spin

Cutting through your crap, you are now able to understand that your assumption was without basis.

To save typing what you should have read earlier:

(This "we", which includes Paul, clearly doesn't "refer[] to the Jewish Christians that are guilty of the hypocrisy..." unless you'd like to say that he is guilty of hypocrisy.)

Thank you for the acknowledgement at least. Mani, building on an existent basis of christianity and zoroastrianism, forged a new religion. No-one would think of him as a christian but there are certainly christian inspired elements in religion. The strict dualism comes directly from zoroastrianism and the result is something else.

Paul, building on messianic Judaism and Anatolian mystery religion, also formed a new religion, or so it seems, judging on what he indicates. His messiah is only one in name and tradition. He is a savior of the mysteries. Paul, if the Acts report is correct, came from Tarsus in Cilicia -- Cilicia was a home of the earliest Mithra mysteries. Obviously Paul's stuff was derivative of what came before, but it only needs to be background derivative, not consciously absorbed, not consciously following any previous savior christ Jesus. (The name Jesus is suitable for the Jewish savior, ie "Yah saves".)

If you imagine Marcion coming back to his supporters in say Pontus after his conflict in Rome, how do you think he would package his relations with the Roman christians? (See if you can think about this: you might find a vague analogy with Paul and his antagonists who were reputedly pillars.)


spin

andrewcriddle

It is missing in several of the earliest manuscripts of Luke. (IMVHO it is part of the original text of Luke but it is a difficult textual decision.)

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Believers do not need evidence for their belief. It is not good to base one's opinion on company that wants to go to heaven to be rewarded by Jesus.

There is no corroborative source or Pauline writing that excluded 1 Corinthians 15. There is no evidence that the Pauline writer could not have written 1 Corinthians 15. It is certainly a case of futility to continue to make a claim of interpolation when no proof or evidence can ever be shown but mere speculations to get a desired pre-conceived result.

1 Corinthians 15 as found in the NT is the information that show most convincingly that the Pauline writer wrote fiction and is not credible. And further this chapter is an indication that the Pauline writing was done after the Memoirs of the Apostles, gMatthew and after the writing of Justin Martyr.

Justin Martyr wrote about the stolen body story as found in the Memoirs up to the middle of the 2nd century and never mentioned any thing about a Pauline writer, his epistles, churches, doctrine and that over five people saw Jesus alive after he was supposed to be dead making Justin's stolen body story to be insignificant.


Until it can be shown that

1. The Pauline writer could not have written 1 Corinthians 15 or

2. 1 Corinthians did not have a 15th chapter

then all we have a just futile speculations.

Doug Shaver

Regardless of deficiencies in evidence for interpolation (and I'm not saying there are or are not any deficiencies), there can be only one kind of evidence against interpolation. That would be an extant manuscript way earlier than 200 CE that contained the disputed passage.

DCHindley

I think I understand your position now - "Don't suppose interpolation unless there is textual evidence that the suspected part of the verse was missing in some mss."

That is all well and fine to an extent, but ignores the issue of the publication process in antiquity. It is clear by the fact that virtually all mss that have multiple Pauline books use almost identical names for the individual works (with very minor variations), and almost identical book order (with the mss that don't conform showing some dependence on an exemplar that did conform, showing they were arranged differently for other reasons), tells us that the NT books of Paul were originally published as an edition, and all copies derive from this original edition.

The editors of an edition make final decisions about what to leave in or remove from original material, and may rearrange passages to conform to the editor's notion of style or presentation of information. So, we may not have any textual evidence for the proposed interpolation or omission. However, these changes often leave tell-tale traces behind (seams, differences of spelling or words choice, etc) known as "aporia." Literary analysis is designed to detect these aporia and propose an explanation for their origin.

In the case of Gal 1:18 - 2:14) we do have such aporia, and that is in the variations in the use of the name "Peter" versus "Cephas" between mss. This suggests that "Peter" has been substituted for "Cephas," or vice versa, in the transmission history after its initial publication. Why might this be important for the possibility of an interpolation? The awkward mixture of Peter and Cephas is an "aporia," one serious enough to have been noted by, and confusing to, copyists. This is more than just some style issue.

Verse	GNT	TR	KHFAS	PETROS
1 COR 1:12	KHFA	KHFA	ALL
1 COR 3:22	KHFAS	KHFAS	ALL
1 COR 9:5	KHFAS	KHFAS	ALL
1 COR 15:5	KHFA	KHFA	ALL
GAL 1:18	KHFAN	PETRON	p46, 01, 02, 03	06, 012, 018, 020
GAL 2:7	PETROS	PETROS		ALL
GAL 2:8	PETRW	PETRW		ALL
GAL 2:9	KHFAS	KHFAS	01, 03, 04, 018, 020	p46, 06, 012
GAL 2:11	KHFAS	PETROS	01, 02, 03, 04, 015	p46, 06, 012, 018, 020
GAL 2:14	KHFA	PETRW	p46, 01, 02, 03, 04, 015	06, 012, 018, 020

Those who wish to preserve this section entire have proposed that the statement from the Jerusalem authority allowing Paul to present the gospel to gentiles, mentioned in Acts, used "Peter," and Paul mixed the language of that document into his own constructions, in which he prefers the name "Cephas," but without openly indicating he is using a source. This would require the assumption that the readers would have recognized the language, having already been aware of the decree, and this assumption or the assumption that Paul would have quoted the decree without indicating it, thus weakening the value of quoting it in the first place, is what critics of this defensive approach have questioned.

The issue of whether 1 Cor 15 contains an interpolation must rest on subject matter, as vss 3b-8 appear to be some sort of confession of faith worked into the text. This is evidence based on content, not on textual variants.

15:3b that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me


DCH

Chaucer

Again, like many others on these questions, you confound evidence and proof. A discovered ms. of the 1st or early 2nd century that would contain disputed passages would be proof of the authenticity of such passages, while the general absence of any versions that would lack disputed passages merely furnishes us evidence of authenticity, which is less persuasive than proof.

Chaucer

sschlichter

I have noticed things are obvious to you that are not obvious. One other possibility that does not require the assumption of interpolation on demand is that Paul met with the pillars in Jerusalem, (as he said) and they did not attempt to add anything to his message of justifcation by faith (as he said). on the contrary, they acknowledged the purpose that God has set him apart for to take this message to the gentiles (as he did).

This does not require any assumptions of interpolation, it does not require nearly as much imagination, and it is collaborated in other books. I understand you might have a lot of time invested but I think, in a few years you will regret that you hung on the mystery religion thing as long as you did.

sschlichter

this appears to be an appeal to an appeal to authority. Personally, I would commend you for consulting with authorities and people trained on such matters (although, I think you picked out a chosen minority). spin, on the other hand will likely scold you for such an appealas he did me. it is possible that you may slide since you included him in the appeal.

I am curious what process you used to locate and accept these authorities but disregard the ones that I appealed to.

bingo!!! this is the actual reason for the accusation of interpolation. it is called a presupposition. Why not just reject the message and discard Paul as a loon. Why the need to alter and fabricate?

spin

Here's what followed the "Obviously":

So you don't think that Paul's stuff is obviously derivative of what came before?? Or are you instead just going off on one of your tangents not paying any attention to what you are supposed to be commenting on? The continuation suggests the latter:

As this doesn't sink in to your head, I'll say it again:

Actually, 2:7-8 don't change very much

And you have totally misunderstood the fact that I drew your attention to the interpolation. You don't need it:

And I never said it did. It is just a reference to something that I don't accept as kosher, Gal 2:7-8, and have argued long about its veracity, but you should still be able to get what you are trying to get from the context.

I can appreciate its appeal to you.

Books which you will not do your work about to make them relevant.

How would you know, when you haven't invested any time into analyzing Paul? You've shown a complete disinterest in understanding Paul from his circumstances in comparison to his comments. You won't look at people in similar positions to Paul. All you've done here is rehearse relatively ordinary apologetics, using texts at face value when you don't enter into contextualizing them. You indicate that you don't know that various passages of Paul have long been analyzed as questionable and cite them pretending that they should be taken as they are written.


spin

sschlichter

Why couldn't this speak to a uniformity of practice. there are certianly other indications that would lend themselves to this conclusion.

there is indication that this eclecticism did not typically occur during the first centuries of the church. the first christians were jews and did no such thing to their scriptures as Jews. Jewish christian scribes would have emulated Jewish scribal practices. There is evidence among earliest manuscripts that this is the case such as indications of uniformity of divine titles that is more complex than would be useful if not standardized. many of the early manuscripts contain aids, such as breathing marks indicating they were used for public reading in worship.

This is typically quite arbitrary based more on the thoughts and dispositions of the anlayst than anything else (as evidence in this thread). A mythicist will interpolate thusly, a HJer will bend it this way, a Christian that way. it is a plain waste of time.

No other ancient text has anywhere near the number of mss and short timespan relative to the event than nearly all the books of the NT. we have better copies today of the NT than Alexandrian textual 'critics' had for the Iliad. they would have foamed at the mouth to have what we have available to us. This is 2000 years later and nobody feels the need to start chopping the Iliad up based on eclectic reasoning and whyms of what it should have said.

it does not seem strange to me that he would be referred to by both names since one is a given name and the other was a name later givien to him. I would not be surprised if the name assigned to him was used in conjunction with his post.

However, it appears to me that there is no confusion over which name was used in Gal 2:7, 8 and therefore no reason to make assumptions on what text should not be there.