05-31-2023, 01:10 AM
Do you disagree with any of this Goodspeed?:
_A History of Early Christian Literature_ by Edgar J. Goodspeed (1942), 324pp., on 162
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=u...up&seq=180
Much more perplexing is Papias' statement about Matthew:
"So then Matthew composed the Sayings in the Aramaic language, and each one translated them as best he could."^5
The only possible meaning of this is that Matthew the apostle was believed to be the author of the _oral_ gospel.^6
4 Eusebius _Church History_ iii. 39. 15.
5 _Ibid_.
6 Goodspeed, _Introduction to the New Testament_ (Chicago, 1937), pp. 129-32.
On 1-5:
the Jewish world in which they lived was altogether averse to literary composition, being absorbed, in the first half of the first century, in the contemplation of its Hebrew heritage, which it held sacred and almost worshiped.
....
It is improbable that primitive Palestinian Christianity produced any written records of Jesus' life or teaching of even the most meager proportions. But, true to their Jewish habits, they do seem to have produced an oral gospel, comprising an account, in their vernacular Aramaic, of his doings and sayings. It would have been altogether natural for them to do this; the Jews were handing down by a similar oral tradition, but in Hebrew, the sayings of their great rabbis....
....the traditional oral gospel.
But have we any actual mention of such a work-- if anything so nebulous can be called a "work"-- on the part of any early Christian writer? Yes, what Papias (_ca_. A.D. 140) says of Matthew composing the "Sayings" in the Aramaic language, and each one translating them as best he could, sounds like an attempt to describe just such a work. If early Christians learned it by heart, in Aramaic, and then carried the Christian message into the Greek world, they would naturally have to translate this oral gospel into Greek for the use of their converts, each one doing it as well as he could.
....the primitive Christians had no thought at all of creating a literature. Their whole concern was for the inner life of the spirit, through which they came into communion with God. A full generation was to pass before Christians thought of writing gospels, and then they were to arise in Greek, not Aramaic, and in circles far removed from Jewish Palestine.
....literary phase of Christianity gradually gathered strength, until it became a great tide not only potent in itself but also influencing other literatures not definitely Christian. Its beginnings were in the Greek world, and for a century Greek was its sole vehicle; then it spread to Latin and Syriac and, in the third century, to Coptic, though at first Syriac and Coptic attempted no more than translations of works originally written in Greek.
////////////////////////////
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the...depigrapha
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls were a number of manuscripts of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, including ten manuscripts of the Book of Enoch in the original Aramaic (until then copies were extant only in an Ethiopic translation of a Greek translation of a Semitic original), which were vital to answering many questions about its origins. Dating of the manuscripts by their script shows that certain parts of Enoch are at least as old as the third century BCE.
_The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader: Texts Concerned With Religious Law, Exegetical Texts and Parabiblical Texts_
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-...004264612/
_The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Volume 2: Calendrical Texts and Sapiential Texts, Poetic and Liturgical Texts, Additional Genres and Unclassified Texts_, 2nd edition
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-...004264620/
_The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English_, 7th edition (2011), by Geza Vermes
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Dead-Sea...141197315/
_A Handbook of the Aramaic Scrolls from the Qumran Caves: Manuscripts, Language, and Scribal Practices_
free PDF available from
https://brill.com/display/title/57106?language=en
hardcopy
https://www.amazon.com/dp/9004513787/
This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls from the caves of Qumran. These nearly one hundred scrolls open a window onto a vibrant period of Jewish history for which we previously had few historical sources.
////////////////////////////
_A History of Early Christian Literature_ by Edgar J. Goodspeed (1942), 324pp., on 1-5
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=m...q1=aramaic
Christianity began as a spiritual movement. Its founder wrote nothing. He sought to change men's hearts. He struck at the sources of attitude and action. His early followers continued this course. They were further committed to it by their expectation of his early return in messianic triumph to judge the world. They had no thought of producing a literature; indeed, the Jewish world in which they lived was altogether averse to literary composition, being absorbed, in the first half of the first century, in the contemplation of its Hebrew heritage, which it held sacred and almost worshiped.
Palestinian aversion to original written composition in Hebrew in the first half of the first century is glaringly revealed by two facts. First, the Jews were making a Hebrew commentary on the Jewish Law, but they would not permit this to be written; to write it would seem to put it on a level with That Which Was Written the Scripture itself. So it was memorized and recited. It is repeatedly referred to in the Sermon on the Mount, where this interpretation of the Law is contrasted with Jesus' teaching. More than a century was to elapse before this Mishnah, as it was called, was committed to writing.
And, second, the Jews in that half-century were engaged in translating their sacred scriptures from Hebrew into Aramaic, the vernacular language which everybody used and understood. But this, too, must not be written down; it must be committed to memory, and when about A.D. 50 Gamaliel I came across a written copy of the Aramaic translation of Job, he promptly destroyed it, for to write down such versions seemed to put them on a level with that which was written the Hebrew scripture itself. And, here again, it was years before these translations-- the Targum-- were committed to writing.
Everything, in short, was at first unfavorable to the production of a Christian literature: the Jewish environment of the first believers and the basic attitudes of the Christians themselves-- their emphasis upon the inner life, the spirit, not the letter; and their messianic expectation.
It is improbable that primitive Palestinian Christianity produced any written records of Jesus' life or teaching of even the most meager proportions. But, true to their Jewish habits, they do seem to have produced an oral gospel, comprising an account, in their vernacular Aramaic, of his doings and sayings. It would have been altogether natural for them to do this; the Jews were handing down by a similar oral tradition, but in Hebrew, the sayings of their great rabbis, and these now form part of the Mishnah-- the _Pirke Aboth_, or "Chapters of the Fathers." The evangelists often speak of Jesus as a rabbi, and it would be natural to preserve the memory of his life and teaching in this way.
Such an oral gospel was evidently known to Paul, who quotes it as something handed down to him, or, as we say, tradition (I Cor. 11:23; 15:3). Luke uses it once at least in the Acts: "Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 20:35). His contemporary, Clement of Rome, in his _Letter to the Corinthians_, seems clearly to be quoting it: "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus" (13:1; 46:7). Polycarp of Smyrna, twenty years later, in his _Letter to the Philippians_, quotes Jesus with the words, "Remembering what the Lord said" (2:3). Not only does the manner of quotation in all these instances suggest memorized material but the items quoted cannot be found in these forms in any written gospel. It is reasonable to suppose that they were derived from the traditional oral gospel.
But have we any actual mention of such a work-- if anything so nebulous can be called a "work"-- on the part of any early Christian writer? Yes, what Papias (_ca_. A.D. 140) says of Matthew composing the "Sayings" in the Aramaic language, and each one translating them as best he could, sounds like an attempt to describe just such a work. If early Christians learned it by heart, in Aramaic, and then carried the Christian message into the Greek world, they would naturally have to translate this oral gospel into Greek for the use of their converts, each one doing it as well as he could. This process of oral transmission is probably referred to in Luke's opening sentence, "Just as the original eye-witnesses who became teachers of the message have handed it down to us" (1:2).
While this elusive primitive gospel must have had a great influence on Christian preaching, and through it indirectly upon the gospels that were later written, we cannot recover it, or even describe it, in any detail. It contained some characteristic pieces of Jesus' teaching, with accounts of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection experiences. We might expect relics of it to survive in Luke or in Matthew; but, if so, they cannot be identified.
It is true, the written gospels, when they appeared, sprang up under its shadow, and not so much to reproduce it as to supplement it. The earliest written gospels seem to have assumed its existence. And from the point of view of the story of Christian literature, this lost oral gospel is chiefly significant as conclusive evidence that the primitive Christians had no thought at all of creating a literature. Their whole concern was for the inner life of the spirit, through which they came into communion with God. A full generation was to pass before Christians thought of writing gospels, and then they were to arise in Greek, not Aramaic, and in circles far removed from Jewish Palestine.
With the letters of Paul and the earliest gospels a new and extraordinary force began to find written expression-- a force destined powerfully to affect the spiritual life of mankind. From small and obscure beginnings-- mere personal letters long left unpublished-- this literary phase of Christianity gradually gathered strength, until it became a great tide not only potent in itself but also influencing other literatures not definitely Christian. Its beginnings were in the Greek world, and for a century Greek was its sole vehicle; then it spread to Latin and Syriac and, in the third century, to Coptic, though at first Syriac and Coptic attempted no more than translations of works originally written in Greek. It was in Greek and then in Latin that it was at first creative.
_A History of Early Christian Literature_ by Edgar J. Goodspeed (1942), 324pp., on 162
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=u...up&seq=180
Much more perplexing is Papias' statement about Matthew:
"So then Matthew composed the Sayings in the Aramaic language, and each one translated them as best he could."^5
The only possible meaning of this is that Matthew the apostle was believed to be the author of the _oral_ gospel.^6
4 Eusebius _Church History_ iii. 39. 15.
5 _Ibid_.
6 Goodspeed, _Introduction to the New Testament_ (Chicago, 1937), pp. 129-32.
On 1-5:
the Jewish world in which they lived was altogether averse to literary composition, being absorbed, in the first half of the first century, in the contemplation of its Hebrew heritage, which it held sacred and almost worshiped.
....
It is improbable that primitive Palestinian Christianity produced any written records of Jesus' life or teaching of even the most meager proportions. But, true to their Jewish habits, they do seem to have produced an oral gospel, comprising an account, in their vernacular Aramaic, of his doings and sayings. It would have been altogether natural for them to do this; the Jews were handing down by a similar oral tradition, but in Hebrew, the sayings of their great rabbis....
....the traditional oral gospel.
But have we any actual mention of such a work-- if anything so nebulous can be called a "work"-- on the part of any early Christian writer? Yes, what Papias (_ca_. A.D. 140) says of Matthew composing the "Sayings" in the Aramaic language, and each one translating them as best he could, sounds like an attempt to describe just such a work. If early Christians learned it by heart, in Aramaic, and then carried the Christian message into the Greek world, they would naturally have to translate this oral gospel into Greek for the use of their converts, each one doing it as well as he could.
....the primitive Christians had no thought at all of creating a literature. Their whole concern was for the inner life of the spirit, through which they came into communion with God. A full generation was to pass before Christians thought of writing gospels, and then they were to arise in Greek, not Aramaic, and in circles far removed from Jewish Palestine.
....literary phase of Christianity gradually gathered strength, until it became a great tide not only potent in itself but also influencing other literatures not definitely Christian. Its beginnings were in the Greek world, and for a century Greek was its sole vehicle; then it spread to Latin and Syriac and, in the third century, to Coptic, though at first Syriac and Coptic attempted no more than translations of works originally written in Greek.
////////////////////////////
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the...depigrapha
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls were a number of manuscripts of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, including ten manuscripts of the Book of Enoch in the original Aramaic (until then copies were extant only in an Ethiopic translation of a Greek translation of a Semitic original), which were vital to answering many questions about its origins. Dating of the manuscripts by their script shows that certain parts of Enoch are at least as old as the third century BCE.
_The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader: Texts Concerned With Religious Law, Exegetical Texts and Parabiblical Texts_
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-...004264612/
_The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Volume 2: Calendrical Texts and Sapiential Texts, Poetic and Liturgical Texts, Additional Genres and Unclassified Texts_, 2nd edition
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-...004264620/
_The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English_, 7th edition (2011), by Geza Vermes
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Dead-Sea...141197315/
_A Handbook of the Aramaic Scrolls from the Qumran Caves: Manuscripts, Language, and Scribal Practices_
free PDF available from
https://brill.com/display/title/57106?language=en
hardcopy
https://www.amazon.com/dp/9004513787/
This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls from the caves of Qumran. These nearly one hundred scrolls open a window onto a vibrant period of Jewish history for which we previously had few historical sources.
////////////////////////////
_A History of Early Christian Literature_ by Edgar J. Goodspeed (1942), 324pp., on 1-5
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=m...q1=aramaic
Christianity began as a spiritual movement. Its founder wrote nothing. He sought to change men's hearts. He struck at the sources of attitude and action. His early followers continued this course. They were further committed to it by their expectation of his early return in messianic triumph to judge the world. They had no thought of producing a literature; indeed, the Jewish world in which they lived was altogether averse to literary composition, being absorbed, in the first half of the first century, in the contemplation of its Hebrew heritage, which it held sacred and almost worshiped.
Palestinian aversion to original written composition in Hebrew in the first half of the first century is glaringly revealed by two facts. First, the Jews were making a Hebrew commentary on the Jewish Law, but they would not permit this to be written; to write it would seem to put it on a level with That Which Was Written the Scripture itself. So it was memorized and recited. It is repeatedly referred to in the Sermon on the Mount, where this interpretation of the Law is contrasted with Jesus' teaching. More than a century was to elapse before this Mishnah, as it was called, was committed to writing.
And, second, the Jews in that half-century were engaged in translating their sacred scriptures from Hebrew into Aramaic, the vernacular language which everybody used and understood. But this, too, must not be written down; it must be committed to memory, and when about A.D. 50 Gamaliel I came across a written copy of the Aramaic translation of Job, he promptly destroyed it, for to write down such versions seemed to put them on a level with that which was written the Hebrew scripture itself. And, here again, it was years before these translations-- the Targum-- were committed to writing.
Everything, in short, was at first unfavorable to the production of a Christian literature: the Jewish environment of the first believers and the basic attitudes of the Christians themselves-- their emphasis upon the inner life, the spirit, not the letter; and their messianic expectation.
It is improbable that primitive Palestinian Christianity produced any written records of Jesus' life or teaching of even the most meager proportions. But, true to their Jewish habits, they do seem to have produced an oral gospel, comprising an account, in their vernacular Aramaic, of his doings and sayings. It would have been altogether natural for them to do this; the Jews were handing down by a similar oral tradition, but in Hebrew, the sayings of their great rabbis, and these now form part of the Mishnah-- the _Pirke Aboth_, or "Chapters of the Fathers." The evangelists often speak of Jesus as a rabbi, and it would be natural to preserve the memory of his life and teaching in this way.
Such an oral gospel was evidently known to Paul, who quotes it as something handed down to him, or, as we say, tradition (I Cor. 11:23; 15:3). Luke uses it once at least in the Acts: "Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 20:35). His contemporary, Clement of Rome, in his _Letter to the Corinthians_, seems clearly to be quoting it: "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus" (13:1; 46:7). Polycarp of Smyrna, twenty years later, in his _Letter to the Philippians_, quotes Jesus with the words, "Remembering what the Lord said" (2:3). Not only does the manner of quotation in all these instances suggest memorized material but the items quoted cannot be found in these forms in any written gospel. It is reasonable to suppose that they were derived from the traditional oral gospel.
But have we any actual mention of such a work-- if anything so nebulous can be called a "work"-- on the part of any early Christian writer? Yes, what Papias (_ca_. A.D. 140) says of Matthew composing the "Sayings" in the Aramaic language, and each one translating them as best he could, sounds like an attempt to describe just such a work. If early Christians learned it by heart, in Aramaic, and then carried the Christian message into the Greek world, they would naturally have to translate this oral gospel into Greek for the use of their converts, each one doing it as well as he could. This process of oral transmission is probably referred to in Luke's opening sentence, "Just as the original eye-witnesses who became teachers of the message have handed it down to us" (1:2).
While this elusive primitive gospel must have had a great influence on Christian preaching, and through it indirectly upon the gospels that were later written, we cannot recover it, or even describe it, in any detail. It contained some characteristic pieces of Jesus' teaching, with accounts of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection experiences. We might expect relics of it to survive in Luke or in Matthew; but, if so, they cannot be identified.
It is true, the written gospels, when they appeared, sprang up under its shadow, and not so much to reproduce it as to supplement it. The earliest written gospels seem to have assumed its existence. And from the point of view of the story of Christian literature, this lost oral gospel is chiefly significant as conclusive evidence that the primitive Christians had no thought at all of creating a literature. Their whole concern was for the inner life of the spirit, through which they came into communion with God. A full generation was to pass before Christians thought of writing gospels, and then they were to arise in Greek, not Aramaic, and in circles far removed from Jewish Palestine.
With the letters of Paul and the earliest gospels a new and extraordinary force began to find written expression-- a force destined powerfully to affect the spiritual life of mankind. From small and obscure beginnings-- mere personal letters long left unpublished-- this literary phase of Christianity gradually gathered strength, until it became a great tide not only potent in itself but also influencing other literatures not definitely Christian. Its beginnings were in the Greek world, and for a century Greek was its sole vehicle; then it spread to Latin and Syriac and, in the third century, to Coptic, though at first Syriac and Coptic attempted no more than translations of works originally written in Greek. It was in Greek and then in Latin that it was at first creative.