wordy

Is this the main stream views of researchers? I am not so well read at all so pardon if my skepticism seems not proper.

I want to trust you but it seems rather far out.

I doubt there was one Jesus, I think there was several with maybe differing names and over a time. The Teacher of the "Essenes" could be a role model for many of them mimicking him and then the Constantin used that as a historic base and mythic resource for invention of the scriptue version of Jesus and Paul and Peter and the Brother of Jesus and so on. They weaved real person into a myth so they could give it some cred. works more effective that way.

I know that some of Paul's letter has been questioned for a long time but what you write is on a much higher level of fraudulent production.

How many support that view? What evidence do we have for it?

Don't get me wrong, I would love it to be true. would suite us atheists fine to be able to show how made up all of it is.

Ben C Smith

Perhaps, but Jerome most certainly did read Hebrew; he claims to have translated the Nazaraean gospel into Greek; and he too pointed out that it was regarded as the Hebrew original of Matthew.

If Epiphanius is mistaken about this because he did not read Hebrew, why is Jerome mistaken about it?

Ben.

bacht

These are the questions as I understand it:
- was there a real Saul/Paul sometime in mid-1st C?
- was he accurately portrayed in any of the NT texts?
- do we know what he was teaching?
- why was Paul "forgotten" until Marcion used his epistles ca 140 CE?
- what did proto-Catholic writers do with the Pauline material to respond to 2nd C heretics?

The first three points were taken as settled by orthodoxy until modern times. Church history between the death of Herod the Great and the rise of Constantine is still being debated, since there is little evidence outside of the Catholic tradition to corroborate anything.

wordy

Bacht Ok seems reasonable to me.

It certainly looks like a big social construct with very little support that any of it is real.

Ben C Smith

Hi, bacht. My own very brief answers follow.

Not necessarily committed to Saul as his Jewish name, but yes, there was a real Paul sometime in the middle of century II who wrote several letters which can be both internally and externally dated to that approximate time.

Yes and no. The Acts appears to have some accurate information and some not so accurate. And 2 Peter is certainly accurate when it claims that parts of his epistles are difficult to understand.

Yes, at least in part. He was teaching, among other things, that gentiles could be converted to a messianic form of Judaism without being circumcised.

Paul was not forgotten until Marcion. His epistles were edited catholically (see H. Gamble, The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans) during this period; more epistles were written in his name (Colossians, Ephesians) during this period; and he was quoted by Ignatius (though there is some doubt as to the authenticity of these letters), by Polycarp (though there is some doubt that this letter preceded Marcion), and by Clement of Rome (not much doubt that this letter preceded Marcion).

They added the pastoral epistles and then interpreted the heck out of the whole bundle.

Ben.

aa5874

You will have to do the research yourself. I do NOT need people to believe me or in me.

The letters of Paul have been manipulated. The church writers have not ever realised that Paul in Timothy may have been some other Paul. Or, they cannot distinguish the Paul in Titus from the Paul in Romans or Corinthians.

Paul has not been positively identified except that some Paul wrote some letters.

The author of Acts wrote fiction about the conversion of Paul, the author claimed Saul/Paul was blinded by a bright light and heard Jesus talking to him perhaps from heaven. And some Paul claimed over 500 people saw Jesus after he was resurrected.

Paul is a package of fiction.

andrewcriddle

The claim that Paul was "forgotten" until Marcion requires various of the Apostolic Fathers to be non-authentic.

There is no doubt for example that the author of 1 Clement knew of Paul and his writings.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

There is nothing in 1st Clement that cannot doubted. Very little is known about Clement and there is very, very little about Paul in 1st Clement except that Paul wrote a letter to Corinthians.

There is no doubt that there were forgeries and that letters with the name Paul are not authentic even though canonised.

It is reasonable to doubt the authenticity of any church writers. Even, the second letter of Peter, according to Eusebius, although canonised is non-authentic.

Sheshbazzar

I did not intend it to be taken that Epiphanius was "mistaken", rather that "(his) statement as given is doubtful" The critical component of this doubt being
"they (that is, the Nazarenes) have the Good News according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew."

In essence, that if Epiphanius sets a claim that the Nazarene's text of Matthew IS the "ENTIRETY" of Matthew (which he does here),
then the significantly longer Greek version circulated and canonized by the gentile Christians, must needs be more than that "ENTIRETY" of the Hebrew's Matthew's gospel. ie. the Greek versions extra material "made up" and "tacked on".
Thus, if the Greek text actually sets the standard for what is the "ENTIRETY" of the text of Matthew, then the shorter Nazarene Gospel could not be the "ENTIRETY" of Matthew.
Hence my closing comment; "(or, it could be a subtle but tacit admission that the (shorter) text that the Nazarenes used was the actual original "entirety" ...sly dog.)

And both Epiphanius, Jerome, and also other Pataristic sources clearly admit and state as fact that the Hebrew text of Matthew as used by the Nazarenes did not contain the first two chapters of the Greek canonical version of Matthew.
Thus, either Epipihanius' statement about the "ENTIRETY" of the Nazarenes Hebrew Matthew, must either be wrong, or is an inadvertent admission that the Greek text deviated from, and added unto that "ENTIRETY" presented in the Nazarenes Hebrew Matthew.

Now as to Jerome's claim of reading and translating the Hebrew text;
Jerome
"In the gospel which the Nazaraeans and Ebionites use, which we recently translated from Hebrew speech into Greek, and which is called by many the authentic [gospel] of Matthew, this man who has the dry hand is written to be a mason, praying for help with words of this kind;

"I was a mason, seeking a livelihood with my hands. I pray, Jesus, that you restore health to me, lest I disgracefully beg food."

If this verse was present in the "ENTIRETY" of Matthew, why then is it absent from the (supposedly) entirety of the Christian Greek text?
That is if the Hebrew Matthew is -entire-, how then can a Greek text be claimed to be complete when it OMITS some of the admitted "ENTIRETY" of the Hebrew Matthew?

I have no obligation to attempt to reconcile these evident self-perjuring admissions.
In my view not one of these early church writers is worthy of being trusted in any matter related to the Scriptures.
In this case however, their own writings stand as an enduring witness against them.

Ben C Smith

Where do Epiphanius, Jerome, or any other fathers tell us that the Hebrew gospel used by the Nazarenes did not contain the first two chapters of our canonical Matthew?

Ben.