Freethought & Rationalism Archive

darstec · 05-09-2006, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

Getting back to the topic thread, which somehow got off track, the existence of hymnic material in the letters of Paul that are beyond question, like Romans, truly suggests that Paul accurate characterized the church's early view of Jesus as a divine savior.

Add to that the fact that Paul is without a doubt the earliest of the Christian authors we have, his letters predating the gospels by at least a decade and possibly 40 years, the creeds and hymns he seems to be quoting are powerful evidence that his views were in fact the earliest views of Jesus, and not some later fabrication by religious authorities seeking to turn an itinerant preacher into a messiah.

You are assuming facts for which there is no evidence. Outside of one phrase in one sentence in all of the literature written in Paul's name there is absolutely nothing that forbids placing Pauline literature after 134 CE. And there is nothing at all that forbids placing any of the New Testament after 134 CE. In that case the early Pauline output merely needs to be a few weeks or months earlier than the earliest gospel, ie. that attributed to Mark.

You assume that church history is accurate and that the quoted Early Christian writers in fact existed and furthermore wrote what was attributed to them at the exact times church tradition tells us. Yet the third century is when we first see any attributions (of the gospels for instance) pop up. And other than paleographic evidence, there exists no proof any Christian manuscript or fragment predates the fourth or possibly fifth centuries. Only wishful thinking and the need to place these works as close to eyewitness and apostolic acceptance as possible.

Gamera · 05-09-2006, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darstec

You are assuming facts for which there is no evidence. Outside of one phrase in one sentence in all of the literature written in Paul's name there is absolutely nothing that forbids placing Pauline literature after 134 CE. And there is nothing at all that forbids placing any of the New Testament after 134 CE. In that case the early Pauline output merely needs to be a few weeks or months earlier than the earliest gospel, ie. that attributed to Mark.

You assume that church history is accurate and that the quoted Early Christian writers in fact existed and furthermore wrote what was attributed to them at the exact times church tradition tells us. Yet the third century is when we first see any attributions (of the gospels for instance) pop up. And other than paleographic evidence, there exists no proof any Christian manuscript or fragment predates the fourth or possibly fifth centuries. Only wishful thinking and the need to place these works as close to eyewitness and apostolic acceptance as possible.

No competent scholar doubts the historicity of Paul or the period of his writings. To make your case, you must posit a vast conspiracy involving fabricating all of Paul's extant work and ferreting out and destroying all of his authentic mss, all carried out at a time when Christianity was under seige and lacked cops and helicopters. One would expect that under that scenario, one authentic ms of Paul's would survive in a desk drawer somewhere, blowing the whole scheme.

I submit that's incredible.

Gamera · 05-09-2006, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darstec

You truly do not know the state of manuscript development. What makes you think everything we have of Pauline literature is invarient from document to document? Even more importantly what do we have of Paul's literature? The answer is nothing but copies of copies of copies.

And you are assuming that there were large numbers of manuscripts that had to be changed/destroyed. Just how big a printing press do you think Paul used? And do you think the papyrus/parchment on which the copies were transferred were made of some type of teflon-titanium weave?

Could you please explain how a letter, take 1 Corinthians for instance, got from Paul to Rome, Athens, Damascus. As an experiment, again using 1 Corinthians, hand write the entire epistle. In four weeks use that copy and write it again. Use that new copy and two months later hand write another. For a third copy, you may use any of the other three handwritten copies and you may do so any time between one week and four months later. And just for fun repeat the last step for a fourth copy.

First question -- how long did it take (probably zero as you would never agree to our little experiment)?

Were you able to read every letter and word of your handwritten copy? Sometimes I can barely read what I wrote last week.

Were all four copies faithful and exact copies of the original down to the letter?

Repeat the experiment again, this time use friends to make the copies, copying from each other. Compare the results and answer the three questions. Did they differ?

I am for the moment assuming you and your friends are literate and have been acquainted with penmanship however briefly. And now for the coup d' grace, instead of being able to read the original, have somebody read the original to you. In turn have somebody read your handwritten 1 Corinthians to the next person, which in turn is written to the next, on down the line to the fouth letter.

Do you think there will be any changes/differences? It would of course be much better if we could use material with which you disagree in part especially on some emotionally charged topic. It would work even better if there were as many opinions as their were copiers.

A desparate thought experiment if there ever was one.

The problem is the variable of the accuracy, which is a reflection of how seriously the scribe took his task. If it was a casual copyist, copying a laundry list, all kinds of errors might intrude (but query if that would change the gist of the list). But if its was a sacred text and the scribe treated it as such, you might get very accurate copies indeed. Further, subsequent errors could be corrected by subsequent scribes (who aren't xerox machines but persons with reason and perhaps access to other mss for comparison).

The next issue is how many scribes do you have. If you have a lot, you can make lots of copy in short time. In fact we have lots of copies of NT material, so this isn't speculation.

Finally, whatever errors creep in, the notion that the text would morph from one meaning to some utterly different meaning seems well, unlikely. Do you have an example of this happening in any extant mss. I'm unaware of this process being documented except in the speculations of certain scholars.

By the way, I know a great deal about paleography, at least as it applies to mediaeval mss in the OE and Norse contexts, which is my field of study. I'm very dubious of your narrative of how mss mutate.

Gamera · 05-09-2006, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

What is the evidence for that? Please be specific.

I've provided this on other threads. There's a large literature on this, which a google search will find in an instance. This is a bit of a tangent so if you're interested I'm happy to PM you all the numerous links on this.

Vorkosigan · 05-09-2006, 04:09 PM

Quote:

No competent scholar doubts the historicity of Paul or the period of his writings. To make your case, you must posit a vast conspiracy involving fabricating all of Paul's extant work and ferreting out and destroying all of his authentic mss, all carried out at a time when Christianity was under seige and lacked cops and helicopters. One would expect that under that scenario, one authentic ms of Paul's would survive in a desk drawer somewhere, blowing the whole scheme.

Actually, lots of competent scholars doubt the historicity of Paul (see the Dutch Radical school and their modern successors, Hermann Detering and his school), and the Pauline letters (or affirm that Paul existed but argue the authentic Paulines are second-century products). No vast conspiracy required -- we already know that many extant Pauline works were fabricated -- including six or seven in the New Testament, along with works like Third Corinthians and others. Rather, what might have occurred is a natural evolution, since forgery was so widespread in early Christianity, with many different hands taking a dip, to develop a corpus of letters through the usual back-and-forth between rival groups. That is, after all, how we got two Petrine letters that are both forged in Peter's name.

Nor was the destruction of any authentic letters necessary, since your remark assumes that there were "authentic" letters to destroy.

Finally, as this thread amply evidences, many minds apparently possess powerful incentives to take anything with "Paul" on it and in a Bible as authentic.

Vorkosigan

Gamera · 05-09-2006, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Nor was the destruction of any authentic letters necessary, since your remark assumes that there were "authentic" letters to destroy.

And curiously so do yours. If imitators are imitating Paul, then there must be a Paul to imitate, and texts available to imitate, and presumably, if those texts were worth imitating and forging, then they were worth preserving.

Thus, again, you are thrown back on the conspiracy model. Somebody had an agenda to "use" Paul and bury the body.

So, tell us in detail, who were the imitators and forgers imitating and forging?

Vorkosigan · 05-09-2006, 05:54 PM

Quote:

And curiously so do yours. If imitators are imitating Paul, then there must be a Paul to imitate,

Yes, that's what I think too.

Quote:

and texts available to imitate, and presumably, if those texts were worth imitating and forging, then they were worth preserving.

You are only half-right. There WERE texts available to imitate -- the first century was the heyday of the epistolary novel in antiquity, and the practice of collecting and saving the letters of the famous was already well known. The creators of the Pauline corpus need merely imitate extant practices in current literature, and apply them to Paul. You error lies in assuming that they must have imitated Pauline materials, when many epistle-type materials were available.

Quote:

Thus, again, you are thrown back on the conspiracy model.

No need for conspiracy, as everyone is aware of letter-writing practices in antiquity. The current edition of the Pauline corpus, with letters by several hands, and more letters extant outside the NT, show that rather than conspiracy, what we really have is a long conversation involving many people.

Quote:

Somebody had an agenda to "use" Paul and bury the body.

In fact, many people had such agendas, as proven by the large number of extant Pauline letters from different hands.

Quote:

So, tell us in detail, who were the imitators and forgers imitating and forging?

They were imitating and forging with each other and with current political and theological issues in mind. Most of the letters appear to have specific goals and purposes -- the way the second century forgery 2 Peter seems to be aimed at those who are bummed that Jesus is not back yet, for example.

Vorkosigan

Gamera · 05-09-2006, 06:47 PM

[QUOTE=Vorkosigan]

Quote:

Yes, that's what I think too.

You are only half-right. There WERE texts available to imitate -- the first century was the heyday of the epistolary novel in antiquity, and the practice of collecting and saving the letters of the famous was already well known. The creators of the Pauline corpus need merely imitate extant practices in current literature, and apply them to Paul. You error lies in assuming that they must have imitated Pauline materials, when many epistle-type materials were available.

Well, I sense a contradiction here. You seem to imply that there are no texts by Paul that are imitated, but rather that there is a concept of Paul, and imitators are engaging in a group writing project that spontaneously and without direction resulted in the Pauline "style" and persona. I honestly doubt that imitation of nothing in particular would result in such a strong sense of authorship. Indeed, it would be downright remarkable that different authors, attempting to imitate a concept of Paul, would through accidental collaboration create the voice we discern in the epistles. Can you give any other known, documented examples of this? And if not, why not? Wouldn't we expect a lot of this and in historical times (like now) among semiliterate or newly literate people.

I can say that this is not a theory that is well recieved among mediaevalists to explain the unattributed literature of the middle ages, where you would expect an analogous process to have happened.

Quote:

No need for conspiracy, as everyone is aware of letter-writing practices in antiquity. The current edition of the Pauline corpus, with letters by several hands, and more letters extant outside the NT, show that rather than conspiracy, what we really have is a long conversation involving many people.

Well, it couldn't be that long as it's limited by the extant mss and the establishment of the canon. If it were happening day in and day out, wouldn't somebody catch on that these epistles that are showing up seem to be newly minted and contradict the epistle they saw last week? Who is the audience for these epistles if they are being imitated by imitators who know what their doing? Is everybody "in on it?" or just the insiders who do the imitation? There's a lot of collateral facts you need to explain.

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In fact, many people had such agendas, as proven by the large number of extant Pauline letters from different hands.

Different hands do not require different authors, just different scribes. This is a specious argument. I don't keep the oringal mss in mind, but as I recall, while there are different hands, the texts are the same or virtually the same, so the different scribes who wrote the mss we have weren't freelancing by scrivening.

Quote:

They were imitating and forging with each other and with current political and theological issues in mind. Most of the letters appear to have specific goals and purposes -- the way the second century forgery 2 Peter seems to be aimed at those who are bummed that Jesus is not back yet, for example.

Having a specific goal and purpose is hardly unusual for a letter! It is what you'd expect if there was this preacher named Paul who was writing letters to various churches on various topics important to the times. So the evidence you bring to bear supports the single author thesis as much as yours.

Vorkosigan · 05-09-2006, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

Well, I sense a contradiction here. You seem to imply that there are no texts by Paul that are imitated, but rather that there is a concept of Paul, and imitators are engaging in a group writing project that spontaneously and without direction resulted in the Pauline "style" and persona.

Nope. There is no "Paul" persona -- that is purely in your mind. The first texts accepted as Paul's form the basis for subsequent forgery, which reveals itself as stylistically and theologically different than those first texts. Scholars accept that the 6-7 authentic letters are from Paul. The rest are frauds in imitation that use Paul as a figure to legitimate their own theological positions.

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I honestly doubt that imitation of nothing in particular would result in such a strong sense of authorship.

That is fine, but your incredulity is not an argument for anything.

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Indeed, it would be downright remarkable that different authors, attempting to imitate a concept of Paul, would through accidental collaboration create the voice we discern in the epistles. Can you give any other known, documented examples of this?

There is no "voice" we discern in the epistles. There are several voices, one in the authentic 6 letters, and others in the other epistles. The "voice" is purely in your mind. It is not in the text.

Quote:

Well, it couldn't be that long as it's limited by the extant mss and the establishment of the canon. If it were happening day in and day out, wouldn't somebody catch on that these epistles that are showing up seem to be newly minted and contradict the epistle they saw last week?

Yes. That is why many of the epistles did not make it into the canon. The process of forging Paul is spread out over many decades and a wide geographic area. Since few, if any, had access to the entire collection of Pauline epistles -- the authentic ones and the forged ones together -- why would anyone question a document read out in a church and having the sanction of religion? Thus in some areas Third Corinthians was canonical.

Quote:

Who is the audience for these epistles if they are being imitated by imitators who know what their doing? Is everybody "in on it?" or just the insiders who do the imitation? There's a lot of collateral facts you need to explain.

I don't know where these ideas of yours come from. There are no insiders or outsiders involved, it is part of the normal process of conversations across decades of time and a large empire. One person publishes a text, another publishes one in support or rebuttal in a different place at a later date. That's a normal process of creation of a corpus of documents. Do you think someone lived for 150 years and coordinated all this activity? Believe it or not, there are more choices than conspiracy and authenticity. You're riding a false dichotomy and it is not going to bring you home.

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Different hands do not require different authors, just different scribes.

No, the theology and stylistic and historical problems indicate different authors. The is why the overwhelming mainstream position is that only some of the NT writings attributed to Paul are actually from Paul.

Vorkosigan

Doug Shaver · 05-10-2006, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

many if not most of the Jewish inhabitants of Roman Judea were trilingual

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

What is the evidence for that? Please be specific.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

I've provided this on other threads.

That is very unhelpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

There's a large literature on this, which a google search will find in an instance.

I googled roman judea trilingual. None of links on the first page went to any good sources.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

This is a bit of a tangent so if you're interested I'm happy to PM you all the numerous links on this.

I don't have time to go one-on-one out of the forum. If you're concerning about derailing this thread, I'll start a new one if you post the links here.

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