bacht

Spam do you have any thoughts on possible gnostic connections with Paul? There's the Simon Magus identification, and of course Marcion. Jewish Christians like the Ebionites viewed Paul as the enemy.

If we see Paul this way his letters must have been revised to meet Catholic needs.

Doug Shaver

I don't think I'm presupposing authenticity, exactly. Somebody had to write them, and he called himself Paul. So, absent evidence to the contrary, I assume that they were written by someone whose name was Paul.

But then we have a scholarly consensus that about half of them were written much later than the others, by somebody pretending to be same author. That leaves us seven letters written by someone named Paul and six forgeries.

Next question: Who was this Paul? The man himself gives us almost no autobiographical data, but he seems to have some kind of missionary, and he claims to have been somewhat acquainted with some people who had some kind of authority over a group of Christians in Jerusalem. His references to Jerusalem make it apparent that he was writing prior to the First Jewish War. And so, prima facie, we have maybe seven, maybe fewer, letters (heavily redacted, perhaps) written by a Christian missionary named Paul sometime around the middle of the first century. Let's call this guy the historical Paul.

If they're all forged, then we have to consider two possible cases: (1) There was no historical Paul; the man was a fiction created by second-century Christians. Or (2) There was a historical Paul, but he had nothing to do with writing any of the letters we have with his name on them.

Had he been purely a product of second-century Christian imagination, it seems to me that he would not have been so manifestly oblivious to the man from Galilee. I would expect to see a little more evidence of what was to become orthodox thinking about Jesus of Nazareth -- some reference to what Jesus himself had to say about what was required for salvation, some kind of argument for the proposition that this man was the messiah. As Doherty notes, Paul's argument was simply "The messiah was crucified," never "This crucified man was the messiah."

Thanks to the author of Acts, orthodoxy has managed to interpret Paul to make him consistent with a historical Jesus, but the fact that this was even necessary suggests to me that, notwithstanding Paul's real inconsistency with orthodoxy, second-century Christians did not have the option of simply insisting that either (a) he never even existed or (b) he must have been a heretic of some kind. For some reason, they had to say, "Yes, he was one of us, and anybody who thinks that he didn't preach then what we're preaching now is just misinterpreting him."

I'm thinking that a few of them were, at some time before they were ever put into the jar, all blue. Then somebody added some yellow to those marbles and put them into the jar along with some marbles that were all yellow.

A theory for the alternative needs to presuppose one of the following.

1. Somebody in the second century invented the Paul character and wrote some letters in his name. I have yet to see a credible motive proposed for anyone to have done this.

2. Some second-century Christians knew that there had been, during the middle of the previous century, a famous and authoritative Christian missionary named Paul who either never wrote anything or whose writings had been lost. Needing some famous authority to support some ideas they wanted to promote, they put those ideas in Paul's mouth. But . . . if he was so famous and authoritative, how come no Christian writer seems to have heard of him before the extant epistles started circulating, and if none of his writings survived into the second century (or they never existed), how did he get so famous and authoritative?

Doug Shaver

I know what our knowledge is. I have no idea what you might mean by "intuitions of our knowledge."

Doug Shaver

I have no idea. My studies have not taken me in the direction of trying to establish his (or, more likely, their) identity.

bacht

Not sure if this was mentioned already

This is part of Eisenman's analysis of Paul (from James the Brother of Jesus):

Eisenman shows himself willing to take seriously the Ebionite charge that Paul was never a real Jew to begin with. Eisenman adduces the evidence of Paul's Herodian background, something we really do not have to read too far between the lines to see, given his Roman citizenship, his kinship to one Herodion and to the household of Aristobulus. If this is what the Ebionites meant, that Paul was as little a Jew as Herod the Great despite his pretense, then we have a scenario more natural than that which the Ebionite charge might otherwise imply: the idea of Paul as some sort of Greek pagan entering Judaism superficially and from without. As Eisenman notes, Paul protests that he is a Hebrew, an Israelite, even a Benjaminite, but he avoids calling himself a Jew! And Eisenman suggests that, given the strange fact that "Bela" appears both as a chief clan of Benjamin and as the first Edomite king, "Benjaminite" may have been a kind of Herodian euphemism for their oblique relation to Judaism.

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.c...nman_james.htm

spamandham

What I see within the Pauline corpus is one of two things (or maybe an odd mixture of both):

1. A truly early Christian perspective. This is the situation if the oldest layer really was penned in the 1st century. From this perspective then, it seems clear that the gospel as we know it had not yet formed, but was instead a much more rudimentary theology.

2. A later perspective. This is the situation if the earliest layer is 2nd century. From this perspective, the ideas we see in Paul might be a de-emphasis of the historical Jesus, because he had failed to return and the apocalypse didn't happened Both Jesus and the apocalypse were then rationalized into spiritual ideas.

I've read Detering's analysis of Paul, and although it's plausible, to me at least it isn't a strong case.

This much I think is true regardless of when the letters were originally penned.

show_no_mercy

Yeah, I've made this point before:

bacht

Right, and they had the story about Paul wanting to marry the daughter of the high priest.

aa5874

Well, you have merely ASSUMED authenticity without any corroborative source from antiquity.

There is not much difference between pre-supposing and assuming authenticity.

Your assumption of authenticity is just mere SPECULATION.

A completely worthless consensus once you are INCAPABLE of ever SHOWING the EVIDENCE of antiquity.

Please state the EVIDENCE of antiquity for YOUR consensus.

You have nothing but ADD-HOC speculation absent of evidence.


Why six forgeries and not seven, eight, nine or thirteen?

Why is not the letter to Galatians a piece of fiction? The author claimed he persecuted Jesus believers who did not exist before the Fall of the Temple.

In Galatians, the author claimed he stayed with an apostle called Peter for fifteen days in Jerusalem but such a statement appears to be an outright lie. The apostle Peter was a fictitious character in the Jesus stories.

Galatians can be added to the list of fraudulent epistles. We have seven.

Why is not Romans a piece of fiction?

The author of Romans claimed HIS LORD JESUS the MESSIAH was born of the seed of David and was RAISED from the dead. No such character called Jesus the Messiah, Creator of heaven and earth can be located external of the Church before the Fall of the Temple

Add Romans to the list of bogus epistles. We have eight.

Why are not 1and 2 Corinthians fiction stories? In 1 Corinthians, a writer claimed that Jesus the MESSIAH, (the Creator of heaven and earth), was BETRAYED in the night after he had eaten and that he and over 500 people SAW Jesus the Messiah (Creator of heaven and earth)in a non-historical state. This is most likely undisputed Fiction. The Pauline resurrected Jesus Messiah cannot be found.

In 2 Corinthians, this writer claimed Lord Jesus the Messiah (Creator of heaven and earth) spoke to him and said "My grace is sufficient for thee....... Again fiction stories. Jesus the Messiah was a fiction character in the Jesus stories

We have TEN.

Why are not 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Philippians fiction stories? They refer to Jesus the Messiah (the Creator of heaven and earth) who was RAISED from the dead.

We have 13 non-historical epistles about the Lord and Saviour Jesus the Messiah, Creator, EQUAL to God and who was RAISED from the dead on the third day.


Do not answer your own question. You may run into difficulty. Not even the Church historians know what Paul wrote, and when he wrote.

And which "Paul" you know?

Prima facie, you don't know what you are talking about. IT may have been the redactor who made references to Jerusalem.

Let's call your guy SPECULATIVE PAUL. You ALREADY admitted you have almost NO autobiographical data of Paul..


In the Epistles the Pauline writers wrote about a God/man called JESUS the Messiah over 160 times.

Any mention of Jesus or Christ referred to the God/man, the Creator of heaven and earth, and the Messiah.

1Co 2:2 - Totally wrong. You don't know what you are talking about. Jesus in Acts was a MYTH or acted non-historicaly. He was witnessed by the disciples going through a CLOUD in Acts 1.9.

The Pauline writers met Jesus in a non-historical state.


Not at all. You don't know what you are talking about. No one has to do what you propose.

You just simply have to provide the corroborative sources of antiquity for your possibly redacted letters.

What??? Why do you want to dictate what others should do when YOU cannot provide a single external corroborative source for an early Paul?

You have just simply ASSERTED that Paul is early without external evidence and then want to DEMAND that others give explanations and evidence.

It is ALREADY known or can be seen that the very criteria that was used to theorize that gMatthew copied or was aware of gMark cannot be used to show that gMark, gMatthew, or gLuke copied or were aware of the Pauline writings.

Over 60% of gMatthew can be found in gMark.

Less than 1 single passage of gMark can be found in the Pauline writings.

Less than 1 single passage of gMatthew can be found in the Pauline writings.

The Pauline writings ALL appear to be late.

spamandham

I agree that someone had to write them, but I see no reason to accept that that person's name was Paul, or that they were a mid first century father of the gentile church.

I think it's important to understand the culture of the day. It was commonplace to attribute texts to a figure of authority. This was especially common in philosophical and theological schools. Part of the training often involved writing manuscripts that you would attribute to the figure head. If that's what has happened with these letters, then that still leaves us wondering who Paul really was, because he was nonetheless viewed as an authority. He might really have been the father of the church, even if the letters we have were not penned by him.

If the letters were written by a later writer, is there really any reason to think such a writer would make no references to Jerusalem? They *might* not, but there's no good reason to say they *would* not. Instead, we would expect to find anachronisms, which we do.

The letters do place a literary Paul into the timeframe prior to Hadrian, but they also place him into a post Hadrian timeframe through anachronisms. Can we really say with any confidence that this is due to mostly authentic letters being slightly redacted? If they are mostly authentic, then how is it that anachronisms have slipped in? Doesn't the existence of anachronisms suggest heavy editing as a minimum?

Prima facie, we have 13 letters written by Paul.

Yes, I agree, although you are leaving out a 3rd possibility, which is that the earliest layer truly is 1st century or older.

...only if the author was from the orthodox line. We *know* there were multiple competing sects of Christianity in the 2nd century, and their beliefs varied wildly. I would not expect a Valentinian to pen much of anything about a Jesus as a man.

One motive for inventing a Paul character is that it gives an author the ability to put forth his own agenda unchallenged. Such a literary character would not originally carry much authority, but if the author was already in a position of power, it would give him a means to push an agenda that he could not otherwise push, and in time Paul would be come to be seen as an authority.

That's the same thing we see with the Old Testament, wherein the 5 books of Moses were 'found'. Did anyone know who Moses was before those 5 books were 'found'?

Paul need only have been an authority to a single sect to explain why that sect would see him as an authority. A later catholicizing movement might try to find a way to work Paul into the mix to appeal to that sect. Perhaps this is why the gospels make no mention of Paul, but Acts does...Acts was written in whole or in part for the express purpose of appealing to Paul's cult, writing him into the orthodox history, therby giving letters bearing his name authority.