jakejonesiv

Hi Steven,

1 Thessalonians was written to a mature church. The zeal of early conversion had gone out, 5:19. The advice given is pastoral; brotherly love, mind your own business, work hard, be unobtrusive to outside society, 4:9-12. Give credit to the hardest workers, be at peace among yourselves, reprove the lazy, encourage the timid, support the weak, be patient with everyone. 5:12-14.

The author states, "it is superfluos that it write to you" about the day of the Lord, yet goes ahead and does so anyway. The purpose is to retroject current teaching as foundational. The mention of Phillipi (1 Thess 2:2) is a literary sphragis, to establish the bone fides of the current epistle, and the command to read the epistle in public is to seek inclusion of the new letter with the older Pauline letters.

The "I, so-and-so" formula is the mark of pseudonymous authorhip, 1 Thess 2:18, cf 2 Cor. 10:1. Best,
Jake Jones IV

Toto

Discussion of Pauline Doctrine split to its own thread

jakejonesiv

Hi Rick,

These are thoughtful remarks. According to 1:10-13, Paul has never as yet the Romans and consequently has not been the means of their conversion. However, one would presume that a defense against so many objections to Pauline doctrine would imply some familiarity with it on the part of the readers. The writer throughout addresses the readers as brethren (1:13; 7:14; 8:12; 10:1; 11:25; 12:1; 15:14f., 30; 16:17), preaches to them up as one with authority, and discusses with them, as persons with whom he stands on a friendly footing. He seemingly knows all their business and does not hesitate to stick his nose into all of it. 2:1,3,17; 9:20; 11:13; 12:3; 14:4,10,15. Note the lofty tone.

Chapter 16 contains a long list of aqauitences, kinsmen, and friends. Are you are in agreement that Romans 16 is a late addition? Indeed, chapter 16 never says it is from Paul. Rather, "I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord." 16:22. Once we remove the trappings of an epistle we see it is three dogmatic treatises pasted together. The whole is simply too long to be an occasional letter of antiquity.

But these are arguments from within the document itself. The historical context tells against it. You argument is that apparently the Roman church had in its possession the Epistle to the Romans from the 50's CE onward, but without being influenced by it. Perhaps it lay moldering and forgotten in the archives of the 2c Roman church until it turned up again, in the possession of Marcion! :clapping:

Best,
Jake
Best,
Jake Jones IV

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv dear departed Paul, who had been with them long before (3:4)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery I'm a little puzzled with your explanation of the verse .. where did you find "long before"

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv 1 Thessalonians was written to a mature church.... (snip) ...The purpose is to retroject current teaching as foundational...

Oh, to put it simply, Paul does not say anything at all about "long before" and you gave a verse number to give the appearance that he did. The verse simply saying.

1 Thessalonians 3:4
For verily, when we were with you,
we told you before that we should suffer tribulation;
even as it came to pass, and ye know.

And the "long before" was based upon a whole bunch of Price-ian assumptions and presuppositions (similar to "redaction") of non-authentic authorship, such as that Paul actually did not write 1 Thessalonians. In reality Thessalonians doesn't actually say that in the verse, you just used the verse reference to pretend it was there.

What happened was this.

a) You assert 1 Thessalonians is not from Paul
b) In support of this you claim that the author wrote that "long before" he had been there.
c) We look at the text and find that the author said no such thing.

So that destroys your a-b connection. Now granted, the argument was weak even if true, yet why go to such length to make an untrue weak argument ?

And does the simple fact that the writer did not say this become an argument for Pauline authorship ? Since it was expected for the pseudonymity claim, one would logically expect the inverse,

And if the Price analysis is a valid starting point for the discussion the whole question is moot anyway, since you have assumed that which you are seeking to demonstrate.

Anyway it would be nice though not to give a scripture reference when it says absolutely nothing like you are claiming it says. Proper writing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv The "I, so-and-so" formula is the mark of pseudonymous authorhip,

And I will try to discuss the Paul language question later, and who and where the phrasing (I, name) is used naturally and consistently. I gather you consider every Pauline epistle as inauthentic.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

jakejonesiv

Hi Rick,

Romans 3
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

That is pure Paul. What is bogus is the manufactured defense of this Pauline doctrine from the Hebrew scriptures, 3:10-20. The texts appealed to are used in a specious and out of context manner. Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3;140:3;10:7; Isaih 10:7;Psalm 36:1. It is an attempt to force a doctrine into a Jewish context that did not originate there.

We fail to regard the Apostle's full power if we do not acknowledge his basic antinominism. "But since what held us fast has died, we hve been released from the Torah so we might serve in a new freedom of spirit, no longer in slavery to a written text." Romans 7:6. This is easy to miss because of the extensive back-pedaling and Judaizing of the subsequent catholic redactor, 3:31, 7:7.

Best,
Jake

aa5874

That is an unsubstantiated claim. There is simply no way of knowing the real Paul.

Once you admit that the information provided by the Church about Paul is erroneous then you cannot just simply guess that you know Paul.

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephen,

Yes, that is the overarching theme of this thread.

My point is that, even though the Pauline epistles are inauthentic, they still accurately represent the beliefs of the Pauline school before proto-orthodox redaction. The Pauline epistles didn't inspire the gospels, because the gospels were already in existence in at least proto-form before the PE became widely known in proto-orthodox circles.

I gather you consider every word of Pauline epistle as authentic, incuding the Pastorals?

The historical trend in against authenticity, briefly reversed, but now continuing against rear guard action. There is no bright dividing line between the inauthentic epistes and the allegedly geniuine epistles.

For example, if Ephesians and Colossians are both inauthentic, as the majority of scholars agree, why should we accept Philemon, which arose in the same circles? Especially seeing Philemon has strong similarities to a correspondence between Pliny and Sabinianus. Philmon, full of Christian charity, filled the same purpose for Marcion as the story of the prodigal son did for the proto-othodox.

It is perfectly reasonable that the gospels, or indeed all of the New Testament texts, should be treated very cautiously with regard to historical information.

The notable exceptions are the supposedly genuine Pauline Epistles. Then folks dig in their heels and insist upon the most literalist reading, arranging all other data to support the literal veracity of the texts. Here we find the the last vestigesof the "inerrancy of the Bible." The time is past that the PE should be treated with kid gloves, and scrutinized with the same historical and text critical methods that have yielded such great advances in understanding the gospels and Old Testament.

Best,
Jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

The epistle to the Galatians has an interesting provenance. This epistle is assumed by many to be an authentic first century compostition by the venerable Saint. But for all the alleged earliness of Galatians, you will not find it named before Irenaeus. It was found (nactus) by Marcion by "lucky chance." Tertullian, Adv. Marc., Book 4, Chapter 3. According to Marcion, it was the earliest epistle written by Paul. If "Paul" had written it, where had it been for nearly a century? Passing strange for a document allegedly written in the 50's CE, Galatians contains autobiographical material from Marcion's life, and he combined it with earlier material of a certain legendary magician, Simon Magus.

But as has been demonstrated by van Manen and Herman Deterring (among others), the proto-orthodox have redacted Marcion's version. This is where the story turns very interesting. It turns out that the proto-orthodox created the incidents in the life of Paul by the very same methods they used to create the life of Jesus; by recasting tales from the Septuagint!

Paul and Elijah both set out to purge the enemies of the "true" faith, the prophets of Baal for Elijah (1 Kings 18) and the church for Paul (Gal 1:13,23).

Elijah is turned aside (1 Kings 19:3) as is Paul when he encounters the risen Christ (Acts 9). {note: Acts 9 is the most catholicized of the "conversion" tales, and was written in response to Marcion's Galatians).

Now here is the key part; Elijah immediately goes to Horeb, the mountain of God (1 Kings 19:8). Likewise, Paul turns aside into Arabia (Gal 1:17), where Mount Sinai is supposed to be located (Gal 4:25). It is on the Mount that Paul would naturally receive his alleged divine revelation, Gal. 1:12.

After that, both Elijah (1 Kings 19:15) and Paul (Gal. 1:17) go to Damascus.

Uh-oh! So that's where this Damascus business comes from!?! Just when you think you are on firm historical footing, the "weaver of tales" displays his hand and the grounds shifts beneath your feet.

The deeds of the alleged Paul, like those of Jesus, vanish away when scrutinized. They are again and again revealed to be nothing more than midrash (loosely defined) on OT tales.

Jake

rlogan

gosh jakejones - a lot to chew on. But it is so nice to see the idea advance without knee-jerk contempt.


It seems axiomatic you need to dismiss the ostensible purposes of the alleged letters. All of them. People came up with scripture to justify their own doctrine, from the first line of Genesis all the way to tha last line of Revelation. It is self-evident, really.

So the best rule is to look most closely at whose hands the letter first shows up in. It isn't the alleged recipients. (eg Galations -> Marcionite circles)

Once such a phony letter has attained street credibility then you can have charges that Marcion defiled the scriptures and the orthodoxy co-opts it via redaction.


One of the things we have to do is reject the whole house of cards on early dating. The books are not dated by fictional historical anchors within. They are dated by whose hands they show up in. Their purpose reflects a Christology of that time, not of the alleged historical era.

jakejonesiv

Hi rlogan,

I agree with your overview.

Marcion had "found" the Epistle to the Galatians, which is an indication that he forged it himself. Tert. AM 4.3.1. It was his cover letter to the Apostolikon. This portrayal of Paul was very much in keeping with Marcion's Paul who exclusively knew the truth according to revelation.

Afterwards, the catholics redacted the entire epistle. There are many proto-orthodox changes, but the most notable was the insertion of Justin's views about Abraham being justified by faith.

The redaction of the Pauline epistles is a fact, not a theory. However, it remains to be seen whether Marcion mutiltated the canonical version, or if the catholic editors added material it contra-Marcion. I think the latter is more likely.

The oldest extant copies of the Pauline epistles date to the third century, some 150-200 years after they were supposed to be written. The only copies that survived (or that was allowed to survive) were the catholic versions. But we know from the Heresiologists that a different recension of the PE were collected by Marcion sometime before the middle of the second century. These can be recreated with some degree of accuracy.

Let's take the synoptic gospels as a model. The truth is much more complex, but we can simply the synoptic solution for this illlustration.

GMark preceeded both GMatt and GLuke. GMark (or urMark) was a source for both Matthew and Luke. Both au_GMatt and au_GLuke used most of GMark in their gospels, 89% and 72% respectively. Both au_GMatt and au_GLuke made significant changes to GMark's Christology, but they proceeded primarily by interpolation while keeping most of what they found in GMark. Now, I am leaving out a couple of steps for clarity, but the gospels of Matthew and Luke really shouldn't be identified as separate gospels; they are both ultimately a redacted version of Mark.

That's just the way the early Christians did things in those days. They seldom entirely cut out things entirely, but instead added material that supported their own theological agenda. A quick example; the Christology in GMark is adoptionist; Jesus becomes the son of God at his baptism. But au_GMatt and au_GLuke changed that, but not by deleting the baptism scene; instead they both added miraculous birth stories--contradictory to be certain--but still both move Jesus' son of God status back to conception.

I suggest the same process happened with Marcion's version of the Pauline epistles; they were interpolated by proto-orthodox editors to insert their doctrines. This is why the current version of the Pauline episltles are "hard to understand." We are reading the words of multiple authors with differing theological agendas. The recreated versions of Marcion's epistles (mainly Romans and Galatians) are realtively easier to understand and smoother to read. (This is not to say they had not been prior to Marcion redacted by intra-Pauline squabbles! ;-)).

The proto-orthodox (e.g. Tertullian and all the orthodox scholars that follow him) then covered their tracks by saying their redacted versions were instead the original and Marcion had "mutilated" theirs decades before! But that would be like arguing that au_GMark started with canonical Matthew and made a reader's digest version of it. The evidence is in the other direction. The point is, compared to the catholic version, the earlier and more authentic recension came from Marcion.

Jake Jones IV