lpetrich

From this thread and this article in Bede's site:

The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64, are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh. The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.... The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies, for example Hammurabi, David, Socrates would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man.

I had criticized that argument in detail in that aforementioned thread; I wonder what Will Durant meant by "tests of authenticity". Does anyone else here know?

spin

Are these tests of authenticity not just the same self-serving criteria found here called "Criteria of Authenticity"? These are nothing directly to do with history, but are attempts to deal with the veracity of the text while never crossing over into the realm of history and its requisite needs for real world evidence.


spin

Vorkosigan

We've discussed this passage many times. I think its stupidity is admirably summed up in the conclusion: "After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man."

spin

Some of Durant's comments are worth further thought:

The claim to antedating 64 CE is not substantiated. So far the only historical item for attempting to date Paul's letters that I've seen relates to erroneous information about Paul being in Damascus at the time of a governor appointed by the Nabataean king, Aretas (who could only have been Aretas III, who had hold of Damascus in 85 BCE).

Whether Paul wrote the letters or not is eventually inconsequential in that there is some consistency across a goup of those called Pauline so, whether we say Paul or "Paul" doesn't matter. The big problem is to decide what is attributed to this author, as texts kept by xians tend gain xianizing features.

NT gains tidbits like trinitarian doctrine, Hebrew bible gains interpretative translations such as "virgin" instead of "young woman", pseudepigrapha gains xianizing chapters and other insertions, Josephus and perhaps other non-xian writers also get interference. It's very hard to expect otherwise when the literature was prinicpally maintained by xians.

So there is no reason to believe that the Pauline corpus is any different in its integrity. We already have obviously pseudo-Pauline works in the nt apocrypha and there are severe doubts about such books as Timothy x2, Titus, Colossians and Ephesians. No-one seems to prepared to doubt elements internal to accepted Pauline works.

What history can be gained from the Pauline corpus seems extremely hard to justify.

This is a quite interesting statement in itself, for we don't learn very much about a portrayable Jesus in the gospels. When the historical jesusers get through there is less. The main content to this life is what comes through as synoptic material and does not represent mulitple attestation.

This is highly misleading, for while figures with not substantial historical evidence to support them directly would fade, others would start to surface, figures whose bodies we have from Egypt, figures whose statues we have in Rome, Greece and Persia, figures whose ascribed historical deeds can be manifested in their archaeological heritage and preserved eipgraphy. Can anyone doubt the historicity of either Ramses II or Hatusilas III, who fought a battle at Qadesh of which we have two separate versions, one in Hittite and one in Egyptian, of whom we have a treaty in two versions, of whom we have a series of letters directly from the period, both of whom have a historicity which the historical jesus movement cannot even hope for.

This type of logic I find threadbare in its attempt to project modern ideas onto the methodologies of ancient authors whose aims we cannot necessarily know.

Especially if you assume one generation. History doesn't allow us to make such assumptions.


spin

spin

I wouldn't call it stupidity, more like gullibility. Apologetics have been around for a long time and are aimed at convincing people of the rightness of the religion, and as rational demands have become more acute, so have apologetics in their efforts to maintain that rightness.


spin

Radcliffe Emerson

removed

Vinnie

Use of the embarrassment criterion reeks of amatuer hour.

In my HJ methodology artickle when discussing embarrassment I brought up the cry of dereliction on the cross.

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/jesusmethod.html

Meier then cites a perfect example: the cry of dereliction where Jesus says on the cross: "my God, My God, why have you orsaken me"? Some exegetes (presumably amatuers) might be quick to pronounce this tradition embarrassing but as Meier and other scholars have shown, the embarrassment criteria does not apply here. As Meier wrote, "True, the cry of dereliction does not fit the later theological agendas of Luke or John. But form-critical studies of the Passion Narrative show that the earliest stages of the passion tradition used the OT psalms of lamentation, especially the psalsm of the suffering just man, as a primary tool for theological interpretation of the narrative." (ibid).

This means, far from having a positive criteria (embarrassing and unlikely to be created) we have a negative one: it goes very much with the grain of the later evangelists and this negative criteria forces us to be skeptical of it. Like all other criteria, we have to tread very catiously in a meticulous fashion. Being attentive to detail is a must.

There are a number of other errors i nthere as well but I'm not going to delineate them.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

I would be very interested in the specific passage(s) the author believes supports this claim. To my knowledge, no such reference exists.

Toto

I think he is referring to 1 Cor 15:8 "and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally [or untimely] born" - which seems to imply that Paul regrets missing out on the real Jesus, if you do not know what it actually means.

"Abnormally born" is ektrwma, sometimes translated "untimely born". It is also translated as "abortion". The "abortion" is a gnostic concept explained
here:

The author of that passage assumed that Paul must have been a Gnostic speaking to other Gnostics. But that passage could have been interpolated by later Gnostics. In any case, Paul is not speaking enviously of those who knew Jesus, but of his own spiritual imperfection that must be cured and redeemed by the spiritual Christ.

Amaleq13

Toto,

Thanks for the explanation and refutation in one package.

I love combo deals!