sotto voce

Who has ever supposed that these letters could have borne a stamp?

Juststeve

Bronzeage:

The existence of churches pre-Paul contradicts nothing about Christian beliefs. In fact if Paul was a persecutor of Christians before his conversion, as he claims, there would likely be churches of one sort or another in which they would congregate. Nor would the existence of some churches contradict the notion that Paul founded other churches and wrote letters to the churches he founded, or had visited. Seems like a pointless thread but consider the source.

Steve

Horatio Parker

Yes, but if he might've omitted them for theological reasons. Following the progress of the Gospels from Mark to John we see many such changes. Surely many of those were done with awareness of the change.

Isn't possible that the author of Acts wanted to appeal to Paul's followers even if he didn't want his theology? Bring Paul into the fold?

At least with regard to its writings.

Toto

It doesn't, and it is always hazardous to guess aa5874's motivations - but I think he is arguing against the common notion that Paul was the real inventor of Christianity, and against the idea that the Pauline letters are the earliest evidence of Christianity.

tanya

Bronzeage, KEEP HAMMERING. If there is something you don't understand, BLAME US, don't imagine it is some kind of fault of your own inability. We write in a very peculiar, convoluted style, mainly to each other, not to the world at large, so, often our posts are unintelligible, to normal people.

Keep at us. We will eventually get it right, for you.

It is, contrarily, not only not hazardous to attempt to understand aa5874's submissions to the forum, often, his writing is so transparent, that some members of the forum tend to be dismissive of it. They should not behave this way, for aa5874 is one of the best among us, at documenting his ideas.

Most of us, myself in particular, tend to write a lot, and say very little.

Yes, to address Toto's suggestion. Yes. She has it right. aa5874 indeed seeks to express the idea that the Pauline letters are NOT the first Christian documents, but rather, the Pauline epistles were created AFTER the gospels.

Most forum members disagree with this idea. In fact, Bronzeage, almost everyone, not just on this forum, believes that aa5874 is wrong, and the idea that Paul wrote the epistles, before the gospels, is correct. I disagree.

I think aa5874 is correct, and everyone else, wrong. I have cited 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 in support of this idea, and await someone to dispute my interpretation of "kata tas graphas"--which means, in English, "according to the writings", not, as it appears in 90% of the world's translations, "according to the scriptures".

The significance of this discrepancy is profound, in my opinion: graphas", writings", becomes "scripture", when accompanied by "hagios"--> "sacred". Absent "hagios", graphas just means, plain vanilla "writings". I know Jiri, and spin, and LOM, and many, many, other very well educated forum members disagree with me. That's their privilege. They are both better educated, and smarter, than me, nevertheless, I am sticking with the LITERAL translation of graphas, and interpreting it as referring to the gospels of Mark, or Matthew.

Toto

Scripture, like the Greek graphas, literally means writings, but by convention means holy writings.

etymology of scriptureFor much of history between the first century and the middle ages, most writing was done in religious monasteries, so this is quite understandable.

Horatio Parker

IIRC Judaism was unique in it's reliance on texts. Maybe the impetus to develop Xtian texts took a while. If early pagan converts had no scriptural tradition, maybe they didn't see the need for texts.

If the conventional wisdom regarding Paul and the Gospels is true, then that would not be the case. But if the church is a 2nd century invention at least from a textual POV, then it seems possible.

tanya

Thank you, Toto. I appreciate your point of view. It should be acknowledged, that the VAST majority of forum members, agree with you, and disagree with me.

That's not all bad. So long as people understand, WHY they accept the status quo, then, it is not wrong to support it. I do not accept the customary translation of "graphas" to mean "scripture", unless it is accompanied by "hagios", and yes, I agree that Sheshbazzar has beautifully illustrated examples, where "graphas" alone, without any supporting word, like "hagios", nevertheless refers to some text from the ancient Judaic "holy" documents, Tanakh, "old testament".

Here's my point, again. Maybe, ad nauseum. If so, sorry.

Writing "kata tas garaphas", as Paul has done, here in 1 Corinthians 15: 3 & 4, indicates "according to the writings", and is ambiguous. It cannot be translated as "according to the scriptures", for there is no scriptural (i.e. old testament) reference to Jesus. I interpret "graphas" as referring NOT to the Tanakh, but to the gospels. Anyone else is free to associate that word, as they like, with the Jewish "old testament", but there is nothing intrinsic about the Greek word "graphas" to indicate "old testament".

Let us suppose we were instead reading about Aristotle. Yes, a bit before Koine Greek, but still, "graphas" existed as a word....

Would a Greek sentence from 100 BCE, containing "graphas" refer exclusively to the Jewish "old testament"?

If not, then, would that Greek sentence from 100 BCE containing "graphas" refer to some current, extant text? In other words, if we remove the Christianity label from this discussion, would one translate "graphas", as "scripture", i.e. the word of God, or, rather, as "writings", a simple elaboration of an human attempt to put ink on papyrus?

sotto voce

The idea that monasteries have positive correlation with scripture, let alone with the 1st century, would take some understanding.

Sheshbazzar

The term 'the scripture' occurs 32 times in 32 verses of the NT.
The plural 'the scriptures' occurs an additional 21 times.
In virtually every instance, the context clearly and unmistakably indicates that it is the OT writings 'Scriptures' that are being referenced.

Scriptures prefixed with "hagios"--> "sacred" ('Holy...') is extremely rare, occurring only in Rom 1:2 and 2 Tim 3:15.
Thus although I agree with your point that the 'writings' referred to were intended to be inclusive of the NT writings. (and certainly would have been included in 'Holy Scripture' to those who 'received' them as such)
I cannot however, based upon the content of the available texts, agree with the proposition that 'scriptures' or 'writings' must be identified by the provision of "hagios"--> "sacred" to be identified as other than simply plain vanilla "writings".