DCHindley

The faithful gentile threads are complete and the Jesus parts are disjointed and are not presented coherently. If we are looking at contributions by two different authors, I would generally expect the coherent material to be from an original author and the incoherent things to be comments, etc, attached to that work.

This is simply an explanation for the fact that there appears to be additions to an existing set of letters. I see the redactor as the product of an intersection between two independent movements. Historically, I could see it occurring in the region of Coele Syria in the aftermath of the rebellion of 66-70+ CE. Josphus gives several accounts of formerly warm relationships between Jewish and gentile neighbors turning very ugly. Think of the recent Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rawanda or the Muslim-Serb conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Paulism was on the wane and Christism (the mystery religion) was on the rise. Converts to Christism were coming over from Paulinism, among other groups.

Some Christist found one or more caches of Paul letters (such as might have been found in Paul's trunk at Troas mentioned in Acts) but was appalled to discover he knew nothing of Christ, and was obviously in "error" on a great number of issues. However, he saw it as a great recruitment tool to publish letters of Paul which present him as a good Christian. He modified the arguments in the letters to steer them to Christist theology, but none too artfully, as the author of 2 Peter attests.

You've mystified me here. Christians seem to have no trouble inferring from the existing letters of Paul that he had followers. Besides, have you never read between the lines of a text? There were whole generations of CIA analysts who extracted a great deal of useful information from Communist propaganda. Is Christian propaganda somehow "off limits"?

Dave H

spamandham

Fascinating. In English, it does seem to flow more smoothly without the red text.

Do any of the greek experts here know if this true in the Greek as well? I always wondered why Paul's writing was so contorted and muddled. Maybe it wasn't originally.

Oh crap! Could mountainman actually be right!!!??

Clouseau

It's just shorter. You could get the same effect by taking out 'called to be an apostle'.

'Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, set apart for the gospel of God.'

Who called him, anyway?

'Paulos, doulos Christou Ieesou, kleetos apostolos, afoorismenos eis euangelion Theou.'

Quite poetic, methinks.

CalUWxBill

Has any of Paul's letter's been found without the Jesus references. One early manuscript, anything? Of course burning up old material was known to happen, but you might expect something to escape.

Chris Weimer

Nothing. No one even mentions it in antiquity either, and plenty of heterodox material, such as Marcion, survives.

To reiterate, Jesus and Simon have nothing to do with Osiris' penis.

Clouseau

[QUOTE=DCHindley;4523876]Can you provide evidence of this?

Again, this idea needs evidence.

These movements are hypothetical, as far as I can see.

Again, a hypothesis only.

Could you specify chapter and verse on that, please.

Christians think that Paul wanted no followers of his own. That would have been anathema to him, they believe.

One must be careful when reading between lines that one does not read what is not there. This reader, at least, remains to be convinced that there was any permanent differentiation between Christians.

Zorathruster

mod note: lifted from Richard Carrier

Early Religious writings were all correct, exact, specific and true??????????????

DCHindley

Yes, for all 13 books. Offhand, I am not sure exactly where to find copies of the files. They have been posted over the past decade in forums at CompuServe and AOL, but I have not been using these forums for about 5 - 8 years.

I have had grand plans to post the whole kit & caboodle on a Yahoo.groups page for about 6 years, including the Greek text with the appropriate notations along with English translations of same, but have been thwarted by overly demanding jobs. My profession (financial audits for insurance premium computation purposes) has been in flux for about the same period, and that has put pressures on some of us. The situation has recently changed, so hopefully...

According to the canons of modern historical scholarship (the secular kind), no source text is taken 100% at face value. Differing sources have differing levels of credibility, accuracy, etc, that must be evaluated by a number of methods. The results must then be compared and evaluated and a reconstruction proposed that explains the evidence.

I also follow the deconstructionist school, which emphasizes that no one is ever in complete command of all the facts associated with a set of events (e.g., a war, a speech, etc), so all historical accounts give only a smattering of them and may be interpreted or portrayed to conform to the author's ideological disposition.

As a result, all historical accounts are hypothetical. They are stories that state what the author thinks, or at least wanted to think, "actually" happened. If one thinks about it, all mathematical rules are actually theorems, and can never be proved beyond doubt. Nonetheless, I trust what my spreadsheets calculate.

By "Christians" do you mean the author of Acts, or something else? Consult any commentary on the book of Galatians for a multitude of discussions about the notion that Paul and James were butting heads, and that people were following each of their leads.

Fair enough.

Dave

DCHindley

No, they have not. However, consult David Trobisch's recent, Paul's Letter Collection (or via: amazon.co.uk), for details about how the current collection has every appearance of being composed of at least 2 presumably earlier collections, and was published as a set. All current mss of the Pauline corpus appear to have been based on this original edition, with little if any evidence their transmission was influenced by the earlier collections. Either the earlier collections were not published, or they did not circulate in the same circles as the final version did.

Dave H

DCHindley

Well, I wouldn't claim to be an 'expert' but yes it does. Unfortunatly, English translations tend to rephrase the structure of the Greek sentences/clauses, which might seem odd to English readers.

Get one of those "interlinear" translations (that include literal English glosses immediately under each Greek word). You will start to see that most of these references to Jesus/Christ are in distinct clauses that can be safely removed to make the flow of the sentences/argument easier to comprehend.

Although I will undoubtedly hear righteous indignation from both the left and right by suggesting this, go to a Jehovah's Witness kingdom hall one Sunday and ask to obtain a copy of their own Greek/English interlinear. Be careful, as they actually have two: you want the more recent one (_The Kingdom Interinear Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures_).

The interlinear by itself is actually very good and does not attempt to interject their theology into the English glosses. They also include their own peculiar translation to the right. If one can manage to ignore the "Jehovah's" and peculiar turns of phrase they love to employ, their translation does manage to preserve the clause structure of the original Greek, although occasionally shifting their position within the sentences.

Dave H