www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings How we got the Bible

Once again, I refer you to Eusebius' histories.

St. Mark was the companion of St. Peter and wrote from his point of view for a Roman audience.

St. Matthew wrote for the Hebrew Christians, notice how St. Peter shines in his Gospel compared to St. Mark's.

St. Luke wrote for Greek speaking Gentile converts and as a Physician tried to go about the process very methodically.

St. John wrote his Gospel last to fill in the rest of the story so to speak.

Also, the tradition is that the order of the Bible is, in fact the order in which they were written. There have been fragments of St. Matthew's Gospel which date from the late 30s/
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At least there is a cycle in which all the Gospels are read and expounded.

In protestantism there is only the whim of the pastor.

And... I have no use for Spong.

Dr. Eric,

If Mark was written first then why is Matthew's Gospel first in the Bible? The New Testament writings after the Acts get shorter and shorter. DOes this mean that the epistle writers had less and less to say? And why would the Gospels come first in the New Testament before the writings of Paul when Paul wrote his letters several decades before Mark? Wouldn't John's Gospel be placed last in the order of books in the New Testament?

This topic is not about protestantism or the whim's of any pastor.

The topic is about the origins of the Bible. I only suggested one theory - in addition to many others. No one knows for sure.

As for Spong, I do not agree with his ultimate conclusions. I often wonder what actually he DOES believe in. I am interested in what aspects of his theory do you not agree with.

The theory Spong mentions is an interesting one. he does make a good point ,one that Catholics and Orthodox should consider. The origins of the Gospels have the liturgy or worshippingcommunity as its mother. (I use the term mother only because it is Mother's Day). Whether you agree with Spong's conclusions or not is independent of the point he does make about the liturgical basis of Scripture. This basis would dammage the many scholarly theories about source criticism or other mere literary theories. Why would Mark or the other Gospel writers write something foreign to the worshipping community?

Mark's Gospel was an embarrassment because it painted a stark picture of the Apostles. his writing was too close to being a reality Gospel. Peter is a bumbling fool. Matthew has to improve on this. What do you think about the points I made in my previous posts? Do you have any ideas why the later Gospel authors had to expand and improve on Mark? Why did Mark end his Gospel (traditional ending) with the women running away in fear? Was this not a good enough ending for a Gospel?

Yes you byzcaths and Orthodox still follow a continuous reading cyle of the Gospels in one year but only proclaim 1/7 of them on the Lord's day. and it never changes. How do the other 6/7ths of the Gospel lections get heard in your church if mass isn't done every day during the week? Do yo have another worship service to read the remaining Gospel lections? Do people show up for these?

I know several Protestant church communities that DO follow a lectionary cycle. If it was only pastoral whims then Catholics and Orthodox would have no joint study groups or research on the subject. I am sure some noncath and nondox Christian churches have no lection cycle.

On a side issue, one of my catholic associates mentioned how they DO hear th eGospel readings every week but rarely hear a sermon expounding on them. how can this be? What do the cath priests talk about if not expounding on the Gospel lections? can this be considered a whim problem too? I guess all Christian communities can improve on expounding on the Gospels, catholics or protestants included.

Eddie

Can you tell me where these late 30s fragments of Matthew's Gospel are kept? Every fragment and manuscript is well documented. I am interested in how Matthew wrote his Gospel so early. Many believe he wrote his Gospel after the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. That would be post-70 or so not late 30s. Please share what you know about these extremely early fragments. This is very interesting if not startling.

Eddie

They only believe that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in the 70s because the predictions by Our Lord that came true were too correct and therefore must have been written after the destruction of the Temple.

"The most probable scenario is that Matthew was there, an eyewitness who made shorthand notes of what Jesus said."

Most probable scenario is that this scenario is another theory. Be careful of Thiede and of others who announces his or her discoveries to the media around Christmas and Easter.


http://www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/210Thiede.html#Gasping%20in%20Astonishment


"We agree with Thiede when he wrote �Caution is always the best approach in the dating of manuscripts�. [97] In this article an attempt has been made both to hear and to critically investigate his claims regarding the date of P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64. Although we recognise the service that he has performed in facilitating a reexamination of methodological presuppositions, our verdict on his claims is a negative one. The very early manuscripts to which Thiede appealed for close parallels to P64 turned out to be not as close as the somewhat later ones which he had overlooked. Although there is no absolutely definite evidence by which P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P 64 can be dated with certainty, the available evidence points to a date around AD 200. To be on the safe side I would suggest plus or minus fifty years as the possible range." http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/P64TB.htm

1) The main conclusion, in relation to Thiede's article, is that a first-century dating is definitively ruled out by the association of the hand of P64 with the biblical majuscule style.
2) Roberts' first edition and revised edition were evidently hurried and left room for improvements (palaeographical, codicological, text-critical).
3) Thiede shows up some (not all) of the faults in the earlier
editions, but also continues or introduces some errors.
4) In relation to the question of dating, Thiede makes two main
errors of method:
(i) He makes comparisons based on individual letter forms, without
assessing the overall style of the hands in which the letters occur.
(ii) He does not draw relevant evidence into consideration, in
particular:
(a) the association of the hand of P64 with the biblical majuscule
style;
(b) the evidence of P4.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1995-09/10441.html

His redating on paleographical grounds is seriously flawed in four ways.
First, he does not indicate how four great paleographers could all concur on a lowered redating of the Matthew fragments to a date ca. 200 and still be in error.
Second, he compares letters in these fragments from Egypt [Luxor is purchase place, hand compares with {P}4, from Philo codex binding] with material from Herculaneum in Italy (that may be from ca. 40 b.c.e. on provenance grounds, with a terminus ad quem of 79 c.e.) and from Qumran in The Land, and from elsewhere in the wilderness of the Dead Sea (NaHal Hever).
Third, he compares individual letters without an appreciation of the characteristics of their formation or the hands of which they are a part. Fourth, his assembly of mss for comparisons is not a coherent set, and was apparently chosen primarily as a group of mss which *could* be dated in the first century c.e., regardless of their other features. Thiede did not recognize that a two-column codex such as {P} 64 --Magdalen Gr. 17 -- has no similarly-constructed examples with which to be compared. He does not recognize the need to provide some explanation for the appearance of a two-column codex at least a century earlier than all other examples of two-column codices. See Turner, op. cit.
Finally, Thiede (1995) and Roberts (1953) both transcribed the fragments as thought they contained <i>nomina sacra</>, and as though the use of <i>nomina sacra</> was not restricted to <gr>KURIOS, KURIE</>, or <gr>QEOS, QEOU</>, but rather extended to abbreviations of <gr>IHSOUS</>.However, and I must state this emphatically, there is no visible support" http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~petersig/thiede.txt.final.reply

Scholars reviewing Thiede also presented some excellent reasons for thinking the Magdalen Papyrus is from 200 or later � namely, you can tell that the fragment was part of a double-columned codex, something that doesn�t appear till mid second century (and it�s interesting that Thiede completely ignores this);
http://www.catholicintl.com/qa/2004/qa-aug-04.htm

it makes a great deal of difference whether they are mid-first century or late first century�as Thiede now claims�
http://www.bib-arch.org/deadseascro...mp;Volume=11&Issue=6&ArticleID=8

Well. When Thiede himself begins to reject his own theory one has to wonder what it was all about.

While the manuscript is alleged to be a recent discovery (not by Thiede, however), it actually has been known in academic circles for almost a century.
http://www.kjvonly.org/jamesp/jdprice_magdalen.htm

Let me ask a question here. How many 'recent discoveries' have become sensationalized in the media when such discoveries have been around for a long time? I can think of the Judas Gospel, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Next year, some discoverer will probably publish a Gospel by Lucifer himself!

Eddie

Only? How about styles of writing?

For instance, if you discovered a letter written by your great-great grandfather on A4 paper using laser printing, would you question the discoverer? I think the argument that Matthew wrote after the 70s is based more on textual clues and writing content.

Let's say you discover another letter in an old tin that your other great-great grandfather wrote. It is written on faded paper that looks like the kind made way back when. however, your great grandad mentions events, institutions, and technology that is ONLY known after 1995. Now what? Do you conclude that he is psychic? or do you reach for your favorite adult beverage?

Eddie

I am trained in archaeology, from years back, and there is a very useful rule that says absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is good to qualify these kinds of assertions with "To date...." That means that the fragments in question certainly could be the first to disprove the rule. The science of history and the history of science are full of just such displacements. Nobody likes these moments particularly, because they do disturb the comfy "static" quo, but they happen.




I just sat and read the article and you have clearly badly misread the text. Thiede has not contradicted himself at all.

The author of the article, as well, leaves room for the possible reception of these texts and their dating.

Mary

Elijahmaria. FIrst I would like to say I like your Hebrew name. Is this a popular byzcath name?

Let me address your comments please.
1. I don't know what you mean by a 'widely variant writing style"
2. I am not Evangelical.
3. I am familiar with Catholic biblical studies; having sat at a number of conferences with them.
4. I am not trying to "instruct the ignorant Catholic" You "folks" (to use your term)have a rich history and customs. I see more infighting between byzcaths and orthodox than shouting from the rooftops. you folks have many possible answers to the problems inherint in reformed biblical studies, especially the Evangelicals.
5. Many Catholic and Orthodo teachers don't accept the primacy of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew has a very advanced Trinitarian formula for a doxology to be early (Mt 28:20). If the world was going to end - and this waS a reality problem in the early church, why would Matthew be concerned about making disciples of all nations? The late Raymond E. Brown disagrees with you. More than likely, Matthew was written after 70 AD.
6. The order of the Gospel writings is NOT a belief or dogma of any church thta I know of. Most of this i will admit is simply theoretical. Making conclusions based on parallel contents or ommissions is not hard facts; they are just good guesses. Show me in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that it is necessary to believe that Matthew's Gospel was written first. Your article is from a Catholic Encyclopedia and you fail to mention which one; maybe 1914 edition? I have studied at a couple Catholic universities in order to take additional Bible studies. Believe me; no one knows as to the origins. They are good guesses, scholarly opinions, and sometimes media attention getters.
7. I am willing to admit, and i do often, that what i say is theoretical; what you quote is to be taken as Gospel (sorry for the pun; i just had to).
8. I just want to learn. I ask a lot of questions. That is my method of learning. I believe that I have been accused more of being anti-Catholic by Catholics when i do no such thing. but I had to endure theconstant reminder of my kind (evengelicals) when I am not an Evangelical. I ask that you cease from considering me as such and lumping me into that pot. i consider it uncharitable and not worthy of dialogue. In fact, it is very unChristian.
9. I come to your forums seeking an alternative to others. I once got kicked off one Evangelical forum because i asked tough questions about the Septuagint. More time was spent calling me all sorts of names and saying i was the Devil and a Catholic in disguise! on this forum I am an Evangelical ( i think this might mean that anyone having a love of Scripture) and on another a Catholic. I think the name calling has to stop and the topic at hand be considered.
10. We will always agree to disagree (a popular saying for some). But scholars, Catholic and nonCatholic, have alway disagreed with the origins of the Gospels. many bible scholars outside the church discount ANYTHING a Catholic scholar has to say only because he or she actually believes in the Gospels as being something more than mere moral or mythical literature. Scholars fear Catholic believers. I've seen it in various colleges and conventions. i once attended a convention on bible studies and discussed some issues with several Evangelicals. They love me; they agreed with me; they nodded their heads for what I was telling them about the Bible. Then I told them i was Catholic (for fun) and their faces were distraught; they walked away from me. Hee, hee. The topic was about John's Gospel where Jesus told his disciples to eat his body to have life in them; the words he chose was not symbolic; they too grew distraught and walked away from him.

Eddie

So that others don't get confused, I had withdrawn my comments while you were writing your own in response.

Mary

Elijamaria,

I am sure you are a good Christian woman who can spend hours having fun discussing things theological and biblical. Please keep posting; you keep me alert.

Eddie

I rarely go beyond what I have learned at the knee of my Church.

I find heady speculation to be a dead bore unless it has direct and positive bearing on the foundation of what the Church teaches and what I believe in faith. That is quite enough to keep me busy.

Mary