patcleaver

Please give me a lead.

I want to know the facts, but I can not find any mention of Paul's letters by Justin Martyr or Irenaeus.

Where do you think they were first mentioned?

aa5874

I am not trying to gain anything. I am working on a theory that many or all of the letters and writings from the writers called Paul, Peter, James, Jude, John, Ignatius, and Clement were not written at the time stated by Eusebius.
I find it extremely odd that the church writers almost always claimed it was their writings that were being forged by the heretics. These church writers want their readers to believe they were not involved in any fraud or forgery at all.
Experts have been known to disagree about any matter, and people who are not experts in any field have disagreed with experts. Based on my experience as a juror, experts can look at the same data and come up with opposite conclusions. And some experts are paid to contradict other experts.

Now, if someone writes a letter with the intention of making it appear from the 1st century, then they just read 1st century literature and then make stuff up to make their letter appear 1st century.

People involved in counterfeit can do that.
I think I can detect blatant fiction and when I read Church History by Eusebius and the writings of Rufinus, I think I am beginning to get a grasp of how the fraud was done.

Copernicus and Galileo was in oppostion to schorlaship.


You mean like just say the earth is flat like everybody else, as was done before. The people who claimed that the sun was the centre of our universe were thought to be in error.
There are really ho such thing as genuine writings from the letter writer called Paul. The church writers could not even identify who wrote the pastorals.

At one time I thought so, but I am beginning to think it is going to be easier than was originally thought.

DCHindley

Irenaeus either quotes from or alludes to every NT book except one, if I recall correctly. One of the benefits of shelling out the cash for the Ante Nicene Fathers series is that each volume contains an index (not to be found online).

For Irenaeus, under the subject heading "Paul" there are sub sections about Paul being "caught up into the third heavens" (Against Heresies book 2, ch 30, sect 7, referring to 2 Cor 7:2,3,4) and again Paul "sometimes uses words not in their grammatical sequence" (Book 3, Ch 7, sect 2, which specifically mentions the books of Galatians [3:19] and 2nd Thessalonians [2:8]).

The scripture index contains the following number of text citations from each Pauline book (ranging from quotes to allusions to comparisons that can at times be very vague or only possible in the minds of the ANF editors):

ROM = 66
1 COR = 74
2 COR = 15
GAL = 21
EPH = 21
COL = 16
PHIL = 10
1 THE = 3
2 THE = 5

TOTAL = 231

1 TIM = 9
2 TIM = 7
TITUS = 2
PHM = 0

TOTAL = 18

Even if only a fraction of these 249 citations are not the result of the ANF editor's wild imaginations, this clearly shows Paul was known to Irenaeus.

As for Justin, I once cross checked the index of text citations for Pauline books to see if they were, in my humble estimation, quotations, allusions, or comparisons that sometimes were so vague they could only have existed in the minds of the editors, and found:

Confining myself to quotations and allusions, Justin's Dialogue quotes something, though as if a saying of Jesus, that matches 1 Cor 11:19 almost exactly (ch 35), and further seems to allude to Gal 3:13 (Ch 94) and 2 Thes 2:3 (Ch 110) without mentioning Paul by name, so his knowledge of Paul may be shaky, but it is also not out of the question.

FWIW, in Dialogue he most definitely quoted (sometimes freely or loosely, but recognizably) the gospels of Matt (21 times) and Luke (9 times), and in 1st Apology Matt (23 times), Luke (8 times), Mark and John (1 time each). He also quotes (an) unknown gospel(s) 3 times in Dialogue, and once in 1 Apology.

DCH

Sheshbazzar

The First Epistle Of Clement (1 Clement 3:12-16 & and 20:19-22)



And

Thus it may be seen that Clement of Rome circa 96 AD was familiar with at least some of the writings ascribed to Paul, unless someone can sucessfully prove beyond doubt that these passages are latter interpolations. Good luck on that.

Toto

Marcion the heretic published his own version of Paul's letters in the mid-second century, well before Eusebius.

Sheshbazzar

aa5847 It would certainly be to your benefit to take the time to read through Richard Carriers excellent article in the Library of Infidels Archives.
"Formation of The New Testament Canon"
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html

aa5874

There are many things that I cannot accept as found in "The Formation of the New Testament Canon".

My theory is that Jesus of the NT did not exist, and it was a Jesus story writer who first introduce Jesus as a virgin-born God who ascended through the clouds, sometime after the writings of Josephus. All the letter writers, including Paul, Peter, Jude, James, John, Ignatius and Clement came after the Jesus story writer and used the Jesus story to get information about Jesus.

Sheshbazzar

My My, aa, Do you think I believe or accept that Jesus ever existed as a living person?
The examination of the process of the Christians creation of the New Testement canon, as Richard Carrier has done, has -nothing- to do with claiming or supporting any actual existence of Jesus.
If you really took the time to read, and to examine what Richard's article is presenting, you would become aware that he most effectively proves by the writings of the Church Fathers that The New Testement Gospels were not even written until well into the second century, and thus the Christian church was not founded upon those silly stories found in The Gospels and which you objecting to.
The very point is that Clement back then, did not have The Gospels, so could not quote or recite from them, His actual writings as they exist do very little to give any support to Christianity's claims, yet provide very much information to discredit them.
The "Jesus story writer" had not even written the "Jesus story", and these story writer(s) did not "get cooking" until well into the 2nd century.
Yet these Christians believed in something that caused them to act in the irrational ways that they did.
I understand that you would prefer the simple "conspiracy theory" expedient of not having any Christians exist at all until the entire New Testament from beginning to end, was sprung upon them all at once at some very late date, like by having Eusebius & Co create the entire thing out of thin air in just a couple of years.
But several things weigh heavily against such being the case..
First, these Christians were not alone in the world during those first two centuries and their religion and its claims were already creating an impact upon the Jews, causing anti-christian reactions, and anti-christian writings and rulings to be produced in response by contemporary Judaism
Secondly, unless you actually undertake trying to read it all, it is almost impossible to comprehend the enormous volume and diversity of Christian literature that was produced prior to Constantine's coming to power.
He may have been a super-man, but forging two centuries worth of theological writings by hundreds of authors representing dozens of contrary and competing sects and cults, and producing artificial histories and contriving differing theological arguments for each, in just a few years time would have required the performing of a miracle on the par with raising up an entire Legion of dead Roman soldiers.
Eusebius was incompetent enough as it was, and there is simply no practicable way that he could have pulled off such a forgery, not even if he'd had thirty years, and a thousand well trained scribes to assist him.

Yet the one thing every one of these Christ cults had in common, was various forms and versions of the Pauline epistles, coupled with many different, yet mostly oral stories about a first century Jewish preacher.
As Richard Carrier points out, it wasn't until Marcion created his Gnostic gospel, which threatened the teachings and traditions of the majority, that the "orthodox" Christian church was finally forced to write "The Gospels" as a means of counteracting Marcions claims, and maintaining their own hold upon their congregations.

rlogan

No better authority to count on for their status as forgeries

rhutchin

There is support for other views on this issue. For example: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY GW BUTTERWORTH located on goggle books here; http://books.google.com/books?id=KxY...result#PPP1,M1

says-

"The writings of Clement are considerable in extent and remarkable in character. Hardly a page can be found without some quotation from the Old or New Testaments."

Carrier has--

"...no one in antiquity ever saw a completely accurate collection of what would eventually become the 27 New Testament books, until perhaps the time of Origen or Clement of Alexandria (see XII and XIV), and even then most likely only those few scholars would have enjoyed the privilege."