Amaleq13

Like if you were fasting except for enacting the communion ritual of remembrance?

Didymus

:huh: It wasn't "such an event" by any stretch. It doesn't appear in Paul's epistles at all. That might have something to do with the fact that Paul was writing in the fifties, long before the Temple was destroyed in 70. With the exception of Jesus' famous "prophesy" regarding its fall, it appears only as subtext in the gospels

("Whole cloth" suggests "from nothing." I don't think the gospels came out of thin air. See Turton, among many others.)

Recent history? The first gospel was written at least 40 years after the crucifixion. There's no compelling reason to think that Mark, who seems to have known little about even the geography of Galilee or Judea, would have known all about the life and works of an obscure holy man who was executed 40 years previously in Jerusalem. No, I don't find that odd at all.

But on the other hand, we have every reason to believe that Mark was well versed in the Septuagint!

More likely not known in the first place. If he had wandered in from Galilee, there's no reason why Jerusalemites would know anything about him. In the 1950's, a murderer named Carroll Chessman was executed. His execution became a cause celebre, and everyone knew his name. But his life story was barely known, even at the time. His life story was of little import; the issue was capital punishment, and he was the "human face" of it.

The victim did not have to be a well-known figure. He may have just been a drifter. Or a victim of schizophrenia. Or a harmless holy man of unknown origins who wandered the Temple precincts claiming to be the Messiah.

Even if the victim had no "history" in Jerusalem, there are numerous scenarios that could have prompted a scandal. His execution may have been carried out for illicit motives, been only weakly justified, or could have taken place under circumstances of dubious legality or that gave religious offense to Jews.

It's also possible, as Paul reported, that some local people had a "vision" - a meteorological phenomenon, perhaps - that they associated with that particular crucifixion. There could have been rumors of an empty tomb, etc., etc., etc. The possibilities are endless.

The crucifixion style of execution in itself could have been an issue. Crucifixion, as a particularly humiliating form of execution, was normally reserved for armed insurrectionists like the Zealots and Spartacus and his army of slaves, not for unarmed religious fanatics. You say that crucifixions were commonplace - well, how commonplace were they? I think it's quite possible that non-military crucifixions were a rarity in Judea in the third and fourth centuries - I'd like to see your evidence on this.

The best explanation for Paul's "obliviousness" to the life of Jesus may well be the simplest explanation: Paul wrote nothing about Jesus' life and works because he knew nothing about Jesus' life and works.

Ddms

spamandham

Where do you get the idea that Paul wrote in the 50's? Further, how does that disqualify the destruction of the temple as the driving impetus?

...but that doesn't explain why his crucifixion would be memorable among the numerous others. Jews were being rounded up en mass, and given summary trials in that general time period (if we are to believe Justin Martyr), and crucifixion was commonplace. Keep in mind, this is roughly the same time period as the Jewish insurrection that led to the destruction of the temple.

(also, I would ask the same question in regard to the dating of the first gospel as I did in regard to Paul)

jules?

Thank you, and a web site dedicated to my question><

Didymus

Take five minutes and research the subject. I believe you'll find that the scholarly consensus is that Paul wrote in the 50's and died in the mid-60's, before the Temple was destroyed in 70.

I'll leave that up to you to figure out.

Of course it doesn't, and I didn't say it did. But other things I've mentioned might.

No, it isn't. The war that led to the destruction of the Temple began in 66.

Why, in any event, would Justin have been knowledgeable on that subject? He wasn't a historian; he was a philosopher and Christian apologist. And he lived in the 2nd century!

Once again refer you to the scholarly consensus, which you are perfectly free to dispute. Of course, you might want to get your facts straight before you do that.

Ddms

aa5874

The dating of the Pauline Epistles to the fifties is not factual, it just a position accepted by many scholars and can be challenged.



There is no credible corroborative source for the AUTHORS of the "Pauline Epistles", and further it cannot be shown, without doubt, that a person called "Paul" wrote anything in the 1st century.

Didymus

This has nothing to do with my proposition, but I'm still curious. What evidence do you have to refute the consensus position?

Very little in history can be shown "without doubt." However, there are many reasons to believe that the consensus dating is probably correct. If you or Spamandham would like to challenge the scholarship on the question, or Pauline authorship itself, fine, but neither of you have presented any evidence to the contrary.

I was responding to "Where did you get the idea that Paul wrote in the 50's?" I suppose I should have just replied "You seem to be ignorant of the fact that that's the scholarly consensus. When do YOU think Paul (or whoever - Marcion?) wrote the epistles attributed to him by the majority of modern scholars? And why? And how would YOUR dating affect my proposition?"

Ddms

Doug Shaver

Do you have any idea why they accept it? Have you done any research into the reasons behind the scholarly consensus on the origins of the Pauline corpus?

Of course it can. With evidence.

True. Totally irrelevant, but true.

spamandham

Ok, that's what I thought you meant.

That doesn't answer the question, since we're discussing the gospel story and not Paul's writings. Something spawned the writing of Mark ~20 years after Paul wrote (if you believe the concensus datings), and that dating coincides with the fall of the temple. Mere coincidence?

We're dating heavily edited versions of purportedly 2000 year old documents using paleography from a time period in which there are very few extant documents to base the datings on, and you don't think 12 years counts as being around the same time period? It's not like we know Galatians was written on Sept. 5, 54. The error bars on the dates, even if you accept them at face value, are significant.

Toto

Note - the scholary consensus on the dating of Paul's letters is based entirely on correlating events in those letters with events in Acts, and tying Acts to the dates of the few historical personages mentioned there. Once you drop the assumption that Acts hears some relationship to actual history and admit that it might be fictional, the whole basis for the dating of Paul's letters becomes very shakey. But there is no alternative way of dating them unless you assume that they are second century creations, so you will still read about this scholarly "consensus" that Paul's letters were written around 50-62.