aa5874

Did Pharisees believe in the resurrection of a dead body? After reading Josephus it would appear to me that the Pharisees merely believed that the body was corruptible, (would perish) and the soul or spirit was incorruptible or immortal.

And it was the soul and not the body that was rewarded by everlasting imprisonment or eternal life.

There was no resurrection of the dead body.

This is Josephus on the Pharisees.
Antiquities of the Jews 18.1.3-4See http://wesley.nnu.edu

DCHindley

Well, I similarly date an original (non-Christian) Paul to the 40s CE, the Christian interpolator of these letters to around 80 CE (in Syria), with the Gospels composed between 90-100 CE (maybe in the order Mark, Matthew, Luke in Asia/Greece, and John in Egypt), and Acts around 100-110 (in Italy/Greece). The books of the NT were grouped together by themes (4 gospels, letters of Paul, Acts + general epistles, revelation) and published around 150 CE. Not all groups of these books were equally well received.

Category	Total mss	Percent	e=gospels	a=acts+gen	p=paul	r=rev
e	2,123	67.2%	2,123
ap*	273	8.6%		273	273
p	222	7.0%			222
eap**	150	4.7%	150	150	150
r	130	4.1%				130
a	87	2.8%		87
apr	76	2.4%		76	76	76
eapr	59	1.9%	59	59	59	59
ea	11	0.3%	11	11
er	11	0.3%	11			11
pr	6	0.2%			6	6
ep	5	0.2%	5		5
ar	3	0.1%		3		3
ear	2	0.1%	2	2		2
Total	3,158	100.0%	2,361	661	791	287
TNT (p83)			2,361	662	792	287
Variance*			0	1	1	0
percent of mss with group			75%	21%	25%	9%

* variance probably should be added to category "ap"
** omitted from Trobisch's table in error, reconstructed from TNT
e = Gospels (usually in order Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn)
a = Acts and General Epistles
p = Letters of Paul (Hebrews usually between 2 Thess & 1 Tim)
r = Revelation

That table is from David Trobisch's First Edition of the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk). The source I checked it against, labeled "TNT", is Kurt & Barbara Aland's Text of the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk). The 3,158 represents the total number of important manuscripts.

It shows the gospels were a big favorite, followed by letters of Paul a distant 2nd, closely followed by Acts + general epistles, and a really distant fourth place goes to the Revelation of John.

DCH

aa5874

What is the source for a (non-Christian) Paul? What did the (non-Christian) Paul write?

The word "Christ" is found hundreds of times in the the canonised Pauline Epistles. I cannot understand what would be gained by an unknown writer to interpolate hundreds of passages 40 years later, when the original (non-Christian) PAUL would have been known, both seen and heard, all over the Roman Empire with his churches and converts.

Imagine for a moment that you both heard and seen the (non-Christian) Paul preach and teach for 40 years, would it not be very easy for you to detect non-Pauline writings?

The theory that there was a (non-Christian) Paul in the 1st century cannot be supported by evidence of antiquity and is not logical.

Rick Sumner

Who was Alexander? Beyond a list of his accomplishments, who was Alexander the man?

There are as many--perhaps even more--answers to that than there are to the jesus question (as Tim Bowe indicates in his thread title, there are a lot of contrary opinions, but they more or less fall in to given groups). The same can be said of Caesar--some may suggest he was doing what was best for Rome. Still others suggest he was doing what was best for his men. Still others suggest his motives were purely selfish--doing what was best for Caesar.

Switch from Caesar to Cicero and it breaks down even more. This despite the fact that Cicero spent a great deal of paper telling us who "Cicero the man" was.

The lines are sometimes more obvious here, because we are obviously far more interested in who the man was than we are with, for example, Caesar. But ultimately this criticism, so often bandied about by the Mythicist camp, is baseless. A few dissenters doesn't make something other than a consensus view, there are people who dispute virtually every historical claim, whether it was that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or that Jesus was baptized by John. Those people don't damage the consensus, they just aren't part of it.

You could hammer out a more or less `consensus`Jesus the figure in history, with the proviso that we are not going to get a consensus Jesus the man.

He was baptized by John, had a relatively brief ministry, commissioned twelve disciples, and was executed under Pilate for creating a disturbance at the temple.

Yes, I am aware that, for example, Arnel does not accept the baptism and Fredriksen rejects the temple incident. Be that as it may, and my own reservations about some things notwithstanding, that does not change the fact that such a consensus exists. They just exist outside of it. And thank goodness some scholars do, else we would learn nothing and never be challenged. But their existence does nothing to affect that existence of a consensus.

The fact that a mainstream scholar holds a fringe position (as is very often the case) does not mean that there is no mainstream consensus. It means that a mainstream scholar holds a position that does not enjoy support.

When Fredriksen, for example, rejects the temple incident she is every bit against the consensus as Doherty is. Her general conclusions are just more mainstream.

As arguments against historicity go, diversity among historicist reconstructions is somewhere near reading entrails in terms of strength. It first of all indicates nothing, and second of all ignores reality--there is a general consensus about the course of a life.

aa5874

Of course it is nonsense. The HJ is nonsense.

jakejonesiv

How did you arrive at this conclusion? Who published them?

Best,
Jake

jakejonesiv

Hi AA,

These are good questions I would like to see answered also.

Jake

jakejonesiv

I see what you are saying, but it is a weak indicator. Most commentators start with the assumption that Paul really wrote 2 Cor 11:23, and then treat the statement as if it were inerrant, massaging all external data so as not to contradict it.

The text of 11:32 indicates that Aretas was the ruler of Damascus in the alleged time of Paul, something that is unlikely. I doubt that the Romans appointed an ethnarch and then instructed him to report to King Aretas.

So if not from history, where did the reference in 2Cor11 come from? The redactor conflated Aretas III and Aretas IV from Josephus. It wouldn't be the first time a New Testament writer misread Josephus.

The redactor tips his hand in 2Cor 11:31, "The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows, he who is blessed forever, that I do not lie." Pretty stong stuff. The reader requires the extra assurance of the oath because something new has been added.

We see the "lying oath" also used in Galatians 1:20 to cover the interpolation of the "first" trip to Jerusalem. Tertullian AM 5.3.1 and Irenaeus AH 3.14.3 indicate the trip "after 14 years" was the only trip, not the second trip.

In any case, one of the key markers to date Paul is unreliable.

Jake

Clivedurdle

I would like to seriously push an original Paul back to Aretas 111.

This would make sense of Ellegard's teacher of righteousness.

Christ is easily solved by seeing it as magical reference to an annointer.

Clivedurdle

Are there any phrases in the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha or other similar works talking of our saviour and annointer YHWH?