Post by CowboysDad on Jan 6, 2016 23:58:14 GMT -6
Brian, back in the saddle after a long recovery and demanding holidays. What I wrote on Nov 24 still reads right to me with minor editing, "Many (not directly a reference to the twelve, but to any number of writers and followers of Christ) have attempted collectively to produce a comprehensive narrative (perhaps both oral and written) of the things that they learned from eyewitnesses, certainly including the twelve, so I too am attempting such a narrative, particularly since I have gained unique insights from my close association with Paul and others." A couple of other things. I am reading that in his "Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord," Papias wrote that Mark's is the earliest gospel while Clement of Alexandria maintained that "those that contained the genealogies were first written" (obviously Matthew and Luke). From earliest times there seems to have been little consensus regarding priority. In any event whether one takes Matthew or Mark as the first gospel to be written and as such a possible referent for Luke's "narrative," it seems quite reasonable to argue (given the lack of historical data that might provide definitive dates for any of the gospels) that they could have been written roughly at the same time and as such had not as yet garnered a wide enough circulation to have become accepted as Scripture by the church. Although I have known for years of Papias' remarks about Matthew's Hebrew source on the life of Jesus, I had always been taught a Markan priority, and as I dig deeper and deeper into dating and priority questions of late, I seem to find more side-roads to explore. But I still think it a stretch to date Matthew as early as 40 and I see no compelling reason to read 1 Cor 15 in any way that would limit Paul's reception of truth to New Testament revelation. I am still comfortable seeing "narrative" in a collective sense as perhaps both an oral and written narrative.