aa5874

Again, you are illogical.

I do NOT believe there are 1st century manuscripts. I have NO FAITH in your imaginative claims and arguments from Silence.

I am dealing with the Actual Recovered Dated NT manuscripts from the 2nd century.

You have FAITH that there are 1st century NT writings. I do NOT.

There was NO Jesus story, No Pauline letters, No Pauline Churches and No Pauline Revelations before the 2nd century or later.

You are arguing from Silence or imagination.

What evidence do you have that there are 1st century NT manuscripts when yoiu have agreed that it does NOT require a hundred years to copy an epistle or a story of Jesus??

Again, my argument is based DIRECTLY on ACTUAL RECOVERED DATED NT Manuscripts. I no longer accept imagination as evidence.

Again, I did NOT claim the originals were found. You are the one aguing from Silence or imagination.

I am arguing based on the ACTUAL RECOVERED NT Manuscripts because they Match exactly what I predicted.

I predicted with 100% success that there would be NO NT manuscripts recovered and dated to the 1st century based on the writings of Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger, the short gMark, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Minucius Felix, Arnobius and Julian the Emperor.

Again, you are not making much sense. You are arguing from Silence or imagination. You have NO dated manuscript of gMark to the 1st century so you are really wasting my time.

I have NO FAITH in your unsubstantiated imagination.

Do you not understand that up to the 5th century Church writers knew NOTHING of the Anonymous letter attributed to Clement???

Do you NOT understand that there is a massive Contradiction of Eusebius??

Do you understand that we have discovered a massive forgery??

If Eusebius was correct that the Letter was read PUBLICLY in VERY MANY Churches then it would have been virtually impossible for Augustine of Hippo, Tertullian, Rufinus, Optatius and the author of the Chronography of 354 to claim Clement was the First or Second bishop c 68-88 CE when it should have been known he was the Third bishop c 89-97 CE thorougout the Churches of the Rome SINCE c 180 CE.

stephan huller

Bernard,

Chacun à son goût, I guess. But you realize that you are essentially saying that the most traditional of all ancient people - the Jews - took less care to preserve the names of their most prominent people than did the Greeks, and in this case Christians. By your logic the Christians kept better records of a people who they hated and blamed for the death of Christ. Indeed, the 'Christians' being a cross section generally of the least educated and stupidest portion of the pagan Greek speaking population. When educated, intelligent Christians like Clement of Alexandria reference 'Josephus' they say he composed his chronicle in the second not the first century.

As a man of the world (or one who likes to think he is a sophisticate) I always take the word of the Japanese on Japanese culture etc. - i.e. the natives over the overseers. But not everyone shares my taste I guess.

jakejonesiv

Pauline Christianity arose in Asia Minor in the areas of Galatia, Pontus, and evirons. The Great Apostle was gone and long rumored to be dead. But he "returned" again and again in terrifying epistles.

The “spirit of Paul” sent forth his emissaries in the form of the bearers of his posthumous letters. The epistles in reality were written by later followers, channeling what Paul “would have said;” e.g. 1 Corinthians Sosthenes, 2 Corinthians 1:1 Timothy, Tertius in the 16th chapter of Romans. The bearers of these letters would use them as credentials with the various Pauline churches. We see this in the “fill in the blank” ______ brother of 2 Corinthians 12:18 noted by R.Price.

The figure of Paul arose and held the ascendency in heretical circles, and was only grudgingly accepted by the proto-orthodox after massive changes. The earliest collection of Pauline epistles (without the Pastorals which were not yet written) appeared in Rome in the hands of Marcion ca. 140 CE give or take a few years.

So Mary, I now have a questuon for you. Who had the first collection of Pauline epistles from your point of view?

Best,
Jake

stephan huller

Or the other possibility is that the Catholic epistles filtered 'Paul' through the missionary activities of Polycarp in the second century.

jakejonesiv

Stephan,
Please elaborate. Since you made no reference to a previous message, it is difficult to know to whom you are responding.
Jake

jakejonesiv

The Pauline epistles didn't spontaneously generate out of nothing. One or more persons had to write them to begin with, one or more persons redacted them.

So all who are exclude Marcion from the equation, or who believe that Marcion was really someone else, just how did the Pauline epistles come into being, and who had the earliest collection?

I know that Bernard can provide an answer from the more traditional end of the spectrum.


Jake

stephan huller

Well since the names of the Pauline epistles change under the Marcionite Church the names don't necessarily correspond to an Asia Minor setting. IMO Laodicea might well be modern Latikya, a major Syrian port in antiquity and home today to the elusive Alawites, a sect which may have Marcionite origins. Alexandria is another non-European/Asia Minor setting which an attested Marcionite epistle was directed.

The Acts of Archelaus to the Marcionite center of Osrhoene shows that Mani attempted to portray himself as 'like Paul' (a point which the letter ridicules because of his Persian attire). One must ask whether Polycarp was portrayed as a latter day Paul if not a latter day Marcion.

The clearest point of contact - as Price has cited from my research - is the person of Onesimus who shows up in Philemon (a letter which seems to have no other purpose other than to link Onesimus to Paul). Onesimus appears in the Ignatian letters to Ephesus with the specific purpose of (a) connecting Onesimus to Ignatius or (b) to have Onesimus attest to the existence of Ignatius. I have argued for an original core of the Ignatian letters as addresses from Polycarp about his impending (and ultimately failed) fiery martyrdom in Rome.

Since it is well established that this Pauline epistle was originally anonymous or directed to another community (which is now erased). The consistent witness of Onesimus to Ignatius and Paul can now be doubted even further in light of the attempt to falsify the anonymous epistle as an Ephesian letter. Ephesus is the Church of John and John is associated intimately with Polycarp especially at Ephesus.

My point is only that there is a consistent effort of a community in Asia Minor to introduce key parts of the existing paradigm in order to define core personalities and narratives of the Catholic Church. As Ephesus and Onesimus (= the second century Ephesian bishop) are clearly part of the overall falsification campaign one can turn around this evidence as connecting the effort to Polycarp and the tradition of John.

John is the Asian bishop. Irenaeus makes two references to this in Against Heresies Book Three. The first is during the discussion of the development of the gospels:

and then more significantly:

The point of course is that Irenaeus is the first to identify the anonymous Pauline epistle as 'to the Ephesians.' He had a stake in this identification. But it is part of an over all attempt to recast the Pauline tradition as the foundation or building blocks of the Johannine tradition epitomized by Polycarp.

Nevertheless if we take out the falsified components the rug is pulled out of the alleged Asian missionary activity of Paul. Marcion was only a Roman-Alexandrian phenomenon. This axis is well established and manifests itself with respect to the person of 'Mark.' The Roman-Alexandrian axis is again manifested in Victor's position in the Quartodeciman controversy and the support he gained from the Alexandrian Church which seems to have had authority over Palestine in the second century and Gaza and border regions of Palestine as late as Melitus at the beginning of the fourth century. That Palestine became a no-man's land just outside of Alexandrian authority in the early third century is attested by Clement and Origen's escape from Egyptian authorities at the beginning of the third century.

It should be noted however that despite the traditional Roman-Alexandrian axis the Asian Church ultimately won out. This is because of Polycarp and more specifically the influence of Irenaeus, his alleged 'beloved disciple.' But we shouldn't be so sure that Paul was originally understood to have had a presence in Asia Minor. Indeed the frequent mention of 'Mark' (Irenaeus 1.13 - 21) the heretic might well be an original reference to the Marcionite Paul.

aa5874

There is corroborative evidence at all that the figure of Paul arose and held ascendency in heretical circles.

We have NO copies of any heretical writings under the name of Paul. No story that Paul was an heretic. No cult called the Pauline cult.

We have ONLY one story of Paul in the Canon and after his blinding light conversion he Preached Christ Crucified.

There is NO need at this late stage to Fabricate another Paul character and letters of which there is not a shred of evidence in antiquity.

jakejonesiv

Dear aa5874,

I understand what you are saying.

Taking everything you posted into account, who had the earliest collection of Pauline epistles from your point of view?

Jake

jakejonesiv

Stephan,

Thanks for offering an alternative.

Jake