Freethought & Rationalism Archive

andrewcriddle · 04-07-2013, 08:33 AM

Onr argument for a 1st century CE date for the letters attributed to Paul is that they do not use the word Christian or derivatives.

On the one hand, we know from Pliny at the latest that the word was customary/standard in the very early 2nd century.
The amount of text in the letters attributed to Paul is too great for the absence of Christian to be a result of chance. Either some at least of the letters were written before the term became customary or it is being avoided.
Avoidance of the term Christian in the Gospels is understandable; the early Church was aware that it would be anachronistic during the ministry of Jesus. However from Acts we discover that it was believed (probably wrongly) that the term went back to the very early Church. Hence the term would not be avoided by a 2nd century pseudo-Paul.
But the term does not appear hence some at least of the Pauline letters are first century.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller · 04-07-2013, 08:49 AM

Very good point. I think the letters are first century. But isn't Paul's use of "Judaism" in Galatians unusual? Couldn't that be argued to be more in keeping with second century terminology?

aa5874 · 04-07-2013, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Onr argument for a 1st century CE date for the letters attributed to Paul is that they do not use the word Christian or derivatives.

On the one hand, we know from Pliny at the latest that the word was customary/standard in the very early 2nd century.
The amount of text in the letters attributed to Paul is too great for the absence of Christian to be a result of chance. Either some at least of the letters were written before the term became customary or it is being avoided.
Avoidance of the term Christian in the Gospels is understandable; the early Church was aware that it would be anachronistic during the ministry of Jesus. However from Acts we discover that it was believed (probably wrongly) that the term went back to the very early Church. Hence the term would not be avoided by a 2nd century pseudo-Paul.
But the term does not appear hence some at least of the Pauline letters are first century.

Andrew Criddle

Your post contains several glaring flaws.

The Pauline writer should have known people named Christians if he did evangelise the Roman Empire since the time of King Aretas c 37-41.

Paul himself should have been called a Christian as he was supposedly an Apostle of and followed the teachings of the resurrected Christus.

Based on Tertullian there were persons named Christians, followers of the teachings of Christus, during the time of Tiberius since at least before 37 CE and up to the time of Nero c 68 CE

Effectively, there were Christians even before Paul based on Tertullian.

Tertullian's Apology 5

Quote:

Tiberius accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity, brought the matter before the senate, with his own decision in favour of Christ...

Tertullian's Apology 5

Quote:

Consult your histories; you will there find that Nero was the first who assailed with the imperial sword the Christian sect, making progress then especially at Rome.

Examine Tacitus Annals. It would appear to corroborate Tertullian's Apology.
Tacitus' Annals 15.44

Quote:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome...

Based on the evidence your argument is extremely weak. It is not logical that Paul a supposed Christian did NOT know of Christians from the time of King Aretas to the time of Nero.

And further, if we employ your methodology of simply dating the Pauline writings because they do NOT mention Christians then when we apply your methodology to the writings of Justin Martyr, Aristides, Municius Felix, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras and Tatian then the Pauline letters were composed After c 150 CE.

None of those writers mentioned the Pauline letters and they show that Christianity in the mid 2nd century or later developed without the Pauline letters.

Bernard Muller · 04-07-2013, 01:54 PM

Paul did not use the word "Christian(s)" because the word was likely used for Jewish Christians (as stated in Acts 11:26, where the word "Christian" was attributed to Jewish Christians).
Paul did not want him and his followers to be put in the same bag as those who thought the Kingdom of God would come on earth, with a King (Jesus), at the detriment of the Roman empire!
Maybe that belief was tolerated by the Romans for Jews (because justified in the scriptures), but for Gentiles, that would have been too dangerous.
That's why Paul had the Kingdom in heaven and reached through raptures by dead & alive elects. Also Paul was not heavy and certainly vague about God's wrath to come. And in Romans 13:1-8, Paul asked his audience to comply with Roman authorities and to pay tax.

Cordially, Bernard

aa5874 · 04-07-2013, 02:44 PM

I will expose another flaw in the claim that Pauline writings were 1st century if they do not mention Christians.

It is accepted that the Pauline corpus is a product of Multiple editors.

The Epistle to the Ephesians and the Pastorals do NOT mention Christians but they are considered to have been written after the death of Nero when it is claimed he persecuted and killed Christians.

Now that Scholars have deduced that the Pauline Corpus had multiple editors it is now demonstrated that Epistles that do NOT mention the name Christian were written AFTER the name Christian should have already been known according to apologetics.

andrewcriddle · 04-08-2013, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Very good point. I think the letters are first century. But isn't Paul's use of "Judaism" in Galatians unusual? Couldn't that be argued to be more in keeping with second century terminology?

IIUC there are parallels in 2 Maccabees e.g. chapter 2 verse 21

Quote:

] And the manifest signs that came from heaven unto those that behaved themselves manfully to their honour for Judaism: so that, being but a few, they overcame the whole country, and chased barbarous multitudes,

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle · 04-08-2013, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

I will expose another flaw in the claim that Pauline writings were 1st century if they do not mention Christians.

It is accepted that the Pauline corpus is a product of Multiple editors.

The Epistle to the Ephesians and the Pastorals do NOT mention Christians but they are considered to have been written after the death of Nero when it is claimed he persecuted and killed Christians.

Now that Scholars have deduced that the Pauline Corpus had multiple editors it is now demonstrated that Epistles that do NOT mention the name Christian were written AFTER the name Christian should have already been known according to apologetics.

The Pastorals are so short in total that the non-use of Christian may be a matter of chance. Ephesians is probably late 1st century.

There would be a period of time between the invention of the term Christian (probably as you suggest under Nero) and its widespread use.

Andrew Criddle

Bernard Muller · 04-08-2013, 11:50 AM

The word Christian(s) happens in Acts (11:26 & 26:28) and 1 Peter (4:16).
I think 1 Peter (which was known by Papias) was written around 80 and Acts around 90 (justification here).

Cordially, Bernard

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 12:44 PM

There is a real scholar who used to come around here a while back - Daniel O McLellan - who is arguing that 2 Maccabees was either redacted or written in the second century CE.

Quote:

I just finished reading Steve Mason’s article “Methods and Categories: Judaism and Gospel” (pointed out by Jim Davila), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Like Jim, I also appreciated the final section on methods, since I am a graduate student currently grappling with dozens of different methodologies in the research I do. One of Steve’s first points, however, touches upon a topic I’ve been working with on and off for the last three years, and I thought I would comment. It doesn’t have to do with categories so much as 2 Maccabees. He states, based on the paucity of the word Ιουδαισμος in Jewish literature and its proliferation in later Christian literature, that

we seem to have only three options. (Perhaps I am missing some.) Either (a) the author of 2 Maccabees coined Ioudaismos to mean Judaism and experimented with it, but the experiment did not catch on until the Christians revived it; or (b) it did catch on, but by some fluke it does not surface in any other literature of the period, though it was in wide use; or (c) the author of 2 Maccabees did not use Ioudaismos to mean Judaism as a system, but something else. Later authors found no comparable occasion to use it until the Christians Paul and Ignatius, whose authoritative status prompted later Christians to find ways of using it.

I am aware this does not engage the author’s primary thesis or the theme of his paper, but I would suggest that one possibility was missed. I argued in a paper presented at the 2008 SBL Rocky Mountain/Great Plains regional meeting that the final redaction and dissemination of 2 Maccabees took place in the Common Era, after the martyrdoms of Eleazar and the mother and her seven sons were added. I’d like to share two or three key points of that discussion.

In addition to the use of the word Ιουδαισμος, the phrase “King of the Universe” (ο του κοσμου βασιλευς) in 2 Macc 7:9 fits much better in the Common Era, after the Hebrew word עולם developed the meaning “universe.” The phrase appears in no other literature, Greek or Hebrew, until this shift in meaning in the first century CE (I discuss this issue briefly here).

As has long been noted, the martyrdoms of Eleazar and the seven sons seems to be an interpolation to the flowing narrative. The expiatory nature of the sacrifice of the seven sons in chapter 7 also seems to conflict with the explanation the rest of the narrative gives for the return of God’s favor. In 2 Macc 8:1–5 the impetus is the intercessory prayer offered by Judas. This fits with the literature of the time period (Daniel, 1 Enoch, Baruch, 1 Maccabees), but chapter 7′s sacrifice fits better in the Common Era. The intercessory prayer also specifically mentions Antiochus’ atrocities up to the Eleazar pericope, but omits Eleazar’s death and those of the mother and the seven sons. The two stories seem totally foreign to the rest of the narrative.

Finally, several texts from the Common Era develop a tradition about a parent and seven sons facing death rather than betraying their ancestral laws. The tradition begins in a simple form with The Assumption of Moses 1:9, from the early first century CE. In this story it is a father, Taxo, facing the Romans, and the death of the seven sons is not described. Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 14.429) expands upon this tradition by describing the death of the sons at the hands of the father. In Pesiq. Rab. 43 the story takes a form similar to 2 Maccabees, but is typologically earlier. b. Git. 57b is roughly parallel to 2 Maccabees 7, and Midr. Lam. 1:16 is the most developed of all (even giving the mother a name).

2 Maccabees 7 fits confmortably into this developing type-scene if we date it to the late first or early second century CE, which also ameliorates issues with the use of expiatory ideology, the word “Judaism,” and the phrase “King of the Universe.” Rather than a response to Greek aggression, I believe the stories arise from the acute periods of Roman persecution, and are meant to galvanize revolutionary Jews to remain faithful to the “laws of their fathers” even in the face of death.

andrewcriddle · 04-08-2013, 01:15 PM

IIUC the argument is that the original form of 2 Maccabees is pre-Christian but that chapter 7 was added around 100 CE.

Even if this is true it would not prima-facie imply that the use of the word Judaism in the work is late. The two examples come from what seems to be the early strata of the text.

Andrew Criddle

04-07-2013, 08:33 AM	#1
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	Christians and the dating of Paul Onr argument for a 1st century CE date for the letters attributed to Paul is that they do not use the word Christian or derivatives. On the one hand, we know from Pliny at the latest that the word was customary/standard in the very early 2nd century. The amount of text in the letters attributed to Paul is too great for the absence of Christian to be a result of chance. Either some at least of the letters were written before the term became customary or it is being avoided. Avoidance of the term Christian in the Gospels is understandable; the early Church was aware that it would be anachronistic during the ministry of Jesus. However from Acts we discover that it was believed (probably wrongly) that the term went back to the very early Church. Hence the term would not be avoided by a 2nd century pseudo-Paul. But the term does not appear hence some at least of the Pauline letters are first century. Andrew Criddle

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

04-07-2013, 08:49 AM	#2
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Very good point. I think the letters are first century. But isn't Paul's use of "Judaism" in Galatians unusual? Couldn't that be argued to be more in keeping with second century terminology?

04-07-2013, 01:54 PM	#4
Bernard Muller Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 927	Paul did not use the word "Christian(s)" because the word was likely used for Jewish Christians (as stated in Acts 11:26, where the word "Christian" was attributed to Jewish Christians). Paul did not want him and his followers to be put in the same bag as those who thought the Kingdom of God would come on earth, with a King (Jesus), at the detriment of the Roman empire! Maybe that belief was tolerated by the Romans for Jews (because justified in the scriptures), but for Gentiles, that would have been too dangerous. That's why Paul had the Kingdom in heaven and reached through raptures by dead & alive elects. Also Paul was not heavy and certainly vague about God's wrath to come. And in Romans 13:1-8, Paul asked his audience to comply with Roman authorities and to pay tax. Cordially, Bernard

04-07-2013, 02:44 PM	#5
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	I will expose another flaw in the claim that Pauline writings were 1st century if they do not mention Christians. It is accepted that the Pauline corpus is a product of Multiple editors. The Epistle to the Ephesians and the Pastorals do NOT mention Christians but they are considered to have been written after the death of Nero when it is claimed he persecuted and killed Christians. Now that Scholars have deduced that the Pauline Corpus had multiple editors it is now demonstrated that Epistles that do NOT mention the name Christian were written AFTER the name Christian should have already been known according to apologetics.

04-08-2013, 11:50 AM	#8
Bernard Muller Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 927	The word Christian(s) happens in Acts (11:26 & 26:28) and 1 Peter (4:16). I think 1 Peter (which was known by Papias) was written around 80 and Acts around 90 (justification here). Cordially, Bernard

04-08-2013, 01:15 PM	#10
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	IIUC the argument is that the original form of 2 Maccabees is pre-Christian but that chapter 7 was added around 100 CE. Even if this is true it would not prima-facie imply that the use of the word Judaism in the work is late. The two examples come from what seems to be the early strata of the text. Andrew Criddle

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.