Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Does Poppias provide us direct access to the teachings of the Apostles?
[00:00:06] By Bart D. Ehrman Read by John Paul Middlesworth in my previous post, I gave a short introduction to Papias, one of the Apostolic Fathers and the one Oddly enough, since we don't have any of his writings, just some quotations of them that has garnered the most attention among New Testament scholars over the past some decades, especially those interested in the question of who wrote our Gospels.
[00:00:30] More than anything, biblical scholars have latched onto Papias because it is widely thought that he provides direct evidence that the Gospel of Matthew really was written by Matthew and the Gospel of Mark was really written by Mark.
[00:00:44] I'll be dealing with the evidence from Papias on both matters in subsequent posts. What is even more remarkable is that some conservative scholars have actually argued that Papias gives us evidence about Luke and John, even though in none of the surviving fragments does Papias so much as mention Luke and John.
[00:01:03] Scholars can be amazingly inventive sometimes before discussing what Papias says about the two gospel writers that he does actually mention in the surviving fragments, I need to explain why his witness is often seen to be so important.
[00:01:17] The first reason is that he is writing so early in the tradition.
[00:01:21] Scholars debate when his writings were produced, but usually they are dated between 110 and 140.
[00:01:27] Some scholars date him much earlier. That dating makes him more convenient for their purposes. No one really dates him much later.
[00:01:35] But suppose his expositions of the sayings of the Lord were written in, say, 120 or 130.
[00:01:42] That would be the earliest commentary on Jesus sayings that would be significant, especially if we had the book.
[00:01:50] But the other reason that his witness is taken to be important is that because he himself is in one of his fragments indicates that he had a direct line of transmission back to the apostles of Jesus, so that his claims about who they were and what they did are highly authorized by someone who would know this is what he says. It's quoted by Eusebius in Church History 339. Even though Eusebius was writing nearly two centuries later, it is almost always thought that he is actually recording what Papias has written.
[00:02:23] I also will not hesitate to draw up for you, along with these expositions, an orderly account of all the things I have carefully learned and have carefully recalled from the elders, for I have certified their truth. For unlike most people, I took no pleasure in hearing those who had a lot to say, but only those who taught the truth and not those who recalled commandments from Strangers, but only those who have recalled the commandments which have been given faithfully by the Lord and which proceed from the truth itself.
[00:02:54] But whenever someone arrived who had been a companion of one of the elders, I would carefully inquire after their words what Andrew or Peter had said, or what Philip or what Thomas had said, or James or John or Matthew, or any of the other disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord were saying.
[00:03:16] For I did not suppose that what came out of books would benefit me as much as that which came from a living and abiding voice.
[00:03:23] This passage from Papias is often cited in order to show that he could trace a direct lineage to what the apostles of Jesus themselves were saying.
[00:03:32] That even though he himself was not an eyewitness, or rather ear witness to what the apostles said, he was as close to an ear witness as we could possibly hope for.
[00:03:42] Some scholars have somewhat incautiously maintained that Papias actually knew some of Jesus own disciples.
[00:03:49] But that's not at all what this passage says.
[00:03:53] What it says is that Papias on occasion would speak with people who were companions of the elders.
[00:03:59] These elders were followers of the apostles.
[00:04:03] Work this out carefully. Papias is saying that he has consulted with people who were companions of the followers, that is the elders of the apostles.
[00:04:14] In other words, Papias has gotten his traditions about Jesus fourth hand, not first or second hand.
[00:04:22] The sequence goes like Jesus, the figure in question, then the apostles, then the elders, then the companions of the elders, then Papias, then us.
[00:04:33] When we listen to Papias, we do not have access directly to Jesus or his apostles.
[00:04:39] We ourselves are getting it fifth hand, or worse. Since it is being mediated through Eusebius.
[00:04:47] A lot can happen to traditions that exchange hands.
[00:04:50] As all of us know, eyewitness reports cannot be relied on to give us accurate information about something that happened. If we could always trust eyewitnesses to get something right, then we would have no need for a legal system. If a crime was committed and someone saw it, we would simply ask them what they saw and convict the criminal accordingly. What need of a trial? We have eyewitnesses.
[00:05:14] The problem is that eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.
[00:05:19] So are ear witnesses. And in the sequence I sketched above, Papias is not getting anything from ear witnesses. The ear witnesses were the apostles. They told things about Jesus to others, the elders who were ear witnesses not of Jesus, but of the apostles.
[00:05:37] These apostles then told some of what they heard or. Or thought they heard to their companions, who are then ear witnesses not of Jesus, but of ear witnesses of the ear witnesses of Jesus. And when Papias then heard what he heard, he was an ear witness to the ear witnesses of the ear witnesses of the ear witnesses to Jesus.
[00:05:59] Put this Given what we know about ear and eyewitness, some of our sanguine hopes of Papias being able to relay historically accurate materials are somewhat deflated.
[00:06:11] But this isn't just a theoretical matter.
[00:06:14] There are clear and certain reasons for thinking that whatever Papias heard from his informants, or at least what he says he heard, it was not historically reliable material.
[00:06:25] That will matter, because it is Papias who first claims that Matthew and Mark wrote Gospels.
