S.C.Carlson

I have read Detering's piece with much interest. It certainly is a different way of looking at things. "Radical" even.

Unfortunately, we don't really know all that much about Marcion or Simon Magus to fully evaluate his case that Marcion is the literary genius behind our Paul and that Simon Magus represents the historical kernel to our Paul. Although I think that there is need for more attention to be given to Simon Magus by critical scholarship, the Clementine Recognitions (which are so essential to Detering's latter case about SImon Magus = Paul) are virtually useless to me as a historical source for the first century. What's problematic to me is to put 1 Clement aside for an investigation into the historical Paul ignoring it as a fake but not do the same for Clementine romances.

Also, such a late Paul runs into questions about the state of the gospel tradition. Paul hardly quotes from it, at least in recognizable form. That's not too difficult for the first century or even early in the second century, but by the time we get to Marcion, who we know edited/published his own version of a synoptic gospel, the silence of Marcion writing as Paul about the gospel tradition in the middle of the second century becomes more difficult to handle.

It would thus be nice for Detering's case to have a clearer idea of the development of how the synoptic gospels are supposed to work in his very late Paul framework. Furthermore, Detering has some questionable interpretations of the gospels that I do not think really work. For example, I disagree with Detering that the sinner woman in Luke 14:3 is to be identified with Mary Magdalene (Detering seems influenced by a later Catholic tradition), and, with Markan priority, I'm not sure that Luke's version of the annointing is to be preferred to Mark and Matthew's (see pp. 171-2).

In sum, it is an interesting study, but I'm still not how the all the pieces are supposed to fit into the "big picture." Under Detering's conception, the bulk of the NT (Gospel, Paul, Acts) seems to have originated in a concentrated period around the middle of the second century. Compared with the lengthy development times and chronological sequences of standard critical scholarship, Detering's "radical" conception for the origin of most of the NT seems to have more in common with J.A.T. Robinson's "reactionary" views--except that they happen to disagree about the century in which the NT popped into existence.

Stephen Carlson

Egodeath

http://www.egodeath.com/TheFabricatedPaul.htm -- Provides Detering's book as per-chapter .pdf files, a summary of some of his conclusions, and a detailed table of contents.

The gospel Jesus figure was built from Jewish sources for the polemical purpose of strategically synthesizing a rebuttal to the figures of Julius Caesar (as presented in the Roman Imperial theology/ideology) and Titus (as presented in Josephus' writings). This combining of alternative theories provides a clear and plausible model of the development of the synoptic gospels which integrates and works together with Detering's '2nd-Century Paulines' framework.

Theories by individual authors such as Detering shouldn't be judged alone in isolation, or thought of as isolated views; one should instead keep in mind the uber-theory that the collection of related theories is groping towards. By only considering each proposal in isolation, the status quo is maintained.

Detering counters this protective tendency to some extent by citing the Radical Critics as a school with a history and positioning his work as belonging to this school. Another protective tendency to beware of is limiting one's critical analysis only to the microscopic fragment level; instead, one should consider both the detailed text analysis and the big-picture reconstruction for plausibility.

Another mind-closing tendency, relevant to integrating the Radical Critical variant reconstructions together with other alternative models, is the modern-era assumption that esoteric insight was rare, deeply secret, and barely understood by the creators of Christianity.

The opposite assumption opens up strong candidate alternative reconstructions: given that esoteric experiential religious ecstasy was as common and readily available as mixing wine in late antiquity, the challenge and center of activity in creating religions wasn't to obtain and understand religious ecstatic experiencing ("when the soul leaves the body, ..."), but rather, what distinguished the various religious variants of that milieu, such as Petrine Jewish-Christianity or Pauline/Johannine Hellenistic-Gnostic Christianity, was how they chose to *express* the on-tap ecstatic mode of experiencing in competing ways, toward competing ends -- such as competing sociopolitical and political ends, or competing strategic sociopolitical configurations.

Roman Imperial theology/ideology with its Emperor Cult competed against the Jewish-Christian metaphor-system, and both of these competed against the Hellenistic-Christian Marcionite Gnostic type of Christianity -- and each of them constituted a variant configuration of ecstatic-state experiential metaphor and sociopolitical figuration. The winning Catholic Church strategy was formed by forcefully fusing-together the latter two to battle successfully against the former, but ultimately, won by fusing the major elements of all 3 together in yet a fourth configuration.

First there was Imperial theology/ideology, then there were the two battling camps of the Jewish-Christian rebuttal and the Hellenistic-Christian alternative configuration, then the Catholic Church strategy forced together a modified synthesis of Jewish-Christian constructions and Hellenistic-Christian constructions, along with Roman Imperial theology/ideology constructions, resulting in an alternative state-within-a-state, legitimated by ecstatic-state religious experiencing -- an alternative that was so powerful and strategically inclusive, including a coercive networked welfare system (per Dr. Michael Conley), that the resulting integrated recombination of the three configurations -- Catholic Christianity -- took over from Pagan imperial theology/ideology.

Jewish Christianity' + Hellenistic Christianity' + Roman Imperial Theology' > Roman Imperial Theology (and > Jewish Christianity, and > Hellenistic Christianity).

-- Michael Hoffman

andrewcriddle

One problem with a 2nd century date for the Pauline letters (apart from the Pastorals), is that there Greek seems IMHO 1st century CE (or late 1st century BCE) rather than 2nd century CE.

The Pastorals and some other NT works such as 2nd Peter show much more evidence of 2nd century/late 1st century CE vocabulary, than the Pauline letters generally accepted as authentic do.

One specific point is that Paul never refers to followers of Christ as Christians.

This word is used twice in Acts and once in 1st Peter.

Although Luke in Acts 11:26 appears to date the origin of the word to c 40 CE. It does not appear to have been of wide usage till the very late 1st century but became the standard term sometime in the early 2nd century.

The absence of the word Christian in Paul argues against a 2nd century date.

Andrew Criddle

Ted Hoffman

Andrew, I think that is a good point.

Tholzel

Would it be possible to get the English version of "The Falsified Paul
- Early Christianity in the Twilight" as a Word file? This would allow more words to be placed on each page and greatly reduce the number of pages from 200+ to a more reasonable number. As it stands, it will cost more to print one's own copy than to buy the version as a book!

jakejonesiv

Ireneus indicates that Marcion developed his doctrines from earlier "heretical" sources. In Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3:13:1, it is stated that the Marconites believed that Paul alone knew the truth, and that to him the mystery was manifested by revelation. In Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:27:1-2 it is stated that Cerdo derived his system from the followers of Simon, and Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. So did the Marconites develop their doctrine from Paul or Simon? They seem to be equivalent. To this we may add that Justin Martyr made mention of Marcion (ie. First Apology LVIII), and Simon (First Apology, XXVI) but no mention about the alleged Paul.

That is a very good question, and one I put to Dr. Detering myself.

G.J.P.J.Bolland considered Christianity to derive from two sources, although both somewhat Gnostic in nature. The gospel arose from an allegorical interpretation of the Septuagint in Alexandria. The Alexandrian Jews could read about Iesous before there ever was a New Testament. See Justin, Chapter 75 of Dialogue with Trypho, cf Acts 18:24-25, Hebrews 4:8.

This Alexandrian gospel had a view of God as the creator, which came to be at odds with the Marconite/Pauline view of two God's with the creator being an inferior Demiurge.

http://www.radikalkritik.de/Bolland.htm

Klaus Schilling has provided and English summary on Michael Hoffmans' web site.
http://www.egodeath.com/BollandGospelJesus.htm


Here is a chart with timelines.
http://www.radikalkritik.de/images/Zeitleiste.gif

Jake Jones

Tholzel

It seems to me that the fabricated Paul, viewed from a top-level perspective, would require theologians to at least acknowledge the elephant in the room. That is, the gathering storm of studies that are beginning to coalesce into the idea that neither Jesus or Paul were historical figures.

Let us momentarily accept that hypothosis. It means then that we must read the NT the same way would read Ulysses--as a mythic tale that is the distillation of mankind's greatest wisdom and spritual yearnings.

Thus, the bible should be re-anylzed as great work of literature (and propaganda), and mined for the wisdom and history of ideas it imparts. But, much more importantly, we ("we:" Who is "we"?) must subject all religions to the secular rule of democratically conceived law. Marriages may no onger be arranged against the will of Muslim adults. Rabbis may no longer stand behind the freedom of religion and infect newborns with herpes, on whom they have performed "oral suction" to stop the bleeding of circumcision. Catholic doctors may no longer prevent other doctors from performing abortions, etc.

This will create a firestorm of protest, especially now during the momentary ascendancy of the Evangicals, but not to worry. "We" are in this religion thing for the long haul. Given that miracles contra naturm cannot ever have happend, it is time we defined what the role of religion really is.

S.C.Carlson

It depends on how much reliability one is willing to credit Irenaeus's genealogies of heresies. Personally, I think it is tendentious wishful thinking on Irenaeus's (or his source's) part, but your mileage may vary.

Detering makes much hay out of Justin martyr's silence re Paul. I tend to think that the supposed silence may be related to the fact that Marcion was still rather recent for Justin, making him more reluctant to appeal to Marcion's favorite apostle. Peter Lampe's study of Christianity in Rome, From Paul to Valentinus, shows that Justin was less tolerant of diversity/heresy than most of his (orthodox) peers.

(By the way, I wholeheartedly recommend Lampe's book for understanding Roman Christianity in its first century there.)

Stephen

darstec

That only works if you consider traditional dating of the gospels. I would put Mark after 134 CE and the others later than that. The earliest mention of all four gospels is in 190 CE and we are probably reading a copy of a copy of a copy with no original in sight.

None of the Epistles except I Peter uses the word 'Christian.' Nor in fact can the word 'Christian be found in the First Epistle of Clement which can be dated as second century CE possibly around 140 CE and most certainly not before 97 CE. So using the lack of the word 'Christian' means absolutely nothing for dating Paul.

To compound the situation, most of the copies we have of any of this stuff hardly dates to earlier than the fifth or sixth centuries CE, if that early. Plenty of time for modifications.

truthofchrist12

And it would seem strange indeed if the Pauline epistles are second century forgeries, particularly since Clement of Rome in his First Epistle (ca. 90-100 C.E.) refers to Paul, the epistle he wrote to the Corinthians, as well as I Peter and Hebrews.

(1st epistle, ch. 47) "[addressing the Corinthians] Read your letter from the blessed Apostle Paul again. What did he write to you in those early Gospel days? How truly the things he said about himself and Cephas and Apollos were inspired by the Spirit!..."

My translation does not footnote where I Peter and Hebrews are mentioned in the text, and I don't feel like scrounging around for it. But the translator notes it in his introduction to the epistle, so I will simply cite that:

"In ch. 47 he [Clement] refers the Corinthians to the letter Paul sent them, which we know as I Corinthians. Throughout, he shows knowledge of Pauline themes, and he wrestles in his own way with reconciling justification by faith with the importance of good works, by coordinating Pauline doctrine with the teaching of the Epistle of James. He knows I Peter, Hebrews..."
(Staniforth, Maxwell, trans. Early Christian Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1968) pg. 20-21.

Then Ignatius (ca. 98-117 C.E.) quotes from the Pauline epistles in several of his own:

Epistle to the Ephesians ch. 18 quotes I Cor. i, 20 (ibid, pg. 66)

Epistle to the Romans ch. 5 quotes I Cor. iv, 4. (ibid, pg. 86-87)

There, I've given you five citations of Paul's epistles before or shortly after the turn of the century. That pretty much does in the German scholar's thesis now doesn't it? Unless we want to play the old 'well those are forgeries' or 'those were later interpolations' games? According to the translator, "on the authenticity of this [the First Epistle of Clement] there is no doubt." (ibid, pg. 19) And the epistles of Ignatius that I quoted are described as being "almost universally recognized as authentic." (ibid, pg. 55).

I don't know about you guys, but I can't see how our German colleague could possibly explain those little problems away without resorting to 'interpolation' or 'forgeries'!!! And then of course we are left with a man trying to prove that the Pauline epistles are forgeries, by proving that early attestations to them are forgeries (despite a consensus otherwise). Perhaps I'm just being biased, but for the aforementioned reasons I just can't buy this guy's thesis.