Sheshbazzar

All of this makes me think that 'Paul's' strange usage would have been obscure and perplexing even to its original audience.
Think we ought to just give it a break and and allow that 'Paul' simply employed an inept word and flubbed on this one.

Or does 'Paul' also have to be found to be inhumanly infallible right down to minutiae of syntax and spelling?

maryhelena

:thumbs:

All this argument over translating and debating words is just so reminiscent of bible-punchers....Your interpretation, my translation - on an on Ad infinitum...

LegionOnomaMoi

Of course we have evidence to support a historical NT Paul. we have his letters and we have acts. Both are problematic sources (opinions as to how problematic they are vary in the academic literature, from quite "radical" skepticism to overly uncritical acceptance, but even in the sensationalist literature I haven't come across the view that Paul didn't exist). We have a series of letters written by an author claiming to be named Paul. It's true that (for various reasons) authors would write works (like letters) using another's name (e.g., some or all of Plato's letters). What do these pseudepigraphical texts have in common? There is a great deal of literature on the subject, ranging from works which deal with the topic on a general level (e.g., the edited volume Der griechische Briefroman: Gattungstypologie und Textanalyse) to those which deal with specific letters (e.g., Foucart's "La VI^e lettre attribuée à Démosthène"). There are also nice collections of these letters (e.g., Costa's Greek Fictional Letters which includes the original greek and translations as well as commentary). Searching through this literature we find a few interesting things:

1) Pseudepigraphical letters were almost always attributed to well-known historical individuals like Socrates, Plato, Euripides, etc. In other words, nobody would bother to write under Paul's name unless he was a well-known figure (at least in early "christian" circles).
2) Those which are not are part of a literary tradition (e.g., the work of Aelian) which dates not just after Paul, but after our earliest actual papyri of Paul's letters (e.g., p46), and are not seperate creations but parts of novels.
3) Unlike with, say, the letters of Cicero, where our manuscripts date (as is typical) from the 9th or 10th centuries CE, we have extant textual attestation for Paul's letters a mere ~150 years after they were written. We also have an incredibly large number of copies to compare. Thus we are in an excellent position from a textual critical point of view, and this allows us to determine which letters are almost certainly those of Paul, which are questionable, and which are almost certainly not written by Paul.


That's without getting into the references to Paul in early christian literature outside the NT.



That's because I was directed to that post.

Then one is no longer translating.

I have no idea what you mean by "wide as a 'chuch'" but the position is virtually non-existent among specialists (whether ancient historians of some sort, experts in Jewish studies, NT/Biblical specialists, etc.). And this is the first time I've ever come across anybody using this line to "defend" the idea that there was a historical Jesus.

mountainman

We have the letters and acts of Bilbo Baggins too, but the very existence of such evidence does not necessitate one believing that Bilbo Baggins was an historical person. We also have the 4th century forged letters between "Paul" and Seneca to explain.

But are these palaeographical attestations OR the attestation of "Early Church Fathers" worth the paper they are written upon?


This is not an ancient historical determination. It is dogma. Does any of this allow one to determine who wrote the 4th century forged letters of Paul? Is this important to know? Of course not, because we are only interested in the "Early Church Paul". This myopic dogma and method of investigation is called apologetics, not ancient history. The standards of evidence in "Biblical and New Testament History" are below the woeful level. A black hole of archaeology must be dealt with.

LegionOnomaMoi

We have lots of pseudepigraphical texts, including letters. How are any ancient letters determined to be authentic or inauthentic?



Again, how are any historical determinations made when it comes to letters? Why are the letters of Cicero or Pliny accepted as genuine, while some of Plato's and Demosthenes are often argued to be genuine but there is considerable debate, and all of those attributed to Socrates, Euripides, etc., are counted as pseudepigraphic?

Apart from ideological reasons (christian and anti-christian), anybody interested in ancient history would find it quite important. Paul's letters are (as I noted in my last post) hardly the only ones which have been subjected to such scrutiny.

What is your basis for comparison? In other words, what academic texts on, say, ancient roman or greek events/persons are you comparing to which academic texts dealing with "biblical and new testament history" ?

Agnostic75

Regarding 1st Corinthians 15:3-8, is it plausible that Paul did not write that passage?

I refer you to Dr. Robert Price's article at http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/rp1cor15.html.

mountainman

The determination is usually made within the conceptual framework of the discipline.


The canonical material of the new testament is historically unprovenanced, as is to a lesser degree much of the non canonical material. Determinations made on unprovenanced material are highly hypothetical.


The scrutiny of canonical material has had associated with it a specific conceptual framework engendered by more than 16 centuries of Christian theological colleges. Ancient history and Biblical History are not the same discipline - the latter is a subset of the former.



The ancient historical evidence.


Have you read Momigliano or Gibbon?

aa5874

Your claim is erroneous we have ZERO corroborative evidence for NT Paul that wrote letters BEFORE c 70 CE.

You seem NOT to be familiar with literature about the Pauline writings. All sorts of assumptions MUST be made because there is NO credible evidence of antiquity for the Pauline writings.

You ought to know that it has been claimed that the Pauline letters were NOT written Before the Fall of the Temple.

You ought to know that the TIME when the Pauline writer existed cannot be corroborated at all. Not even the Church of Rome can say when Paul did really exist.

Apologetic sources claimed Paul was executed under Nero c 68 CE and still claim that Paul was AWARE of gLuke.

In academic literature, gLuke was written AFTER gMatthew and gMark and AFTER c 70 CE.

Now, you tell me when did the Pauline writer really live???

You ought to know that there may have been persons called Paul in antiquity and that they may have NEVER EVER wrote any of the letters under the name of Paul in the NT Canon.

Once the Pauline writings were composed AFTER c 68 CE, AFTER the death of Nero, after the supposed death of Paul then the Pauline writings are Forgeries or fraud.

Paul could NOT have been executed under Nero and still be aware of gLuke composed after c 70 CE.

DCHindley

Oh geez, not another person mischaracterizing postmodern historiography!

Whether the Paul story of Acts and the Pauline letters are fictions has nothing to do with postmodern historiography, which recognizes the literary character of historical representation.

History explains a set of historical evidence selected by the historian as relevant (s/he has determined what part of all available historical evidence is "wheat" and what is "chaff," or "signal" from "noise"). Explanation is narrative, and narrative includes the genres of both "history" and "fiction." Both history and fiction make use of literary tropes, emplotment, etc, and reflect an ideological inclination. But history is not fiction, and vice versa. They are sisters.

Read the first 40 pages of Hayden White's Metafiction (or via: amazon.co.uk).

DCH

aa5874

What a load of BS--History and Fiction are sisters. It is most fascinating how illogical and absurd arguments become in trying to defend NT characters like Paul and Jesus.

The very evidence of fiction is now magically evidence for the sister of Fiction [history].

It is mind-boggling how persons who seem quite logical and reasonable when dealing with matters not related to NT characters will suddenly make arguments which are horribly outrageous.

The FACTS are that Jesus of the NT was NOT described as an actual and ONLY Human character in the Gospels and the Pauline writings.

See Mark 6.48-49 and Mark 9.2.--Jesus walked on water and transfigured.

See Matthew 1.18-20---Jesus was the Son of a Ghost.

See Luke 1.26-35---Jesus was the Thing of a Ghost

See John 1.1-4--Jesus was God the Creator

See Acts 1.9--Jesus ascended in a cloud.

See Galatians 1.1-12--Jesus was NOT human and was resurrected.

Why do people here REFUSE to accept that it was PUBLICLY circulated and argued that Jesus was the Seed of God and had NO human father??

Why do people here REFUSE to accept that NO historical records were presented by non-apologetic sources for Jesus???

We have NO historical records of Jesus and Paul so they can be accepted as Myth charaters UNTIL such time some credible evidence shows up.

I accept Romulus and Remus, Achilles and Zeus as Myths UNTIL credible evidence shows up.

History and Fiction are NOT sisters--you very well know their relationship.

Fiction is a fake "relative" of History.