TomboyMom

Thanks also to Amalek. Things are becoming clearer. Could you explain/expound on this a little? Julian: I don't understand about Paul. He's just a regular guy. He wasn't there. No one claims that he was there. He didn't say he like talked to Jesus or anything. So he writes some letters that say, whatever, and the Christians (today's Christians) say, it's the word of God? I mean, I could say I saw Jesus in a vision, so now you have to believe me, Jesus says everybody should be queer or whatever--why would you believe me? Why does Paul have any credibility?

Amaleq13

If things are becoming clearer, we've oversimplified too much. I've found things to become far more murky the more I've read.

If the scholars are correct about the various earlier sources all the Gospel authors used to compose their stories, that means somebody or groups of somebodies were just collecting sayings attributed to Jesus (or collecting sayings and then attributing them to Jesus) while another somebody(ies) were collecting miracle stories while another just wrote a description of the trial and execution (ie Passion narrative), etc.

Later, the author of Mark took some of these, as well as selected portions of Hebrew Scripture and created his story. Still later, the authors of Matthew and Luke took Mark, as well as some other sources, and rewrote the story. John is generally understood to have undergone revisions by more than one author and it, too, is thought to have been written with some earlier sources. In fact, IIRC, some suggest that Mark and John had access to the same miracle story source but I'm not sure how popular that theory is.

Keep in mind that what we're relating is what is generally accepted by many, if not most, scholars. There are plenty of scholars arguing against some or all of it and they very often make a pretty good case.

MerryAtheist

I have heard this before. On what basis can we conclude that Paul had little interest in such a person? Isn't that more of an inference than a solid conclusion? I'm sympathetic to this argument, and I'd enjoy hearing more about it, but it seems a bit too conjectural without knowing the evidence. I know this is a "basics only" thread, but I'd appreciate some deeper information on this.

FreezBee

Not much to add here :thumbs: But a minor note. While today Markian primacy is accepted by most, the classical idea was that Mark compiled his gospel from Matthew and Luke, in antiquity it was very common to write such compilations. And actually we only know about many antique authors from the compilations of others. The argument against this is that Mark's Greek is inferior to that used in Matthew and Luke, making Mark the copyist a bit unlikely.

Anyway, for those interested, there's a wesite dedicated to the synoptic problem:

http://www.hypotyposeis.org/synoptic-problem/


- FreezBee

Helpmabob

An alternative is that there are eternal truths being told, and that some divine influence was in play here to make sure that the word prevailed.

Ecrasez L'infame

You've heard of the elephant in the room, that everyone was too polite to mention? BC&H has a whole circus full of elephants doing tricks while balancing on each other's backs right in front of us that you're not supposed to talk about. And they're all pink.

Tigers!

If the gospels were more consistent many people would start to cry "collusion" and then reject it for that reason.
Seems like a rigged deck to me -

• If they agree too much, claim collusion and reject
• If they don't agree enough, claim contradiction and reject

Clivedurdle

Can we define what actually is questionable here and the limits these views cause?

For example

Jesus seriously may be mythological or may have lived 100 BCE or may be a Caesar or may be from a play by Seneca.

That Paul may not have existed either, it was all written by a group around Marcion in the 120's.

That there are many other documents that are not given equal weight and maybe they should be!

The possible dates of Hebrews and Revelation - that Revelation is possibly originally a Jewish text that was xianised.

That gnostic, Egyptian, Platonic/Greek/Stoic/Buddhist influences are very significant.

That this is a superstitio of the lower classes that got power.

That it was a very small group until quite close to Constantine, who were very good at propaganda and symbols like crosses and fish.

Julian

You don't want to know...

Julian

It's hard to answer this question because you and I are not christians and therefore find it hard understand the whole concept of divinely inspired writing.

Apparently, his letters spoke to the believers more so than other letters of the time. We have other letters from a few generations after Paul (or so, nobody when they were written exactly. Examples include 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, collectively known as the Pastorals, also we have letters by Clement and Ignatius and others by Peter and John (forgeries almost certainly), for example.) At one point in time most of these were part of bibles but as the canon solidified over time, they didn't appeal to as large a group as the Pauline letters. I guess christians found Paul more believable and inspired than the rest. He also has a slightly larger claim to antiquity, being older.

Another reason may be that he is mentioned extensively in the book of Acts. Most other popular letter writers were not, so he is seen as being on the scene very early whereas others arrived later.

Not a great answer, but I doubt anyone has a really good one.

Julian