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mojobadshah
Guest
What is the earliest source(s) of New Testament material apart from copies or fragments of the New Testament itself?
Earliest Sources of New Testament Material apart from Copies of New Testament
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mojobadshah
Guest
Re: Earliest Reference to New Testament Material apart from Copies of New Testament
I mean what is the earliest reference to the New Testament?
I mean what is the earliest reference to the New Testament?
bob x
Well-Known Member
Early Christian authors referring to the New Testament scriptures are themselves found in manuscripts which tend to be later than our earliest manuscripts of the New Testament themselves, so there is always some question about whether there has been tampering since. In 1st Clement, written by the bishop of Rome ~90, there are abundant quotes from Paul's epistles to the Corinthians (Clement himself was writing to the Corinthians) and some from other epistles; and some "sayings of the Lord" reminiscent of gospel quotes, but not verbatim (the "gospel" seems to have been an oral tradition rather than a written book at the time); but there is a bunch of other stuff attributed to Clement that was clearly forged later, so while 1st Clement is regarded as genuine by all scholars that I know of, the question has never been clear-cut.
The epistles of Ignatius, an early 2nd-century bishop of Antioch, contain numerous verbatim quotes from the "Quotations" material (the sayings from Jesus found in Matthew and Luke but not Mark) and some other New Testament stuff: but there are longer and shorter versions of Ignatius, the longest clearly full of late forgeries, and a lot of dispute about much is genuine and early.
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis c. 100, first mentions gospels by name, describing "Mark" as a book that is apparently identical to or very close to what we have now, but contrasting "Matthew" as a book that contains sayings only, with no narrative, written in Hebrew with multiple competing Greek translations in circulation: this appears to be the "Quotations" material, at that time circulating as a stand-alone book. Papias also expresses the opinion that he does not regard written books as being of much value in comparison to the living oral tradition he received from John and other disciples. The "John" followers had evidently not gotten around to writing down their version of the gospel.
Polycarp, another follower of John, wrote a letter to the Phillipians in response to their question about what books they should read: he commends Paul's epistles and quotes heavily from them (especially, of course, from Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, much as Clement when writing to Corinth concentrated on the Corinthian letters), and commends the epistles of Ignatius, which he says he is enclosing (he takes it for granted they already have the epistles of Paul), and the teachings of Zosimus and Rufus (whoever they were; nothing survives of them). There is no mention of any gospels (Polycarp apparently shares the negative view of Papias about written gospels), not even the gospel of John; some lines late in the letter match the 1st epistle of John, but since he doesn't mention any epistles of John this is an oddity: we don't know whether he had 1st John and was quoting, or whether to the contrary 1st John was using HIM.
Marcion about 120-130 published the first "canon" of the New Testament: an early version of the Third Gospel, at that time just called Evangelion "the gospel" and not attributed to Luke (or any other particular author) nor associated with any book of Acts, and lacking the nativity stories and temptation in the desert at the beginning, and the ascension into heaven at the end; and an edition of Paul's epistles, the Apostolikon, containing ten letters (Hebrew, Titus, 1st and 2nd Timothy were not present) with some variations from the present text. He knew of, and explicitly rejected, the gospel and epistles of John, for which he was roundly criticized.
Justin Martyr ~150 knows a version of the gospel of Matthew (although he doesn't attribute it to Matthew, or any other particular author, just calling it the "memoirs of the apostles") which is more like our text than the sayings-only book described by Papias: it does contain stories, in particular the nativity story with the "star of Bethlehem", but not yet the ending with the "guards at the tomb".
Around the same time, Tatian wrote the Diatessaron "through four sources", a combination of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most copies of this were deliberately destroyed later when the Church standardized the New Testament, and the surviving copies have intriguing variations, so it is hard to know exactly in what shape the gospels were in Tatian's day.
About 170-180 we get the "Muratorian Canon", the first listing by an orthodox church of the books of the New Testament. The four gospels exist, although the description of "Matthew" is missing and a later sentence appears to ascribe it to Andrew; we only get the last sentence of the description of "Mark", but "Luke" is now ascribed (along with the book of Acts) to Luke the physician, and "John" is present as well. Titus and 1st and 2nd Timothy are now among Paul's epistles, but Hebrews is rejected. Jude and 1st and 2nd John (no mention of 3rd John, or 1st or 2nd Peter) are accepted, though on the understanding that they are pseudepigrapha (written in honor of Jude and John, but not actually from those authors). The Apocalypses of John and Peter (only recently have we recovered fragments of the Apocalypse of Peter) are accepted provisionally, although it is noted that not all churches think them proper; the Shepherd of Hermas (canonical only in Ethiopia nowadays) is called a good book, but not scripture because it was written too late.
The epistles of Ignatius, an early 2nd-century bishop of Antioch, contain numerous verbatim quotes from the "Quotations" material (the sayings from Jesus found in Matthew and Luke but not Mark) and some other New Testament stuff: but there are longer and shorter versions of Ignatius, the longest clearly full of late forgeries, and a lot of dispute about much is genuine and early.
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis c. 100, first mentions gospels by name, describing "Mark" as a book that is apparently identical to or very close to what we have now, but contrasting "Matthew" as a book that contains sayings only, with no narrative, written in Hebrew with multiple competing Greek translations in circulation: this appears to be the "Quotations" material, at that time circulating as a stand-alone book. Papias also expresses the opinion that he does not regard written books as being of much value in comparison to the living oral tradition he received from John and other disciples. The "John" followers had evidently not gotten around to writing down their version of the gospel.
Polycarp, another follower of John, wrote a letter to the Phillipians in response to their question about what books they should read: he commends Paul's epistles and quotes heavily from them (especially, of course, from Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, much as Clement when writing to Corinth concentrated on the Corinthian letters), and commends the epistles of Ignatius, which he says he is enclosing (he takes it for granted they already have the epistles of Paul), and the teachings of Zosimus and Rufus (whoever they were; nothing survives of them). There is no mention of any gospels (Polycarp apparently shares the negative view of Papias about written gospels), not even the gospel of John; some lines late in the letter match the 1st epistle of John, but since he doesn't mention any epistles of John this is an oddity: we don't know whether he had 1st John and was quoting, or whether to the contrary 1st John was using HIM.
Marcion about 120-130 published the first "canon" of the New Testament: an early version of the Third Gospel, at that time just called Evangelion "the gospel" and not attributed to Luke (or any other particular author) nor associated with any book of Acts, and lacking the nativity stories and temptation in the desert at the beginning, and the ascension into heaven at the end; and an edition of Paul's epistles, the Apostolikon, containing ten letters (Hebrew, Titus, 1st and 2nd Timothy were not present) with some variations from the present text. He knew of, and explicitly rejected, the gospel and epistles of John, for which he was roundly criticized.
Justin Martyr ~150 knows a version of the gospel of Matthew (although he doesn't attribute it to Matthew, or any other particular author, just calling it the "memoirs of the apostles") which is more like our text than the sayings-only book described by Papias: it does contain stories, in particular the nativity story with the "star of Bethlehem", but not yet the ending with the "guards at the tomb".
Around the same time, Tatian wrote the Diatessaron "through four sources", a combination of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most copies of this were deliberately destroyed later when the Church standardized the New Testament, and the surviving copies have intriguing variations, so it is hard to know exactly in what shape the gospels were in Tatian's day.
About 170-180 we get the "Muratorian Canon", the first listing by an orthodox church of the books of the New Testament. The four gospels exist, although the description of "Matthew" is missing and a later sentence appears to ascribe it to Andrew; we only get the last sentence of the description of "Mark", but "Luke" is now ascribed (along with the book of Acts) to Luke the physician, and "John" is present as well. Titus and 1st and 2nd Timothy are now among Paul's epistles, but Hebrews is rejected. Jude and 1st and 2nd John (no mention of 3rd John, or 1st or 2nd Peter) are accepted, though on the understanding that they are pseudepigrapha (written in honor of Jude and John, but not actually from those authors). The Apocalypses of John and Peter (only recently have we recovered fragments of the Apocalypse of Peter) are accepted provisionally, although it is noted that not all churches think them proper; the Shepherd of Hermas (canonical only in Ethiopia nowadays) is called a good book, but not scripture because it was written too late.
A number of the early texts - ie, I Clement, Diatession and the Marcion canon, can be found on our Apocrypha page:
http://www.interfaith.org/christianity/apocrypha/
http://www.interfaith.org/christianity/apocrypha/
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mojobadshah
Guest
Could you clarify what you mean here. I mean wouldn't authors referring to the NT naturally be mentioned after the NT was written?
bob x
Well-Known Member
What I mean is: we have manuscripts of many New Testament books from the 3rd century onward, but the books were written rather earlier than the first manuscript that we are lucky enough to have preserved. How much earlier? Well, for that it would be helpful to look at writers from before the 3rd century who have already seen these books: for example, Ignatius writing around 100 quoted a lot from material we find in the gospels of Matthew or Luke-- or did he? The problem is that the earliest manuscripts we have of the epistles of Ignatius are from 10th century, and a lot of those late manuscripts contain forgeries that Ignatius certainly never wrote-- so how do we know what Ignatius actually wrote in 100? There are some very cynical scholars who throw up their hands about the epistles of Ignatius, and say that maybe there isn't a single one of those epistles that is really genuine (my own opinion does not go that far, but it is certainly a problem).
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mojobadshah
Guest
When was the first manuscript we have preserved written?
Does the same type of thing go for the other sources you mentioned?
When do references begin to appear in originals or copies or genuine evidence that aren't from long after they were said to have been made? Are some of these references references of references?
bob x
Well-Known Member
There is a postage-stamp-sized fragment, with only a couple words on each line preserved, which matches up with a section of the trial before Pilate, from the gospel of John. This fragment is dated 125, more or less. The first texts with nearly complete books are from the early 3rd century; nearly complete New Testaments exist from the early 4th century.
I mentioned Ignatius because it is the most extreme example of the problem. Clement is a better case: "1st Clement" (his letter to the Corinthians) appears in some New Testaments (before the list of books was standardized, some books that are not now considered "canon" would sometimes be included) from, I believe, 4th century (I'll look it up); there is a "2nd Clement" which is not actually a "forgery" (the text never claims to be by Clement; it is by someone who knows 1st Clement, and quotes from it, so somebody decided wrongly that this was by Clement also) and some "Preachings of Clement" etc. which are forgeries (claiming to be by Clement, but not), but most scholars have not found this to be a good case for doubting the authenticity of 1st Clement c. 90 AD. Other cases are intermediate.
Paper doesn't survive very well; it is quite rare to get very early copies of almost ANY ancient text: our oldest copy of Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars" is from the 10th century, for example; the Buddhist scriptures, the nearest analogue, are first preserved in some stone carvings (a couple verses only) on the walls of king Ashoka's palace (about 400 years after the Buddha) and then not on paper until several centuries later. The Qumran texts ("Dead Sea Scrolls"; Old Testament books and other miscellaneous religious literature) were intentionally preserved in a favorable desert environment, in sealed jars; and we get some old papyri from Egypt, again saved for us by the desert climate, and sometimes intentionally sealed; this is the kind of thing that is necessary to get something really old on paper ("Sinaiticus", a 4th century Bible with a nearly-complete New Testament, was from a monastery up on Mt. Sinai in the deep desert).
That happens too. I mentioned "Papias" as an early source, but we don't actually have any manuscript whatsoever of the book Papias wrote; we have instead quotations from it in the "Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius (writing in the 4th century-- of course, the earliest manuscript of Eusebius is not that old). We believe the quotations from Papias are genuine precisely because they do not say what Eusebius would really rather have had them say: if Eusebius was making it up, he would make up something different!
Right hand doesn't see what the left hand is doing?
The Ethiopians and the Coptic scriptures...can we focus on them and their "age"?
I mean, whilst Romans were arguing, others were preserving...
v/r
Q
bob x
Well-Known Member
No, Eusebius sees the problems and makes excuses for why Papias isn't meaning what he's saying-- but he does preserve what Papias actually said, which is nice of him.Right hand doesn't see what the left hand is doing?
The Jews as well as Christians in Egypt had the widest conception of "canon"; the Septuagint that became the Catholic/Orthodox "Old Testament" was originally a loose and wide collection of holy texts by Jews who did not fence off the "Writings" as strictly as the Palestinian Jews who decided the canon of the current Tanakh (the council of Yavneh c. 90-100 had questions about Esther and Daniel, even some about Ezekiel; but Alexandrian Bibles often contained not just 1st and 2nd Maccabees but even a 3rd and 4th Maccabees etc.) The Ethiopian canon is the largest of any church: their Old Testament also contains 1st Enoch (mentioned by Jude) and Jubilees (unknown from any other source until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found); their New Testament contains the Shepherd of Hermas (mentioned in the Muratorian Canon as a worthy book, but too late to be "scripture") and a 2nd Acts (visits by the apostles to Ethiopia, and the early Ethiopian saints), but not 2nd Peter (which is also not canon in the Syrian church). Comparisons of their texts of Enoch and Jubilees with those found at Qumran indicates that the Ethiopians have done a good job of preserving the old texts without distortion.