I never hid the fact that I hadn’t watched the video, and my *question* and *hypothetical* comment was in response to your paraphrase.
I have since read the transcript, and watched the relevant portions, and even so, it was, frankly a waste of my time. There was nothing in it that I found enlightening.
Watching it earlier might have forestalled this exchange only by alerting me to the fact that you had mischaracterized what Derick said.
So I’m not apologetic that I didn’t take 20 minutes to watch the video before I asked you about the line you supplied. I don’ think I need to watch every video someone posts on here, and I don’t even think I need to watch every video before asking questions and hypothetical observations based on what other people have said about it.
Steefen
The original copies of the gospels have perished.
They need to get the Papyri as close to Jesus as they can.
They scour the other books of published papyri for datable examples which they can then compare with gospel papyri.
Then they say that the handwriting of the early papyri looks like the handwriting of the gospel papyri.
They move the gospel papyri as close to the late first century as they can.
What they don’t tell you:
is that gospel papyri better resembles handwriting samples from the third, fourth, and later centuries
making it impossible to place papyri in the first century with any certainty.
Pophyry
Look. In the line from your second post, the line that I quoted when I first responded, you seemed to imply that there were some people who were misleadingly suggesting we have first century copies of the gospels:
What they don’t tell you: is that gospel papyri better resembles handwriting samples from the third, fourth, and later centuries making it impossible to place papyri in the first century with any certainty.
My response was in agreement that if there is a “they” who are suggesting that we have first-century copies of the gospels, “they” are loons. Here are my words:
Steefen
There are two statements in play
I. All four gospels date before 99 CE
A. The finished forms of these gospels were published and in use by Christian communities before 99 CE regardless of us not having them, now.
So with Mark dating between 69 and 74 CE, it was not published and in use by Early Christian Communities regardless of us not having copies of Mark?
Scholars care about defending their first century dates of the gospels. Paul can get his writings published and in use to the extent his authentic letters were received and later discovered by Marcion who was obligated to say they were from the first century; but, the gospels were not produced and used before 99 CE?
Scholars still hope there will be first century fragments of the gospels.
Second century fragments of the gospels do not evidence the gospels were completed written between 45 ce and 99 ce.
Furthermore,
Marcion was born 85 AD
At 99 CE, hus age was 14,
So, his church does not qualify as a Christian community in the first century using the gospels of Mark, Matthew, or Luke.
But the majority of Christian scholars all agree the synoptic gospels were completed before 99 CE.
No one before Marcion could find these gospels anywhere? Not in Rome?
You are closing down the possibility there were no published gospels in the first century because they will never be found.
While the majority of critical scholars date the synoptic gospels before 99 CE, people, especially congregations, are welcoming of evidence.
If you want me and everyone else to move to position: know the gospels do not appear until the second century, we will.
Not even in 67 AD was Agrippa II aware of the teachings of the biblical Jesus so he could talk down the historical Jesus of Gamala/Gamla of Galilee from fighting with Rome.
There are two statements in play
I. All four gospels date before 99 CE
A. The finished forms of these gospels were published and in use by Christian communities before 99 CE regardless of us not having them, now.
There were not two statements in play in this conversation. No one in this thread said anything about the date of the original compositions, until this very afternoon (Eastern daylight time), just over an hour ago, when you mentioned it for reasons that are not clear in post #18. The entire discussion–insofar as there was anything that could be classed as a discussion–had been explicitly concerned with the dates of extant gospel papyri.
That is the issue you addressed in your first commentary on the video.
That too is the issue I explicitly asked about in my first comment.
Even though it was the focus of the video itself, literally no one in this thread said anything about the date of composition for the gospels until earlier this afternoon.
And it’s worse than that.
Paul died in 64/65. We should have had gospels not from 69-71 but the one gospel that competed with his from then.
There would have been that one gospel according to 3 or 4–Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn.
100-65 = 35 years. 35 years to write, edit, and publish the gospel when someone died in the year 30-33 CE?
We never did get Paul’s gospel edited.
Why did we get a gospel four ways from other apostles so long after 50-645?
Replying to Robert’s question, Stefeen writes:
Who do I think is closing down the possibility there are no written gospels in the first century? Ask Porphry?
Stefeen, you’re just engaging in calumny at this point. I have repeatedly clarified. This is a misrepresentation that, at this point, I can only regard as deliberate.
I *never* said or implied that no gospels were written in the first century. I said we don’t have copies from the first century.
is anyone arguing that we have a first century copy of a gospel? Because that pretty much immediately makes them a loon
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert