Posted: Jun 25, 2020 1:22 am
Svartalf wrote:RealityRules wrote:Epictetus was a slave in Rome to Epaphroditos, secretary to Nero. Epaphroditos allowed Epictetus to study Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus, which enabled him to rise in respectability, so, when he obtained his freedom, sometime after the death of Nero in 68 A.D., he began to teach philosophy in Rome. Arrian studied under Epictetus and claimed to have written the famous Discourses from his lecture notes.
Indeed, but since Matthew is obviously bathed in Jewish prophetic tradition, it is rather safe to assume he is from Palestine, and thus not in the optimal area to have had access to Epictetus' teachings so as to include them in his gospel.
Even though Matthew is considered one of the most Jewish of the canonical gospels (if not the most Jewish), I dunno if we can assume where it was written.
Svartalf wrote:... Now, if 6:6 is a later interpolation added in by a forger who, given the additional time for diffusion of the Epictetan material, knew of stoicism, ...
I dunno if there's any proposition or discussion about Matt 6:6 being an interpolation.
There is, however, plenty of propositions, arguments and discussions about many aspects of the NT texts being midrash based on OT texts, Homer's texts, and on other texts.