Sheshbazzar

Fabricated church doctrine via writing of a fabricated Pauline 'apostleship' in a fabricated church history of a fabricated Pauline mission to the gentiles.

Still 90% late fabricated Christian horse shit of Pauline a ministry and contacts with St Peter and gang that never happened outside of the imaginations of the church fabricators.

stephan huller

An example of (a) Paul's non-canonical gospel (b) his commentary on that text and (c) Clement's knowledge of that tradition:

This is a reference to the Diatessaronic gospel shared by various heretical groups which fused together the equivalents of the questions about 'life' and 'eternal life' in the synoptic gospels. I have discussed this at length at my blog lately.

In other words, Clement and the Marcionites had a gospel but it wasn't one of our 'four' but a single 'super text' that combined readings from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and was the original text behind these four 'cut' texts of the Catholic tradition. Yet there is a deeper layer of truth where many of Paul's statements in Romans are consistently understood by Clement (and others) to be commentaries on the lost gospel including Romans 13:9:

There are other examples. I have mentioned Clement's understanding of Paul using the equivalent of Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28.

Duvduv

I am QUITE AWARE of the views about "interpolations." I was specifically making the observation that the letters can simply be viewed as cut and paste composites using monotheism-friendly letters and additions of an emerging Chi-Rho Christ sect in various places.

aa5874

In the Pauline writings Jesus is God Incarnate. See Philippians 2.

In the Pauline writings Paul got revelations from the Resurrected Jesus, God Incarnate.

The Pauline writings are compatible with the teachings of the Church in the Gospels that Jesus was God's Son made of a woman and was crucified under Pilate in Jerusalem.

Toto

How does your observation fit in this discussion? What conclusion are you trying to draw?

EarlDoherty

Statements like this do not advance the debate, since they offer no arguments either in favor of the proposed position or in rebuttal against those who disagree. They are simply an emotional outburst and repetition of pontificating statements which refuse to engage with counter-argument and evidence. Too much of too many threads is clogged with stuff like this.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I don't wish to be confrontational either, Stephan, but you surely can't read "alleged Marcionite creation of Paul" as possibly entailing either of your queried meanings, that (a) the Marcionites did not change Paul, or (b) Marcionites didn't exist. If we are going to misunderstand others' statements to this degree, we are wasting our time.

"Marcionite creation of Paul" refers to the position held by some here (and elsewhere) that Marcion and/or his circle wrote the Pauline epistles, not redacted them or eliminated some passages.

It may very well be the case that Marcion is the first attestation for the idea of a supernatural Jesus in real historical time on the earth, although if we knew more securely about the teachings of Cerinthus and Basilides, they might be seen to have preceded him in some respects.

Nor have I said that our extant Pauline texts are "the right ones" (whatever that means). Since there was an epidemic of revision and forgery throughout the early history of the documentary record, we can hardly claim that Paul's 'authentic' letters have come down to us in a pristine state. No doubt Marcion did do some doctoring in his use of the Paulines. But he hardly embodied his own 'gnostic' views in them, either through creation or redaction. The same goes for any presumed tinkering with them by ecclesiastic groups following on Marcion, whether to counter him or just for their own benefit.

The bottom line is that the Paulines as a whole contain almost nothing--and certainly nothing conclusive--that could be clearly assigned either to Marcionite interests or to Gospel-based orthodox interests. Whatever degree of corruption Pauline autographs might have undergone, it did not carry those originals into a visible reflection of a Marcionite or Gospel-based agenda. Ergo, they must precede Marcion and the Gospels.

Someone like "aa" simply can't comprehend this, nor does he comprehend the fact that there are early Christian records no later than the very early second century, or prior to knowledge and dissemination of the Gospels in those writers' communities, which witness to the existence of a Paul and even allude to some aspects of his genuine letters.

Earl Doherty

Duvduv

SIMPLY, that one cannot conclude a mythist Jesus ideology from the pauline epistles at all, especially if they are composites of beliefs of the NT Jesus with monotheism-friendly material from pre-existing letter.

stephan huller

Earl

Yes it may seem silly to interpret the text that way but you never answered my original query to my satisfaction which was - (now rephrased) doesn't the difference between the Marcionite and Catholic recensions of the letters of Paul rest on the distinction of 'supernatural' versus 'human' Christ? In other words, weren't the additions to the Marcionite text (= our text) put there to reinforce Jesus's humanity? As such how can we expect that our text reinforces a supernatural ahistorical Jesus? Wouldn't that mean that the Catholic editors failed in their efforts? Isn't that like (to use an example from our shared Canadian heritage) leaving a superstar hockey player alone in front of an open net and learning that he not only ended up not only missing but going back and scoring on his own net to lose the game?

EarlDoherty

Indeed they would have, especially the more you claim that ecclesiastical editing of Paul or Marcionite versions of Paul was extensive. But either there is something wrong with our various views of extensive doctoring of the Paulines, or we have to take refuge in suggesting that the Pauline writings were sufficiently well established and respected, that wholesale doctoring was not undertaken, by either party.

I think the latter option applies more to the ecclesiastical phase. For Marcionite usage of Paul we have only indirect evidence from later periods, and there may well have been a fair amount of Marcionite excision from the 'originals'. But the whole Marcion business in relation to Paul is so murky that we are really only groping in the dark.

Earl Doherty