Jason
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Post by Jason on Nov 30, 2007 17:28:52 GMT -4
If he quotes from a gospel even without citing it (which he does), that is pretty good evidence that what he was quoting was accepted as having been spoken by Jesus by the Christians of the time. It may not be absolute evidence that Clement had the Gospel of Luke in front of him when he wrote his own letter, but it does mean at a minimum that the portions he quotes were basically fixed at the time Clement wrote his epistle, and he may well have had Luke in front of him after all.
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Post by wdmundt on Nov 30, 2007 17:52:01 GMT -4
I think we are all in agreement that sayings attributed to Jesus had been written down long before the time of Clement's first epistle. So quoting those sayings only shows that Clement had access to the sayings of Jesus, not necessarily the gospels. The little bit of Googling I've done suggests that Clement's quotes are similar to those in the gospels, but are not exactly the same.
Again, I haven't had a chance to go into Clement's writings today. We're expecting a big snowstorm this weekend, so it looks like I may have some time to read Clement and do some research.
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Jason
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Nov 30, 2007 18:05:41 GMT -4
So if you think Jesus' sayings were written down, then it's only the "historical" portions of the Gospels that you think may not have been "fixed" at the time Clement wrote his epistle? Things like where Jesus went and what he did while there?
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Post by wdmundt on Nov 30, 2007 18:19:36 GMT -4
There are several lines of thinking about written forms of sayings attributed to Jesus that came before the gospels. The "Q document" is one. If such a document existed, we don't know for sure if it had additional narrative content or not.
I'm farther out on a limb than I want to be -- not having read Clement -- but I would say that it seems possible that Clement might have been referencing an earlier document, yes.
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Post by Ginnie on Nov 30, 2007 18:23:44 GMT -4
The "Q" (source) document probably was never a document at all. That is , it may never have actually been written down. It was more likely a collection of oral stories, passed throughout the early Christian-Jewish communities.
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Post by wdmundt on Nov 30, 2007 18:32:05 GMT -4
True. As with so many things in the first century, we just don't actually know.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Nov 30, 2007 19:05:40 GMT -4
I accept that there were probably oral versions of the material in the gospels before the written versions. The opening of Luke basically indicates that it is a form of "rumor control" - an attempt to put the real story in writing. But it seems likely to me that the oral versions were both "Jesus' sayings" and "Jesus' deeds" together.
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