1957/01/01 by E. G. Selwyn
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and Historical Studies #Biblical Studies and Interpretation #Historical and Linguistic Studies
paper · doi:10.1017/s0028688500023584
crossref issued 1957/01/01 · crossref published 1957/01/01 · crossref published-print 1957/01/01 · openalex publication_date 1957/01/01 · crossref published-online 2009/02/05 · crossref created 2009/02/07 · crossref deposited 2019/06/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
In any religion unique authority is assigned by its adherents to the words of its founder, whether written by the founder himself or narrated of him by others; and Christianity is no exception to the rule. The circulation in the Primitive Church of Sayings of Christ is an indication that this was so from very early days. Dr Dibelius has given reasons for believing that the words of Jesus were collected at an early date explicitly as words of the Lord, and therefore inspired; that these collections were definite as regards both their authority and their limits; and that they were almost certainly in Greek; for no trace has been found of any written Aramaic tradition, unless we suppose that Papias had such a collection in mind in what he wrote (about A.D. 140) about St Matthew's Gospel. If the document known as Q existed, then it was such a collection, perhaps the most authoritative of several.