Duvduv

I guess you are left with accepting the claims appearing in church texts at face value, right Bernard?

aa5874

That is precisely what the abundance of evidence suggest--that the Pauline letters were composed very late and that the author/authors wanted people to believe they were written before c 70 CE.

That is the precise pattern of the writings in the Canon.

To give the impression the books of the Canon were composed before c 70 CE or in the 1st century authors of the Canon were falsely or erroneously claimed to be either actual relatives of Jesus, his disciples, or those who followed them.

Matthew--a supposed disciple of Jesus

Mark--a supposed disciple of Peter

Luke--a supposed disciple of Paul

John--a supposed disciple of Jesus

Peter---a supposed disciple of Jesus

James--a supposed relative of Jesus

Jude--a supposed relative of Jesus.

Paul--a supposed contemporary of Peter, James and John.

Not one of the authors of the Canon have been corroborated by non-apologetics and Scholars have already rejected the dates of authorship for writings under ALL of the named authors in the Canon.

andrewcriddle

As I said in the OP I don't believe that a 2nd century writer writing works purporting to come from the mid 1st century would think that the word Christian should be avoided.

Andrew Criddle

Onias

Andrew Criddle,
Do we even know if the author of Paulines was familiar with the Acts?
Onias

aa5874

You are merely stating what you believe but not the evidence from antiquity for your belief.

It is already known what you believe.

The problem is that the Pauline writers did not ever claim they wrote any letters in the 1st century.

We can go through the Pauline letters word by word.

The author of Acts did not claim that Saul/Paul wrote letters in the 1st century.

We can go through Acts of the Apostles word by word.

You have confirmed, perhaps inadvertently, that the dating of Paul is a long held presumption and was never based on any evidence.

In fact, it was not even supported by the Canon.

andrewcriddle

If, as I believe, the Paulines were (mostly) written by the historical Paul in the mid 1st century then clearly no.

If the Paulines are all 2nd century then the author might or might not have known the book of Acts. However, the Paulines and Acts would be roughly contemporary making Acts good evidence for contemporary views of the origin of the word Christian.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Again, you are making assertions about the Pauline letters and Acts of the Apostles without any supporting evidence from antiquity.

It is not your belief that is evidence from antiquity.

I have examined Acts of the Apostles and there is no claim whatsoever that Saul/Paul wrote letters to Seven Churches.

I have examined the Pauline letters and the authors did NOT state they were written in the 1st century.

In fact, Scholars have deduced that the Pauline letters have multiple authors which compound the problems for dating Pauline letters.

We have an Apologetic, Not heretics, but an Apologetic who claimed the Pauline letters were composed after Revelation by John.

We have Apologetics who claimed Paul was alive AFTER gLuke was composed.

We have letters deduced to be forgeries between Paul and Seneca attempting to place Paul in the time of Nero.

The abundance of evidence suggest that ALL the Pauline letters were forgeries or false attributed to Paul.

There is no attempt in the Canon of the Jesus cult to claim Paul wrote letters to Churches in the 1st century or before c 63 CE when Festus was procurator of Judea.

Duvduv

The official NT texts are always presented as a complete set, suggesting perhaps the strong possibility that rather than stemming from alternative sources they were intentionally written to complement one another. We never do actually see a canon composed of three gospels, 6 epistles and no Acts.
Perhaps this is even hinted at in Galatians 1:13 :

"13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it."

Of course this is ambiguous as to whether the author intended to suggest that Paul gave up Judaism or that his "path" of Judaism at the time included persecution, but not that he had actually given up Judaism

aa5874

It cannot be shown that the "official NT Texts" were always presented as a complete set because you yourself have claimed that there are fragments of the Gospels of less than a page.

Now, what about the Gospel of Judas? Was it the Canon of some cult?

The official Canon of the Church of the Valentinians, Basilidians, the Marcionites, the Cerinthians, may be different to the Canon of the Churches in the time of Justin Martyr.

The Canon of the Churches in the time of Justin appear to contain only the Memoirs of the Apostles.

Anf further, in Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline letters were not acknowledged.

It can be deduced that the Pauline letters were not part of the early Canon of the Church of Christ when he was probably a Persecutor after 180 CE OR LATER.

Examine "First Apology" There is simply no evidence from antiquity that the Pauline writings were in an early set of the Jesus cult Canon.

The Pauline letters had ZERO influence on the Roman Empire to the writings attributed to Arnobius in the 3rd century and there was not a single non-Apologetic argument against the Pauline writings even when Celsus wrote against the Jesus cult c 160 CE.

Duvduv

I don't think it can be shown that the Christian canon ever had 2 or 3 gospels and 5 or 10 epistles without Acts, or similar. The canon always has basically the same set of texts, which might lead one to consider the possibility that they were intended to complement or supplement one another where they were lacking information, as I described from Galatians.