Episodes
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Many academics assert that the names of the Gospels are not originals, and the evangelists were anonymous. I suggest this goes far beyond the evidence. The Gospels were produced in a specific historical context: the early Church. They are the documents of the early Church, in a very real sense. I am not even sure that contemporary ideas of anonymity apply here: the Gospels were written within the doors of the church, so to speak. What the Gospels record is the message of Our Lord, not of any one human being, no matter how eminent, and the Church realised that multipleperspectives were needed, just as different perspectives on a landscape may enable us to see what we would miss if we only had one vantage position.
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Prof Bart Ehrman dogmatically states as a fact that the books of the New Testament were written “to different communities …” We have recently seen that some, at least, of the evidence presented for this theory could be described as “quiteweak.” But many of the epistles were anciently known as the catholic epistles, that is, the letters written to all churches. We examine and critique some of Ehrman's contentions.
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Missing episodes?
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We continue last week's critique of Ashton's argument that there was a "Johannine community" for which the Gospel was written (as opposed to for all Christians." We explore, along the way, the "fallacy of the fatal possibility," the invalid argument that a thesis must be wrong because another thesis could be right.
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We consider a question which most people may not realise is contentious: the assertion that the Gospel of St John was theproduct of a so-called “Johannine Community.” I consider what the late John Ashton said about it in the second edition of his Understanding the Fourth Gospel, because there he self-consciously attempted to rise to recent challenges against that theory. In my treatment, I am aiming to not so much to positively establish that there was not a Johannine community, but – more modestly – that the reasons offered for it by John Ashton are inadequate, and that the idea of the community is so vagueas to be useless.
The notes are here: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/05/12/maronite-meditation-75-what-is-this-about-a-johannine-community/
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For the lecture notes: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/05/05/maronite-meditation-74-internal-evidence-for-the-authorship-of-the-gospel-according-to-st-john/
We continue with our examination of how the late George Beasley-Murray handled the authorship of the Gospel of St John. Last week we saw what he made of the external evidence, that is, the testimony of ancient writers about St John and the Fourth Gospel. We saw how impressive that line of authority was, yet, Beasley-Murray rejected their unanimous witness that St John was the author of that Gospel, and also the Beloved Disciple mentioned in it. I further provided my reasons for saying that Beasley-Murray’s rejection was baseless.Now we shall look at why, on the basis of the internal evidence of the Gospel, that is, what we learn from the terms of the Gospel itself, he concludes that St John had no connection with either the Gospel or the beloved disciple. These arguments do not appear, I suggest, to be any sounder than the earlier ones. We may accept that St John was indeed the evangelist of the Gospel which bears his name, and was the beloved disiple.
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For the lecture notes: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/04/29/maronite-meditation-73-did-st-john-write-his-gospel-external-evidence/
We shall begin to examine the evidence around the authorship of the Gospel of St John. We now take one manageable portion, an argument made by George Beasley-Murray, who wrote the commentary for this Gospel in the “Word Biblical Commentary” series in 1991. From what I can see, the titles in this series form part of what I have called the “Bible studies establishment.” Beasley-Murray wrote: “While this testimony in the churches to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel by the apostle John appears impressive, it becomes evident on examination that it is marked by unwarranted elaborations and confusion concerning those of whom it speaks.”
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The lecture notes are at: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/04/22/maronite-meditation-72-the-date-of-the-epistle-of-st-jude/
It is often asserted that the very earliest Books of the New Testament are the letters of Saint Paul, and in particular either his first Epistle to the Thessalonians or his Epistle to the Galatians. This inclines towards a purported reconstruction of an evolving Christianity, which resembles a Protestant Christianity, whereas a hierarchical Church preaching Jesus, fully divine and fully human, and the system of sacraments, is seen as a late development.
I suggest that there is no reason whatsoever to assert the chronological primacy of St Paul’s epistles as confidently as is done, and to take one concrete example, I shall suggest thatthere is no reason to date the first letter to the Thessalonians or that to the Galatians before the Epistle of Saint Jude.
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See fryuhanna.com for the text https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/04/15/maronite-meditation-71-contemporary-scholars-on-luke-2/
We are going to commence by clearing the ground. We will look at how Scripture is read according to what I call the “Bible studies establishment,” that is, the method taught in universities today. And when we see where and why that sometimes makes great contributions to our understanding, but also sometimes goes wrong, we will have a clear path before us to learn tried, true and traditional ways of reading the Bible. We consider St Luke’s Gospel, 2:22-24: what academics say about it, and the facts of the matter.
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Had the monks of the monastery of St Maroun beensupporting Patriarch Acacius against the Pope as some suggest? That may be the impression which Pope Hormisdas had. One would think that he could not have been utterly unjustified, but the fact that the monks were attacked by Monophysites indicates that they were sincere in their Chalcedonian confession. A middle path is possible: it could be that the monks of St Maroun and hence of Syria II had notbroken with Chalcedon, but neither had they wished to argue with Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and had perhaps maintained a silence in the Acacian schism.
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We examine the further three letters of 517-520: first, from Pope Hormisdas to the Monks of St Maroun, from those monks and others to the bishops of Syria, and from the priests of Antioch and the monastery of St Maroun to the Patriarch John II. They give us a firm foundation for Maronite history history but many of the details are still shrouded in darkness.
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We study the letter which the Monks of St Maroun and other monks wrote to Pope Hormisdas in 517, subsequent to the massacre of about 350 monks by Monophysite s(anti-Chalcedonians). It shows that the Maronite monks were well and truly prominent within 70 years of the foundation of their monastery. It also provides evidence of their acknowledgement of the pre-eminent position of the Pope, and how the Patriarch of Antioch was under the political authority of Constantinople. It also affords some interesting glimpses of the contempoary beliefs about angels.
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We go more deeply into the history of the monastery of St Maroun. It is interesting to examine what we can know about it, and how we know. In the end, we see that it must have been founded in 452 as a bulwark teaching the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon, and destroyed by the year 956.
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We examine the evidence of Procopius, and Abu l-Fida, which taken together, show that it was almost certainly on the Orontes River, near Emesa and Hama. But we also examine some of the other ideas floating around, and critique them where appropriate. I forgot to mention that the Monastery of St Maroun is mentioned in the monks' letter to the Pope of 517 - further evidence that the Monastery predates the year 582.
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We examine the evidence for St Simeon's relation with the Maronites, and close with a summary of Maronite history so far.
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We examine a critique of Theodoret's brief biography of St Maroun, and commence a related enquiry into the life of St Symeon (Simon) the Stylite.
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We study what is known of St Maroun, his actions, age at death, and the significance of the similarity of his life, as reported, to that of St Anthony of Egypt.
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We study the basic texts about early and medieval Maronite history, and of his life.
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We look at Christian Life in Antioch, not least how Scripture was read, i.e. using typology.
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We examine what is known of the Divine Liturgy in Antioch at the time when St Maroun is living.
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