@DickHarfield - thanks for your comments, I agree Polycarp is a better reference. As much as I love Ignatius, I instinctively distrust the legitimacy of his letters because of the slew of later material which appears in amongst them. It's not easy to differentiate what material is definitely from him, if anything.
So I also found this fairly comprehensive link showing possible direct quotes and allusions to NT material from early church father writings. Very interesting.
There are about five answers to the below question now, with zero or one votes each - they could use a few more to help separate the pack a bit.
How would stoning of an adulterer actually be carried out under the Law of Moses?
In John Chapter 8 there is the familiar story of how Jesus prevented a stoning of a woman who had committed adultery. I know that many think this was not in the original scriptures; even the NIV notifies the reader...
@SteveTaylor When I said Polycarp is a better reference, I wasn't casting aspersions on Ignatius. What I meant was that the similarity in Ignatius was so obscure that it could easily have been a coincidence.
On the other hand, with Polycarp, there is a relationship, either: i) Polycarp wrote 1 Tim (unlikely); ii) Polycarp copied 1 Tim; iii) 1 Tim copied Polycarp; iv) Polycarp and 1 Tim used a common source, such as a well-known oral saying in their day.
@SteveTaylor None of these options can be used to prove that Paul wrote 1 Tim. Even if Polycarp fervently believed that Paul wrote 1 Tim, we have to assume that he believed this because he read this in 1 Tim (just as we can) and believed it. Polycarp's belief (if indeed he believed Paul wrote 1 Tim) would only be useful if we can prove he came to that belief before he read 1 Tim, ie independently.
@SteveTaylor The case for Pauline authorship would be a little stronger if Polycarp had never read 1 Timothy, because then we could believe he came to that belief other than by reading the claim made in the text.
I know I said Wilder made some errors in his reasoning, which is because he is not a critical scholar, and I would not normally hold a theologian (even PhD qualified) to the same standards as a scholar, except that he sought to refute scholarship on this issue.
@DickHarfield yeah, 'proof' is a slippery thing indeed. It just seems surprising that there aren't any early sources which reject a Pauline authorship, especially if so much of the content is as 'obviously' second century as some scholars would suggest.
It doesn't seem that anything we have would prove the case one way or another, just indicators...
the second and third centuries did have a lot of bickering over the authenticity of different materials and traditions, but Marcion seems to be the only one questioning a Pauline authorship of the pastorals
@SteveTaylor Well, the few first-century writers we have would not have rejected 1 Tim if it did not yet exist.
2nd-cent writers tended to assume that things were always thus. For example, eventually they assumed that Peter was bishop of Rome, so why would Paul not have given Timothy a similar role.
It's not just the Deutero-Pauline epistles. These days, Jude seems so obviously pseudepigraphical that we wonder why anyone ever accepted it as genuine.
@DickHarfield I think 'assume' is rather strong, and precludes what was passed down orally. The whole point of considering the 'apostolic fathers' as a reasonable source is that they had direct contact with men and women of the apostolic era, if not one or more of the 'apostles' themselves.
We have no idea what the second century writers assumed, what they heard, and what they received from written sources. All we know is what they actually recorded - some of it
Ah, now that's interesting. Fewer than 20 of the hapax legomena are unattested before Paul. 80 out of that 175 are found in the Septuagint, for a start
That quotation is cited by the same author in a thesis written towards his PhD, but his original source (Mounce) is a £50 commentary I can't get a fulltext of online...
It is not a bad thing to have chosen a more difficult path. Sometimes it is good to listen to people, and sometimes it is better to try a different way forward.
@Susan - Good question: A.) For precedent, see Hebrew Occurrences in Scripture, and search for "became"; B.) I would add specific references to the suggested revision, but not sure how editing an edit would work! Feel free to modify. C.) Either way - I feel that the question was intended to consider multiple matriarchal lineages, and "became" would be relevant in that inquiry; D.) Obviously if I am wrong in my interpretation of the question - then I am way wrong about it - it's a big interpretive leap. — elika kohen1 min ago
Have I mentioned that biblehub.com should be outlawed?
Can the text of Genesis be dated before Enuma Elish?
Are there any evidences for or against
I know a common idea is that the Genesis narrative, at the least, takes elements from other Near Eastern mythologies and puts them into its own monotheistic context.
Can it be shown Enum Elish took el...
There ought to be some kind of a tag for ancient Mesopotamian extra-biblical texts. (I realize they're not on topic themselves, but this isn't the first time they've come up in relation to biblical texts, I think legitimately -- sometimes.)
@Susan Perhaps a tag for extra-biblical texts more generically? I still think that early witnesses such as the Apostolic Fathers are near-essential context for comparing NT texts.
@Joshua I suspect it is related to what is being worked on Github as noted here, which WoundedEgo just recently found out about and which is currently planning to boost search position if the reference is in the title (but a reference should only be in the title if it is really the focus of the question).
@SteveTaylor The Mishnah in Sanhedrin 6 describes how stoning was carried out.
Once the verdict is reached, they bring him out to stone him. The stoning area was outside the courthouse, as it says, (Leviticus 24:14) "Bring out he who has cursed." One would stand before the entrance to the courthouse, his scarf in his hand; and another would ride on a horse before them at a distance, in order to see him. [If] one says, "I have an argument for acquittal," then he waves the scarf, and the horse runs to stop him. And even if [the accused] says, "I have an argument for my [own] acquittal," then he is returned; and this may happen even four or five times, so long as there i…
@Joshua There is no "planned effects on policy" per se. It may make side effects, but no "policy" that one put the reference or not. A question title should always reflect succinctly the question, and for BH.SE it helps users to see a verse reference in the title if that verse(s) is/are in fact primary to the question (as later people studying a passage can scan titles for verse relevancy).
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