spamandham

My position at this point is "do not retroject later ideas to Paul. Let's just see what Paul says for himself". Of course, this is made more complex by the issue of tampering, which we know happened.

I recall we disagree on what our starting position should be in regards to assumptions of authenticity. I argue that since we know several works were fraudulently attributed to Paul, and since within the generally accepted authentic writings, numerous passages have been argued by qualified scholars to be interpolations, the starting position should be only slightly in favor of authenticity. IMHO, anything that comes across as nontrivially suspicious is best excluded from the efforts to understand Paul. It's best not to make too much out of too little.

I don't know if Paul thought Jesus was:

- a recent fleshy being
- an ancient fleshy being
- a purely spiritual being
- a metaphor
- convenient propaganda
- Paul never even existed
- ...other

Earl would have been better off by objectively assessing the texts for interpolations, excluding suspicious portions, and seeing what's the remainder says, rather than trying to shoehorn his ideas into what may not even be Paul's thoughts. I think if he had done that (hey, it's not too late of course), his case would be much stronger, and might even spawn some scholarly debate.

Ben C Smith

I agree, and I think he does indeed inject ideas into the text that the text is not saying. He would be better off writing the relevant texts off as interpolations than misinterpreting them.

I think we agree on the basic principle at stake; where we disagree, I suspect, is on (A) exactly how much to favor authenticity (how slight is slight?) and on (B) what exactly we view as suspicious.

Ben.

bacht

I haven't read his book, but I agree that on his web pages he could have devoted more space to explaining how he judges authenticity.

I have to use translations, and depend on text experts to identify irregularities not obvious in the English. Then there is the larger context of the whole Christian corpus, much of which I don't know in detail.

There seems to be a wide range of possibilities for Paul and his ideas, as you say. I'm attracted to the MJ scenario in part because of its dissimilarity to the developing orthodoxy of the 2nd C and later. I personally find it easier to believe that the whole thing started from "nothing", but that says more about me than about Christianity I guess.

bacht

Thanks Ben, I appreciate your civility.

spamandham

I think the idea that it started as a reaction to violent messianic Judaism makes a hell of a lot more sense than any other idea I've seen.

I see a few possibilities in that regard. One is that there really was a historical Jesus, but he was not a poor wandering sage. Rather, he was a high priest or someone else of stature, who saw that messianic Judaism was destructive and doomed, and so introduced a new philosophy to counter it.

Another possibility is that Rome constructed Christianity as a psychological tool to undermine the Sicarii and future messianic uprisings. This would explain why portions of the Gospels seem to closely parallel stories in Josephus. It would also explain why the Gospels so readily embrace Roman domination and present Pilate as almost saintly in his desire for justice. It might also explain why Herod is depicted as such a monster if it was concocted by the Flavians. ...and if constructed by the Flavians, it also explains the timing of the first records of Christianity.

bacht

This is a scenario that makes sense to me. In the midst of Zealots et al some quietists (ex-Essenes?) opted for a passive approach to messianism.

After the fall of the temple who knows? Were there any "Christians" before the revolt? It's reassuring to think that someone like Paul or Peter existed somewhat as depicted in the canon, but we can't assume that can we?

spamandham

It seems natural to me, that primitive Christianity was probably fermenting in some form prior to the fall, although it's certainly possible the fall itself is what instigated it. The Son of God might not have even been named Jesus prior to the fall (or even had a name for that matter).

Perhaps Judaism itself was the Son of God in the earliest stages of pre-Christianity, and Jesus (YHWH's savior) was quite literally the Word - nothing more than a name itself for the metaphor. Later gentile Christians might have objected to that idea and so turned Jesus into a historical figure, or were uninitiated into the mystery and so simply didn't realize he was a symbolic being rather than a historical being, or Rome may have historicized him intentionally to undermine violent messianism.

Regarding Peter and Paul, it's seems reasonable that they have some form of historical root, though I think Detering makes a good case that the historical core for Paul is Simon Magus.

bacht

Thanks Spam

JoeWallack

JW
To the unFaithful from JW, an apostle of Good reason and logos Logic.

I have faith that the following observation is true of most if not all of Paul's letters but I'll limit it to Galatians here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...s;&version=31;

JW:
Note that the introduction here makes a general claim that the source of Paul's authority is God and Jesus and explicitly not any man. The clear implication is that Paul is claiming to be a messenger of God and Jesus and not any man.

And the bookend:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...r=6&version=31

The ending does not explictly claim an authority but the invoking of Jesus' name and title implies that Jesus is the authority. Galatians is thus styled as a letter from a messenger with authority behind him, such as a King, which is invoked at the start and end of the message.

This general assertian of God and Jesus as the authority behind Paul is evidence that the default position should be regarding any specific assertian of Paul that God and Jesus are the authority behind Paul. I'm not aware of Paul ever explicitly claiming that any man was an authority for any specific assertian of Paul. Thus we have it on good authority that regarding any supposed specific assertian of Paul such as his Gospel of mission to the Gentiles , christ crucified, er, what was Paul's Gospel again Doug? his claimed authority was the supposed divine and not Man.

Responsibility to you from JW and the IIDBrethren.



Joseph

spin

Hence the fact that his gospel was directly from god, not by or from man. (The language of Gal 1:1-2 is closely related to Gal 1:11-12.) For this task he was set apart before birth, making him better than any other messenger and making him eligible for god to reveal his son to him (not to any other).


spin