johntheapostate

As per my opening post I will again state that Christianity has reconciled the testimony of Paul by holding him to a lower standard of interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures ( I will add the scriptures institutionalized as authoritative by the Church) than they would find acceptable if that standard were applied to the New Testament. A position I have illustrated in several of my posts to what I believe the satisfaction of anyone who does not possess an overwhelming desire that Paul not be mistaken.


It can be shown from his writings that Paul expected the second coming within his lifetime. An event that did not( unless the Preterists are to be believed ) occur. By no honest interpretation of scripture can the position that anyone expected Jesus to return thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of years after the resurrection be justified. So the testimony of 2000 years is indeed valid.

Amaleq13

It was your original assertion that Paul claimed to have been trained by Gamaliel. Myself and others pointed out that Paul never says any such thing but that the claim is placed in Paul's mouth by the author of Acts. After finally acknowledging this fact, you changed your assertion to the reliability of the claim by the author of Acts.

As we have seen and you acknowledge, there is good reason to question the reliability of the claim. However, you seem to be confusing rejection of your assertion with asserting the oppposite conclusion. One can reject your assertion and simply remain agnostic.

1) Paul does not claim, in his letters, that he was trained by Gamaliel.

2) The claim in Acts that he was trained by Gamaliel is questionable given a known false statement attributed to Gamaliel.

These two facts, alone, are sufficient to deny the certainty of your assertion.

The opposite assertion would essentially depend on an argument from silence. As I'm sure you know, an argument from silence is only as strong as the expectation of something other than silence. If you consider it likely that Paul would not mention such an impressive pedigree, the argument from silence is not compelling. If you consider it likely that Paul would mention such an impressive pedigree, the silence becomes more compelling.

I tend to think that Paul would have been eager to announce such prestigious training so, combined with the absence of any reliable evidence to the contrary, I doubt he was ever trained by Gamaliel.

I would be interested in your reasons since I consider all my conclusions open to change given sufficient evidence.

I'm not trying to put everything in a court case. I was supporting my contention that this is an entirely reasonable standard.

To my knowledge, this is a standard by which professional scholars operate. Please provide a specific example where a source providing a known falsehood about an individual is accepted unquestioningly (ie without external substantiation) as reliable for other statements made about that individual.

Considering the entire text with the same degree of doubt based on this single falsehood would, IMO, constitute an overgeneralization. I would think we would need to find several such examples to begin to doubt the entire story to the same degree. Otherwise, it seems reasonable to consider it with the same degree of doubt as we do any ancient text.

No, you don't have any reliable evidence that he did. It was your assertion.

Yes, you seem to have forgotten what you wrote earlier in this post:

"Sure, questioning is fair enough."

Metacrock

I see where you are coming from. You want to use inerrancy as an all purpose KingsX. Any violation and all chrisianity goes out the window. you wan to be able to say "hold it, where there three women or five at the tomb?Ok all christinaity is invlaid now." But it doesnt' work that way. I have no problem with a Biblical author making a mistake.

Jesus himself said he didnt' know when he would come back, so how can we epxect Paul to know? I think the fact that Paul was wrong about that has nothing to do with anything.

Metacrock

As I argued I think there are better reasons to assume that he did. The alledge false statment I will have to study on more, but i think it's understandable that the redactor of Acts could have put it in, but still be right about who Paul studies with.

But never mind all that, the fact is I really dont' remember why I brought that into it now. I'm over 40.





O I was arguing it as a proof that Paul was a Pharisee. What's funny if Paul did say it wouldn't it be a lie? I mean you think he's a liar so what difference does it make if he says it or not?


You are domgatically taking Maccoby at face value, he has to be right because he's against the christians and christains are evil and stupid yada yada Yada.




Hmm, maybe that's a good point. Why think Pauls a Sacucee? What does he say that's particualrly Sacuceeical?






That the redactor of Acts is careful to get things right that on one in his day coulc check up on. He's careful to put the right guys name in the job city teassuary in Ephesus, he's careful to use the correct titles in a region where titles could be confussing, and so on. So obviously he'snot just making things up for the heck of it, he cares about the facts. So why would he make that up? There may have been some kind of mistaken assumption, but why would he make it up?

*Paul was entrusted by the Cheif preist with a mission to persecute Christians, he must have been someone's star student to have been entrusted. He clearly was up and coming, some kind of wonderkit.

*Quite in contrast to the thesis of the thread, Paul's understanding of Hebrew theology was very sophisticated and very deep. He was not just some liar making things up, he represents a lot of trends in Rabbinicalism, not just Phraisees, but the Marbcaba mysticism, and an ekeletic view, which one should expect from a native of Asia minor.

*Paul's Greek is excellent, the best in the NT. He was clealry a well educated and fine writter. Greekscholars have commented on this and I can see it myself from my own attempts to read the NT in Greek. That is also what I would expect from a native of Asia Minor.







I'm not saying that your argument is unreasonable. It's a good argument, I just disagree with it.





what is a good standard? The court room thing? I did not say that that anything should be accepted unquestionably. But just as you point out that Paul didn't say the stament in Acts, so the falsehood in that statment is not said by him either. it's the misconception of the redactor of Acts.





I think you are confussed about whom should be doubted. Paul should not be doubted on account of the stamtent in Acts. He didn't make it, it's not his mistake so that doesn't reflect upon who he studied with. But the fact itself must have been known and we have no other stament about whom he studied with.





Again, you are assuming Acts is unreliable, because of a misconception the redactor had about quoting Gamaliel. That's not proof of anything.






Yes, I can see you are not over 40

Metacrock

Let's look at it again.


(1) no real evidence that Paul was not student of Gamaliels except

(a) argument from silence

(b) alledged contradiction with teacher over persecution of chrisians.


(2) Neihter argument is compelling:

(a) silence because in writting to geniles what's the point of makinga deal out of Gamaliel when they would not know who he was?

(b) It is not at all unusual for students to go off in extreme of their teachers. It happens all the time.

(3) Those are explanied vs.

(a) historical value of Acts (like correct titles and functionaries shows a penchant for factual correctness)

(b) Fits' Pauls obvious educational obtainment and theological acuity.

(c) it would have been common knowledge and cerntainly would have been known to a pauline insider like "Luke."


(4) The only good reason to deny it--the alleged contradiction-- is really explainable so it's not that good an argument to bein with--thus there is really good reason to deny it.

Vorkosigan

Sure, I've thought about it. First, show me that Acts was written by a member of the Pauline circle.

Not necessarily. But Akenson's point is that Acts' claims about Paul, properly understood, are anti-Pharisee propaganda. You seem to have misread it.

I didn't say that it WAS rock solid fact. Rather, I posted four cites from authors on different parts of the spectrum, all of whom think that there is little reason to believe Paul was a student of Gamaliel.

Why should I consider the work of a 19th century scholar? Can you give me something more up-to-date?

I agree that the writer of Acts knew the region, but that is neither here nor there as far as historicity is concerned.

Meta, why do you make nonsense claims like this? Note that I have not made similar ones for you. Also, I frequently rely on Fundy scholars for research -- Gundry, for example, frequently appears on my Mark site.

No, Meta, I did not "admit" that the speeches have historical facts, at least about Paul. In fact Gamaliel's speeches do not appear to contain history, and DO contain historical error.

Vorkosigan

This argument is backward. there's no reason to accept Acts' claim. Thus, it is generally rejected, as Schnelle points out.

Diogenes the Cynic

Why do so many apologists seem to think that every claim in the Bible is invested with some sort of default status of credibility which must be overcome by skeptics?

There doesn't have to be a reason to deny it. It must be shown that there is any good reason to believe it. Acts is not reliable as history and there is no other evidence for the claim, so the claim remains, at best, unproven and in light of the Gamaliels contradiction, somewhat dubious as well.

Amaleq13

Sorry but this should read:

(1) No reliable evidence that Paul was a student of Gamaliel.

The author of Acts seems to assume that his readers would know who Gamaliel was. Paul seems to assume that his readers were pretty familiar with Jewish Scripture. Don't these two facts suggest that Paul's audience would know who Gamaliel was?

True but that doesn't make it any more likely that Paul was trained by Gamaliel.

Even if we assume you are correct on both points and the argument from silence is weakened, we are still left with a single, questionable claim that Paul was a student of Gamaliel and nothing to support it. IOW, we are still left with no good reason to believe that it is true.

Correct titles and functionaries show correct titles and functionaries. There is no such thing as a "penchant for factual correctness" except in the mind of the faithful.

Assuming it to be true, that this fits with Gamaliel as an instrutor does not make it any more likely to be true since it fits with any good instructor.

If it was true, it may have been common knowledge but you haven't explained why it should be assumed true. Also, you haven't explained why we should assume that the author of Acts was a "pauline insider".

The best reason to refuse to accept it as true is the fact that there appears to be no reliable evidence suggesting otherwise.

johntheapostate

I could go to some length to show that Jesus and the New Testament made claims about the second coming, that while not specific to the exact day, do indicate an immanent return. But as Christians will cling to even the slightest ambiguity to prove that the text does not really say what it appears to say, I don’t know if it would be of any worth. But just to pass the time I will illustrate one such occurrence.

I had been studying in the Old Testament for several weeks and I felt I needed a break in the routine. On the spur of the moment I flipped to the last book in the Bible. I had read through most of Revelations (And it appeared to me as if written by someone who had lost touch with reality) when on the last page near the end I came across a passage that I instantly associated with the book of Daniel ( which I believe it had been designed to do)

Revelations 22:10-11 “ Then he said to me, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong, let him who is vile continue to be vile, let him who does right continue to do right, and let him who is holy continue to be holy�

On the face of it these passages seem to indicate that the end is so immanent that any further attempts at spreading the gospel should be halted and preparation made for ones personal meeting with Jesus. And directly following these passages we have the text declaring in Jesus’s own words the imminence of his return.

But if one is to combine these passages with the passages from the book of Daniel which they seem deliberately designed to do, Then the original readers of this book would have been completely justified in expecting Jesus within a very short time period.

Daniel 12:2-4 “But at that time your people, everyone whose name is written in the Book will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

But you Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end�

That is the verse that anyone familiar with the book of Daniel would instantly have associated to the verse in Revelations “ Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book because the end is near�

If the message had not been clear enough before, the association with the verse in Daniel would surely have indicated to the readers of Revelation that they were to understand that the author intended for them to believe that the second coming was more than immanent it was almost immediate.

If the author of Revelation was so flawed in his interpretation of something as crucial as the second coming how can anyone be sure of any prophecy contained in the book . And as the New Testament is to be considered as one unit with each book testifying to the integrity of the others, how can we be sure of anything they say.

I am aware that Christians cling to their beliefs on the basis that there is no absolute method to disprove all of their claims. In fact it is the apologists favorite tactic to explain away all contradictions on the testimony of even the remotest possibility. I believe the scale of these contradictions and the impossibility of proving any of the Christians claims should lead the rational person to acknowledge the overwhelming probability that they are in fact false.