jjramsey

But this assumes that these are our only two choices. There is another choice: the content of passage A is roughly correct, but was embellished by purported prophecy after the fact.

In an old thread, I pointed this out:

rlogan

You refer to what is left after we winnow the field of forgeries by different hands, in a context of a huge array of gospels, letters and so forth that were rejected in the official canon but demonstrate how pervasive pious fraud was - after the long history of Jewish writings also not written by the alleged author (eg Moses) or in the period proclaimed within.

So you are left with some "core" Paulina that is written by the same person - and that can be said about Lord of the Rings or Rocky movies.

What do you mean by this, exactly? There are almost no historical markers whatever. Do you mean there are towns mentioned that actually exist? Like in Gone With the Wind or any other novel doing so? What?

I'm not sure what value this is to the discussion. So what?

What do you mean "universally"? Christianity is essentially invisible by your own account in the first century. Who is it that is "agreeing" or "disagreeing" about "authenticity"?

We don't hear of any Paul until Marcion in the second century. We're a century removed from the alleged events by this time. Ultimately, a decision is made about what is "authentic" and canon is established in the third century. So it is more a matter of retroactive authentication of a limited set amongst them, and even then we have disagreement about which of those are from the same hand today.

Well we can all just throw out what we feel is "more likely" without actually demonstrating anything, can't we?

The problem is that you have a premise lying behind all of this that makes for circular reasoning. If you begin with the assumption of a historical Jesus and thereby assume apostles and so on down the line - then of course it is "reasonable" in your mind.

But you don't get to do that when there is no evidence other than forgery (eg Testimonium Flavianum) and the self-witness of the bible.

Didymus

Another explanation might be that Jesus was not the miracle worker of the gospels, but an obscure, deranged man whose life - and crucifixion - bore no resemblance at all to Mark's conjectural, derivative tale of piety, suffering and redemption.

There would be no reason for the crucifixion of such a man to be noted, except by a few wild eyed messianists, e.g., Paul, with a propensity to see God's hand in all things.

Didymus

Malachi151

But even Paul didn't witness a real live execution. Given all of the other information, its much more likely that the story evolved out of other stories and beliefs.

What does this unknown Jesus contribute to the story? That he was crucified and his name was Jesus? There were probably hundreds of people named Jesus crucified in the first century.

I'll see your unknown Jesus crucifixion and raise you Psalm 22, Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Maccabees, The Martyrdom of Isiah, and The Book of Enoch....

DramaQ

Not really. You're still relying on the claims of the story itself to add weight to the story. Specifically, that it could have happened because Jesus was clever enough to MAKE it happen.

You suggested that "It's also possible that the Passion was done in deliberate imitation of Psalm 22; given Jesus' background, he should have been able to quote it easily"

As you said yourself, "the difference is between 'possible' and 'plausible.'"

While it is POSSIBLE that a Jesus well-versed in the Hebrew Bible could have deliberately manipulated events to mirror “prophesy”, is this really PLAUSIBLE? Isn't the much simpler answer that the story was WRITTEN to parallel prophesy?

Malachi151

How exactly was Jesus supposed to manipulate the Romans to cast lots for his clothing? If he could do that then why even bother with this explanation and just say that it was indeed prophesy fulfillment.

Plus, the crucifixion scene doesn't just pull from Psalm 22:

Isaiah 50:
6 I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.

Amos 2:
11 I also raised up prophets from among your sons and Nazirites from among your young men. Is this not true, people of Israel?' declares the LORD. 12 'But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets not to prophesy.

Psalm 22:
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
...
7 All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
8 "He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him."
...
16 Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I can count all my bones;
people stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.

Psalm 69:
Insults have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Amos 8:
8 "Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? ... 9 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Ezekiel 37:
12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.' "

Ideologist

I'm sorry if I'm misinterpreting you, but I'm not entirely sure as to what you mean.

Yes, certainly, removing forgeries will leave a core that is not a forgery (if still subject to interpolation). Yes, some if not most of those forgeries are pious frauds in the tradition of Jewish authors. Yes, the core of the Pauline materials is relatively small.

How does this make these remaining Pauline materials fake, again?

Let us use as our example the Epistle to the Galatians.

- It uses very much the same style as the Epistles to the Corinthians and the Epistle to the Romans, which are also generally undisputed as being Pauline
- Its perspective on the Council of Jerusalem is inconsistent with deliberate forgery, being significantly divergent from that of Acts; a forger of any credibility (and this seems to be an astonishingly good one, given its reputation) would likely have stayed close to the Acts version to give it credibility.
- The topic it addresses (the inclusion of Gentiles) is completely settled by the period forgery-advocates date it. A forgery of this would be odd at best.

If they were inconsistent in their theology it would suggest different authorship; if two of the authentic Pauline epistles unambiguously disputed each other, there would be reasonable basis for rejecting one or the other as a forgery.

Every Church Father who makes any mention of the Pauline epistles includes them; we have quotations of them from Irenaeus, Tertuillian, and Clement of Alexandria among others, and they're in both the Marcion canon and the Muratorian fragment. In other words; if the Early Church didn't accept these, they didn't accept anything.

And "Early Church" is a broad term, extending until the Council of Nicaea.

Not true; we have quotations of several of the epistles in the works of Ignatius of Antioch, and several more in those of Polycarp of Smyrna.

Ignatius, Polycarp, and others would have either met the Apostles or their immediate successors; it's reasonable to believe that they would have a good idea of what was authentic and what was not.

The canon as a list was not established until the third century, no. However, the fact that we have many of these works being taken authoritatively by credible Church Fathers strongly suggests their authenticity.

Okay, let's go at this from the assumption that Jesus and the Apostles were false, and that their works are second-century forgeries.

This still means that the works of every other credible Church Father are either forgeries are suspect. And it is still more reasonable to believe that they simply did exist.

The reason I'm not demonstrating that Paul of Tarsus or Jesus existed is because it's simply not possible, with the sources we have, to demonstrate that they existed if you don't accept their writings as at least distantly grounded in truth. This is true about nearly all literary figures of the classical world. The reason we don't have citations for their existence isn't necessarily because these references never existed, but simply because they weren't preserved. This is true of most things, and it's the unfortunate job of a historian to work in spite of this.

Didymus

Precisely. If we play with language a bit, we get: They SAW an unknown Jesus crucified, and the circumstances of that crucifixion RAISED in their minds Psalm 22, the Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Maccabees, the martyrdom of Isaiah, and the Book of Enoch.

Of course, as you pointed out, such an obscure human Jesus doesn't contribute much to the story. But the crucifixion of such a man does explain the origins of the religion without having to resort either to a purely imaginative mythical figure or to a historical figure whose biography was obviously fabricated from passages in the Septuagint.

Didymus