Quote: There are other second century church "fathers" who do mention Paul by name.Yeah... and like the Testimonium Flavianum they seem to have been written later for the purpose of filling in the record.
YOu have shut your mind to any other possibility but they are out there if you'd just put your bible down long enough to read them.
You aren't going to trot out Polycarp or the rest of the bullshit, are you?
https://www.academia.edu/368096/On_the_D...o=download
Quote: 6. Conclusion
There may be nothing in this essay that categorically proves that the mar-tyrdom of Polycarp could not have been written in the second century.The second-century dating, however, is anchored by the assumptionthat the text is an eyewitness report. This assumption is itself rooted inscholarly assumptions about the historicity of martyr acts and intertextuality in early Christian literature. When, as we have seen, authenticity isput aside the dating of the text becomes uncertain.
Quote:We should treat MPol as a third-century composition that may have been redacted in the fourth century. As unsatisfying as this conclusion remains, it is critically important for historians of martyrdom in particular and historians of Christianity in gen-eral to recognize the difficulties in dating this text.Is Moss not a scholar either by your use of the term?
Candida R. Moss
University of Notre Dame
Department of Theology
