Duvduv

OK, but in scholarly terms it is an ongoing question as how the original recipients of a letter from their own preacher would just happen to be preserved for posterity to the exclusion of all the other preachers, without the recipients knowing that they had to preserve them. And either of two choices exists: either they were all preserved in secret for 100 years coincidentally, OR they were written and preserved for a scant 30-40 years and presto chango appear in the writings of Irenaeus.....

Do they consider it a coincidence that only the followers of this preacher named "Paul" preserved one single epistle (or two) and epistles from Sam, Joe and George didn't survive. UNLESS the epistles were never received and preserved as dogma would suggest, but were written by a staff of writers later on?

The fact that scholars deem some epistles "authentic" and others "unauthentic A, B and C" means they acknowledge the hand of several writers with slightly different agendas and beliefs. The only thing uniting them (leaving aside Hebrews, Revelations and perhaps Romans as alternative sects) was the belief in the indwelling and faith in the RISEN CHRIST (leaving inserted glosses aside) as the *true Gospel* to the exclusion of the *False Gospels* with their stories and fables (as labeled in 1 Timothy).

In my humble opinion, the epistles of all types and "authenticities" were in production throughout the second century, and referred to much later in the 3rd century and perhaps thereafter in the writings of "Irenaeus" and "Tertullian" whose supposed existence back in the 2nd century must be accepted as a dogma of faith in official church history. The same goes for the canonical gospels as we have them.......sometime from the 3rd century or later. As opposed to oral stories floating around and written stories of many types as first evidenced by Justin.

Speaking of Justin, I tend to accept that he was written in the mid-2nd century simply because he addresses the emperor of that specific period AND has no significant interpolations of a mature church of the 4th century. Had it been written later, one can assume the interpolaters could not have resisted the temptation of throwing in many specific references to their gospels and epistles AND the name of their beloved Paul.......

Duvduv

If this is the case, then I have a question that cannot be answered: What was the nature of "Christ" sects going back to the "predecessors" of Justin, perhaps back into the 1st century?? Were they basically secret societies, fellowships, who met for certain recitations and rituals asserting a Christ messiah person of various types?

And how did they come to associate themselves specifically the Jewish scriptures? Was it because of the great antiquity of this monotheistic religion that forced them to take into account as part of the platonic ideology to some degree or another - having an Enochian savior, a Davidic savior, a celestial savior, a Logos savior??

tanya

Hi aa5874,

Elaine Pagels is one of the authorities on Nag Hammadi manuscripts. She has written a book, called gnostic Paul, I believe, and in her book, I read something about the Jung Codex.
I believe you can find it on page 8 of the google preview.

The Jung Codex is apparently further divided into parts, one of which I have looked at, the "tripartite tractate".

I have no idea when the original texts were composed, or by whom....I also do not know when the translations into Coptic were accomplished.

Sorry I could not be more helpful....

Toto

You are not the first to wonder about this.

Vrirdar on Ancient Epistolary Fictions

A review of Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in Greek Literature (or via: amazon.co.uk)

aa5874

So there is no way that you can confirm what you said about the Valentinans and Paul.


There is simply no non-apologetic corroboration for Paul and the Pauline writings before the mid-2nd century.

Duvduv

If the canonical gospels and epistles did not really appear until the third century, and if Irenaeus and Tertullian included writings (to be taken with a huge grain of salt for their accuracy) not until into the third century along with Origen, then what exactly was the religion of Christ believers during the second century?

I suppose it could be argued that the First Apology of Justin also was written later, except for a couple of points: a) why would a later writer specifically address Justin's audience as Antoninus Pius, and b) wouldn't a later writer feel the need to specifically reference the canonical gospels (as withi Irenaeus) and a mention of Paul and epistles?

If the epistles emerged later (including "authentic," "non-authentic" and pastorals) then the non-historical Jesus religion of the epistles and the gospel sects emerged independently of each other since Justin recounted HJ tales but not Paulist ones, which are deemed to have preceded the HJ beliefs.

Justin basically describes a sect in the second century that was like a fellowship meeting on Sundays for rituals and readings or preaching from oral traditions. One can assume that the paulist sect operated in a similar fashion during the second century. However, there might be enough that is similar between the two to assume that they both emerged from an original common source that had branched out very early, meaning prior to Justin's time, but in a scenario where they did not know about each other given the fact that Justin did not allude to Paul or the ideas of the epistles (i.e. indwelling of a non-historical risen Christ).

Duvduv

If the reference in Romans to descent from King David were an important and original belief of the sect, one has to wonder why it is not mentioned frequently throughout the epistles. It would appear that the original celestial Christ sect did not place any importance on this as compared with the gospels, and this passing and brief mention is merely an interpolation.

Indeed, the very notion of a Davidic messiah is a rabbinic tradition, which was obviously adopted by the author of gospel of Matthew. Other Jews did not share that belief. Ironically all the sects of the NT gospel texts opposed the "pharisees," as did Justin, but they and he did accept their concept of the Davidic messiah, and one must wonder why this was the case, and how it happened.

Duvduv

If Justin was writing in the middle to late second century and believed in a historical Jesus of only a century or so earlier, the question can be asked as to HOW he knew that the Jesus figure was a historical figure, especially since his *proofs* for the historical Jesus are from biblical verses!

Duvduv

I read that article, but I was actually wondering what kind of explanation traditional scholars have as to how and why the recipients knew to preserve such lengthy letters, and how they just so happened to get collected together, yet no apologist can even cite a single excerpt from an entire book supposedly written by Justin against Marcion, nor for that matter is there even a single direct citation from a single written source of Marcion...The idea that these epistles were original as claimed, and somehow preserved sounds mighty fishy to me.....

aa5874

Justin Martyr did NOT ever argue for an 'historical Jesus'. The 'historical Jesus" means Jesus was a man and was Fathered by a man.

Examine "Dialogue with Trypho" Justin Martyr's Jesus was NON-human.

The Quest for the Historical Jesus is the Quest for a human Jesus.

You won't find a human Jesus in the writings of Justin Martyr only MYTH Jesus, born of a virgin WITHOUT sexual reproduction.

Justin even claimed his Jesus was NO different to Greek/Roman Mythology.

"First Apology" 21 It is EXTREMELY important that you understand that Justin Martyr's Jesus was NON-human or NON-historical.