The Anonymous Gospel Manuscripts

[Minimalist]

Actually the Codex Vaticanus seems to be the oldest and most complete but even it has significant differences from what xtians today insist is the inerrant "word of god."

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Among the many theories floating around the Interweb are the notions that the authorship of the gospels is unknown, that they were published anonymously, and that the assignment of authorship to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John came much later.

Apart from the obvious question of why the Early Church would ascribe the writing of a gospel to a hated tax collector (Matthew), a Gentile (Luke) and a young man who wasn't even present (Mark) rather than the "pillars" of the Church such as Peter or James, another question comes to mind:

Where are these anonymous manuscripts?

If the gospels were in circulation for many years before they were ascribed to the authors whose names they now bear, shouldn't there be copies of the original documents bearing no name at all? And shouldn't some existing manuscripts show evidence of having been altered to include the authors' names later as was the case with the word "Chrestianos" in Tacitus' Annals?

And if the gospels were written and circulated anonymously throughout the near East, North Africa and the Mediterranean basin among dozens if not hundreds of local churches, wouldn't that require some effort by someone to ensure the standardization of these new names of the gospels on every single flyleaf of every single manuscript in every single church in all of Christendom? If so, 

When and how was this naming accomplished, and is there any written record of this project being ordered, undertaken and completed?

Do skeptics have documentation of such a project found in the writings of an Early Church Father? Wouldn't Pope Clement, St. Ignatius, or St. Irenaeus have known of such an event and mentioned it AS A TRIUMPH OF CHURCH UNITY and as a SIGN OF THE APOSTOLIC ORIGIN of the gospels?

Surely they would. So...why the silence?

The English committee that wrote the Bible  gave the Gospels English names to show that it was an elaborate joke.  BTW, all of the "J" words were created in the Late Middle Ages after an Italian guy created the letter "J".

[Aractus]

With respect to the OP, none of the Gospels show up until at least the second century, ...

No that's not true, they show up no later than the second century, and almost certainly before the end of the first century. There are no serious scholars who date the Synoptics any later than 90AD. P66 & P75 were both written around 200AD, both clearly contain the "gospel according to John" titles like this:



And importantly, as they both contain the Gospel of John we also know they represent two separate textual traditions (though both a part of the Alexandrian text-type). Thus you have to allow time for both textual traditions to be independently circulated to an extent that we might later find them - scholars say this should represent at least 30-40 years otherwise the probability of finding a surviving papyrus manuscript with a differing textual tradition is impossibly implausible. Thus it suggests that the separation from convergence had to be around 170AD or earlier.

[drfuzzy]

Did you know that in the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest "complete" New Testament (it actually contains two additional books), the "Gospels" do not include any description of the Resurrection?

I'm guessing nobody knew that because, well, it doesn't appear to be true. Unless by "the 'Gospels'", you simply meant Mark's Gospel, which is missing 16:9-20.

With respect to the OP, none of the Gospels show up until at least the second century, at which point there was plenty of time for different names to be ascribed to the traditional, and non-traditional ("The Preaching of Peter", "Apocalypse of Peter", "Apocalypse of James," "The Acts of John," "The Acts of Paul," "The Traditions of Matthew", etc.) texts, all of which were assumed to be authoritative as no universal canon had yet been arranged. It's not surprising that figures who were perceived as important in the early church - including Luke, Mark, Barnabas, Hermas, etc. - would have their names ascribed to a work, regardless if they were the actual author or not. This would lend credibility to the ideas in the work (which various factions at this point were combatively vying for) or it could allow the work to present itself as expressing ideas that at the very least were to be understood as consistent with the thought of said author.

I knew of the later addition to Mark, Nestor - - - sure.  I thought that I read about that Bible compiled in the 4th century that the Resurrection was in NONE of the gospels.  Oh dear.  I had better go re-read.  Here's what happens when I go on memory without double-checking my notes.  I'll do some searching tomorrow and check in again.  
I wish that we still had the non-traditional, removed books available.  They would make for interesting reading.
Thanks for making me re-check my info!

[Minimalist]

So you have appropriated for yourself the ability to determine who is and who isn't a "serious scholar," Danny.  How very presumptuous of you!

http://thetextualmechanic.blogspot.com/

During the last few years there has been a pushback against some of the early dates posited for Christian New Testament papyri. Scholars such as Pasquale Orsini, Willy Clarysse, Don Barker, Roger Bagnall, and Brent Nongbri have criticized the theological and apologetic motivations behind some of these early dates.

I submit these men have better credentials than you.


http://vridar.org/2013/03/08/new-date-fo...pyrus-p52/

ABSTRACT. — The date of the earliest New Testament papyri is nearly always based on palaeographical criteria. A consensus among papyrologists, palaeographers and New Testament scholars is presented in the edition of NESTLE–ALAND, 1994. In the last twenty years several New Testament scholars (THIEDE, COMFORT–BARRETT, 1999, 2001 and JAROŠ, 2006) have argued for an earlier date of most of these texts. The present article analyzes the date of the earliest New Testament papyri on the basis of comparative palaeography and a clear distinction between different types of literary scripts. There are no first-century New Testament papyri and only very few papyri can be attributed to the (second half of the) second century. It is only in the third and fourth centuries that New Testament manuscripts become more common, but here too the dates proposed by COMFORT–BARRETT, 1999, 2001, and JAROŠ, 2006 are often too early.

The theologians have a vested interest in trying to push this shit back as early in time as they possibly can.  Are they serious "scholars" or serious "believers?"

[Aractus]

I wish that we still had the non-traditional, removed books available.  They would make for interesting reading.

If you're talking about the "gnostic" texts, they are all available to read. All the ones that have survived anyway, here knock yourself out: .

[Aractus]

So you have appropriated for yourself the ability to determine who is and who isn't a "serious scholar," Danny.  How very presumptuous of you!

...

The theologians have a vested interest in trying to push this shit back as early in time as they possibly can.  Are they serious "scholars" or serious "believers?"

Yeah straw man. I never said that scholars don't debate the dating of manuscripts. I never said there was a consensus on that. And what does P52 have to do with what I was saying? Nothing, that's what. It could be dated to the fifth century and it wouldn't change P66 and P75's significance and dates. All available information on these two particular manuscripts dates them to around 200AD. With an upper limit of perhaps 225AD. Even if we take the upper limit they still had to have diverged at least 30 years in the past; and prior to that they were copied and circulated as well.

The scholars you just quoted aren't arguing that the synoptic gospels were written later than 90AD are they? No, and in fact the link you just gave me, if you'd bothered to read it, concludes that P66 was likely written within the late-second/early-third century.

[Mudhammam]

No that's not true, they show up no later than the second century, and almost certainly before the end of the first century.

I didn't mean they were written in the second century, I meant any reference to them or physical evidence by which we might evaluate the claims of the OP vis-à-vis authorship.

[robvalue]

What I find weird is that the gospels are often assumed to have more credibility because we don't know who wrote them.

They are obvious fiction. If I state to a Christian some more modern obvious fiction, with a known author, they'll just say "it's fiction" and dismiss the entire works with two words.

When I do the same, I get all manner of ridiculous reasons why it is actually true.

[Aractus]

No that's not true, they show up no later than the second century, and almost certainly before the end of the first century.

I didn't mean they were written in the second century, I meant any reference to them or physical evidence by which we might evaluate the claims of the OP vis-à-vis authorship.

They are referenced extensively, including in the second century from other writings. I think what people forget is that a new testament manuscript exclusively refers to a manuscript that contained at least one book of the new testament (and most contained more than one book, it's only these really early ones that are only one or two books). The New Testament contains many quotes from the OT, and many more direct and indirect references as well, and second century church writings also quote from the OT, the NT, and even the apocrypha. The reason why you find quotes from the apocrypha in second century writings but not in any of the first-century NT writings is anyone's guess really, but I believe it's because most of the books were written by 66AD - including all three synoptic gospels. This was a time when the church was ruled from Jerusalem, and from 70AD on it wasn't - it was more decentralised and chaotic - and we don't really know what happened in the years following the destruction of the original church, but we do know what came of it later. Anyway, by the second century they had a greater appreciation for some of the writings that the Jews of the time rejected. This might have been why they began using Greek versions of the OT as well - perhaps it wasn't just for convenience, but because it separated them from the Jews that read it in Hebrew. We know by the late second century there were at least 4 complete translations of the OT (comprising all 49 books/22 scrolls as we know them).

The letters of Ignatius are written early second century (c. 107AD), and contain quotes from the gospels and Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul, the pastoral epistles, Hebrews, and James. And there's 1 Clement - again it's written either late first century or early second century, and contains a small number of NT quotes including Paul's letters, James, Hebrews, Acts, and 1-2 Peter.

So you're wrong, the earliest literary evidence is from the early second century, where there are not just references but direct quotes from many (but not all) of the NT books.