Posted: Jun 15, 2015 2:01 am
This comment is from page 2002 of the HJ thread ....
I think that everyone must agree that there are a lot of "Jesus and Apostle" Stories. The problem seems to be how to sort them all out in terms of the chronology of their authorship. The "party line" of all the "Church Fathers" is that the texts which we now call "canonical" were authored first, and then the rest of the texts which we now call "non canonical" were authored second, and these "mimic" the stories of the "canonical texts".
This "party line" is reflected in the comments of modern (as well as ancient) "Biblical Historians" upon the nature of the non canonical texts. Here are a few examples:
Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library it seems to be agreed that the authors of the non canonical texts actually had the canonical texts before them as they wrote their truly weird and wonderful OBVIOUSLY FICTIONAL stories. This is exemplified by the modus operandi of the authorship of the non canonical stories, which take bits and pieces of the canonical texts (people, events, sayings) and then recombine them in various combinations and permutations, adding bits and pieces to them in order to platform their obvious "gnostic" doctrines.
With the discovery of texts like "The Gospel of Thomas" many mainstream academics suggested that these must be really early and some academics place a 1st or 2nd century date on gThomas. It must be stressed that the only evidence for such an early date are a series of "mentions" of some of these texts by the "Church Fathers" of the first 3 centuries prior to Nicaea. These testimonies explode after Nicaea.
The non canonical Gospels and particularly "Acts" are assessed as being "Hellenistic Romance Stories" which were written for popular appeal (almost like Mills and Boon Stories about Jesus and the Apostles). They are CLEARLY embellished fiction, and in many cases their genre might be assessed as forms of parody (or even satire) of the earlier canonical texts.
The genre of the canonical texts is probably best described as "holy writ". I think they are also fictional, but they were the first stories to be written and the non canonical texts seem to be a literary reaction to them.
All this has lead to the suggestion in the OP that the non canonical texts were written AFTER the NT Bible and "Jesus Story" was widely published in the Roman Empire by Constantine as a political instrument.
proudfootz wrote:The stories make no sense, and trying to 'harmonize' them is really just writing a new 'gospel narrative' just like the authors of gMark, gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Marcion, Gospel of Basilides, Gospel of Truth, Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Judas, Greek Gospel of the Egyptians, Gospel of Philip, Pseudo-Gospel of the Twelve, Gospel of Perfection, Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of the Twelve, Armenian Infancy Gospel, Protoevangelium of James, Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, History of Joseph the Carpenter, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Latin Infancy Gospel, Syriac Infancy Gospel, Gospel of the Lots of Mary, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Eve, Gospel of Mani, Gospel of the Saviour, Coptic Gospel of the Twelve, Gospel of Cerinthus, Gospel of Apelles, Gospel of Valentinus, Gospel of the Encratites, Gospel of Andrew, Gospel of Barnabas, Gospel of Bartholomew, Gospel of Hesychius, Gospel of Lucius, Gospel of Merinthus, Gospel of the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, Memoirs of the Apostles, etc, etc, etc.
I think that everyone must agree that there are a lot of "Jesus and Apostle" Stories. The problem seems to be how to sort them all out in terms of the chronology of their authorship. The "party line" of all the "Church Fathers" is that the texts which we now call "canonical" were authored first, and then the rest of the texts which we now call "non canonical" were authored second, and these "mimic" the stories of the "canonical texts".
This "party line" is reflected in the comments of modern (as well as ancient) "Biblical Historians" upon the nature of the non canonical texts. Here are a few examples:
- An Index of Summary Comments on the "Non Canonical" [Gnostic] texts
"insipid and puerile amplifications" [Ernest Renan]
"excluded by their later and radical light" [John Dominic Crossan]
"severely conditoned responses to Jesus ... usually these authors deny his humanity" [Robert M. Grant]
"they exclude themselves" [M.R. James]
"The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history" [Bart Ehrman]
"The Leucian Acts are Hellenistic romances, which were written to appeal to the masses" [Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard]
"The key point ... [NT Apocrypha] have all been long ago considered and rejected by the Church.
"The names of apostles ... were used by obscure writers to palm off their productions; partly to embellish and add to ... partly to invent ... partly to support false doctrines; decidedly pernicious, ... nevertheless contain much that is interesting and curious ... they were given a place which they did not deserve." [Tischendorf]
"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ... making fun of traditional biblical beliefs"[April Deconick]
"heretics ... who were chiefly Gnostics ... imitated the books of the New Testament" [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
"enterprising spirits ... pretended Gospels full of romantic fables and fantastic and striking details, their fabrications were eagerly read and largely accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity." "the heretical apocryphists, composed spurious Gospels in order to trace backward their beliefs and peculiarities to Christ Himself." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
"the fabrication of spurious Acts of the Apostles was, in general, to give Apostolic support to heretical systems, especially those of the many sects which are comprised under the term Gnosticism. The Gnostic Acts of Peter, Andrew, John, Thomas, and perhaps Matthew, abound in extravagant and highly coloured marvels, and were interspersed by long pretended discourses of the Apostles which served as vehicles for the Gnostic predications. The originally Gnostic apocryphal Acts were gathered into collections which bore the name of the periodoi (Circuits) or praxeis (Acts) of the Apostles, and to which was attached the name of a Leucius Charinus, who may have formed the compilation." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library it seems to be agreed that the authors of the non canonical texts actually had the canonical texts before them as they wrote their truly weird and wonderful OBVIOUSLY FICTIONAL stories. This is exemplified by the modus operandi of the authorship of the non canonical stories, which take bits and pieces of the canonical texts (people, events, sayings) and then recombine them in various combinations and permutations, adding bits and pieces to them in order to platform their obvious "gnostic" doctrines.
With the discovery of texts like "The Gospel of Thomas" many mainstream academics suggested that these must be really early and some academics place a 1st or 2nd century date on gThomas. It must be stressed that the only evidence for such an early date are a series of "mentions" of some of these texts by the "Church Fathers" of the first 3 centuries prior to Nicaea. These testimonies explode after Nicaea.
There just seems to be an obsession with Jesus which leads some people feel compelled to compose a new story with the same characters, but there's no real reason to suppose the latest version of 'Jesus' is in any way superior to the thousands which went before.
The non canonical Gospels and particularly "Acts" are assessed as being "Hellenistic Romance Stories" which were written for popular appeal (almost like Mills and Boon Stories about Jesus and the Apostles). They are CLEARLY embellished fiction, and in many cases their genre might be assessed as forms of parody (or even satire) of the earlier canonical texts.
The genre of the canonical texts is probably best described as "holy writ". I think they are also fictional, but they were the first stories to be written and the non canonical texts seem to be a literary reaction to them.
All this has lead to the suggestion in the OP that the non canonical texts were written AFTER the NT Bible and "Jesus Story" was widely published in the Roman Empire by Constantine as a political instrument.