yalla

S.A [AFL] footy team....they lost..dammit!

krosero

Dating Paul's writing is not something I know much about, and I haven't yet read Bernard Muller's dating of Paul, but I can try to mention some possible ways of looking at the problem.

Paul's work is missing historical markers, but other than Aretas there is of course the central character, Jesus Christ. I don't mean this to be flip, or to suggest that Christ is a uncontested figure. I'm saying that if we ask whether Paul claims to have known or interacted with a historical figure whose life is attested in a source outside the Pauline corpus, Christ meets that standard: Paul speaks of a Jesus surnamed Christ; Josephus speaks of a Jesus "so-called" Christ, in his "James passage." That passage does not tell us when Christ lived (though it does tell us that he cannot have lived very far in time from his brother), but the Testimonium does. The Testimonium probably originally used the word "Christ": I would not submit that Josephus originally wrote "He was the Christ," but it's at least possible that he wrote, "And the tribe of Christians, so named from him ..." Without those last words, we would need to ask why Josephus has mentioned a Christ in his James passage without explaining it or elsewhere using that title of anyone; or we would ask, of course, if the James passage is interpolated (and it does seem in many respects that the claim for interpolation here is weaker than is the case with the TF).

But claims of interpolation, for this passage or the Testimonium or any text at all, are a second step; the first step, dating Paul by using texts as they stand, leaves us with the name of Jesus Christ as a historical marker in Paul's letters, since an extra-biblical source (Josephus) mentions Christ. For this statement not to be true, we need at least for the text of Josephus to contain two interpolations: the "so-called Christ" phrase, and the Testimonium (which refers to the name of Christ in two places and MAY therefore be said to require two distinct interpolations by itself).

Now of course Paul does not claim to have interacted with Jesus before his death on the cross. So far all we can suggest is that since Paul mentions Jesus crucified and buried (in two different passages), we can say that Paul wrote after the time that Pilate, per Josephus, put this Jesus to death. Perhaps a closer reading of Paul's letters can say whether Paul is reliably telling us that he interacted with a vision of his central figure not long after that figure's death.

This argument for Christ as a historical marker via Josephus can be made also for James, if it can be ascertained that Paul's James is the James of Josephus.

The terminus for Paul's letters at one end is Marcion, but as Peter Kirby wrote in the thread that stimulated this one, that doesn't get as any earlier than "early 2nd century." Really I think only internal Biblical evidence (tied to Acts' mention of Paul and Gallio) can date the Pauline corpus more exactly.

By the way, if we rephrase our question to ask not for extrabiblical markers in Paul's literature but for markers attested by anyone who is not Pauline, then we can say that Acts attests to Paul (and less usefully, other figures mentioned by Paul, e.g., Barnabas), even though Acts does not mention Paul's letter-writing. Now of course it's fair to ask for extrabiblical evidence, but Acts has that: the archaeological verification of Gallio. Acts, and the gospel tied to it, have many more historical markers than the Pauline corpus does, and you can proceed from there.

Now all this might be little more than a re-stating of the traditional model of Christian development, but in reply to the first post I do think there are "grounds for saying for saying that Paul must have written before or after a certain time or event", grounds which use both extrabiblical and non-Pauline verification. Are they uncontested? Not by a long shot. But the challenges do require showing interpolations (in Josephus) without manuscript evidence.

Toto

Where exactly does Paul speak of Jesus as a historical figure, or indicate that he interacted with this historical figure? The closest you get is that Jesus "revealed himself" to Paul in a very unhistorical fashion, but there is no indication that this Jesus was a recent figure.

Forthermore, "Christ" is not a surname, it is a title.

This is a very thin reed to hang onto. You are assuming that "brother" is biological brother, you are assuming that the text of Josephus suvived without substantial alterations or interpolations in the hands of Christian copyists. If you assume all that, you might as well just assume the Bible is essentially true and not trouble yourself about it. If you are going to interact with skeptics, you need to put yourself into their frame of mind and examine the evidence more critically.

Paul does not mention Pilate, except for one instance which is widely assumed to be an interpolation (by those who admit of interpolations.) But I can assure you that scholars have combed Paul's letters for any indication that his vision was of a recently deceased figure, and have not found anything. Paul says he visited Jerusalem and met with Peter, James and John, and he shows them no deference. Is this the sort of behavior you would expect if his vision were of someone they had just spoken with?

But nothing ties Paul's James to the James in Josephus except Christian legend.

The most reasonable explanation of Acts is that it was written in the mid-2nd century by someone who had access to Paul's letters, and shaped a Christian melodrama around them and other fantasies.

That's what it is.

Why should the challengers be required to show interpolations in Josephus? The TF has clearly been interpolated, and the only question is whether there was some prior mention of Jesus before the interpolator did his work. So we know that someone interpolated at least one passage. Why is the burden of proof on the skeptic to show that the other mention of Jesus was not also interpolated?

krosero

Paul speaks of Jesus being crucified and buried (I know there are challenges to all the references to a historical Christ). Now about the "interacting" part, this was sloppy writing on my part; I was pointing to Paul's reference to his vision, meaning that he knew the name "Jesus christ", and that we could therefore date Paul to a time after whatever date we give to the first appearance of "Jesus Christ" (historical figure or otherwise). I said farther down in my post that Paul did not interact with the historical figure, and you might have just replied to that point, rather than making an extra objection here over a claim about Paul's interaction that I was not making.

This is an equally superflous objection. Do you think I meant to say that Christ was a surname in the sense that you and I have surnames? It's a title that went with the name as if it was a surname. And the James passage in Josephus does not say that Christ was a surname. How does this matter to my argument? Josephus says that this Jesus was known as Christ; Paul says as much about his Jesus.

I believe the question of biological relation comes into the picture when Doherty challenges Paul's mention of James; I did not know this was also a question in the Josephus corpus. If so, it still does not matter: James and Jesus are linked in the Josephus passage.

As for alterations or interpolations, I was not assuming that there were none. I said that the case for interpolation in this passage seemed weaker than the case for the Testimonium, thus allowing the possibility of interpolation. If I had assumed no tampering by Christian copyists, I could then have said I had a proof of Jesus Christ's existence, or some strong statement like that (such as the essential truth of the Bible). All I have attempted here is to say that the debate about Paul's date can bring in Josephus, and can bring in Jesus Christ as a historical marker -- arguments I have not seen made. You can challenge all those, but you cannot say that I have assumed anything.

And I have been trying to put myself in the mindset you're referring to, though there is no obligation on me to offer arguments more skeptical than my own conclusions; no obligation on me not to suggest using Jesus Christ as a historical marker via Josephus. Are you implying that the arguments against interpolation are completely without merit? I think not; you were saying only that I was assuming a conclusion (see above for that).

Of course Paul does not mention Pilate, though that Roman is mentioned as having made a "good confession" in 1 Timothy, an epistle I do not count in the originally Pauline corpus.

I am one of those who admits of interpolations, as I have in this thread (regarding interpolations within the Testimonium) and my suggestions for interpolated passages in the current thread asking which NT passages are interpolated.

In any case, you missed the steps in my argument: Josephus mentions Jesus Christ, Pilate and the crucifixion of Jesus; Paul mentions Jesus Christ and the crucifixion but not Pilate (he has not troubled to mention who the executor was). All else aside, if you were just looking at these two passages, their content does not contradict. And then, if other coherences appear between Paul and Josephus, or between them and material that can be plausibly linked to what these men wrote (see the Gospels for that, or Tacitus, or archaeological inscriptions dating Pilate, Gallio, etc.), then the burden of proof is on someone to show that Paul, because he doesn't mention the man who ordered the crucifixion, is contradicting Josephus or speaking of another man.

I would need to do my own combing of Paul for that, otherwise your statement is just an argument from authority (an argument I have used before, wrongly).

Paul may be said to have shown the Jerusalem leaders no deference; I may agree with that depending on what you mean exactly. Paul certainly lacks humility in many places in his letters; and he had the chutzpah (sp?) to change the original mission radically (making it a mission to the Gentiles) when he did not even see Christ in the flesh and could not count himself among the original apostles; he said that he had direct orders from the risen Christ. There's certainly enough evidence to regard Paul as less than a deferential groupie with regard to the Jerusalem leaders, without making the claim that his combativeness shows Christ not to have lived. Put simply, Paul will be Paul, and will stick to his personality quite plausibly whether Jesus was a recently deceased figure or not.

It's true, I did not say that this link was obvious or easy to make; Jesus Christ is a better historical marker. But on James it may be worth mentioning that a brother of Jesus called Christ in Josephus, and a brother of the Lord called Christ in Paul, are not contradictory statements.

It may be reasonable to call the beliefs of others "fantasies" (and religious fervor does too often include fantasies), except that half the time this is because the person saying so is projecting, or else just denouncing a quality that they posses themselves. I'm not claiming that; I'm saying simply that if someone calls something else a "fantasy" (such as has been done to MJ arguments), I've learned that I should not accept such a charge too easily. It could equally be said of mythicism that it provides a powerful temptation to those who fantasize about the discrediting of Christianity, so there's specific reasons as well as general ones to resist the language you're using.

I argued that the author of Acts did not know Paul's letters, and there are some arguments that could be made for this, for instance, by noting the contradictions between Acts and Paul. But there may be contrary arguments, and I think you're referring to Doherty's. Does his dating of Acts depend in any way on the truth or falsity of his central thesis about Jesus? (I'm asking). If it does, are there any similar datings of Acts that are not given as part of an MJ thesis?

I have suggested here that the traditional model get a second look, on the very specific question of Paul's dating, for the reasons I've given.

The challengers are required (as anyone is) to show interpolations in Josephus through positive evidence, such as the manuscripts. Other evidence can be called in, and such evidence is sufficient in my mind to demonstrate that the TF has been tampered with. But to make my point in general terms, if a text originally said something other than what we see with our eyes, arguments need to be made, and counter-arguments defeated; otherwise the texts will stand. In specific terms, charging the James passage to be an interpolation because another passage in Josephus was tampered with (the extent of the tampering remaining uncertain) is not a good technique. TF interpolation can support the idea of interpolation in the James passage, but this runs the risk of prejudicing the investigation of the James passage before it begins; better to discredit the James passage on its own terms, and then bring in the TF as support. You seemed, when locating the burden of proof, to be relying first on the question of whether the TF is interpolated.

When I said the James passage has a weaker case than the TF does for tampering, I was referring to direct arguments about the James passage's plausibility; and I think you would agree with me that those are not as strong as the arguments for TF interpolation, given such howlers in the TF as "He was the Christ."

Toto

I gather that you have missed the recent discussions here about the problems in the "brother of Jesus called the Christ" reference in Josephus. The phrasing is awkward and has all the indicia of a marginal note that was copied into the text.

But let's see why no one has used this before. What does it tell you that Josephus mentioned a "Jesus called the Christ" in a passage about someone who was stoned in 62 CE? Does it tell us that this Jesus had died before that time? No. Does it allow us to assume that Paul's letters were written about 30 years before that? In short, it does not allow us to date Paul's letters to any particular date in the first century, but the most reasonable inference might be that this Jesus had lived and died around the same time, and Paul could well have been writing in the later part of the first century. This would, of course, contradict Acts, so Christians are not likely to make that argument.

I am saying that the case for interpolation is much stronger than you admit.

But the only date that can be derived here is from the TF, which we all admit has been forger or interpolated. How do you not know that Pilate's name was added by the interpolator?

Paul attributed the crucifixion to "the rulers of this age" which is a term that often refers to the demons who rule this age. Maybe not a direct contradiction, but Pilate was not "rulers" (plural); you will probably try to argue that the demons were working through Pilate. But this is not an indication that Paul and Josephus were working off the same page.

which they don't. You really need to present evidence instead of just speculating that there might be evidence there somewhere.

You're getting carried away there. What do these later writers have to do with Paul? We could even assume that there was a Jesus of conventional Christianity, and Paul's references to Jesus would not pin the dates of his letters to any particular year in the period 30 CE - 140 CE.

Then please do your own combing before making any assertion.

Did you actually have an argument there? Paul communed with the risen Christ. Is there any reason to link this spiritual being with a recently deceased person? Is Paul going to go visit people who knew Jesus only a few years ago and tell them that Jesus spoke to him, and discount what they have to say without even justifying that?

OK, substitute the word "fiction."

Doherty takes his dating of Acts from liberal scholarship. His MJ thesis is not affected one way or another by any 2nd century dating of Acts.

The dating of Acts is very contentious. Conservative Christians want to date it as early as possible, to 60 CE. But this seems unlikely, since it is clear that the same author wrote both Luke and Acts, and Luke was clearly written after the fall of the Temple and used Mark as a source.

But you haven't given us any reasons to revise our opinions after the second look.

I say that your idea that the text should be assumed to have been handed down without interpolations is part of your mindset, and you need to examine it. Is there any good reason to assume that Josephus has not been interpolated, when there are interpolations in practically every other ancient document?

There are the same indications of interpolation in the James passage - there is the use of the term Christ, there is an awkward sentence structure. There just isn't as much to work with.

The traditional dating of Paul depends entirely on Acts. The OP here is asking for a fresh look, not based on Acts.

spin

This is certainly not necessary. The people who maintained the text of Josephus showed a marked propensity to augment texts. The orthodox corruption of scripture and all that. This propensity and the philological evidence turns your requirement into a species of argument from silence, given the fact that we don't have manuscripts for Josephus for many centuries after he wrote.

The reason why most scholars have problems in accepting the TF material as it is that they are embarrassed by the implications in doing so, so they reduce the embarrassment factor by arbitrarily cutting out only the offending bits.


spin

krosero

Right, Christians wanting to date Paul to mid-century can't use the James passage by itself. My full argument is that the passage refers to a Christ, and can be argued reasonably to refer back to the TF, which refers plausibly to a tribe of Christians and to Pilate -- to a specific time in the 30s.

I do not think that Pilate's name was added by the interpolater, since the TF is found in the compact section that relates Pilate's whole career, with two stories after the TF interrupting the flow. An interpolater, in other words, found the TF there and edited it; he did not place it there, since much of the TF's language is Josephan. If you think that the interpolater mimicked Josephus' style, well, we could easily spiral off into another lengthy debate on the TF that would probably add little.

So if you say Christians would not use my argument, I wonder then why skeptics haven't used it. That, after all, is what I meant by saying that no one had used it. Why not? Perhaps it admits too much for Christ as a historical figure/marker. I don't know.

As you say, archons was "often" used to referred to the demons; it was not the only meaning of the word. I understand that Doherty claims the demons interpretation to have assent from a majority, though I would say rather that a majority hear Paul referring at least to the demons. The problem I see is that Paul is a mystical thinker, a sometimes poet, and often an unclear writer. All these might explain why there is controversy over any particular HJ statement in his writings (indeed it would largely explain why he is so little interested in the historical Jesus and so fixed upon the cosmic Christ). But I think here the relevant trait is his mysticism. He skips from singular to plural in speaking of himself as he begins the archons passage ("we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature"), because he has left his discussion of his personal arrival in Corinth and now wants to speak with vaster, more general terms -- you could say accurately, more cosmic terms. He is making strong statements with universal imports about archons. "They" -- not one; not all but one; but all of them -- do not have wisdom. As an proof, if they did have this wisdom, they would not have crucified the Lord.

It would take the force out of Paul's argument to go from strong universal statements to something specific like, "if the rulers on heaven and earth had this wisdom, then Pontius Pilate would not have crucified Christ." Why indict Pilate personally as if salvation history were about his act? Why appear to let anyone else, demon or earthly leader, escape these cosmic generalities? This is about cosmic matters of good and evil, and Christ was caught up in them in a certain preordained way (making Pilate's personal role in it mere happenstance).

In any case, even on a more basic level I can say with confidence that a thinker like Paul can easily refer to two things with the same term, and not readily make himself clear which one he means, if indeed he means to restrict himself to one at all; he certainly says many times that the temporal is less important than the eternal as a thing to discuss or understand. A thinker like Paul can easily conceive of a Christ being crucified by a lack of wisdom in all the temporal rulers, including Pilate and, not to be forgotten, the Jewish leaders. So we have a plural after all. And more can be found simply if we think of Paul as regarding ALL the powers of this temporal world lacking the wisdom that would have saved Christ from his fate; certainly if Caesar had possessed this wisdom, Christ might very well have not been crucified, for a world in which Ceaser was wise and was emperor would probably not kill what was good; and such a world might not need an atonement anyway.

The evidence I would present that Paul and Josephus cohere on points other than Pilate, Jesus, and the crucifixion is that they cohere (possibly) on James, a tribe of Christians, and Jesus Christ's role as one who dispensed wisdom.

Unless you go through the TF. Problematic, but doable.

I suggested that a thorough combing of Paul's letters might reveal that Paul was reliably speaking of a recently deceased person -- by inference, that I personally could not complete such a project in the timespan of this thread; but if I have time I will try. I will at least look at the arguments pro and con that have been made by others.

He says that he learned from them; speaks of Cephas as a joint missionary with him (Cephas to Israel, he to the Gentiles); and justifies his disagreement with them on the only basis he needs, his personal vision of the risen Lord. Can you infer that Paul had his substantial disagreements with the Jerusalem leaders at his first meeting with them (when indeed deference would have been called for) and not later?

I would not date it to 60, for the reason you mentioned about Luke and the Temple. I just wonder how much liberal, non-MJ scholarship puts Acts in mid-2nd century?

And not to embrace tangents here, but I get so used to hearing that certain inferences are embarrassingly uncertain, that I genuinely wonder why you say that Luke was "clearly" written after the fall of the Temple. I see indications in Luke of that fact, but nothing that clearly states it; your arguments that Paul, Josephus and the rest do not clearly state anything about a historical Jesus -- that seeing such a thing is imagination and nothing more -- lose force when you dismiss the lack of clear statements in Luke-Acts. What indeed are the "clear" historical markers in Luke-Acts that place it post-70?

It may well be part of a questionable mindset to assume that a universe of documents maintained by Christians was generally not interpolated by them. I'll consider it. But let me try to be more specific. There is more original than interpolated material in the entirety of the texts transmitted by Christian copyists. The material on Jesus is almost all by Christian hands, and much of it includes interpolations added to originals. The extrabiblical material on Jesus, outside of the rabbinical writings, were maintained by Christians and some tampering occurred. Some has occurred in the TF. In my arguments I've been using only the contents of the TF "core" as reconstructed by Meier (with one minor edit in a place where others disagree with him). And I go with the James passage in its entirety -- a more than defensible stance in my opinion. Now, the fact that some of the TF's language seems to be Josephan, and the fact that the TF appears before the Baptist passage as contradicted by the NT's depiction of John dying before Jesus, suggests to me that Christians often edited passages where they found them rather than making them out of whole cloth. They could sometimes do that too, though I think they did it primarily within the Bible, inferring for instance that certain things must have happened because they were predicted in the OT; I don't think they were concerned with making extrabiblical writings prove all of OT prophecy, just with making them, occasionally, cohere with the basics about Jesus.

I'm asking if the TF provides support to the general idea that Christians were everywhere doctoring extrabiblical passages about Christ or placing such passages into these texts. I'm also asking if the TF provides support for the idea that Christians did this with the works of Josephus. On both counts I think not, thought I do find the TF debate very worthwhile.

On the general question of Christian interpolations, I'd like to ask why there appears no Testimonium in the works of Philo, the man who spoke of the Logos and seems to have died a few years after Christ, thus making him a perfect potential witness? Why not, if Christians were fabricating without constraints?

Why has Tacitus, as well, been allowed to give such a hostile account of Christ and his followers?

I can't grant you a fresh look that's not based on Acts. I still think that internal Biblical evidence, using Gallio, is the best way to get really specific with Paul's letters. So the OP has a point.

Toto

I am sorry I was not clear enough.

The reason no one uses your argument is that it doesn't show anything at all about the dating of Paul's letters. Even if Jesus was crucified under Pilate, that tells us nothing about when Paul wrote, because Paul doesn't give us a clue about how long ago Jesus died. (That is why Ellegard can argue that Jesus might have lived 100 BC, and the sightings were a long time after his death.) If you find anything in Paul's letters that indicates Jesus died only a few years or decades ago, you will have found something that has eluded a lot of people.

It is very difficult to reply to you because you wander all over the place and bring in new issues. If you want to discuss Christian forgery in general, or if you think you have anything new to say on the Testamonium, please start another thread (after reading up on what has been posted here before.)

Let me just say that the gospel of Luke is clearly dated after the fall of the Temple in 70, because it refers to the destruction of the Temple.

And Paul claimed that he did not learn anything from Cephas and James of the Jerusalem Church.

Clivedurdle

The outer limits of Paul seem to be 100 BCE to 140 CE or 240 years! Can we improve on this at all?

Ellegard uses discussion of use of terms - synagogue, saints. Does this help dating?

Are there earliest examples of terms like powers from other writers that give clues?

If I used the term "groovy baby" I might be writing in the sixties or parodying Austin Powers. Are there similar clues in the alleged writings of Paul?

What do the various poems and hymns in Paul show about dating?

andrewcriddle

Assuming that Christianity has spread among Gentiles at Rome at all, which is the implication of the 'Epistle to the Romans', then people with the sort of 'status inconsistency' of ex-slaves holding good jobs in the imperial bureaucracy would be very likely converts.

(For the importance of 'status inconsistency' among early Christian converts see for example Meeks 'The First Urban Christians (or via: amazon.co.uk)' 1983.)

Andrew Criddle