MortalWombat

These are designations of papyrus fragments of the New Testament.

You can find a comprehensive list of them here

Layman

Really? What scholarship do you have to back this up?

Besides, you now seem to be assuming the gospel stories are inaccurate. Before you were arguing they were accurate and Paul was not consistent with them.

This is question begging. Paul's statement here is not really any different than his statement in Romans blaming the Jews for killing the prophets.

Actually, since the text is in multiple manuscripts starting in the 130s, and in all of the surviving manuscripts, the burden is on you to demonstrate that Paul could not have said this.

It is bizzare to me that you would assume that while Christians were being persecuted by Jews they would be unwilling to lay any blame on the Jewish leadership for killing Jews, but that they would only do so 100 years later when it was the Romans who were persecuting the Christians.

But you argument up until now has been that no one familiar with the gospels could blame the Jews for the death of Jesus. That's obviously absurd since the gospel authors themselves made this connection.



If I don't understand when you believe you are making a point, I can't very well ask for clarification.


It's quite obvious.

Yup.

I called you on it in the posts you did it in. You've completely ignored the example of the Egyptian system and distorted my discussion of what I meant by "usage" of the terms by lifting the first sentence and ignoring the rest of the paragraph.

Layman

I'm skeptical.

Sure. Personally, though, I feel safer in measuring likelihoods by examining reasonableness.

Considering how tenuous the claim is that Cyprian MUST have used 1 Thess. 2:15 if he knew about it, the fact that--as you admit--it's unlikely that he could have had a manuscript without it renders the idea all the more spurious.

How so? I've reviewed the relevant sections. You apparently have not.

It's folly to assume that Cyprian or any other author, would cite to every possible supporting Bible verse to make every point he argues for. Sheer folly and completely unpersuasive. This is called desparation.

Either make your case then, or admit you have no case.

The points you failed to address are just going to go unrebutted. I'm not a forensic poster.

It sure seemed that way by simply arging about using Paul "consistently" in his writings.

I do plenty of extra reading and nothing I have read or anything you have argued leads me to believe there is anything to this argument.

You seem to think you can just raise the possibility that Cyprian MUST have used Paul here without any evidence at all. The burden is on you to prove your point, especially because we know the text was in multiple manuscripts more than a hundred years prior to Cyprian and exists in all our surviving manuscripts.

If you admit Cyprian offers no support for interpolation, fine. But you seem to be claiming the issue is unsettled beause there MIGHT be evidence in Cyrpian that he MUST have used this scripture here.

Vinnie

More specifically on 1 Thess here is a long jumbled cite by E.P. Sanders:


‘If Jesus expected God to change the world, he was wrong - is by no means novel. It arose very early in Christianity. This is the most substantial issue in the earliest surviving Christian document, Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. There, we learn, Paul’s converts were shaken by the fact that some members of the congregation had died; they expected the Lord to return while they were still all alive. Paul assured them that the (few) dead Christians would be raised so that they could participate in the coming kingdom along with those who were still alive when the Lord returned. The question of just how soon the great event would occur appears in other books of the New Testament.

Here is the passage: read vs 13 and 14 as well as it shows Paul is correcting their ignorance on expecting the Lord before anyone had died:

1 Thess 4.15-17 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left untill the appearance of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a command, with the voice of an archangel and with a trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be snatched up with them in the clouds to greet the Lord in the air.

Sanders also cites these two passages:

Matt. 24.27g. The sing of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming on clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a trumpet of great voice, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one side of heaven to the other.

Matt. 16.27f. The Son of man is about to come in the glory of his father with his []i]angels[/i], and then he will repay each according to his or here deeds. Truly I say unto you, there are some of those standing here who l not taste death, until the see the son of Man coming in his kingdom.

""Paul and Matthew have essentially the same component parts. If we delete from Paul's version of the saying his new concern about the dead in Christ, if we deleted from the synoptic saying the apparent modification that only some will still be alive, and if we equate 'the Son of man' in the synoptics with 'the Lord' in Paul, we have the same saying.”""

At any rate, that is the passage. The Lord was expected very quickly. The Thess had an urgent eschatology.

Paul also had an urgent eschatology. Regarding the urgent eschatology Crossan stated it concisely when he asked, “after 2,000 years, Paul, how is your metaphor doing?” Thats another verse though but this should be read in the context of the very obvious urgent eschatology across a lot of the churches early on:

"""The history of these adjustments to the view that God would do something dramatic while Jesus’ contemporaries were still alive is fairly easy to reconstruct. Jesus originally said that the Son of Man would come in the immediate future, while his hearers were alive. After his death and resurrection, his followers preached that he would return immediately - that is, they simply interpreted ‘the Son of Man’ as referring to Jesus himself[Paul's urgent eschatology]. Then, when people started dying, they said that some would still be alive[Thess]. [Hence the synoptic statement that some standing here will not taste death] When almost the entire first generation was dead, they maintained that one disciple would still be alive [GJohn]. Then he died, and it became necessary to claim that Jesus had not actually promised even this one disciple that he would live to see the great day[Redaction of GJohn]. By the time we reach one of the latest books of the New Testament, II Peter [dated circa 130 Ad], the return of the Lord has been postponed even further: some people scoff and say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ but remember, ‘with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’ (II Peter 3.3-8). The Lord is not really slow, but rather keeps time by a different calendar.


Obviously they scoffed at the notion because the expected return never happened in the expected time frame.

Given that Paul expected the end to be at any time now, the historical events I listed--even if an historical event was intended by the language--the three factos could very easily contributed to Paul's comment. Temple destruction is not obvious. The only thing obvious is anachronistic exegesis (aka eisegesis).

Vinnie

Amaleq13

I wrote:
A blatant falsehood is more likely to survive the further in time one moves the insertion from the actual events.

Unlike your own speculative timeline for how interpolations develop and completely replace originals, this would appear to be nothing more than common sense. The closer in time to the actual events a falsehood is introduced, the more likely it is that someone will recognize it as false. Is it your experience that lies told about an event that occurred recently are more likely to be believed than those told much later?

No, as I have clearly stated many times, I was assuming an historic basis for the Gospels for the sake of the argument. It has now become clear to me that it was a mistake to grant so much without argument. It seems that the authenticity of the passage will, at least in part, depend on what actually happened (i.e. the historical truth "behind" the Gospels). And, yes, I lack the faith required to accept them as entirely historically accurate.

I think accusing "the Jews" for the killing of one specific prophet is different.

It is bizarre to me that you somehow manage to consistently misinterpret nearly everything I write. A more accurate paraphrase of my stated position would read:

I don't think it is credible to suggest that Paul would accuse "the Jews" of murdering Jesus. I do think it is credible that a later Christian might allow his apparent anti-semitism to overwhelm his awareness of the Gospel stories.

According to the Gospels, the Jews conspired to have the Romans execute Jesus. Josephus' interpolator got this correct and I have a hard time believing that Paul would not. This, of course, assumes that Paul knew historical facts that are at least generally in agreement with the Gospel stories. As I have written elsewhere, I now consider making that assumption for the sake of the argument to be a mistake.

You are correct that I ignored your extended speculation on how the Sanhedrin "might" have functioned like the Egyptian system. I should have asked whether your claims have any supportive evidence. Do you have any evidence that the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem worked with the Roman government in a way similar to the Egyptians? My impression of Pilate is that he was not particularly interested in obtaining the good will of the Jews.

Amaleq13

But you aren't really "measuring" anything nor, unless I have misunderstood, are you actually "examining" Cyprian's tendencies by considering how he treats Paul as a reference throughout his writings.

If by "relevant" you mean the sections provided by MW, I have read them and, as I've already stated, they aren't enough to carry the claim IMHO. If that is what you mean by "relevant", I have to disagree and suggest that more evidence of Cyprian's writing is required to consider your argument conclusive.

Who is making such an extreme claim? If you can read what MW and I have written and obtain that claim then I have little hope of participating in a rational discussion with you. Why can't you simply reply to the actual arguments of your opponents instead of exaggerating their claims to the point of a "straw man" caricature?

Also regarding my desire to understand more about Cyprian, Layman wrote:
You have read Cyprian or, at least, read about Cyprian? I would assume so based on the confidence with which you describe what he would or would not do.

When I clearly state that I find your arguments against the silence of Cyprian credible but add that I feel I need to know more about how the man actually wrote beyond the passages we've seen here, I can't imagine why you are still confused about my position.

I wrote:
I never suggested it was only a question of counting references but how frequently Cyprian relies on Paul is clearly part of any critical examination.

Layman replied:
Here is what I originally stated:
After rereading the posts, I think your arguments against the weight of Cyprian's silence are credible though I'll admit I'm not familiar enough with him to know if Paul was somebody he referred to consistently.

Exactly how do you read the above statement and come away thinking 1) I am somehow declaring victory or 2) that I was suggesting that all we needed to do is count references? I find it quite tiresome to have to continually argue against claims I have not made. It is difficult for me to see how anyone could honestly make such a mistake.

No, I'm a little too realistic to use a word like "must". I don't pretend that sort of certainty is possible given the nature of the evidence.

I do, however, think I need more information about Cyprian to determine if the expectation/silence argument is credible. Apparently, you feel comfortable dismissing the argument based on what you already know.

Amaleq13

LOL

From which book is this quote taken?


I understand your argument from Paul's urgent eschatology but doesn't he also offer cautions against the possibility of a delay?

In relation to the tragic events, when do you consider this letter to have been written?

Layman

I do not see any failing of "common sense" in the proposition that a manuscript tradition of multiple sources over a hundred years old, published about by friend and foe of orthodoxy alike, indicates that a writer who does not mention one verse among many that might have supported his point is a strong indicator that the verse at issue was in that writer's manuscript.

If you do not claim to have any idea of what happened, then how can you argue Paul could not have said what he said?

This is irrelevant to your initial point, which was that Paul would not have "this level of condemnation for his fellow Jews." Why he would have a level of condemnation about them killing all the other prophets but not Jesus is far too fine a line to try and draw.

Other than your own personal opinion, you have given me no reason to think Paul would be less likely to do this than any later Christian. Moreover, as I wrote earlier, Luke--himself a Gospel writer--has no problem writing that about Peter preaching to the Jews saying "you crucified Jesus."

And as I posted earlier, the Sanhedrin had an official role in the death of Jesus. They were just as responsible as Pilate or the executioner's in the minds of the Gospel authors.

And you are missing the overall point I was making here. Paul was writing at a time when Christians were being persecuted by Jews. Anyone writing in the second century would have been writing at a time when there was no Jewish persecution of Christians. Rather, by then there would have been Roman persecution. To claim that it would have been impossible for Paul to make a claim that is backed up by the later gospels is unsupported.

Yes, and as Peter said in Acts, therefore they killed Jesus. The Sanhedrin had Jesus arrested, they brought him to trial, they tried him, they level charges against him, then they delivered him to Pilate so Piliate could carry out the sentence.

The gospels paint a very similar picture. As I just wrote, the Sanhedrin had Jesus arrested. They gathred evidence. They tried him. They came up with a charge. Only then did they deliver him to Pilate.

Layman

I have not read all of Cyprian and see no need to do so. I have read enough to see that he has no overwhelming need to cite Paul's few biographical remarks to establish facts about Jesus.

You have the burden all wrong. I am not the one arguing that Cyprian did not have access to a more than hundred year old tradition attested to in multiple manuscripts and well-publicized prior to his writing.

Your "actual argument" only makes sense if you suppose that Cyprian had to refer to every possible verse that could support his theory. He cited sources he found sufficient. You claimed he would be expected to cite them "in addition to" others. I see no basis for this latter claim.

I would welcome some reasonable discussion here.

I've read enough of him and other Patristic writers to know that nothing yet offered suggests that Cyrpian had a compelling need to cite the verse at issue.

Like I said. You are holding out some hope that Cyprian's silence is probative. There is no evident reason to do so except faith.

This is why I hate forensic posting. This is hardly all you said on the matter. After this you lifted one sentence of my response to you and ignored my discussion on how we need to examine usage and preferences for narrative sources to recount narrative facts.

Nor did I say in the point you are apparently responding to that you had claimed victory.

Given that Cyprian wrote over a hundred years after confirmed multiple manuscript traditions existed, and given that the verse at issue had been publicized in the Marcionite controversy and referred to by other Christian authors, and given on the speculative nature of most arguments from silence, the showing that Cyprian would have been expected to refer to this specific verse when he had others to choose from narrative accounts written by what he likely believed were eyewitnesses would have to be very strong indeed. So, if you are that tenuous about what could be demonstrated about Cyprian's writings, then I'm sure you will agree that it's unlikely such a burden will be met.

Based on all that I have seen to date, there is no reason to regard Cyprian as relevant to the issue. If you come up with more, please let me know.

rlogan

Sure thing Amaleq13 - Check out Josephus here;
Josephus - James Killed by Sanhedrin

I hope I am reading this correctly. It sure looks like the Sanhedrin is renering a death penalty by stoning. Although it appears imporper in that "it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his [Roman] consent"

This passage seems to imply the Romans had to sanction the calling of the Sanhedrin, but not necessarily that the sentence of stoning was out of the question.

The Catholic Encycl. offers three examples. Note this source gives in my view untrue testimony about the first "popes". But in this case at least they give the references:

Sanhedrin

"Still we see in Acts, vii, St. Stephen put to death by the Sanhedrin; we read likewise in Talm. Jer. (Sanh., 24, 25) of an adulteress burnt at the stake and a heretic stoned; and these three facts occurred precisely during the last forty years of the Temple's existence, when the power of life and death is supposed to have been no longer in the Sanhedrin."

The Jewish sourrce I checked disagrees:

Here

"In about 30 C.E., the Great Sanhedrin lost its authority to inflict capital punishment. " ( key date, eh?)

Not sure what to say about this. These are just examples. I looked through more, and likewise there are different opinions.

Mortal Wombat - thank you for clarifying. Neat source there.

Vinnie - thanks. I am going to mull over this business about Jesus' assertion that many of the followers would live to see the glory. I think the way this is repeated through other NT citations gives credence to the historical Jesus.

If all of the texts were writen much later or interpolated - why would they have this in there? It's too embarassing.