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website: www.churchinhistory.org
The Clementine Gospel Tradition.
This comes in two versions. 2013 (Orginal) version http://churchinhistory.org/s3-gospels/clem-trad/contents-clem-trad.htm 2017 (Revised) version in PDF format http://churchinhistory.org/pages/book-clementine-tradition-edited-version/The-Clementine-Gospel-Tradition-by-Dennis-Barton-edited-version.pdf Spanish Version - Includes review
What might perhaps
have been a minor issue, of interest only to historians and exegetes,
nevertheless became a very important issue for the following reason. The great
majority of exegetes who, from the 19th century on, practiced the modern
historical-critical study of the Bible, while maintaining John as "the
fourth Gospel", decidedly discarded Matthew as "the first Gospel",
placing Mark in that privileged position. The theory of the Priority of Mark first
prevailed among German Protestant theologians and then spread from Germany to
the rest of the world, attracting the adherence of a vast majority of exegetes:
first Protestants and then (especially after the Second Vatican Council) also
Catholics. This theory, complemented by the Q source hypothesis, is today the
most popular "solution" to the "synoptic problem", that is,
the problem posed by the similarities and dissimilarities between the Gospels
of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the so-called "Synoptic Gospels". Despite the waste
of ingenuity of its supporters, the two-source (Mark and Q) hypothesis did not
really solve the synoptic problem. Furthermore, the theory of Markan priority did
serious damage to Christian apologetics, because it helped to spread widely the
belief in the late composition of the Gospels. Today the most common dating of
the Gospels is like this: Mark in the 70s of the 1st century, Matthew and Luke
in the 80s and John in the 90s. Therefore, the Gospels would have been composed
two or three generations after Christ. The rationalist and liberal exegetes who
promoted the priority of Mark viewed the evangelists as creative theologians,
not as credible witnesses to the life and teaching of Jesus. According to them,
the canonical Gospels would not allow us to access the historical Jesus, but
rather the "Christ of Faith", a legendary or mythical character. A minority
exegetical current that defends the Clementine Tradition was initiated by Henry
Owen (1716-1796) and continued by other British scholars. In the last decades
of the 20th century, the main figure of this trend was Bernard Orchard OSB
(1910-2006), a Catholic priest, a Benedictine monk and a prominent biblical
scholar. As if putting the parts of a puzzle together, Orchard finally offered
a satisfactory solution to the synoptic problem, which has the following main
advantages: a) it reconciles the Clementine Tradition and the Augustinian Tradition,
explaining how the order of composition of the Gospels was Matthew-Luke-Mark-John
and its order of publication was Matthew-Mark-Luke-John; b) it annuls the
theory of Markan priority, placing again Matthew in his traditional position as
the first Gospel; c) it combines the historical data of the oldest church
tradition with the literary analyses of the historical-critical method; d) it strongly
supports the healthy current trend to revert to early dating of the four
Gospels. Unfortunately,
Father Orchard passed away in 2006 without being able to fully expose his
theory. That is why Dennis Barton, a disciple of Orchard, published The Clementine Gospel Tradition in 2013,
presenting the fundamental ideas of his teacher and adding his own
contributions. Barton offers a very understandable solution, accepted by
Orchard himself, to the problem of the end of the Gospel of Mark. Dennis Barton
passed away in 2017. The second edition of The
Clementine Gospel Tradition was published that same year. That's the
edition I translated into Spanish, with permission from Mark Alder, a friend of
Dennis Barton's who took over his very interesting Church in History website (http://www.churchinhistory.org). Both that Barton site and Alder's site, Chistendom Awake (http://www.christendom-awake.org), have high-quality and very interesting content, although they are
little known. I published my
translation of Barton's book chapter by chapter throughout this year on my blog
(https://www.infocatolica.com/blog/razones.php). Now I offer the entire book in PDF format. It can be downloaded for
free at this page: Dennis Barton, La tradición
clementina de los Evangelios. If you speak
Spanish, I highly recommend you to download and read La tradición clementina de los Evangelios by Dennis Barton.
Besides, I ask your help to spread this valuable book as widely as possible. BISMARCK AND THE FOUR GOSPELS Fr. Noel Muscat OFM Important New Video
Work of Dennis Barton on Defending the Bride Website
Problems with the Synoptic Problem - Karl Keating
Other Items
The Historical Roots of the Modern Crisis by
The Catholic Church and the Counter-Faith By Philip Trower A Study of the Roots of Modern Secularism, Relativism and de-Christianisation
Newman Articles on Christendom Awake Website Newman and the study of the Church Fathers Introducing
the Church Fathers Newman and devotion to Our Lady
Politicizing the Bible - Reviews To Gospels Home Page - CHURCHinHISTORY Website
St Joan of Arc - Saint or Witch?
Answering attacks on the Church's history (Including
Scientific) Books by Philip Trower Turmoil
& Truth The Catholic Church and the Counter-Faith (On Christendom Awake Website)
The Clementine Gospel Tradition Problems
with the Synoptic Problem Work of Dennis Barton on Defending
the Bride Website
Biblical News and Research
About us and how you can assist Posters
Current Events,
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Site originated: 5th June 2003 The version of this page: Church in History Home Page - www.churchinhistory.org |
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