When i agreed to discuss Adam's seven witness thesis, he replied with links to material that he posted elsewhere on the Passion.
I would prefer that Adam simply respond directly as follows:
1 - quote something from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, which you believe is first-hand testimony to the resurrection of Jesus.
2 - explain why you believe it to be first-hand
3 - Disclose the name of the person you think that testimony comes from.
4 - Explain why you think that person is responsible for said testimony.
5 - clarify whether you think your view is so compelling that those who know about it and still reject it are being irrational in such rejection.
I checked out the earlyChristianwritings link, and none of your postings there get down to actual gospel texts on the resurrection that you believe are first-hand.
You should also remember that, unless you dispute Mark's authorship of Mark, or Luke's authorship of Luke, their use of identifiably first-hand resurrection testimony does not turn it into first-hand testimony. It is still non-eyewitness Luke or Mark, quoting what somebody else said, and until you can get that testimony away from the mouth of those non-eyewitnesses and into the mouth of an identifiable eyewitness, it will remain hearsay.
Also, I have to ask what good it does for you to identify certain gospel texts as coming from first-hand accounts, if in fact you cannot do more than speculate on the identity of the original eyewitness giving testimony. If Luke is the one who provides that account to you, then it is hearsay, and the fact that the account ultimately came from an eyewitness does not change its hearsay nature. I think therefore that you need to come up with an apologetic that shows ancient hearsay to be reliable when it meets certain criteria, to supplement your seven witness thesis. Otherwise, identifying seven eyewitness sources behind certain gospel texts is nothing but a purely academic exercise and doesn't show them to be any more presumptively reliable than the hearsay that they continue to be.
Also, supposing you can prove that something in Luke 24 ultimately comes from an identifiable eyewitness. Do we have enough information about that alleged eyewitness to rationally justify making a confident judgment either way on his or her credibility? Or do you respond as most apologists, and disagree with the standard rules of historiography that permit the investigator to look into the credibility of the eyewitness? After all, eyewitnesses can lie or be decieved, or misquoted, right? This is usually the point where apologists take back their claim that the rules of historiography we normally apply to other ancient documents should be applied to the bible. Josh McDowell's "internal, external, bibliographical" ain't even the tip of the icebox.
I also take issue with you trying to debate with me what exactly Papias meant by saying "logia" when it appears you attribute to him a corrupted church tradition. How much weight can we attach to Papias' word "logia", if we already agree he is responsible for infusing falsehood into the story behind gospel authorship? Papias, if he can be trusted, would be a major plank in the foundation of the theory that says Mathew's original gospel form was the heretical "Gospel to the Hebrews" that church fathers say was regarded by many in the early church as authentic Matthew. Are you sure we should accord Papias sufficient presumption of accuracy so as to rationally justify going back and forth about "logia"? If Papias can be trusted for "logia", he might also be trustworthy for "matthew wrote the oracles of the Lord in the Hebrew dialect...", which opens pandora's box.
Also, the gospel of Thomas and Oxyrhynchus papyri are rather solid proofs that the idea of a gospel wholly lacking narrative in the first or second centuries was a normal thing.
Worst of all, "Gospel" does not mean "sayings + narrative", it means "good news", and sayings of Jesus unaccompanied by narrative can be equally as good news as those sayings infused with narrative. For that reason, if "logia" means "gospel", that doesn't argue that Matthew originally authored the narrative portions. What Papias said about Mark cannot be confidently related to what he said about Matthew, since Eusebius doesn't give context, and for all we know, words Papias used to describe Mark's authorship are in a very different context from words he used when saying Matthew wrote the logia. We cannot just brush aside the cardinal hermeneutic of immediate context just because doing so would make things convenient for apologists. Eusebius didn't provide the immediate context, and this is fatal in the eyes of anybody who thinks it is important to read immediate context in order to extract from the author the precise nuance he intended in some disputed word or phrase.
I also need to correct something. I said I would quote the New American Commentary to show that scholars agree that "gospel" is not the most natural meaning of Papias's "logia", but the quotation I gave only said the trend is for scholars to discount the historical worth of Papias. Here is the quote I intended:
Adam also said this commentary or its scholarship was outdated, but "contemporary evangelical scholarship" is how Logos advertises that set at
https://www.logos.com/product/37667/...mentary-series.
I would prefer that Adam simply respond directly as follows:
1 - quote something from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, which you believe is first-hand testimony to the resurrection of Jesus.
2 - explain why you believe it to be first-hand
3 - Disclose the name of the person you think that testimony comes from.
4 - Explain why you think that person is responsible for said testimony.
5 - clarify whether you think your view is so compelling that those who know about it and still reject it are being irrational in such rejection.
I checked out the earlyChristianwritings link, and none of your postings there get down to actual gospel texts on the resurrection that you believe are first-hand.
You should also remember that, unless you dispute Mark's authorship of Mark, or Luke's authorship of Luke, their use of identifiably first-hand resurrection testimony does not turn it into first-hand testimony. It is still non-eyewitness Luke or Mark, quoting what somebody else said, and until you can get that testimony away from the mouth of those non-eyewitnesses and into the mouth of an identifiable eyewitness, it will remain hearsay.
Also, I have to ask what good it does for you to identify certain gospel texts as coming from first-hand accounts, if in fact you cannot do more than speculate on the identity of the original eyewitness giving testimony. If Luke is the one who provides that account to you, then it is hearsay, and the fact that the account ultimately came from an eyewitness does not change its hearsay nature. I think therefore that you need to come up with an apologetic that shows ancient hearsay to be reliable when it meets certain criteria, to supplement your seven witness thesis. Otherwise, identifying seven eyewitness sources behind certain gospel texts is nothing but a purely academic exercise and doesn't show them to be any more presumptively reliable than the hearsay that they continue to be.
Also, supposing you can prove that something in Luke 24 ultimately comes from an identifiable eyewitness. Do we have enough information about that alleged eyewitness to rationally justify making a confident judgment either way on his or her credibility? Or do you respond as most apologists, and disagree with the standard rules of historiography that permit the investigator to look into the credibility of the eyewitness? After all, eyewitnesses can lie or be decieved, or misquoted, right? This is usually the point where apologists take back their claim that the rules of historiography we normally apply to other ancient documents should be applied to the bible. Josh McDowell's "internal, external, bibliographical" ain't even the tip of the icebox.
I also take issue with you trying to debate with me what exactly Papias meant by saying "logia" when it appears you attribute to him a corrupted church tradition. How much weight can we attach to Papias' word "logia", if we already agree he is responsible for infusing falsehood into the story behind gospel authorship? Papias, if he can be trusted, would be a major plank in the foundation of the theory that says Mathew's original gospel form was the heretical "Gospel to the Hebrews" that church fathers say was regarded by many in the early church as authentic Matthew. Are you sure we should accord Papias sufficient presumption of accuracy so as to rationally justify going back and forth about "logia"? If Papias can be trusted for "logia", he might also be trustworthy for "matthew wrote the oracles of the Lord in the Hebrew dialect...", which opens pandora's box.
Also, the gospel of Thomas and Oxyrhynchus papyri are rather solid proofs that the idea of a gospel wholly lacking narrative in the first or second centuries was a normal thing.
Worst of all, "Gospel" does not mean "sayings + narrative", it means "good news", and sayings of Jesus unaccompanied by narrative can be equally as good news as those sayings infused with narrative. For that reason, if "logia" means "gospel", that doesn't argue that Matthew originally authored the narrative portions. What Papias said about Mark cannot be confidently related to what he said about Matthew, since Eusebius doesn't give context, and for all we know, words Papias used to describe Mark's authorship are in a very different context from words he used when saying Matthew wrote the logia. We cannot just brush aside the cardinal hermeneutic of immediate context just because doing so would make things convenient for apologists. Eusebius didn't provide the immediate context, and this is fatal in the eyes of anybody who thinks it is important to read immediate context in order to extract from the author the precise nuance he intended in some disputed word or phrase.
I also need to correct something. I said I would quote the New American Commentary to show that scholars agree that "gospel" is not the most natural meaning of Papias's "logia", but the quotation I gave only said the trend is for scholars to discount the historical worth of Papias. Here is the quote I intended:
Most significant is the debate over the meaning of logia, which does not naturally mean Gospel but sayings.
Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;
The New American Commentary (Page 40). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
The New American Commentary (Page 40). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
https://www.logos.com/product/37667/...mentary-series.
Comment