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Book Plunge: Christ-Centered Apologetics

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
    It looks like your claim is that Papias is talking about a document that we do not know to be Mark.
    No, my claim is that there is no reason to think that the document which came to be known as Mark was the one which Papias was discussing.

    It must have been a document with a lasting impression
    Why must it have been? So far as we know, Papias only made a single, short statement about this document. There is no indication that Papias has read, or is even familiar, with the document he claims was written by Mark. Now, it's possible that he was discussing a document which made a "lasting impression," but it is equally possible that he was not. Without some further method of identifying the document about which Papias wrote, it becomes impossible to discern the one from the other.

    ...and frankly, we do not know all that Papias said since we don't possess the entirety of his work.
    That's precisely my point. We do not know anything about the document Papias was therein referencing other than the information contained within that one tiny blurb: "Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled from memory—though not in an ordered form—of the things either said or done by the Lord." Now, given that the canonical gospel which we do have certainly is in an "ordered form," it seems fairly unlikely to me that it would be the document which Papias was describing. If one wants to assert that the canonical Mark is the document Papias was describing, he is going to have to provide a better reason than "we don't know that it's not the document Papias was describing."

    Would he even need to? By the time of Irenaeus, these works would have been known and again
    This is yet another completely unsupported assertion. Furthermore, even if the documents were well circulated, that does not imply-- in any way-- that Irenaeus correctly identified their authors.

    I seriously doubt that all that Irenaeus had just one document
    Irenaeus' only support for his claim that the canonical gospel was written by Mark is the fact that Papias said Mark wrote an account. If you want to propose that Irenaeus had other sources linking the gospel to its now-traditional author, it is on you to produce those sources.

    ...and other church leaders all around the known world at the time all said Mark, which points to a uniformity in a tradition.
    There is absolutely no way to support this claim. We don't know of any other church leaders at Irenaeus' time who believed that the document we now have was authored by Mark, let alone all of them.

    Further, if he was wanting to give it apostolic authority, why not just say it was the Gospel of Peter and an account of Peter directly and leave out the middleman?
    The obvious reason would be that he had even less reason to think that Peter wrote such an account than he had for Mark. Mind you, I'm not saying that Irenaeus was being deceptive in his ascription of authorship to the gospels. I don't think he was simply trying to make things up. Without any reason to think that Peter wrote an account of Jesus life, Irenaeus looked elsewhere to find a means of ascribing apostolic authority to the document.

    The ancient world was not as easy to travel, but yet it was quite often and many a Jew would regularly go to Jerusalem for the Passover feast as well.
    Even if I grant this for the sake of argument, that still does not imply that the author of Luke would "certainly" have interviewed eyewitnesses in writing his account.

    I do think we have many reasons to think the sequel, Acts, is quite reliable historically. (Keener has written a massive commentary showing such or rather at least started it as I believe there is another volume yet to come)
    I would actually agree that there is a good bit of historical data which can be drawn from the Acts of the Apostles. However, this does not imply anything about its specific authorship, whatsoever.

    The book then has the we passages where the author includes himself as well. We could say he was lying, but it would be a wonder why the we isn't there from the very beginning
    Once again, there's no need to think that the author was lying by his inclusion of the "we" passages. Personally, I tend to agree with Dibelius and Kümmel on this subject-- it seems to me that the most likely explanation for the sporadic "we" passages in Acts is that they were drawn verbatim from one of the author's written sources.

    ...and also why would the early church attribute such a work to Luke, a man hardly known in the epistles and not at all known in the Gospels.
    Now this is certainly an interesting curiosity; however, the fact that we remain curious about the origin of a claim is not a very good reason for believing that claim to be true.
    "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
    --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

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    • #17
      Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
      No, my claim is that there is no reason to think that the document which came to be known as Mark was the one which Papias was discussing.
      I do not know why I should really doubt it. Papias's document would be one held in high esteem and this seems to be the position I read about in the scholars.

      Why must it have been? So far as we know, Papias only made a single, short statement about this document. There is no indication that Papias has read, or is even familiar, with the document he claims was written by Mark. Now, it's possible that he was discussing a document which made a "lasting impression," but it is equally possible that he was not. Without some further method of identifying the document about which Papias wrote, it becomes impossible to discern the one from the other.
      I would say it was because he took the time to mention it and it was seen as coming from Peter, something the church would take seriously.

      That's precisely my point. We do not know anything about the document Papias was therein referencing other than the information contained within that one tiny blurb: "Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled from memory—though not in an ordered form—of the things either said or done by the Lord." Now, given that the canonical gospel which we do have certainly is in an "ordered form," it seems fairly unlikely to me that it would be the document which Papias was describing. If one wants to assert that the canonical Mark is the document Papias was describing, he is going to have to provide a better reason than "we don't know that it's not the document Papias was describing."
      The taking down refers to the notetaking done under Peter and not to the writing of the document. Mark compiled all he could under Peter and when the time came wrote the document.

      This is yet another completely unsupported assertion. Furthermore, even if the documents were well circulated, that does not imply-- in any way-- that Irenaeus correctly identified their authors.
      Irenaeus speaks about their being four Gospels. He does not have to argue for their authenticity or their canonicity at that point. When critics of Christianity wanted to know where to turn, they consistently turned to writings like and including the four Gospels.

      Irenaeus' only support for his claim that the canonical gospel was written by Mark is the fact that Papias said Mark wrote an account. If you want to propose that Irenaeus had other sources linking the gospel to its now-traditional author, it is on you to produce those sources.
      I have yet to see a real reason to doubt Papias's claim. I would tend to go with the older person closer to the events instead of moderns who are not.

      There is absolutely no way to support this claim. We don't know of any other church leaders at Irenaeus' time who believed that the document we now have was authored by Mark, let alone all of them.
      If you mean exactly at the time, that's not what's being said. If you mean the patristic era as I did, yes. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian for instance.

      The obvious reason would be that he had even less reason to think that Peter wrote such an account than he had for Mark. Mind you, I'm not saying that Irenaeus was being deceptive in his ascription of authorship to the gospels. I don't think he was simply trying to make things up. Without any reason to think that Peter wrote an account of Jesus life, Irenaeus looked elsewhere to find a means of ascribing apostolic authority to the document.
      Why think he would have less reason? He knew about 1 Peter so he could have easily believed a document could be traced to Peter like that. Why name it by the secretary instead of the source?

      Even if I grant this for the sake of argument, that still does not imply that the author of Luke would "certainly" have interviewed eyewitnesses in writing his account.
      If Luke is in Jerusalem and interacting with the church, he would come in contact with eyewitnesses and interview them, especially if part of this was to show Theophilus the certainty of the message.

      I would actually agree that there is a good bit of historical data which can be drawn from the Acts of the Apostles. However, this does not imply anything about its specific authorship, whatsoever.

      Once again, there's no need to think that the author was lying by his inclusion of the "we" passages. Personally, I tend to agree with Dibelius and Kümmel on this subject-- it seems to me that the most likely explanation for the sporadic "we" passages in Acts is that they were drawn verbatim from one of the author's written sources.
      Okay. Why should I think that? Why would I think that Luke would slip up here and not realize that he wasn't there?

      Now this is certainly an interesting curiosity; however, the fact that we remain curious about the origin of a claim is not a very good reason for believing that claim to be true.
      Sure, but it does lend more credibility I find to the claim since one wanting to make up an author would not choose Luke.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
        I do not know why I should really doubt it. Papias's document would be one held in high esteem
        So it seems that your argument is:

        (1) Papias discusses a document which was held in high esteem.
        (2) The gospel now known as Mark was held in high esteem.
        (3) Therefore, Papias discusses the gospel now known as Mark.

        Is that right? Because that clearly seems to be an example of an Undistributed Middle fallacy.

        The taking down refers to the notetaking done under Peter and not to the writing of the document. Mark compiled all he could under Peter and when the time came wrote the document.
        Now you are going well beyond anything which Papias or Irenaeus said on the subject. Additionally, you seem to be invalidating your own point. If you are asserting that Mark first wrote notes based on Peter's preaching, and that he did not write an orderly gospel account until later, then it follows that Papias is not talking about the canonical gospel, as Irenaeus claimed.

        Irenaeus speaks about their being four Gospels. He does not have to argue for their authenticity or their canonicity at that point. When critics of Christianity wanted to know where to turn, they consistently turned to writings like and including the four Gospels.
        This says absolutely nothing about the veracity of the claims Irenaeus makes about the authorship of the Gospels. So, once again, how do you know that Irenaeus correctly identified the authors of the canonical gospels?

        I have yet to see a real reason to doubt Papias's claim. I would tend to go with the older person closer to the events instead of moderns who are not.
        I never said that you should doubt Papias' claim. I said you should doubt Irenaeus' claim. We do not have any claims from Papias regarding the now-canonical gospel.

        If you mean exactly at the time, that's not what's being said. If you mean the patristic era as I did, yes. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian for instance.
        Tertullian does ascribe authorship of the now-canonical gospel to Mark, but not until 30 years after Irenaeus had made that case.

        Clement, however, does not make any claim that Mark wrote the now-canonical gospel in any of his extant writings. Eusebius tells us that Clement relays a story in which Peter's followers exhort Mark to write an account, and Eusebius links that story to the now-canonical Mark; but Clement does not make any such claims in his extant work.

        Why think he would have less reason? He knew about 1 Peter so he could have easily believed a document could be traced to Peter like that. Why name it by the secretary instead of the source?
        Again, no one is accusing Irenaeus of making things up, whole cloth. He was not being deceptive. Irenaeus knew of a claim that Mark had written a document about the life of Jesus. There's no reason to think he was aware of similar claim made about Peter.

        If Luke is in Jerusalem and interacting with the church, he would come in contact with eyewitnesses and interview them, especially if part of this was to show Theophilus the certainty of the message.
        Even if the author of Luke was in Jerusalem and interacting with the Church, what evidence do you have to substantiate the claim that he would have come into contact with eyewitnesses and interviewed them?

        Okay. Why should I think that? Why would I think that Luke would slip up here and not realize that he wasn't there?
        Who said it was a slip-up? It's entirely plausible that the author of Luke-Acts was simply quoting verbatim from one of his written sources. There's no slip-up even implied in such a situation.

        Sure, but it does lend more credibility I find to the claim since one wanting to make up an author would not choose Luke.
        Once again, no one is claiming that Irenaeus was attempting to just "make up an author." He really believed that he had good reasons for attributing the gospel to Luke; unfortunately, despite his sincere belief, those reasons do not seem to be very strong.
        "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
        --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
          No, he doesn't. He says that he has undertaken to present an orderly account of the events which occurred "just as they were handed to us by those who were eyewitnesses in the beginning" (Gk., καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται). The phrase "handed to us" (παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν) is a common Greek idiom for oral tradition, just as the English corollary is, even today. It does not imply any direct contact between the author of Luke and the eyewitnesses which he mentions.
          How does it not? The bold bit above is a rather affirmative implication of direct contact IMO. From my perspective, it appears from Luke's opening statement that he had read written accounts, compared them to direct (oral) testimony from eyewitnesses, and, finding them lacking, sat down to compose his own written account. I'm not sure how much more rigorous one can get than that.
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          • #20
            Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
            So it seems that your argument is:

            (1) Papias discusses a document which was held in high esteem.
            (2) The gospel now known as Mark was held in high esteem.
            (3) Therefore, Papias discusses the gospel now known as Mark.
            No. I see Irenaeus talking about a document that I think we have reason to think was Mark. Papias gave a testimony of an account that was written and the church would know about. Mark seems to be a just fine candidate.



            Now you are going well beyond anything which Papias or Irenaeus said on the subject. Additionally, you seem to be invalidating your own point. If you are asserting that Mark first wrote notes based on Peter's preaching, and that he did not write an orderly gospel account until later, then it follows that Papias is not talking about the canonical gospel, as Irenaeus claimed.
            Not at all. Mark had sat under Peter and took down the information until he decided to write it in a more formal account.

            This says absolutely nothing about the veracity of the claims Irenaeus makes about the authorship of the Gospels. So, once again, how do you know that Irenaeus correctly identified the authors of the canonical gospels?
            The point was you had said Irenaeus was trying to establish apostolic authority. My contention was it already had that since it was accepted. Irenaeus is just telling how it came about.

            I never said that you should doubt Papias' claim. I said you should doubt Irenaeus' claim. We do not have any claims from Papias regarding the now-canonical gospel.
            But I have no reason to doubt it and would prefer to trust those closer to the time on authorship instead of us several centuries later.

            Tertullian does ascribe authorship of the now-canonical gospel to Mark, but not until 30 years after Irenaeus had made that case.
            Yes, and as I said, these people were quite distant which would refer to a tradition going through the church.

            Clement, however, does not make any claim that Mark wrote the now-canonical gospel in any of his extant writings. Eusebius tells us that Clement relays a story in which Peter's followers exhort Mark to write an account, and Eusebius links that story to the now-canonical Mark; but Clement does not make any such claims in his extant work.
            And do we have a reason to doubt what Eusebius attributes to Clement?

            Again, no one is accusing Irenaeus of making things up, whole cloth. He was not being deceptive. Irenaeus knew of a claim that Mark had written a document about the life of Jesus. There's no reason to think he was aware of similar claim made about Peter.
            Which doesn't really answer the question. Irenaeus could have skipped on Mark. His reputation in the Bible isn't that good. He instead chose to say this is the Gospel of Mark and not the Gospel of Peter.

            Even if the author of Luke was in Jerusalem and interacting with the Church, what evidence do you have to substantiate the claim that he would have come into contact with eyewitnesses and interviewed them?
            I agree with what the Pig said.

            Who said it was a slip-up? It's entirely plausible that the author of Luke-Acts was simply quoting verbatim from one of his written sources. There's no slip-up even implied in such a situation.
            Do we have any indication in those parts he is quoting a source?

            Once again, no one is claiming that Irenaeus was attempting to just "make up an author." He really believed that he had good reasons for attributing the gospel to Luke; unfortunately, despite his sincere belief, those reasons do not seem to be very strong.
            Wasn't talking about Irenaeus there but anyone in the church period.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
              . . . my claim is that there is no reason to think that the document which came to be known as Mark was the one which Papias was discussing.
              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
              . . . So far as we know, Papias only made a single, short statement about this document. There is no indication that Papias has read, or is even familiar, with the document he claims was written by Mark. Now, it's possible that he was discussing a document which made a "lasting impression," but it is equally possible that he was not. Without some further method of identifying the document about which Papias wrote, it becomes impossible to discern the one from the other.
              I'm wondering, Nick, if maybe you focused on these two points, that maybe you could make some headway with BP.

              As far as you know, are there any reasons to think that the document which came to be known as Mark is the one Papias was discussing? BP says that there are NO reasons to think it is, but can you think of ANY?

              BP claims that it's equally possible that Papias was talking about some other document altogether, is it really equally possible that he was talking about some other document than the one we know?

              Is it really impossible to discern anything about Mark that might identify it as the document which Papias wrote about?

              I haven't read Bauckham's “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” (I'm sure I have it around here someplace), but did Bauckham point to any clues for us on why the Mark we know is probably the one Papias knew?

              Despite BP's claim that there is no reason to think it's the one Papias wrote about, I can think of at least a couple reasons. 1.) It's clearly early, dating even liberally to before 80 A.D.. So that's gotta be worth something, right? Out of all the surviving gospels that were produced by the early church, few of them date as early as Mark. Few of them date early enough for Papias to have been familiar with. 2.) As you've pointed out in other posts, the Mark we have now is well attested by others in the early (post-Papias) church. We don't have any alternative gospel called Mark, do we? There's no other gospel that dates as early as this gospel that's a close second, correct? Now it may be that there was another Mark, and it's lost to us now, but unlike Papias' (Hebrew) Matthew, we don't have any indication that he may have been thinking of another gospel, do we?

              You mention in your very first post that Bauckham thinks that "Mark is an inclusio account that directly links itself to Peter", right? So that's gotta be another reason we add for thinking that this is Papias' Mark, correct?

              So, we've gone from NO reason to think that the Mark we know is Papias' to at least three reasons. They may not be the three most convincing reasons, but they are reasons. Are there more that we can add?
              Last edited by Adrift; 05-27-2015, 09:42 PM.

              Comment


              • #22
                I think those are good reasons, and we could add in the uniformity of church tradition and that there are scholars who do attribute the book to Mark. James Crossley and Maurice Casey date the book particularly early and if this first century mask finding is accurate....

                Also, when Peter makes a fool of himself a number of times in the Gospels, Mark has it say "The disciples" instead.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                  How does it not? The bold bit above is a rather affirmative implication of direct contact IMO.
                  Because the word παραδίδωμι does not necessarily imply direct contact. For example, Isocrates uses the same word, in On the Peace 8.94 to describe how earlier generations of Athenians had "handed on the city to their descendants." He does not mean that these ancestors were the ones directly passing the city into the hands of the current generation; but rather that the traditions set down by these ancestors had first been passed to the subsequent generation, which then passed them on to the next, continuing in this manner even until the latest generation. Xenophon also uses the word παραδίδωμι in this way, describing a tradition passed down through a family line from ancestors to descendants, in Hellenica 6.3.4. The author of Luke seems to be employing παραδίδωμι in this same sense, referring to the flow of tradition.

                  As I mentioned, even modern English retains this euphemism. When a fraternity member talks about the traditions "handed down to us" by the founders of that fraternity, he does not necessarily mean that he has received those traditions directly from the founders, themselves. When the Roman Catholic Church argues that the pope has been handed the keys of apostolic authority from Jesus and Peter, it does not imply that Pope Francis has met Jesus and Peter in person in order to received that authority; rather, that authority is asserted to have been passed from generation to generation. Similarly, when the author of Luke says that stories of the events surrounding Jesus life were handed down, he does not necessarily imply that they were handed directly.

                  Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
                  No. I see Irenaeus talking about a document that I think we have reason to think was Mark. Papias gave a testimony of an account that was written and the church would know about. Mark seems to be a just fine candidate.
                  Whether it is a "fine candidate" or not is entirely irrelevant. The fact that it could be the document which Papias was referencing does not imply that it therefore was the document which Papias was referencing.

                  Not at all. Mark had sat under Peter and took down the information until he decided to write it in a more formal account.
                  And where does Papias make such a claim?

                  The point was you had said Irenaeus was trying to establish apostolic authority. My contention was it already had that since it was accepted. Irenaeus is just telling how it came about.
                  The fact that it was utilized by the early Christians does not imply that apostolic authority had already been established.

                  But I have no reason to doubt it and would prefer to trust those closer to the time on authorship instead of us several centuries later.
                  There are rather good reasons to doubt it. For example, the rather specious reasoning which Irenaeus offers in support of this claim and others which he makes. Furthermore, the fact that something was written closer in time to the thing which it is discussing is not a very good reason for believing it over more informed scholarship.

                  Yes, and as I said, these people were quite distant which would refer to a tradition going through the church.
                  I agree! One which apparently begins with Irenaeus!

                  And do we have a reason to doubt what Eusebius attributes to Clement?
                  Yes. Scholars have long recognized that Eusebius needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt, as his biases seem to have led to numerous inaccuracies.

                  Which doesn't really answer the question. Irenaeus could have skipped on Mark. His reputation in the Bible isn't that good. He instead chose to say this is the Gospel of Mark and not the Gospel of Peter.
                  It actually does answer the question. I have repeatedly stated that Irenaeus was not simply making things up. If he did not even have a tenuous reason to attribute the work to Peter, as he did for Mark, then we have no reason to think he should have attributed it to Peter over Mark.

                  Do we have any indication in those parts he is quoting a source?
                  The fact that his subject pronouns change voice abruptly, in the middle of his statement, seems to be a strong indicator of this case. For example, in Acts 16:6-24, the author describes Paul and his coterie as "they" consistently until verse 10, where he switches to utilizing "we" in the middle of the story. This lasts until verse 19, when the author reverts to referring to Paul's company as "they."

                  Wasn't talking about Irenaeus there but anyone in the church period.
                  I similarly never made the claim that "anyone in the church period" was attempting to just make up an author. Misinformation can rather easily be fostered, aggrandized, and spread without any need for it to originate with a deliberate falsehood.

                  Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                  I'm wondering, Nick, if maybe you focused on these two points, that maybe you could make some headway with BP.
                  I actually agree. Focusing on that would be a good way to move forward.

                  As far as you know, are there any reasons to think that the document which came to be known as Mark is the one Papias was discussing? BP says that there are NO reasons to think it is, but can you think of ANY?
                  Obviously, I was being a bit hyperbolic when I said that there is "no reason." After all, if someone said, "I just want to believe," that would be a reason. So, allow me to clarify that I am not aware of any compelling reasons to believe that Papias is discussing the document we now know as the Gospel of Mark.

                  1.) It's clearly early, dating even liberally to before 80 A.D.. So that's gotta be worth something, right? Out of all the surviving gospels that were produced by the early church, few of them date as early as Mark. Few of them date early enough for Papias to have been familiar with.
                  The fact that they date early only means that we cannot rule them out due to their date. It does not follow that a document which was early enough to be familiar to Papias was therefore the one which Papias claimed to have been written by Mark.

                  2.) As you've pointed out in other posts, the Mark we have now is well attested by others in the early (post-Papias) church.
                  What do you mean by "well-attested?" No one claims that the Mark-we-now-have was written by Mark until Irenaeus.

                  Now it may be that there was another Mark, and it's lost to us now, but unlike Papias' (Hebrew) Matthew, we don't have any indication that he may have been thinking of another gospel, do we?
                  As I mentioned earlier, Papias describes the writings of Mark as being a collection of unordered recollections. That sounds very different from the document which we now know as the Gospel of Mark.

                  You mention in your very first post that Bauckham thinks that "Mark is an inclusio account that directly links itself to Peter", right? So that's gotta be another reason we add for thinking that this is Papias' Mark, correct?
                  I'm still curious about this, as well. As I replied in my first post in this thread, I've read through Mark many, many times, and I've never seen any passage in which the author directly links the work to Peter. When I asked where the Gospel of Mark directly links itself to Peter, Nick directed me to Bauckham. Now, perhaps he means something different by "directly" than I understand, but if a document directly states something, I would expect to be pointed to that document when I ask where it makes such a statement; I would not expect to be pointed to someone else's commentary on that document.
                  "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                  --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                    Obviously, I was being a bit hyperbolic when I said that there is "no reason."
                    I didn't catch the hyperbole. Sorry about that.

                    After all, if someone said, "I just want to believe," that would be a reason.
                    That doesn't actually sound like a reason to me.

                    So, allow me to clarify that I am not aware of any compelling reasons to believe that Papias is discussing the document we now know as the Gospel of Mark.
                    You mean, compelling to you, correct?

                    The fact that they date early only means that we cannot rule them out due to their date.
                    I think the fact that we can't rule Mark out is a terrific starting point. There are dozens of other Gospels we can rule out.

                    It does not follow that a document which was early enough to be familiar to Papias was therefore the one which Papias claimed to have been written by Mark.
                    Of course not, but if I were to make a cumulative case for the plausibility that the Mark we know is the Mark that Papias knows, it's early date has to be at the top of the heap.

                    What do you mean by "well-attested?" No one claims that the Mark-we-now-have was written by Mark until Irenaeus.
                    That's precisely what I mean. The Mark we now have is mentioned by name, and quoted by other, post-Papias, early church fathers. It's been awhile since I've read them, but if I'm remembering correctly, Tertullian, Jerome, and Origen all give Mark's name to that gospel. I can't think of any other book by the same name that seems to be mentioned by the early church fathers, can you?

                    As I mentioned earlier, Papias describes the writings of Mark as being a collection of unordered recollections. That sounds very different from the document which we now know as the Gospel of Mark.
                    Okay, well this is the explanation that Bauckham offers,

                    Source: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham

                    Papias’s contention that Mark did no more than record, with scrupulous accuracy, the chreiai as Peter related them, is mistaken. However, we should remember that it is from the perspective of his own ideals of historiographic composition that Papias views Mark’s Gospel. Two aspects of this perspective are relevant. First, we must attempt to place Mark in the literary spectrum of Greek and Roman biography. Most such works depend on particular sources, written or oral, and units of tradition, like the Markan pericopes. But they differ considerably in the literary sophistication with which they create a narrative whole out of these sources. Christopher Bryan makes this point and goes on to place Mark in the spectrum:

                    The more sophisticated the writer, generally the less obvious are the junctures between particular sources and the units of tradition that make up the work. Tacitus’s and Plutarch’s narratives usually flow as elegant and continuous wholes. In the Life of Secundus, by contrast, the four pieces [i.e.,the four discrete units that make up this Life: a novella, a passion, a diatribe and a dialogue] stand simply side by side, and are easily identified. Yet even a sophisticated writer like Lucian may choose to structure a work very simply; Demonax is essentially a collection of anecdotes strung together in no particular order in a biographical framework.

                    In Mark’s use of sources, I place him somewhere between Plutarch and Tacitus on the one hand, and Demonax and Secundus on the other. . . .[W]hile Mark does not combine his materials into a continuous whole with anything like the grace of a Plutarch or a Tacitus, still he does make considerably more effort in this direction than does the writer of Secundus.


                    We should remember at this point that Papias evidently expects of a life of Jesus the highest standards of contemporary historiography. In literary character, therefore, he is looking for something toward the end of the spectrum represented by Plutarch’s Parallel Lives rather than that represented by the two very different but essentially unstructured works The Life of Secundus and the Demonax of Lucian. Reading Mark, he is more likely to have been struck by its resemblance to a work like the latter, with its almost entirely unstructured collection of anecdotes, than by the elements of structure that also characterize Mark’s Gospel. Whereas Bryan can say that, considering the whole spectrum of such biographies, “Mark’s narrative certainly needs no apology or explanation,” for Papias it did need, precisely, apology and explanation, such as he offers in his account of how Mark recorded only what Peter related as discrete units. He is measuring it against the highest standards of literary historiography, and by these standards it compared badly with the Gospel of John, which, while it lacks the stylistic skills of a Plutarch, is much more chronologically precise and much more obviously a continuous narrative whole than Mark’s Gospel is.

                    Secondly, however, we should note that the ways in which Mark does structure his narrative are mostly characteristic of oral composition. This point has been elucidated especially in a series of articles by Joanna Dewey. She summarizes her arguments as follows, linking them to an interpretation of Papias’s words that coheres exactly with our argument about the latter:

                    [T]he Gospel of Mark works well as oral literature. It is of an appropriate length for oral performance. A storyteller could learn it from simply hearing it performed. As I and others have argued elsewhere, its composition consists of oral composition techniques. Briefly, the story consists of happenings that can be easily visualized and thus readily remembered. It consists of short episodes connected paratactically [i.e., by no more or little more than “and,” thus placing events side by side rather than subordinating one to another]. The narrative is additive and aggregative [short narratives accumulate rather than creating a climactic linear plot]. Teaching is not gathered into discourses according to topic but rather embedded in short narratives, which is the way oral cultures remember teaching. Indeed, I would suggest that it is the lack of a more literate chronological and topical order that Papias had in mind when he said Mark’s story was “not in order.” . . . It followed oral ordering procedures, not proper rhetorical form

                    The plot as well as the style is typical of oral composition. The structure does not build toward a linear climactic plot; the plot to kill Jesus is first introduced in Mark 3:6 but not picked up and developed until Mark 11, and it does not really get under way until Mark 14. Rather than linear plot development, the structure consists of repetitive patterns, series of three parallel episodes, concentric structures, and chiastic structures. Such structures are characteristic of oral literatures, helping the performer, the audience, and new performers and audiences to remember and transmit the material. From what we know of oral literature there is no reason why it could not have been composed and transmitted in oral form.


                    As Dewey herself points out, none of this enables us to tell whether Mark’s Gospel was actually composed orally or was composed in writing using the oral techniques of a skilled oral storyteller. She does think it more probable than not that the Gospel was “refined in writing,” thus accounting for some structural elements that are widely separated in the text. But the Gospel could depend closely on an already existing oral narrative, whether or not composed orally by the author of the Gospel, so that the written Gospel is a written “performance” of an oral narrative. Alternatively, it could be that Mark composed the narrative in writing, making use of oral techniques because he was writing for oral performance of his text. In any case, it seems clear that the Gospel was indeed composed for oral performance, and that the oral structuring techniques it employs would have assisted such oral performance and aural reception.

                    For our main concern at this point, which is to explain how Papias was able to judge Mark’s Gospel lacking in “order,” the important implication is that Papias, with his literary preoccupations, would likely not have recognized oral methods of structuring a narrative as really “order.” It would be easy for him to overlook the evidence that Mark did not confine himself to reporting the individual chreiai as Peter related them. Mark’s ways of shaping the discrete units into a narrative whole were not what Papias was looking for.

                    We can understand, therefore, how easy it was for Papias to exaggerate Mark’s lack of order. But this exaggeration also served his purpose well. Papias was engaged in explaining the differences between John’s Gospel and Mark’s in a way that favored John’s “order” without denigrating Mark’s Gospel.

                    © Copyright Original Source



                    I'm still curious about this, as well. As I replied in my first post in this thread, I've read through Mark many, many times, and I've never seen any passage in which the author directly links the work to Peter. When I asked where the Gospel of Mark directly links itself to Peter, Nick directed me to Bauckham. Now, perhaps he means something different by "directly" than I understand, but if a document directly states something, I would expect to be pointed to that document when I ask where it makes such a statement; I would not expect to be pointed to someone else's commentary on that document.
                    I'll let Nick get into that if he wants, but I have Bauckham's book, and can probably check out what he means by it. I haven't actually gotten around to reading it, but looking through it, Bauckham offers a number of other points that we can add to our list.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                      I didn't catch the hyperbole. Sorry about that.
                      No worries. I've done the same, more than once.

                      That doesn't actually sound like a reason to me.
                      It is a reason. It's just not a very good reason.

                      You mean, compelling to you, correct?
                      Yes. My standard for what I find to be compelling, however, is fairly commonly accepted, I think. I'm simply looking for arguments which offer some logical support to the case. For example, if one could show that Papias describes Mark's writing as opening with the description of Jesus' baptism, while certainly not conclusive, that would show a rather strong correlation between the works.

                      I think the fact that we can't rule Mark out is a terrific starting point. There are dozens of other Gospels we can rule out.
                      Once again, this is irrelevant. We can also rule out Euclid's Elements, Caesar's Gallic Wars, and Shi Shen's Astronomy. That does nothing to tell us whether the document we now have is the one which Papias was referencing.

                      Of course not, but if I were to make a cumulative case for the plausibility that the Mark we know is the Mark that Papias knows, it's early date has to be at the top of the heap.
                      Yes, if the current Gospel of Mark had been dated later than Papias writings, that would have rather obviously disqualified it as a candidate. However, directly next to the dating, on that heap, would have to be the description of the document's content, and that clearly does not correlate.

                      That's precisely what I mean. The Mark we now have is mentioned by name, and quoted by other, post-Papias, early church fathers. It's been awhile since I've read them, but if I'm remembering correctly, Tertullian, Jerome, and Origen all give Mark's name to that gospel. I can't think of any other book by the same name that seems to be mentioned by the early church fathers, can you?
                      Why should we expect there to be? The fact that Papias mentions a document does not imply that the document would have been widely circulated, or that it would have survived long past him.



                      Okay, well this is the explanation that Bauckham offers,

                      Source: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham

                      Papias’s contention that Mark did no more than record, with scrupulous accuracy, the chreiai as Peter related them, is mistaken.

                      © Copyright Original Source

                      This text presumes that Papias is referencing the same document which we now have. Does Bauckham do more to establish this presumption than we have yet done in this thread? If he does, I'd love to hear it. If not, then this text seems uselessly speculative.

                      I'll let Nick get into that if he wants, but I have Bauckham's book, and can probably check out what he means by it. I haven't actually gotten around to reading it, but looking through it, Bauckham offers a number of other points that we can add to our list.
                      I'd love to hear them!
                      "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                      --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                        It is a reason. It's just not a very good reason.
                        I...hmm. I don't see how you think stating "I just want to believe" can be a reason. That simply doesn't make sense to me. Maybe we're working under two different definitions of the word "reason".

                        Once again, this is irrelevant. We can also rule out Euclid's Elements, Caesar's Gallic Wars, and Shi Shen's Astronomy. That does nothing to tell us whether the document we now have is the one which Papias was referencing.
                        I gotta say, at this point I feel you're pulling my leg a bit, or you're just being silly. We're talking about Christian gospels, correct? We're not talking about all the literature in the ancient world. Out of all of the Christian gospels we currently know of, very few are as early as Mark. So, if we're making a cumulative case for the plausibility of the Mark-we-know being the Mark Papias knows, it's early date works for it. We're not referring to all ancient literature. We're referring to the genre of "gospel" written by Christians.

                        Yes, if the current Gospel of Mark had been dated later than Papias writings, that would have rather obviously disqualified it as a candidate. However, directly next to the dating, on that heap, would have to be the description of the document's content, and that clearly does not correlate.
                        Some scholars believe it does correlate.

                        Why should we expect there to be?
                        Again, I can't tell if you're pulling my leg here. Are you really asking me why we should expect more than one author to be associated with a Christian writing? We have plenty of examples of writings being attributed to other authors. Hebrews alone was thought to have been written by Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Paul, Luke, Apollos and Priscilla. Since you seem familiar with the early church writings, I'm kind of surprised I have to mention this.

                        The fact that Papias mentions a document does not imply that the document would have been widely circulated, or that it would have survived long past him.
                        Of course not. Again, I'm sort of stumped here. What do you think the argument being made is? That we know for 100% absolute certainty that Papias is talking about the Mark-we-know? The argument is that the Mark-we-know is more likely the Mark-that-Papias-knew than not.

                        This text presumes that Papias is referencing the same document which we now have. Does Bauckham do more to establish this presumption than we have yet done in this thread? If he does, I'd love to hear it. If not, then this text seems uselessly speculative.
                        At this point you're sort of frustrating me. I wrote out a page of material from a highly esteemed New Testament scholar about the particular issue you had about Papias' description of his Mark being "unordered", and instead of a "wow, that's very interesting" or a "huh, never thought of it that way", or even a "thank you", I get even more dug-in skepticism, and a "it's useless speculation". I mean, come on man. Yes, to answer your question Bauckham does more to establish that Papias is referencing the document we have now. In fact, he wrote a whole book to establish the point. This was just one section of a lengthy discussion on the topic in his book. I'm not about to cite the whole book to you though.

                        I'd love to hear them!
                        Honestly, I'm thinking that it's wasted on you. I got the feeling you sort of already have your mind made up on the issue.
                        Last edited by Adrift; 05-29-2015, 07:32 AM.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                          Because the word παραδίδωμι does not necessarily imply direct contact. For example, Isocrates uses the same word, in On the Peace 8.94 to describe how earlier generations of Athenians had "handed on the city to their descendants." He does not mean that these ancestors were the ones directly passing the city into the hands of the current generation; but rather that the traditions set down by these ancestors had first been passed to the subsequent generation, which then passed them on to the next, continuing in this manner even until the latest generation. Xenophon also uses the word παραδίδωμι in this way, describing a tradition passed down through a family line from ancestors to descendants, in Hellenica 6.3.4. The author of Luke seems to be employing παραδίδωμι in this same sense, referring to the flow of tradition.
                          On the other hand, the internal evidence indicates that the author was contemporaneous with Paul (the "we" passages in Acts); thus he could have easily accessed the direct testimony of eyewitnesses.
                          Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

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                          I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                            I...hmm. I don't see how you think stating "I just want to believe" can be a reason. That simply doesn't make sense to me. Maybe we're working under two different definitions of the word "reason".
                            Generally, by "a reason" I mean "a thing which is cited as justification for a belief." Of course, the fact that something is cited to justify a belief does not mean that it does a very good job of supporting that belief.

                            For example, let's say that I asked two different people, "Why do you believe that there is an infinite quantity of Prime Numbers?" The first person I ask tells me that he believes this because his teacher told him that it was so. This is a reason, despite the fact that it is a bad reason, since it is based on an Argument from Authority. The second person I ask details a simple deductive proof for the infinitude of the Primes. This is also a reason, and a very good one.

                            I gotta say, at this point I feel you're pulling my leg a bit, or you're just being silly. We're talking about Christian gospels, correct? We're not talking about all the literature in the ancient world. Out of all of the Christian gospels we currently know of, very few are as early as Mark. So, if we're making a cumulative case for the plausibility of the Mark-we-know being the Mark Papias knows, it's early date works for it. We're not referring to all ancient literature. We're referring to the genre of "gospel" written by Christians.
                            I agree that the Mark-we-know is not ruled out by dating. However, the fact that other pieces of literature can be ruled out, for any number of reasons, still does not in any way imply that Papias was discussing the Mark-we-know. I gave extreme examples as a means of illustrating this point.

                            Some scholars believe it does correlate.
                            If they have good reasons for justifying that belief, I would love to hear them.

                            Again, I can't tell if you're pulling my leg here. Are you really asking me why we should expect more than one author to be associated with a Christian writing?
                            No, I am asking why we should expect that more than one writing associated with Mark should have survived past the 1st Century.

                            The argument is that the Mark-we-know is more likely the Mark-that-Papias-knew than not.
                            Yes, this is the argument. I do not see that this argument has been sufficiently justified.

                            At this point you're sort of frustrating me. I wrote out a page of material from a highly esteemed New Testament scholar about the particular issue you had about Papias' description of his Mark being "unordered", and instead of a "wow, that's very interesting" or a "huh, never thought of it that way", or even a "thank you", I get even more dug-in skepticism, and a "it's useless speculation". I mean, come on man.
                            I know that I rarely state it, explicitly, but I am always very thankful for a charitable and friendly dialectic like the one we've been carrying out in this thread. I'm not the sort of vitriolic anti-Christian who posts on forums like this solely for the sake of being contentious. I really am interested in learning more, expanding my own knowledge, and eliminating my own false beliefs.

                            So, truly and sincerely, thank you for engaging with me.

                            Yes, to answer your question Bauckham does more to establish that Papias is referencing the document we have now. In fact, he wrote a whole book to establish the point. This was just one section of a lengthy discussion on the topic in his book. I'm not about to cite the whole book to you though.
                            That's fine-- I wouldn't expect you to do so. Even if you wanted to summarize or paraphrase some of Bauckham's points, or perhaps even just direct me to the chapters or page numbers in the book where he makes his argument, I could go from there.

                            Honestly, I'm thinking that it's wasted on you. I got the feeling you sort of already have your mind made up on the issue.
                            I actually do alter my views when offered sufficient reason for doing so. For example, for a long time, I held to the position that it was likely Jesus would not have received a proper burial following his crucifixion. However, after carefully reviewing evidence from Philo, Josephus, and archaeology, I have found that position to be dubious, and I now acknowledge that it is entirely possible that Jesus might have been entombed following his execution.
                            "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                            --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                              On the other hand, the internal evidence indicates that the author was contemporaneous with Paul (the "we" passages in Acts); thus he could have easily accessed the direct testimony of eyewitnesses.
                              We've touched on the "we" passages elsewhere in the thread, but to recap: I tend to agree with scholars like Kümmel that the "we" passages are likely to be quotations from one of the author's written sources, rather than an indicator that the author was actually present in those accounts. There are abrupt changes in subject voice and grammatical flow when the "we" passages begin and end. For example, in Acts 16:6-10, the author consistently refers to Paul and his company as "they" until interrupting that flow, mid-story, in verse 10 by utilizing "we" to describe the same group of people.
                              "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                              --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                                At this point you're sort of frustrating me. I wrote out a page of material from a highly esteemed New Testament scholar about the particular issue you had about Papias' description of his Mark being "unordered", and instead of a "wow, that's very interesting" or a "huh, never thought of it that way", or even a "thank you", I get even more dug-in skepticism, and a "it's useless speculation". I mean, come on man. Yes, to answer your question Bauckham does more to establish that Papias is referencing the document we have now. In fact, he wrote a whole book to establish the point. This was just one section of a lengthy discussion on the topic in his book. I'm not about to cite the whole book to you though.
                                Wow, that was interesting. Thank you.

                                I'm confused though why anyone would not prefer that our modern Mark was simply based on the Mark of Papias' description, rather than being identical with it. We know, if only from the later addition of 16:9-20, that the earliest tradents did not feel a need to preserve this specific text as it was written. I'm fairly sure that addition, at least, was inserted later than Papias reference to Mark.

                                As ever, Jesse

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