Benni72

One of the arguments for the late date of the Gospels is the absence of references to them in early Christian (or any other) literature until Justin.

Still, the authenticity of at least 5 or 7 Paulian epistles written in the 50s is hardly questioned. But are they mentioned in pre-Justinic Christian sources? When and where? Are there direct quotations? If not, could the early Christians just be reluctant to use newly written texts as opposed to the Hebrew Bible (or Septuagint) and oral tradition? Maybe it just took them several decades to acquire a sufficient authority? If it happened so with the Pauline epistles, why couldn't it be the case with the Gospels as well? Please correct me if some or all of my assumptions are wrong here.

Toto

The dating of the Pauline epistles is highly problematic. They are not referenced until 140 CE, when Marcion included them in his canon.

Traditional Christian scholars have dated the epistles by assuming that the stories about Paul in the Book of Acts are historical, and connecting the letters to some of the events there. If Acts were historical, it could be dated by reference to one of the characters mentioned there, Gallio, proconsul of Achaia around 54 CE.

A previous thread discusses all of these issues: Dating Paul's epistles

There are scholars who hold that all of the epistles are late 2nd century forgeries, and it is difficult to disprove that.

In short, I don't think that you can date the gospels by analogy to Paul. There are too many problems in the dating of Paul's letters to start off with, and no clear historical reference points in the gospels.

exile

I'd always considered that Paul is the author of Christianity (rather than Jesus, who hasn't left us a single sentence). Did he not exist?
Or are his writings concocted by a misogynistic faction within the Church
in the 2nd C?

Toto

The idea that Paul is the real author of Christianity is very popular, especially among people who think that somebody must have messed up Jesus' original message, and it was probably Paul.

I think that Paul or someone like him existed, but might not have been a Christian - he could have been a messianic Hellenistic Jew of some sort. The later Christian Church adopted his letters, and I believe that the misogynistic stuff was inserted by later church authorities. But exactly how much his letters were interpolated is hard to say.

Benni72

Toto, thank you for the reply and the reference.

But isn't a late dating of the epistles, with their concept of "spiritual resurrection", also problematic for MJers? As fas as I understand, they need an early dating for at least some documents with an "unearthly" Jesus and a later one for all those where he is clearly historical. And both groups seem to stand or fall together.

Btw, what was the usual gap between the creation of a text and the first extant reference to it in the Hellenistic literature?

Toto

It is something of a problem for Doherty's particular theory, although he has other evidence. In fact, Doherty is arguing for an early date for the Pauline epistles on the Jesus Mysteries list, against the Dutch radicals who think that they are late forgeries, and who think that Christianity was a second century phenomenon. You have to join the group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries to read the discussion.

I don't think that there is enough surviving evidence to say that there is a usual gap.

andrewcriddle

There are more or less clear allusions to the Pauline epistles in the letter of Clement to the Corinthians, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch and the letter of Polycarp to the Philippians. (Around 100-120 CE).

Also I think the way in which the controversy over Marcion developed, (with nobody AFAIK claiming that Marcion's Pauline canon contained forgeries only that he had left out letters and passages from letters), is difficult to understand unless the Pauline letters were widely and generally accepted before Marcion's time. (FWIW I think a similar argument applies for Luke)

(On internal grounds I think the core Pauline are most unlikely to have been written after the fall of Jerusalem but some may disregard this as subjective).

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Andrew,

If only we knew how to date these!

Perhaps you're being a bit optimistic...

Yes, this is a valid argument. So this weakens considerably the Dutch Radical view that the whole thing was a fabrication.

That's why I've been saying for a while that Loisy really seems to have struck a very comfortable middle ground there, in saying that there _is_ a certain authentic core in these letters.

According to Loisy, about 50% of the "7 authentic epistles of Paul" had really been written by Paul. The rest are late expansions.

Yes, Loisy would agree that the core of the "7 authentic ones" was written by Paul before the fall of Jerusalem. The dispute would be how to identify this core.

All the best,

Yuri