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April 23, 2005
Winslow Lectures
This is an open entry on which you may hang questions about the Winslow Lectures. I’ll even try to get Steve and Francis and Kevin to answer, if you have questions spcific to their lectures.
Posted by AKMA at April 23, 2005 09:46 AM
Comments
This is one question for Prof. Watson:
I could appreciate the references to Irenaeus and Justin exhibiting evidence of the four canonical gospels, thereby showing that they were indeed extant and accepted at the time of those writings.
However, I need to ask, in the interest of logic-- is there enough known about the collected writings of either to be able to say definitively that those were the only four "gospel" sources they-- or other patristics-- used in developing their understanding of the resurrection story, or the Eucharist, or prophetic imagery?
Posted by: Jane Schmoetzer at April 26, 2005 08:18 PM
Jane, Prof. Watson emailed me this response:
Justin never says there are four gospels, though he quotes from all four: in descending order of frequency, Matthew, Luke, John, Mark. He may have known an early infancy gospel now known as the Protevangelium of James, but I think this is doubtful. Irenaeus is explicit about there being four canonical gospels, and John (and Luke) are now more important than they were in Justin. Again, there's no evidence I know of that he's drawing on other gospels as well.
Posted by: AKMA at April 30, 2005 03:25 PM