argument that claims that the use of the third person doesn’t prove that the author wasn’t Matthew the tax collector - and badly misunderstood it and refuses to even think about it. If he doesn’t like having his arguments exposed as ridiculous nonsense he should stop talking ridiculous nonsense. Instead of attacking me.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
So let’s discuss the evidence that Satan wrote the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew 4:1-11
4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. 4 But he answered, It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you,’and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ 7 Jesus said to him, Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; 9 and he said to him, All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. 10 Then Jesus said to him, Begone, Satan! for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your Godand him only shall you serve.’ 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. It’s clearly there! So I hope that everyone takes it with the seriousness it deserves. Edited by PaulK, : Fix qs tag
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
And don’t forget that Papias, who GDR assures us is a reliable source, getting his information from eye-witnesses had yet another story of Judas which contradicts the others.
"Judas was a terrible, walking example of ungodliness in this world, his flesh so bloated that he was not able to pass through a place where a wagon passes easily, not even his bloated head by itself. For his eyelids, they say, were so swollen that he could not see the light at all, and his eyes could not be seen, even by a doctor using an optical instrument, so far had they sunk below the outer surface. His genitals appeared more loathsome and larger than anyone else's, and when he relieved himself there passed through it pus and worms from every part of his body, much to his shame. After much agony and punishment, they say, he finally died in his own place, and because of the stench the area is deserted and uninhabitable even now; in fact, to this day one cannot pass that place without holding one's nose, so great was the discharge from his body, and so far did it spread over the ground." As quoted on Wikipedia
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I disagree. The Luke you think wrote the Gospel was a follower of Paul who was never a disciple of Jesus. I don’t think that having met a few of the disciples years before writing really counts as a connection.
quote: Unfortunately for you third person is used in pretty much the same was in ancient and in modern writings.
quote: As you know, I dispute that attribution and I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary. However, even if you were right it would only show that authors could use the third person in speaking of themselves. Yet we know that they did use first person (e.g. Luke 1:3) and of course we know that they used third person to speak of others.
quote: Even if you are correct, how do you do distinguish that use of third person from the more common use - to refer to people other than the author or the reader? Surely you must already know that the person spoken of is the author - and therefore use of third person cannot be evidence that the person referred to is the author.
quote: No, because the document we call the Gospel According to Matthew was almost certainly written in Greek, and therefore Irenaus is either misinformed or speaking of another - lost - document.
quote: No, it really isn’t. It is clear they wanted to claim that but it isn’t at all clear that they really did much to ensure it. John’s Gospel is expressly written to promote belief, none of the Gospels clearly identify their authors or the sources for any of their claims.
quote: The author may have had a particular interest in Matthew, or asource which spoke more of Matthew, but his use of Mark makes it very unlikely that he was an eye-witness. Now maybe he had a translation of the Hebrew Gospel supposedly written by Matthew but we can’t know that. It would, however, explain the evidence better than the idea that he was Matthew.
quote: Or the attribution to Matthew was intended to justify the use of it, and preferring it over Mark. Certainly the attribution is questionable and there doesn’t seem to have been much evidence even back then.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Some time, years before writing. As I said, I wouldn’t really call that a connection.
quote: Because of the far more numerous examples where the third person is used to speak of people other than the author - and because even some modern people have referred to themselves in the third person.
quote: Which is not at all adequate to support your claim. Unless you wish to assert that the third person is not widely used to refer to people other than the author and the reader - which would amuse me - you must accept the fact that a large majority of third-person references are not to the author. Moreover the article illeism you cite gives an entirely different reason for the use:
Early literature such as Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico or Xenophon's Anabasis, both ostensibly non-fictional accounts of wars led by their authors, used illeism to impart an air of objective impartiality, which included justifications of the author's actions. In this way personal bias is presented, albeit dishonestly, as objectivity Note also, that the article refers to modern usage.
quote: Which is no help at all to you. Indeed, the fact that you do need to know who the author is independently of the third-party reference destroys your case.
quote: No, they say that Matthew wrote a Gospel in Aramaic. They do NOT say that it is the document that we know as the Gospel of Matthew.
quote: Your claim with regard to John is questionable - indeed it begs the question. The author of Luke does not give his name. The only claim to be a companion of Paul is his use of the first person - not third - in Acts.
As I say we have less evidence for Matthew than the other Gospels but no disciple was with Jesus all of the time so it would be normal to take the first Gospel written in order to provide information on individual events that he wasn’t present for. I do not think it would be normal to make no distinction between material copied from another source and personal reminiscence. Nor do I think you can show that the copied material is restricted to the scenes where Matthew was absent. And, of course there is material where Matthew was absent that is not covered by Mark.
quote: I’m not suggesting that they did anything worse than you’ve done. Indeed your own attempts to attribute the Gospel to Matthew are highly motivated and not really justifiable by the evidence you possess.
quote: And yet we have no record of those credentials being established. As such this represents more of a motive than it does support for your claim.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
The original assertion was:
Also, the fact that Matthew in the Gospel is referred to in the third person is actually additional evidence that it was Matthew the tax collector and apostle. The obvious problem with this is that pretty much everyone in the Gospels is referred to in the third person. The author is one of the few people who might not be. Furthermore, the author need not appear - it is agreed that neither the authors of Luke or Mark appear in their respective Gospels. Indeed, If Matthew were not the author he would be referred to in the third person. How then can it possibly be considered evidence otherwise? And if a third person Reference is considered to be evidence of authorship are we supposed to take a first person reference as evidence against authorship ? The use of the first person plural in Acts is taken as evidence of the author’s presence. So, on the face of it the claim is obviously false. An attempted defence was:
It was normal in antiquity to refer to yourself in the third person to indicate that you were an actual participant in the narrative. We can see this in the earlier works of Polybius, and in Julius Caesar’s the Gallic War. Josephus a contemporary of John often referred to himself in the third person to denote that he was an objective observer or participant in his account titled The War of the Jews. This assertion only makes sense if the author can be identified independently of the third person reference - the use of third person does nothing to single out any person, because it is so ubiquitous. Josephus, for instance, introduces himself in the preface to The Jewish War and identifies himself as one of the Jewish leaders. If only the author of Matthew - or any of the Gospels - had done the same the debates might continue, but on different grounds. Even if we assume that the argument was solely attacking the assertion that third party references were evidence against authorship it would still fail. The first person is still an option for the author - as seen in Acts. Thus it is more likely that the author would use the third person for other people than they would for themselves. Considered as an argument that a third person reference is evidence of authorship the logic completely fails. If the author referred to himself, he would use the third person does not mean if an author uses the third person he is likely referring to himself.
Paulk writes: Why would you say that when I gave you several examples where that is not the case. It is a literary technique that is still used occasionally but more often by the ancient writers. It is calledilleism Unfortunately for you third person is used in pretty much the same was in ancient and in modern writings. Unfortunately the use of illeism does little to dispute the original assertion. Illeism is and was against the usual conventions - and the article cites the modern example of Richard B Hays. This is not a major difference, and even if it were it is insufficient to support the original claim, as has already been demonstrated. The important issue is the frequent use of the third person to refer to others - and illeism does not address that at all. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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