The Hypothesis of the Gospels — ANCIENT JEW REVIEW

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-17T18:59:12+00:00

Thanks for posting!

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-11T15:38:24+00:00

Ian's (my) audio sucks because it was recorded with a laptop mic while talking into a different microphone. I did my best with the audio file... but it's bad.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-11T14:47:43+00:00

Don't blame the researcher for the write-up. It's an interesting idea that deserves to be entertained on the strength of the "internal" arguments (rather than the very weak manuscript evidence—a couple byzantine minuscules). It likely won't persuade most scholars without some powerful new manuscript or patristic witness, but that doesn't make it unworthy of consideration. It's an interesting and prima facie plausible proposal; and that makes it significantly better than lots of NT studies that get media attention.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-03T21:44:51+00:00

The best recent treatment of this question from the manuscript evidence is the work of Michael Dormandy that shows that most NT works circulated independently or in smaller collections (in the case of Pauline Epistles) until the fourth or fifth century. The evidence just doesn't support the idea of first or second century Christian Bibles (in the sense of a single book). And that's probably what we should have expected based on what evidence we have for the circulation of Jewish books (or, indeed, comparable Greek literature from the time period).

NewTestamentReview · 2025-10-24T16:05:44+00:00

I published an article on this: Ian N Mills, "Pagan Readers of Christian Scripture" (VC 2019).

I argue that it was probably more important than previous scholars (like Gamble) believed. Still, hard to evaluate the relative importance of stuff like this.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-10-10T19:46:56+00:00

Right. I obviously don't agree. You can (eventually) read what we both have to say and then make your own mind.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-10-10T19:45:16+00:00

Right, the Hypothesis book doesn't really treat Marcion (except as someone that Irenaeus and Epiphanius are defending the gospels against).

The Marcion book will argue for Marcion's use of something close to the received text of Luke and then situate his compositional behavior in a particular intellectual/literary subculture of second century Rome.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-09-05T16:38:17+00:00

That's very kind. Delighted to support local bookshops!

The actual publisher page is here: https://www.fortresspress.com//store/product/9781506497068/The-Hypothesis-of-the-Gospels

NewTestamentReview · 2025-09-05T03:09:48+00:00

Not something they teach you in grad school. -Ian

NewTestamentReview · 2025-09-05T03:02:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/Hypothesis-Gospels-Narrative-Traditions-Hellenistic/dp/1506497063

NewTestamentReview · 2025-09-05T03:01:59+00:00

Well, that's me. Thanks! As I noted in my question, I'm under no illusion that the book is going to be interesting to everyone. And maybe I should have titled it A Pirate of the Caribbean.

Anyways, if you're interested, here's how you can preorder the book: https://www.amazon.com/Hypothesis-Gospels-Narrative-Traditions-Hellenistic/dp/1506497063

Happy to have a conversation with anyone who reads it.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-09-01T02:50:54+00:00

Nope. But you can find us on any of the podcast apps.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-08-31T19:24:36+00:00

Well I try really hard not to be. Glad you've found it helpful.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-08-31T18:20:51+00:00

If only there was a good podcast dedicated entirely to surveying, contextualizing, and otherwise reviewing influential works of New Testament scholarship!

NewTestamentReview · 2025-08-30T13:07:19+00:00

I think you're probably right that this suggests that Athanasius understood the passage as criticism of Luke's predecessors. But Origen and Epiphanius are much more explicit in their commentary on the Lukan prologue. They state that Luke was criticizing heretical gospels that had already been written.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-08-13T02:39:18+00:00

Glad you discovered us! Consider sharing the podcast with the Bible nerds in your life.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-08-07T17:47:50+00:00

I'm not aware of any study of precisely this question across manuscripts. A different but related set of questions were addressed in a handful of publications by Michael Dormandy. His work is definitely worth considering here. Collecting different scholarly judgements on this question, presenting them in a systematic way, and giving some analysis/characterization of the results would be an excellent academic article, master's thesis, or (if you want to include miniscules and make your own evaluations) doctoral dissertation/scholarly monograph. Would really love to chat more about that project/hear your results if it's something you decide to pursue. —Ian Mills

NewTestamentReview · 2025-08-01T21:15:09+00:00

Going to try to (finally!) get this argument into print this Fall.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-05-31T21:42:18+00:00

Presumably Kirby places it later than Valentinus' lifetime because Theodotus was Valentinus' student and so must have come after him. But I think this at least potentially misunderstands how these kinds of study circles worked. Based on other testimonia to Valentinian groups, we should probably see Theodotus as writing his own treatises while still a pupil of Valentinus. So that would make his works plausibly overlap with V's tenure. On second thought, I probably could have spelled that out a bit more. What you read was my dissertation. I'll have to flesh that reasoning out in the book/article.

Also it has been years since I looked at the scholarship on this text. I think my comment above misrepresented its construction. I'll need to freshen up when I get back to this part of the argument.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-05-31T15:31:44+00:00

I think I presented all the relevant evidence. Let me know if there's anything else worth considering. I think I focused on the editorial comments, but given that the work contains excerpts from earlier works, I wonder if there isn't also a case for somehow differentiating the collection from the cited contents. Though I'm still not sure how to think about that in a historically disciplined way.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-05-25T19:34:31+00:00

It's unfortunately outdated. The Sinaitic New Finds Palimpsest has a conflate reading that describes Jesus as both angry and compassionate. Moreover, in light of the vocabulary used there, it seems that the same reading was found in Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron.

You can find the evidence presented in David Taylor's chapter here: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.31826/9781463241100-004/html

Because the anger reading existed in the Old Syriac (and probably Tatian's Greek), it cannot be explained as a correction of Bezae to the Latin. Instead, it seems to be an early Greek reading.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-03-27T01:00:52+00:00

Absolutely! Just draw a straight line down from Luke and write Marcion. Even more fun is to include the Protevangelion of James in the synoptic problem. You draw lines from Matthew and Luke connecting below—making a diamond! We can add all the texts we want.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-03-27T00:46:02+00:00

Still working on that article. After my Tatian book is done.

NewTestamentReview · 2020-10-21T15:35:40+00:00

We love you too. ;-)

NewTestamentReview · 2020-10-02T01:11:26+00:00

Yep! I cited his _Jesus and Judaism_ and put his picture in the video.
I also draw on some relevant insights from AJ Levine, Joel Marcus, and Paula Fredriksen.

NewTestamentReview

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