The Anonymous Gospel Manuscripts

[Aractus]

From this, we can see that Paul EXPECTED his letters to circulate, and that there were letters of his that were not canonized. After all, we have no Letter to the Laodiceans in the NT.

Circulate then and there yes, be copied for decades to come (or for that matter at all which I'll come to in a moment), no. It's interesting you note that the letter to the Laodiceans is lost since this does not go to your defence at all. Although it probably just duplicated much of Colossians and Corinthians anyway.

Additionally, I'm no scholar, but it is my understanding that when scribes completed a document (Paul composed his letters orally and only occasionally attached a greeting in his own handwriting), a second copy was made immediately so that the contents were not lost.

No, he says he does this in EVERY letter he sends. Which is how we know that they weren't intended to be copied:

"I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write." - 2 Thessalonians 3:17

It is to mark them as authentic - like someone signing their name. Thus we know that Paul didn't intend for others to copy his letters. Nor would he have made copies for circulation when he could write letters directed to other churches instead - which is what he clearly did. And besides, we have examples of letters being sent out from the same location to different churches - he sent both Corinthians and Galatians from Syria at or around the same time.

Then what do you make of the writings of Papias? Did he simply make all this up? I think this unlikely since the ECF's were quite keen on passing on what they had been taught VERY faithfully.

I also consider it unlikely that the early Christians went to mass on Sunday morning and someone stood up and said, "A reading from the Holy Gospel according to...um...someone."  

The early Church KNEW who the authors were. ...

No, he probably didn't make it up but he WAS mistaken. This is one problem with critical scholars that argue for late authorship of the gospels - if the synoptic gospels were written between 80-90AD then Papias was spectacularly incompetent - especially if he's writing as early as you'd like us to believe - but even if he's writing early second century he's got it spectacularly wrong.

Even on his claim though (that Mark is 100% accurate) we know Mark got things wrong. We also know Matthew WASN'T written in Hebrew. The very idea is laughable when you have whole sections of text that are word-for-word identical to Mark and Luke, such a thing would be impossible if Matthew was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Particularly the word-for-word/letter-for-letter plagiarism from Mark, as I suppose you could argue the case that Luke copied from Matthew and that's how they got their double-tradition.

The fact that there were known "forgeries" afoot doesn't negate the fact that some of the NT writings are also forged - or rather written in the name of someone who didn't actually write the text. Let's suppose for a moment that you're correct that they "knew" that the authors of Mark and Luke were Mark and Luke. Fine. That's not a problem. What is a problem is when we're told some 30-50 years after Mark has been written that "Mark got his knowledge from Peter" and "he didn't get anything wrong in his gospel". That's where it becomes a problem - when the claim is made the author personally knew one of the disciples. That claim is not made for Luke. And furthermore when we come to Matthew it's obvious to anyone that it's not written by one of the original 12. The fact that he has to plagiarise from Mark proves this. The author of Matthew is dependant upon pre-existing written and/or oral material about the ministry of Jesus. And Matthew was composed in Greek and not Hebrew. So the fact that Papias gets these things wrong proves that he's not a reliable source to ascertain who the authors are and what their relationship was to the disciples and other members of the early church.

You've omitted John (he was in Ephesus), Clement (he was in Rome), and a boatload of other folks named in the New Testament who were either scattered by the persecution that broke out after the day of Pentecost or who were not actually from Jerusalem to begin with (such as Priscilla, Aquila and Apollos). Since Clement is named in one of Paul's letters AND considered the fourth bishop of Rome, I don't think the idea of "rebuilding" is correct. It is more correct that the center of the Church shifted from Jerusalem to the heart of the Empire.

More to the point, Papias was born in AD 70, and he was a disciple of John. Consequently, when he tells us who the authors of the gospels were based on what he heard from John (and others presumably), then I think we CAN know what what happening between AD 50 and AD 130). He and others (such as Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and Justin Martyr) tell us.

How do you know when Papias was born?

This may be the first time in my life that I'm going to invoke "Occam's Razor" since I think folks often do so to avoid considering all alternatives thoroughly. However, does it REALLY make sense to add a second anonymous person into the mix? Why stop there? Why not assert that it was actually a friend of someone who knew Luke? Or a friend of a friend of a friend of Luke? This would enable the skeptic to cast doubt on Luke-Acts completely.

See my point? Of all the gospels, Lucan authorship is probably the least contested.

Either is an equally plausible possibility when we consider that Luke-Acts are anonymous. If the author identified himself as Luke then his authorship probably be contested. But he doesn't.

Papias states that according to John the Elder, Mark was an associate of Peter and wrote down Peter's sayings - though not necessarily in the correct order. Luke, therefore, made an effort to write an "orderly" account.

Yes but he wrote that down in the early second century, at least 30 years after the gospels were written (and I'd argue more like 50 years). And he was wrong 0 just like many people frequently are.

Which is not quite the same as saying that the Apostle John (the unnamed disciple in several passages) was not involved in the authorship of the gospel which bears his name.

He wasn't involved, but it is clear that it is most likely written by disciples of John. The theology is very different to the rest of the New Testament which suggests it was written independently of the Pauline branch of Christianity.