Bouncing around Google Scholar as one does, I've run across claims that the Muratorian Fragment is late. The Fragment itself claims a date not long after the Shepherd by Hermas. But - maybe five years ago - it was noted that not all Christians are always honest. Also: it's a fragment. We're famously missing parts of the text, including mention of Mark and Matthew, of which at least Matthew should be noted by a post-Luke and post-Hermas author.
In favour of an early date, I'd raise absence of James and presence of Laodiceans and Alexandrians; pointing to a time when the canon was in dispute with a need to nail sh!t down. Irenaeus had perhaps started that process at least for the four gospels we all now accept; and Marcion famously had his Apostolicon, and his version of Luke (maybe also with Acts). But serious concern with the full "New Testament" seems later than the Murator, hence why scholarship (and Josh MacDowell) so care/s about the Murator.
I recall that the Murator parallels Papias, also. Murator is, in fact, mined for what Papias may have said about Luke; since Eusebius omits this, likely because Eusebius had no Papias, thus reliant upon Irenaeus and (maybe) Pierius.
But yeah: people care about the Murator, one way or another.
For my part I don't care as much as MacDowell et al. care/d, what Murator was up to, nor when. That it was able (in Latin) to pull from Papias is useful for what it says about Papias, whom everyone admits as a second-century muhaddith. I dislike the corner-cutting implicit in any pseudepigraph - if Murator is one. But it does seem to be transmitting its sources honestly.
BACKDATE 6/6
No comments:
Post a Comment