You’re welcome. I’ve read widely in this area, but I’ve never put together a summary before, and it was a good mental exercise.
When I was a christian, I was interested in apologetics. My first introduction to the topic was from online apologetics websites, Guthrie’s Introduction, Carson & Moo’s Introduction and Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. From reading those books, I figured that the only real reason why people thought the gospels were anonymous was to support their naturalistic presuppositions that the destruction of Jerusalem prophecies had to be ex post facto and to leave room for the kind of transmission that was predicted by form criticism. I had a large collection of (mostly Evangelical) commentaries which tended to emphasize the external evidence, minimize the internal evidence, and not address the a priori likelihood of apostolic authorship at all.
I eventually moved on to more nuanced biblical scholars (J.P. Meier and R.E. Brown were/are some of my favorites.) Although they have their weaknesses, I found their discussions much more in depth, and they were conservative enough while acknowledging and addressing the issues raised by the historical critical method. I also noticed that they seemed to do a lot less special pleading than their evangelical colleagues. I eventually started reading Dr. Ehrman’s books. Forgery and Counter-forgery was incredibly eye opening, and it’s bibliography pointed me to a whole bunch of additional resources. Timothy Law’s When God Spoke Greek did an excellent job showing the influence of the Septuagint on all the gospels. David Trobish’s work informed me of the ancient practice of publishing and what it might mean for gospel authorial attributions.
There’s a lot more to be said about my arguments (in particular Greek in Palestine, the gospels’ dependence on the Septuagint, several more problems with Papias, more discussion of some problems in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses), but I think I’ve presented a good bit of positive evidence for the gospels as pseudepigrapha. Many of the arguments around gospel authorship tend to be fairly subjective, so for me the most convincing ones are the ones with hard data – low documented incidence of literacy in Palestine, low documented incidence of Greek language in Palestine, incidence of Greek names in the gospels doesn’t match the background data, high incidence of apostolic pseudepigrapha in the first two centuries. I also think the case for impeaching Papias is also very strong. This makes it seem, at least to me, that the gospels are more likely than not pseudepigrapha.
To all: my participation on this blog is ending soon (a three-month membership), and I apologize in advance for posting quite a bit and quickly. I prefer to think things through, write, rewrite, think again, then post, etc. This may be more rushed, prolix, less considered as a result. But I will be having my say (after all, I did start this thread!), and readers will do what they like with it. I also regret that I may not see any responses, but I have moved on to other projects, and ‘Lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne’, as Chaucer says somewhere. This is my first experience in participating in a blog, and I can see that worthwhile can blend seamlessly into time-waster…
To Archase79: Thank you very much for your responses. I will be disputing a number of your points, but that does not detract from my appreciation of the time, effort and expertise you show in your posts.
I see some differences between our two approaches to the gospel authorship question. One difference can be summarized as layman versus scholar. A layman’s arguments can be criticized for being superficial or simplistic; a scholar’s approach can be criticized for ‘not seeing the forest for the trees’. I see the two approaches as being more complementary than antagonistic. Perhaps questions or issues raised by one approach is best responded to by the same approach?
Another difference: you have evidence and arguments against traditional authorship, and conclude that the gospels had to have circulated and been accepted as authoritative without knowledge of authorship. I look at the hypothesis that they circulated and were accepted without knowledge of authorship, and conclude that it is less likely than traditional authorship. (I hope I summarized clearly). I freely agree that there are weaknesses with traditional authorship (eg Matthew and John). Would you agree that Christian acceptance of gospels of unknown authorship and provenance is your weak link?
You clearly know a great deal, including New Testament Greek. I don’t know Greek; in fact, I don’t know much at all, though I do know what I know. I know that with many of your statements, there are a variety of scholarly opinions, not unanimity. I sometimes find it difficult to know when your arguments and statements are just your own, or that of one scholar you reference, or of a group of scholars (with other groups disagreeing), or of a broad consensus among scholars, including conservative ones. If your readers don’t know the area, it is important to be clear on that. I likely don’t keep that in my mind enough in my own writing.
(continued)
Part 2: To Archase79:
1) Concerning the low literacy rate in Palestine in NT times, I am sure you are familiar with the work of Allan Millard (1), who presents evidence and arguments quite contrary to yours. Has this difference of scholarly opinion been resolved?
2) You refer several times to the text Secret Mark, which troubles me. I am sure you know of the strong circumstantial case for it being a modern forgery by Morton Smith (an opinion held by Dr Ehrman among others). My feeling is it would be better to not refer to it at all. If you believe Secret Mark to be genuine, I feel you should state that plainly when you refer to it.
3) You discuss Q as if it is a proven document, though I know you know it is a scholarly reconstruction. It is so easy to forget that fact in the excitement of thinking about Q (and I feel that interest and excitement too). There are several other solutions to the Synoptic Problem that do not need Q, and they are not wrong, only less likely. This is an example of how NT studies differs from a scientific field. A scientific theory can be tested by proper experiment, and shown to be (provisionally) right or wrong. The less likely solutions to the Synoptic Problem will always be kept around because the data do not change. And, as with all things human, there are fashions in scholarship. One of the less likely theories may make a comeback.
But it is risky to make detailed conclusions about Q, or Special M, as Dr Ehrman points in a recent blog. If the ‘real Q’ had material in common with Mark, scholars would not see it in the reconstructed Q. If Matthew used something from Q, and Luke not, it would appear in Special M. And the same for Luke. And which was written first, Mark or Q? (My guess is Q. You know Greek; can you see any way to answer that question?). Did the later use part of the earlier, or was influenced by it? And the method of analysis leads to four unique, non-overlapping documents: Mark, Q, Special M and Special L. But only Mark is real. The data are three partially-overlapping documents. The method prevents any use of multiple attestation, and lends itself to too easy speculation.
4) In my article, I estimated what I call the period of anonymity to be 50-60 years. You estimate it to be, I think, 100-120 years (with the author assignments by Irenaeus). We are using the same data: earlier, more vague allusions and statements by earlier writers. Am I being overly credulous because of my belief in traditional authorship? I will think on that. Are you being overly skeptical of the data because of your disbelief of the same?
In my article, I give an alternative explanation for the unattributed allusions to the gospels: that it was a matter of style, that both writer and recipient knew the reference without needing to be specific. Is this alternative explanation worth considering? (One Irishman in a letter to another: ‘I am going to my cabin on Innisfree next week’, and he means it as a metaphor for a retreat somewhere. They both would know the source of the allusion without needing to be specific.)
Part 3:
5) You question the credibility of Papias as an early witness, based on the fantastical stories of the death of Judas. We have his surviving work only in quotations by later writers, at least one (Eusebius) hostile to him. Papias’ stories about Judas may have been taken out of context. Is there any evidence that Papias actually believed the stories he told? In the quotation starting ‘Judas walked…’ Papias twice says ‘they say’. This could mean ‘they say this, I don’t’ or ‘they say this, though I am skeptical’. You know Greek; maybe the fragments have evidence to clarify this point. But I think the charge that Papias was credulous can at least be challenged. And the disdain that Eusebius shows for him could have a simple root: that Eusebius was a scholar, and Papias not. (Just a guess.) And their conversation was a bit one-sided. (Hey – an idea for a dialogue: Eusebius encounters Papias in the afterlife. Picture what Papias might say to him…)
6) I believe you make a couple errors in your statistical argument on pseudonymous versus genuine writings. (Note: my second-year stats course was my lowest mark in university, and the prof was kind. It may be worth showing both our arguments to someone who knows statistics well.) First, you compare the 7 genuine letters of Paul with the much larger number of pseudonymous apostolic literature from the second century (45) to get a likelihood of genuine authorship (7/52 or 15%). But this is comparing apples and oranges. The second century documents have to be pseudonymous because the purported authors couldn’t have lived that long to write them. The real authors were second century people, not first century. I will try to make my point clearer by making it more extreme: Suppose tomorrow a hundred people sat down and wrote a hundred pseudonymous gospels, supposedly by New Testament characters. These could be added to your 45, and the proportion of genuine authors would decrease from 7/52 to 7/152, from 15% to 5%. Would writing more such gospels today really decrease the likelihood of genuine authorship in the first century?
I can’t make sense of your sentence that ‘The prior probability of the gospels being orthonymous is 2%’. Perhaps you could rephrase it, or show the calculation. As for taking that 2% and multiplying it by the (disputed) low probability of Palestinian Aramaic literacy, I think it is again apples and oranges (how many of the second century documents were written by Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews?). But I am not certain about this apples and oranges criticism.
You are right, it is interesting to look at the relative proportions of genuine and spurious Christian literature of the first two centuries. But we should add to the genuine group the works of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement of Alexandria, the letters of Ignatius, move the Didache to that group, put the spurious letters of Ignatius in the other group, and so on. I haven’t measured it, but I predict that the total bulk of the genuine group is much larger than the spurious. (The more I think about it, the more complex the issue: is it fair to count noses, no matter how small or fragmentary the text? And dates: if any of the dates are disputed into the third century, do we add genuine third century literature as well?). And how did contemporary Christians view all these pseudonymous works? Genuine as the gospels, or imaginative literature, or false and deliberately subversive? Is there evidence of community reaction? Well, there’s Irenaeus… And then there is the question of the likely number of copies circulating, and likelihood of copying, transmission and survivability…
Part 4:
7) You make some good points in your discussion of eyewitnesses and the gospels, which I will think about. The only thing I will discuss here is your remark in your later post about how eye-opening Dr Ehrman’s book Forgery and Counter-Forgery was for you. If you had come across his book as an anonymous work, by someone without credentials, and in manuscript (ie not printed by a reputable publisher), would your reaction to it have been different? The authority of the speaker or writer is important, along with the words and ideas expressed. (‘He speaks as one with authority…’).
I very much like the books of Raymond Brown too. My favourite is Antioch and Rome, with Community of the Beloved Disciple a close second. His Anchor Bible commentaries, which I also have, are great but too massive for my butterfly mind…
Thank you again for your input. I think we can at least agree to disagree. I could comment/argue more, but dialogues like this can be endless.
Mark Jokinen
(1) Millard, Allen. Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus. (Sheffield Acad. Pr. 2000). There is also a popular level article by him in Biblical Archeology Review, Vol 29, P. 36-45 (2003). There is a free link to that in the Wikipedia article on Dr Millard, at the end of the bibliography section.
1. There’s a broad literature about literacy in first century Palestine. I’ve found Catherine Herzer’s work to be what seems to me to be the most plausible (< 3% literacy). I’ve also quoted M. Bar-Ilan, who has a somewhat lower number (~1.5%). As far as I can tell, Millard argues that writing was more prevalent, but uses more of a qualitative than quantitative methodology, which is unfortunately not terribly useful for figuring out a prior probability. He thinks writing was “more prevalent” that scholars have thought – how much so? I’ve looked through his book and I find the same problems in it that I find in Stanley Porter’s book (and Joseph Fitzmeyer’s essay & book): qualitative evidence without comparative frequency data.
But suffice it to say, there is only one extant Greek literary author from all of first century Palestine: Josephus (who apparently got help in Rome to translate the Jewish War, and also had help with the Antiquities.) Even *if* the incidence of some form of literacy (trade, inscribing ostrica) was higher, the baseline incidence of literary writing was diminishingly low.
2. I include Secret Mark because it’s listed in the standard sources and I had a standardized methodology. But I agree that it may be forged, so I’m happy to leave it out. It’s a minor point.
3. I think I only discuss Q in the context of another (as far as we know) anonymous document in the first century. I think I qualified it reasonably in my argument. But I think it’s a minor point.
I may have been unclear in my use of M and L. I looked at material in these sections because *if the gospels were written by eyewitnesses* these would be the parts that would plausibly have their eyewitness material. It’s more difficult to judge whether Matthew was an eyewitness by looking at him copying Mark. It seems to me to be better to look at his unique material. The same with Luke. That’s why I look at M and L, not because I think that they’re individual documents, but because they’re by definition the unique parts of Matthew and Luke. It’s certainly possible that they are based on other sources (say part of Q that is only present in Luke or Matthew), but I still think it’s the best starting point.
4. Regarding whether my period of anonymity is influenced by my disbelief: Not at all. I’m using standard dates for the composition of the gospels (70 CE ish +) and the first plausible reference where they’re named (Irenaeus). I’m not sure how my skepticism could influence that math. I’ve laid out what I think are extremely solid reasons for dismissing Papias. I could certainly grant that the gospel names could have been attached prior to Irenaeus, but, as Wittgenstein said, “over what man cannot speak, thereover must he be silent.” Anyway, for me the period of anonymity isn’t as important as the internal evidence that the gospels aren’t based on eyewitness testimony.
4. (Cont’d) Regarding your hypothesis that citations of the (unnamed but known) gospels were never cited by name due to stylistic concerns.
There’s a significant literature about explicit citation formulas in the New Testament (e.g. Mat 3:3, 4:14, 12:17, 13:14, 15:7, Mk 1:2, 7:6, Lk 3:4, Jn 1:23, 12:38, 12:41, Acts 8:30, 28:25, Rom 9:15, 9:25, 27, 29, 10:6, 10:20, 15:12) and first century Greek and Palestinian (e.g. Damascus Document 3.22, 4.14, 5.9, 7.11, 8.14, 4Q175 1, 21, 4Q176:4, 11Q13:10, 16, 17, too many more to list) literature. I recommend Stanley’s Paul and the Language of Scripture. Although the use of indirect citation is well established in Paul and other writings, so is the frequent use of direct citation. I would need evidence of your stylistic phenomena, and I think my hypothesis (that they were anonymous) is probably the better fit for the data given that we agree that they were originally anonymous and we have only anonymous citations before about 180 CE. Furthermore the New Testament also makes liberal use of “it is written” and similar formulations to make it clear that they are citing written scripture and not oral tradition (and we don’t always know if the church fathers are quoting the gospels or simply residual oral tradition). This doesn’t occur in our early citations of the gospels, so far as I can tell, except when citing “The Gospel of the Hebrews” (Clement, Strom 2.9.45: “As it is written in the Gospel of the Hebrews: He that marvels shall reign, and he that has reigned shall rest.”) Clement cites the Apocalypse of Peter by name twice (Eclogae Propheticae 41; 48-49), but never the canonical gospels. I just don’t see it.
5. It’s certainly possible that we may be missing some context with Papias. But I think that should make us even more skeptical of treating him as a solid source. You haven’t responded to my (and Raymond Brown’s) argument that *if Papias was right* he is attributing two non-received gospels to Matthew and Mark. So if I were you, I wouldn’t want to prove him right.
And wait, there’s more crazy Papias quotes. Papias attributes a saying from 2 Baruch (or maybe 1 Enoch) to Jesus: “the elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to these times, and say: The days will come in which vines shall grow, having each ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five-and-twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’ In like manner, [He said] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear would have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that apples, and seeds, and grass would produce in similar proportions” (Irenaeus quoting Papias). Furthermore, Papias believed that “those resurrected by Christ from the dead, that they lived until Hadrian” – again something that strikes me as quite historically implausible. I agree with Eusebius – Papias seems overly credulous, and I wouldn’t use him as a reliable historical source.
6. Regarding Statistics.
I’ve noted that pseudepigraphical gospels under the names of the Apostles were common in the second century. I’ve also noted that it seems likely that the gospels got their names during the second century, during theological disputes leading up to the formation of the canon. So here’s my question. If we look at Christian literature in the second century, what is the liklihood that a given “apostolic” work was actually written by an apostle? I calculated that out as 7/52, but say 7/51 if Secret Mark is forged (~15%). Now we have two gospels that claim to be written by apostles – Matthew and John. Thus the combined prior probability that both were written by apostles is (7/51)*(7/51) = 0.01883890811, or about 2%.
You ask what would happen if tomorrow a hundred people sat down and wrote pseudononmyous gospels. I’m looking at the perspective from the second century, when I maintain the gospels got their names. If we discovered 100 pseudononymous gospels from the second century, then the odds would drop as you note. Now, I think you want to argue that the canonical gospels are from the first century and the pseudepigraphal gospels are from the second century. First, I don’t think we can reliably distinguish between the late first century and early second century in terms of authorship. Recent scholarship may, for example, be pushing the date of Luke/Acts into the early second century. Suffice it to say, we have insufficient data. But given that the titles of the gospels seemed to appear in the second century, it seems reasonable to me to include *their attributions* in the corpus of second century literature.
Regarding whether it’s fair to count noses – yes! It’s concrete data, and otherwise I think we’re likely to just perceive our own biases. Furthermore, from my perspective, I would expect the destruction/lack of preservation of heterodox texts to favor your position. I think it’s more likely that orthodox scriptures would be preserved than hetrodox scriptures, so for me this nose counting is a *conservative* method of estimating prior probability.
Regarding the difficulty dating texts: Indeed this is a problem, both for the gospels and the pseudepigrapha. I think the only fair way to do this is to use a clear methodology and standard dating for texts. This is what I did. I chose the second century cut off because that’s when we have unambigious apostolic/periapostolic attibution of the gospels.
Re: “how many of the second century documents were written by Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews” – none. But the evidence suggests the gospels weren’t written by Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews, as I showed. They were most likely written by Greek-speaking (or possibly Latin in the case of Mark) Jews in the diaspora. If the gospels were written by Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews, why weren’t they written in Aramaic?
6. (Cont’d) Regarding orthonymous non-apostolic literature in the second century. You cite “the works of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement of Alexandria, the letters of Ignatius, … the Didache” as orthonymous second century literature. I certainly accept Irenaus, the undisputed letters of Ignatius, Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria. The Didache is clearly pseudepigraphal. The letters to Clement which you leave out are likely both falsely attributed (cf. Forgery and Counterforgery). I’m somewhat on the fence about the Shepherd of Hermas – I think it may be homonymous to it’s later attributions (a brother of Pius I; cf. the Mutorian Canon), but I’m not sure that there’s enough data. In any case, I agree that non-apostolic attribution probably gives Mark and Luke a higher prior probability of being orthonymous, but even there the high incidence of forgery/false attribution in early Christianity even of non-apostolic (but periapostolic) authors leaves me skeptical. As I’ve said, I think Luke is the most plausibly orthonymous book.
7. I’m widely read in biblical scholarship, and I’ve cited Forgery and Counterforgery several times because I think it’s one of the best books in English on the subject (in particular because it covers forgery as a phenomena both in the New Testament and in the second and third centuries). I also think that Dr. Ehrman generally does a good job of representing mainstream biblical scholarship (similarly cf. R.E. Brown, H. Koester, etc.) As I made clear above, I’ve also read most of the scholarly evangelical defenses of apostolic authorship (e.g. Bruce, Carson & Moo, Gurthrie, Blomberg, Bauckham, Hengel, Wenham et al.) and I have most of the major evangelical commentaries on the gospels and have recently re-read a number of them in preparation for my prior post. My problem is not that I don’t read enough evangelicals. My problem is not that I put Dr. Ehrman on a pedestal (although he is an excellent scholar). I’ve read both sides (really I’ve read more of the evangellical side), and I think the hard data supports the con side better than the pro side.
I too will be leaving this site after my 3 months subscription ends and not because of the low cost and going to charity etc which Bart deserves much credit but really because these last few posts show, its all pretty much the same old circular discussiions, did they say this or do that and nobody really knows the truth of anything that happened back then and as I said to Bart, none of these religious characters then or since like all the Popes that have ever lived have done anything really useful for humanity, not even Jesus or the disciples did. Did they invent anything? Did they build or design anything? Did they THINK about even painless teeth removal or say sanitation and rubbish collection that would prevent disease. They never even thought washing hands was a good idea when we know most germs are transmitted that way etc. Yet Jesus, the eternal Son or God didn’t know? All the really great inventions and medical improvements that have really made a difference were not done by the church or religious contemplation were they. Never has so much been spent on so useless a thing called religion.
Its all pretty USELESS information and I wouldn’t certainly spend any real time doing what Bart does for a living and many others over the centuries. A trillion words have passed probably and not one FACT established other than the end of the world did NOT happen as Jesus predicted, which really proved that he was a bit of a religious fanatical nutcase who decieved many by his words and prophicies, which were common at that time. And anyone that really believes God turned his back on all mankind because of Adam’s sin, should really now use their own brains and intelligence to basically ditch the whole lot and go and do something really really useful.
Its almost time now when I leave this site and hope you all find what you have been looking for. Its been great knowing you all though even via an internet connection. God bless you all. 
markjokinen said
I disagree with the idea that the four canonical gospels were originally anonymous, and that the second century Church guessedat or assigned the traditional authors.
(1) The number of assumptions necessary means it violates the principle of Occam’s Razor.
(2) The evidence for original anonymity is negative, that is, an argument from silence. There is no positive evidence for anonymity,
and the negative evidence can be explained otherwise.
(3) Many classical works are similarly formally anonymous, yet classical scholars are comfortable with the attributed authors. No one questions who wrote the Dialogues of Plato.
(4) Personal testimony has been a fundamental part of Christianity for 2000 years, right from its beginning (Stephen in Acts, the Letters of Paul). Who wrote the Gospels would have been an essential part of the testimony of the Gospels.
I present these arguments in an article in a peer-reviewed, online academic journal: the McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry,
Vol 15, Pages 3-16 (2013).
Mark:
I’m guessing you’re asking whether the authors are known. Premise 3 and 4 assume they are, in fact, anonymous: that the authors names do not appear on or in either book. If the books weren’t anonymous you wouldn’t need “personal testimony” (Papias in Mark’s case) to identify them. Here, then the question is how good is the evidence for their purported identities. Premise 3 seems to insinuate their anonymity is ok because other texts are anonymous. The It’s ok for them why is it not ok for us argument misses the point. Further, the identity of the author of the Dialogues of Plato has less significance than say the author of the Gospel of Mark.
No one would lose any sleep if it was discovered that Aristotle actually wrote the dialouges: The substance of the work is what is crucial here:The Dialouges would continue to be useful for philosophers. In contrast, the substance of the gospels seems to depend heavily on the claim that the authors were eyewitnesses. Eye witness testimony gains its value from knowing who witnesses the were. Indeed the whole identification of John Mark’s authorship of Mark depends heavily on Papias’ account of a conversation with some Presybyster.
gmatthews said
I think there’s several problems here:1) The journal this article appeared in is for “pastors, educators, and interested lay persons” so it’s not a disinterested publication. That is to say: of course they’re going to publish articles to support traditional Christian ideas.
2) Perhaps I’m wrong, but the author is not a scholar. All I can find on him is that he owns a bookstore in Canada. Without a curriculum vitae to show me that he has some sort of educational authority to make claims one way or the other then any ideas he promotes are immediately suspect to me. I’m not an elitist so even if he is a Christian, if he at least had credentials from a reputable school is some field that could be applied to the topic at hand then perhaps I’d read his article.
3) Occam’s Razor is a philosophical construct and lacking proper educational credentials it’s my opinion that the author doesn’t appreciate the full scope of the question of the authorship of the gospels. His statement is an ad hoc hypothesis that doesn’t take into account ideas such as the fact that the earliest fragments don’t name the gospels, no early church father mentions the gospels by name (they use passages that undoubtedly came from this or that gospel, but they weren’t even considered scripture then), etc.
4) Anonymity of the gospels, in my opinion, is NOT an argument from silence when that silence is due to the fact that the books were originally anonymous. Even when Papias supposedly discusses knowing of Matthew’s gospel what he describes is not what we today recognize as Matthew (eg., our Matthew was written in Greek, not Hebrew as per Papias).
5) Your point #3: Jokinen is very weak on this claim in my opinion. I don’t see what difference his claim makes.
6) Your point #4: Jokinen is very weak on this claim in my opinion. In the early church neither the gospels nor the epistles of Paul were considered scripture and were therefore NOT inspired. To claim that the authorship of the gospels was “an essential part of the testimony of the Gospels” in my opinion is ludicrous. You couldn’t even get everyone to agree on what was a “real” gospel! See Marcion, among others, for evidence.
G, I’m not even sure the book store is named after the same Mark Jokinen. The author doesn’t seem to understand Occam’s razor.OR refers to explanations. Anonymity, apart from requiring negative evidence, describes the lack of an authors name. It’s not an explanatation. I agree about 3 and 4, but notice they assume the very fact that Mark denies: The books are anonymous.
markjokinen said
Thank you for your response, Mr Matthews, and I apologise for interpreting your comment as an ad hominem criticism.And thank you for your comments on reading my article.
Mark Jokinen
mark, I believe the question about whether you’re a scholar comes from your assertion about being published in a peer reviewed journal:Review by those inclined to agree with you isn’t quite peer review
Achase
a very small difference:
“I agree that it seems that there would be a need to differentiate different gospels as soon as there was more than one of them.”
I think you mean once it was known that there was more than one. If form critics were right, the gospels came from disparate communities and would only need to be clearly identified once these communities discovered other Gospels.
MikeyS said
I too will be leaving this site after my 3 months subscription ends and not because of the low cost and going to charity etc which Bart deserves much credit but really because these last few posts show, its all pretty much the same old circular discussiions, did they say this or do that and nobody really knows the truth of anything that happened back then and as I said to Bart, none of these religious characters then or since like all the Popes that have ever lived have done anything really useful for humanity, not even Jesus or the disciples did. Did they invent anything? Did they build or design anything? Did they THINK about even painless teeth removal or say sanitation and rubbish collection that would prevent disease. They never even thought washing hands was a good idea when we know most germs are transmitted that way etc. Yet Jesus, the eternal Son or God didn’t know? All the really great inventions and medical improvements that have really made a difference were not done by the church or religious contemplation were they. Never has so much been spent on so useless a thing called religion.Its all pretty USELESS information and I wouldn’t certainly spend any real time doing what Bart does for a living and many others over the centuries. A trillion words have passed probably and not one FACT established other than the end of the world did NOT happen as Jesus predicted, which really proved that he was a bit of a religious fanatical nutcase who decieved many by his words and prophicies, which were common at that time. And anyone that really believes God turned his back on all mankind because of Adam’s sin, should really now use their own brains and intelligence to basically ditch the whole lot and go and do something really really useful.
Its almost time now when I leave this site and hope you all find what you have been looking for. Its been great knowing you all though even via an internet connection. God bless you all.
Sorry to read you’re leaving! I guess I’m in the minority because if there was any money to be made in it I think I would have liked to have done something like Prof Ehrman does or maybe a Mediterranean area archaeologist. Unlike most people I do like minutiae! My first thought in high school though was that I wanted to do something that paid a lot because I knew that I’d never be able to support all my recreational interests otherwise!
I will point out a weakness in my use of Occam’s Razor. I listed 10 assumptions that I believe the anonymity hypothesis requires, but I did not list the assumptions that traditional authorship requires (Occam’s Razor would suggest that the hypothesis with the fewer assumptions is to be preferred, if there is no direct means of differentiating them). I believed that the traditional hypothesis clearly had many fewer assumptions, and didn’t bother. I still believe that, but should have done it anyways. But it isn’t simple: is the assumption of traditional authorship one or four assumptions? If four, then many of the assumptions on my list of ten would also be multiplied by four. And what is the assumption for the Gospel of John? That John, son of Zebedee wrote it, or that he was the source for it? I will think on it.
Here’s a question: once a gospel was written, and started being copied and shared with other communities, how long would it take before most or all other Christian communities everywhere had their own copy of it? My guess is 2-4 years. As I have shown, perhaps 5 weeks to make a copy (longer for a multigospel collection? Maybe. A bigger project could mean more people involved), then it would travel the same route and time a letter would. I picture it being carried from one major community to another (along well-travelled routes), copied there, then those copies sent to nearby minor communities. It would be like connections and nodes in the internet today; or like the air traffic industry with its airport hubs; or in epidemiology like the spread of a contagious disease (hey – Christianity as a contagious intellectual disease… I like that!). The assumption I am making is that the leadership in a community would at once see the importance of preserving and sharing a newly-arrived genuine gospel. (Richard Bauckham has written an interesting essay, ‘For Whom Were the Gospels Written?’, arguing that the four gospels were written for all Christians everywhere, not just for a specific community (1).).
Thank you to all who responded to, or read, this thread. I have found the experience worthwhile and educational. I will say, though, that I dislike the anonymity of most posters. To me it feels as if they aren’t taking the issues seriously or with longterm commitment because they aren’t, in a sense, risking themselves. I also prefer dialogue or conversation to debate. A debate has a winner and a loser (and often egos involved). A conversation between two people both eager for the truth of things, whatever it is, has only winners. Both win, whoever is right or wrong…
Mark Jokinen
To Archase79:
Another way to think of your statistical argument that the great number of pseudonymous second century texts makes first century authorship of the gospels unlikely: if the argument works in one direction, it should also work the other way. If about 1/4 of the first century texts are genuine (the 7 letters of Paul), that would mean that 1/4 of the 44 second century pseudonymous texts should also be genuine as well.
Concerning literacy in Palestine: the problem with using these statistical arguments is that we are not talking about average or typical people. The people in question (Peter, John, James…), as portrayed in the NT, were exceptional. And exceptional people can and do accomplish things outside the typical. Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth as slaves from the antebellum South, or the novelist Joseph Conrad (He was Polish. He learned English as an adult, and wrote in English.) It is rare, but a rare that stands out and is remembered.
You are dismissive of my suggestion that there was a change in style of allusion/citation of the gospels in the Apostolic Fathers; a change between the second century and the third. You could be right. But the idea is now ‘out there’ (assuming it is original with me). If there is anything to the idea, some scholars will pick it up and work with it, and better than I ever could. If so, you will encounter it again. And it pokes against a crucial part of your argument.
Enough! MikeyS makes a good point about ‘same old arguments’. Goodbye to all, and thank you again Archase79.
Mark Jokinen
ps – I forgot to say where I found the Bauckham article ‘For Whom were the Gospels Written?’
It was available for free on his personal website. But I just checked and the website seems unavailable now. I have heard he is unwell. I have also found it in the article on him in a website called ** you do not have permission to see this link **, in his online writings.
MarkJokinen: Your argument was that there isn’t positive evidence that the gospel tradition was anonymous. I showed that that’s incorrect. Then you said that there isn’t positive evidence that the later authorial traditions are pseudonymous. I showed that that’s incorrect. I’ve offered what I think is a pretty good argument, and I haven’t heard much by way of reply besides some minor points.
You say “You are dismissive of my suggestion that there was a change in style of allusion/citation of the gospels in the Apostolic Fathers.” I cited a number of counter examples to your proposal in both the NT, Early Jewish Literature, and Church Fathers. How is that dismissive? I took your argument seriously and provided you with evidence that you were wrong. I spent time researching your (unsubstantiated) claim, and showed you the evidence, and you call it “dismissive.” You say that “some scholars will pick it up and work with it” – I cited the secondary literature!
This is one of the reasons that it’s frustrating to try to explain things to non-experts, or people who aren’t willing to put the time in to argue properly. If you make a claim, you back it up. It’s not fair to me and my time for you to make an unsubstantiated claim, claim that it’s possible without providing positive evidence. You said there wasn’t positive evidence for my position. I provided it. Now you can provide positive evidence for the claim that the church fathers didn’t cite the gospels by name due to some stylistic phenomena, or that the gospel authorial attributions are accurate.
markjokinen said
ps – I forgot to say where I found the Bauckham article ‘For Whom were the Gospels Written?’It was available for free on his personal website. But I just checked and the website seems unavailable now. I have heard he is unwell. I have also found it in the article on him in a website called ** you do not have permission to see this link **, in his online writings.
I really don’t see how believing the Gospels writers are unknown requires 10 assumptions
For some reason I missed your listing, but I think your reliance on OR is a mistake. If Mary is killed and we have two potential suspects. Her husband and her hairdresser, OR would dictate that we look into her husband first, but we would not argue that her hairdresser did not
do it because that requires more assumptions. You seem to be trying to use OR as some sort of proof. Evidence not the number of assumptions dictates which explanation is the best.
In sum, OR would tell us which suspect to investigate first, but not who is actually guilty.
Consequently, the question is whether there is enough evidence to claim the authors are known or identifiable. Which question does anonymity explain? Ehrman seems to side with the idea that
the authors are unknown and unidentifiable and this appears to be based on his assessment of whether there is sufficient evidence to identify the authors.
None of this is an effort to have what you call a debate, but For me it would be absolutely
refreshing to read a Christian who’s arguments were compelling on some level. Who wasn’t getting arguments from the same god awful (Is that a pun?) playbook. I once thought
Gary Habermas was such a person after listening to some of his discussions of minimal facts.
Unfortunately his book with Mike Licona was horrible. In fairness I have found James Dunn to be interesting and would love to see a debate with Bart Ehrman on the oral tradition.
My three-month membership on this blog seems to have a few more days than I expected.
Spiker: If I am not the Mark Jokinen with the bookstore, please let me know. I don’t want our customers to be deceived.
Archase79: You disparage the testimony of Papias, but this IS a debate over it.(Selective quotation can prove black is white; see my interaction with lawyerskeptic earlier in this thread. The stories do not sound like ‘Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord’, which would presumably be Papias’ own beliefs. These seem more like stories after than sayings of.) We didn’t discuss Justin Martyr. We can at least agree on Irenaeus as the first clear testimony to traditional authorship of the four gospels.
There is no early testimony, clear or otherwise, to your position on gospel authorship. No Apostolic Father writing “I wish we knew who wrote what people are starting to call Mark’s Gospel”, or “Luke didn’t write that Gospel. It was…” If there were any such testimony, you would cite it. (1)
Early anti-Christian writers such as Celsus seem to have accepted traditional authorship of the gospels. At least, we have no evidence that they attacked or questioned it. If we did, you would cite it.
Perhaps your argument is more recent. Who first claimed that the four gospels were not by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and when? In the classical age? Medieval? Not until modern times? I don’t know. Do you? I expect so, since it is your argument.
To summarize: I have (debatable) early testimony for my position on gospel authorship. You have no early testimony for yours. You have a selection of evidence and possible interpretation of it for your position. I have a possible alternative explanation for that evidence (2). People reading this thread will make up their own minds.
I too am tired of this unsatisfying back and forth between us. Perhaps the unsatisfying character of it says as much about us as about our arguments? But in any case, thank you. Your responses have helped me clarify my thinking and arguments, and I hope mine have helped you.
Mark Jokinen
(1) The only controversy seems to be John son of Zebedee versus John the Elder, and that, I believe, is later.
(2) I attempt to show the change in style of quotation/allusion by looking at the letters of Cyprian of Carthage. The Apostolic Fathers aren’t here to be questioned, so I think these are ideas we can’t prove or disprove.
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