GakuseiDon

That's true, but I was reading your comment that the lack of variations of 1 Thess 2 matches the lack of variations of TF, and that there is no evidence for the latter. But Origen is clear evidence that he either saw a different TF or it was inserted as a whole; we don't have similar evidence for 1 Thes 2. I apologise if I misread your comment.

Ehrman writes that "the big question" is whether a Christian scribe added details or "whether the entire thing was produced by a Christian". Ehrman writes that "the majority of scholars of early Judaism, and experts on Josephus, think that it is the former. Ehrman then gives the "abbreviated" version, citing Meier and his "Marginal Jew".

Ehrman also writes, in response to Olson's argument that Eusebius wrote the TF: "There is in fact little in the Testimonium that is more like Eusebius than Josephus, and a good deal of the passage does indeed read like it wasd written by Josephus. It is far more likely that the core of the passage actually does go back to Josephus himself".

Grog

If I could just interrupt here...

Ehrman applies the same minimalist approach to both the TF and 1 Thess 2:14-16. In other words, he questions only those parts that sound like they are not likely to have been written by the respective authors. He mostly ignores the arguments for the entire passages being interpolations. For example, he does not engage a discussion with E. Norden on how the TF is a seam in Book 18. He does partially address Doherty, but in a disingenuous fashion.

Ehrman applies a different approach to accepting that there is any interpolation at all. Ehrman rejects partial interpolation in 1 Thess based on manuscript evidence. Ehrman accepts partial interpolation in TF despite the lack of manuscript evidence.

In both cases, he waves away these interpolations as being of any importance.

Diogenes the Cynic

He doesn't dismiss the possibility of the TF being completely interpolated, he only says it's not likely that Eusebius did it.

aa5874

Ehrman claimed the TF is "only-marginally relevant" in the HJ argument--See page 66--line 15-18 of 'Did Jesus Exist?' by Bart Ehrman.

This is extremely remarkable. The Only non-apologetic source to mention Jesus is really of very little use to the HJ argument.

The sources that are Substantially relevant to EHRMAN are those that are historically unreliable and ADMITTED to be fictionalised--the NT Canon.

Even you have OPENLY admitted that the Gospels are NOT historical.

The HJ argument is FAR worse than previously believed--fundamentalists make a much better argument.

Duvduv

Let me just throw my own two cents in looking at the CONTEXT of these verses:

14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, WHAT churches in Judea? Where? which are in Christ Jesus: Were there churches in Judea that were NOT in Christ Jesus?
You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews in other words, Paul's own people who were the churches were not his own people 15 who killed the Lord Jesus HOW was he killed? Was he shot? Was he stabbed or poisoned? Or was he crucified to atone for everybody? Heck, even the Nicene Creed doesn't mention anything about Jews and the prophets and also drove us out. WHO is "us"? Where were anybody DRIVEN out, with or without Paul?
They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Well, according to Paul in the epistles there were MANY churches in the world, so how could the Jews have been interfering with their success? In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last Meaning the destruction of the Temple or Bar Kochba's rebellion or WHAT?

James The Least

So if Paul says he's a Jew we must take him at his word, huh? Even though his writings and rantings give us no reason to believe him?

"Paul" is indeed saying that all the Jews are enemies of all people. This passage is completely compatible with Christian theology and there is nothing strange or unusual about it within that context. Arguing for an interpolation is merely a modern attempt to hand-wave away the shocking anti-Semitism present in the NT and related early church literature and pretend it isn't there.

GakuseiDon

How does Ehrman do it in a disungenuous fashion?

I'm not sure if he states that he personally accepts partial interpolation in TF (he finds the question irrelevant for the topic of HJ/MJ). But he states the majority of scholars go that way. And there is manuscript evidence that what we have wasn't the original, so the TF must have been editted or inserted in whole: Origen. :huh: Ehrman doesn't mention Origen, but in his footnotes he points to a chapter in Meier's "Marginal Jew" book, where I assume a fuller discussion is provided.

On Josephus: whether Josephus wrote something about Jesus or whether he didn't, Ehrman regards the question as not important to the HJ/MJ debate. But on 1 Thess 2, Ehrman argues how much is interpolated. The question there is of much more importance. If only the last part of 2:16 was interpolated, then it is evidence towards the HJ.

GakuseiDon

What about:

Rom 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites... 5 of whom [are] the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ [came]...

and

Rom 11:1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, [of] the tribe of Benjamin.

Ehrman argues it is not an interpolation, "even though it does not sit well with those of us today who are outraged by the wicked use to which such views were put in the history of anti-Semitism." (DJE, page 124 Kindle on PC)

Diogenes the Cynic

Where did you get the idea that Ehrman argues for interpolation here?
Ehrman says it's authentic, and that Paul did indeed blame "the Jews" for killing Jesus.

James The Least

Romans 9:8 "It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring."

Children of the flesh = Jews. So, in the very same verse in which you imagine that Paul is supposedly defending Jews, he explicitly states that Jews are not the children of God. "For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham." No Jew wrote nonsense like this.

Church propaganda. God hasn't "cast away his people," but he will if they don't come to recognize the prophetic genius of Paul and his Christ Jesus exegesis.

As Jewish scholars have maintained for 100 years now, there is nothing in the epistles to give us any reason to think that Paul was ever trained in rabbinical thinking or was an ethnic Jew from "the tribe of Benjamin." I would go further and say that there's little reason to think "Paul" was anything other than church propaganda and legend. If he did exist he was a liar, so it really doesn't matter either way. He has zero credibility.