Doug Shaver

So, all ideas contrary to your sect's dogma are humanist ideas. Of course. It's so obvious, I cannot imagine how it escaped my notice all this time.

sotto voce

One idea is to ban from discussion (rather than chat sites) everyone who uses personal pronouns. Academics do that rigorously.

To say nothing of misrepresentation.

If Christianity is properly named, then humanism must be absent from it.

Indeed, it is.

The cult of an imaginary figure named 'Mary' is explicit humanism. The Mary of the NT may also be thought imaginary, but that figure may be as justifiably thought to have opposed her first-born as to have supported him.

Toto

Yes, this is the standard analysis - the author of the epistles did not know the gospels.

?? The epistles are generally considered to be earliest. They show no knowledge of the gospel stories. Acts is generally considered to follow the gospels; Christians reject the idea that the author of Acts knew the epistles, but secular scholars differ. You have still given no reason to place Acts before the gospels or the epistles.

Have you read the thread from 2003 that details the correlations between Acts and the epistles?

Can you at least accept the idea that the writer of Acts portrays a vastly different Paul from the persona of the epistle writer?

Duvduv

Yes, I have said several times that Acts and the epistles describe two different Pauls, but not that the author of Acts *opposed* the epistles as you have suggested.

Are you sure you mean to say that religious scholars claim that the author of Acts did not know the epistles? If so, it means that the religious scholars would argue that Acts either came before the epistles or emerged somewhere where the set of epistles was unknown. I have not yet read the thread from 2003. How do I search for it?

As I see it, the ONLY way the author(s) of Acts could have known about the epistles is that the author of Acts opposed the epistles. I don't accept this argument for the reason I have mentioned, i.e. that the Paul of Acts is merely a DIFFERENT Paul than the Paul of the epistles, and that the author(s) of both may have had independent traditions about him. It is possible I suppose that the author of Acts *disagreed* with the presentation of Paul in the epistles, but this doesn't mean he had an agenda to *remake* the apostle Paul or downsize him, merely that he had a different "tradition" about him. IF Acts followed the epistles this view would explain why Acts doesn't include elements of the epistles that we have discussed.

Of course the same argument could be made the other way, i.e. that the author(s) of the epistles saw Acts but disagreed with that presentation. Otherwise elements from Acts would have been included, not the least of which being the "revelation" of the Christ that the Paul of the Galatians or other epistles would have been more than happy to include. However, we would have to see evidence that such an author of epistles rejected the GLuke story that is argued to have been part of Acts.

Toto

Here's the link. Click on it.

aa5874

Well, Toto you have ADMITTED the following:

1. Statements from Paul should NOT be taken at face value.

2. It is a reasonable idea and well supported that the idea the epistles were written individually to the towns mentioned is false.

Your assertion that Acts of the Apostles was written After the Pauline writings has NO support at all.

The Pauline writings do NOT have any statement at all about the date when any letter was written.

Duvduv

Thank you. I will try to get through all 13 pages of the discussion.

Toto

Here's the short case for the epistles being written before Acts. The first historical mention of the letters of Paul is in connection with Marcion. We don't know if Marcion wrote them, or merely used them, but they definitely were in existence by his time.

The Book of Acts, however, shows signs of having been written to counter Marcion. Joseph Tyson gives the case for this in his book Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (or via: amazon.co.uk).

aa5874

Your claim is NOT really credible.

1. The writer called Irenaeus who mentioned that Marcion used the Pauline writings is NOT credible--"Against Heresies" must have been written by multiple authors and at different time periods.

Parts of "Against Heresies" do show that one author did NOT know of the Pauline writings up to the last quarter of the 2nd century.

2. Another writer, Tertullian" to whom "Against Marcion" is attributed was NOT known to have written such books or was NOT recognized even by the Church writers to have written any books against Marcion up to the 5TH century.

Both Eusebius and Jerome gave a list of books written by Tertullian and NOT one mentioned the supposed MOST voluminous work of Tertullian "Against Marcion.

3. There is NO mention by non-apologetic sources that Jews were engaged in the Ritual of Human Sacrifice of a Murdered Victim and Abolished Jewish Laws of Sacrifice as mentioned by Paul before the Fall of the Temple.

4. The author of Acts mentioned many acts of Paul but NEVER mentioned a single letter by Paul to any Church but the author did mention that the Church of JERUSALEM wrote letters and gave them to Paul and his faction to be hand delivered. [Acts 15]

5. The Pauline writings seem to have been written to counter Marcion---Paul claimed his Jesus was NOT human but still stated that he was made of a woman.

Marcion's Phantom was NOT human and was NOT born.

6. Non-apologetic sources like Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny the younger nowhere mentioned that Jews were engaged in worshiping a resurrected crucified man called Jesus Christ as a God and for Remission of Sins.

7. The Pauline writer supplied NO date for any Pauline letter.

8. Hippolytus claimed Marcion did NOT use the Pauline writings but those of Empedocles.

9. P 46, the Pauline writings, have been dated by Paleography to the mid 2nd-3rd century.

There is simple NOTHING but presumptions for the Pauline writings.

DCHindley

Dave,

One area that has long fascinated me was the fact that Acts 17:23, 28, 1 Cor 15:33, and Titus 1:12, all seem to quote or paraphrase ancient Greek Philosopher/Poets.

Here is the lowdown:

Acts 17:23ff:
23 For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To an unknown god.' (1a & b) What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

Acts 17:27-28:
27 Yet he [the unknown god] is not far from each one of us, 28 for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; (2b) as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'" (3)

1 Cor. 15:33:
"Bad company ruins good morals." (4)

Titus 1:12:
"Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons," (2a)

Sources (and I'll tell you right now that this list is far more complete than anything else I have found on the net):

(1a) Diogenes Laertius, (fl. ca. 3rd century CE) Life of the Eminent Philosophers, Book 1, Epimenides, sections 109-115:

110. So he [Epimenides - dch] became famous throughout Greece, and was believed to be a special favourite of heaven. Hence, when the Athenians were attacked by pestilence, and the Pythian priestess bade them purify the city, they sent a ship commanded by Nicias, son of Niceratus, to Crete to ask the help of Epimenides. And he came in the 46th Olympiad, [595-592 BCE] purified their city, and stopped the pestilence in the following way. He took sheep, some black and others white, and brought them to the Areopagus; and there he let them go whither they pleased, instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep lay down and offer a sacrifice to the local divinity. And thus, it is said, the plague was stayed. Hence even to this day altars may be found in different parts of Attica with no name inscribed upon them, which are memorials of this atonement.

[tr. Robert Drew Hicks, Loeb, 1925, Vol 1 of 2].

1b) Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428 CE) also illuminates the mention of an Unnamed God in Acts 17:23. The following quote of Theodore is found in the Commentary on Acts of Isho'dad of Merv:

"About this altar, on which was written, To the hidden God, Mar Ephraim and others say, that want of rain and earthquakes sometimes happened at Athens; and when they took counsel to make prayers collectively every day, they changed the altars of all their gods; and when altars were at an end and there were no helps, they overturned them and threw them down; and again they congregated and took counsel, saying, If there are no others, who is this one who does not cease to trouble us? and they carved and set up altars to the hidden God, whoever He was; and when the mercies of Grace revealed about the anguish of their minds, He sent them help. But the Interpreter [not sure who is meant - dch] says that the Athenians were once upon a time at war with their enemies, and the Athenians retreated from them in defeat; then a certain Demon appeared and said unto them, I have never been honoured by you as I ought; and because I am angry with you, therefore you have had a defeat from your enemies. Then the Athenians were afraid, and raised to him [i.e., Pan - dch] the well-known altar, and because they dreaded lest this very thing should happen to them, having secretly neglected [one] who was unknown to them, they erected for themselves one altar more, and wrote upon it, Of the Unknown and Hidden God; and when they wished to say this, that though there is a God in whom we do not believe, we raise this altar to His honour, that He may be reconciled to us, although He is not honoured as known; therefore Paul did well to take a reason from this, and said before them, This hidden God to whom ye have raised an altar without knowing Him, I have come to declare unto you. There is no God whom ye know not, except the true God, who hath appointed the times by His command, and hath put bounds," etc. (See Mrs. [Margaret Dunlop] Gibson's edition of Isho'dad, in Horae Semiticae, x., [1913,] p. 28.)

[quote was from The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I - The Acts Of The Apostles - Vol. V., edited by F. J. Foakes-Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, 1933, pg. 244.]

(2a&b) Epiminedes (ca. 500-600 BCE), Greek poet, fragment from his Cretica:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O high and holy one,
a) the Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead; thou livest and abidest forever;
b) for in thee we live and move and have our being.

[Cited by the 9th century CE Syriac writer Isho'dad of Merv, Commentary on Titus, ed. M. D. Gibson, Horae Semiticae, X, Cambridge, 1913, p. 40; see also J. Rendel Harris' initial publication of his identification and hypothetical Greek translation of this citation in the Expositor, Oct. 1906, 305–17; Apr. 1907, 332–37; and Apr. 1912, 348–353). Isho'dad attributes the quote to Theodore of Mopsuestia (see above), who attributes it to the Critica of Epimenides, but suggests Theodore's quote might originate from another poem of Epimenides, PERI MINW KAI hRADAMANQOUS "On Mino and Rhadamanthys". Both Poems are mentioned by name by Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.112]

(2a) Callimachus (310/305–240 BC), has something similar in his Hymn to Zeus, section 8, but it appears to lack the part about laziness and gluttony, and may reflect a partial borrowing from Epiminedes.
(2a) Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 1.14, attributes the lines about Cretans that we find in Titus 1.12, including the part about laziness and gluttony, to Epimenides, but calls his source De oraculis (QEOGONIA).
(2a) Jerome, Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, attributes Titus 1:12 to Epimenides, but calls the work PERI CRHSMWN. [Migne, P.L. XXVI, 572ff]
(2a) Tatian, Address to the Greeks 27; Origen, Against Celsus 3.43; and Athenagoras Suppl. 30, all quote it without attribution to a specific author.
[Last 4 citations are from Pastoral Epistles, by I. Howard Marshall, Philip H. Towner, New York : T & T Clark, 1999 http://books.google.com/books?id=IA5...tia%22&f=false ]

(2b) Cleanthes, (331-232 B.C.) who was a disciple of Zeno the Stoic, and considered the universe a living being and said that god was the soul of the universe and the sun its heart, says in his Hymn to Zeus:

Most glorious of the immortals, invoked by many names, ever all-powerful,
Zeus, the First Cause of Nature, who rules all things with Law,
Hail! It is right for mortals to call upon you,
since from you we have our being, we whose lot it is to be God's image,
we alone of all mortal creatures that live and move upon the earth.

[this fragment was preserved by the 5th century CE compiler from Greek authors, Johannes Stobaeus, Eclogues (Extracts). 1.1.12. p. 25, 3. ET found in A. de Rossi "Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus." tr. M. A. C. Ellery, Classical Bulletin 53, 1976, 1-2]

(3) Aratus (ca. 310 - 240 BCE), Phaenomena (1-5):

From Zeus let us begin; him do we mortals never leave unnamed;
full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men;
full is the sea and the havens thereof;
always we all have need of Zeus.
For we are also his offspring;

[Callimachus, Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophron. Aratus. Translated by Mair, A. W. & G. R. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. London: William Heinemann, 1921. http://www.theoi.com/Text/AratusPhaenomena.html]

(4) Menander (342-291 B.C.), the comic dramatist, Thais:

(Lovely Thais, sit beside me ;
I detect, but still abide thee)

"Loose-bridled"? Pest! Methinks, though I
have suffered this, that none the less I'd now be
glad to have her.

Sing to me, goddess, sing of such an one as she:
audacious, beautiful, and plausible withal; she does
you wrongs; she locks her door; keeps asking you
for gifts; she loveth none, but ever makes pretence.

Communion with the bad corrupts good character.

[Francis G. Allinson, Menander, the principal fragments, with an English translation, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons (Loeb) 1921, pg 357; based on Theodorus Kock, Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta, vol. 3, 1888, fragment 218, pg 62; from Euripides fragment 1013 in Johann August Nauck's Euripides, Tragedies and Fragments, 1854, 3rd ed., 1871.]

Enjoy!

DCH