Vinnie

Just a quick thought I had:

Is this silence silenced a bit by the fact that 6 of the 13 works in the Pauline corpus are pseudonymous and they are attempting to imitate Paul, and filling their works with unPauline material would not be a good way to go about this task? That of course still leaves 9 other works but I am not sure if Revelation should even being counted though I read 1:5 as being pro-HJ anyways....

Vinnie

As a P.S., please note I am not saying I accept a complete silence in Paul on HJ details, I accept that there is a paucity of HJ details in Paul, not a complete silence. At any rate, my question is above.

Vinnie

I should say 5-6 are pseudonymous since 2 Thessalonians is a fifty fifty in scholarship. But I side with a pseudonymous imitator of 1 Thessalonians. I think it explains more than any alternative theory (aka its an A.B.E. for me...)

Vinnie

Vinnie

As a matter of fact:

Number of Words in Pauline Corpus ( 1,2 Cor, Rom, Gal, 1 Thess, Phm, Phil) = 24042

Number of Words in Pseudo Paul (Eph, 2 Ths, Col, Titus, 1&2 Tim) = 8315

Number of Words in Rest of NT Letters not counting its apocalyptic finale (Heb, Jam, 1,2 Pet, 1,2,3 John, !) = 12,544

Paul is also earlier than these other works, some of which may go well into the 2d century (e.g. 2 Peter). Also, works such as 1,2 John, though short, look like they combat docetism (e.g. 2 John 1:7 and Doherty argues the historical Jesus was starting to form), 3 John is so small as to be negligible...as is Jude and Philemon. 1 Peter is also short but it, in my mind, clearly mentions the crucifixion.

Can we agree, arguments from any pervasive silence have to be based upon 1,2 Cor, Rom, Gal, Thess, and James and Hebrews.

We don't have an amazing silence in 22 letters and 10 to 16 authors...but a paucity of historical data in 1-3 authors in 9 letters (6 of which were written by one individual). Using word counts of only these books makes Paul accountable for 5/6 of the silence or so...

Vinnie

Vinnie

Hebrews itself seems to clearly posit an historical Jesus.

So can we, mythicists, historicists and agnostics, at least agree, that any arguments from silence used as positive evidence against an historical Jesus stem basically from six works in the Pauline corpus?

The more I look at the issue, these arguments from silence look more like an argument against conservative Christianity and the gospels are inerrant group. Since, to argue for any sort of silence has to suppose a model historical Jesus to argue against. If Jesus didn't actually do or say x or y the silence is rather silly. In addition, the gospels themselves do not supply many details about the historical Jesus. They are confined to his ministry and death and briefly mention his family, trade, hometown, etc (see Mark).

I think the silence is effective to those who think all the details in the four gospels are historical. But once you cut down lots of that material, and weed out the exaggerated popularity of Jesus and cut down the number of works there is a paucity of data in, the argument loses its force. So I guess the question is: is there a paucity or a silence. If Jesus was mythical it would seem to require a complete silence in Paul. If historical, would not one reference suffice?

When applied to critical scholarship the silence looks like sophistry.

Vinnie

spin

Once accepting such a position that at least six Pauline works weren't written by Paul, one should also find it hard not to accept that the "true" Pauline works should also have additions by your imitators, given that accretion seems to be the way of things with christian literature. What this means is that one cannot simply choose something out of a "true" Pauline work and expect it to represent Pauline thought because it is handy for what it reflects for orthodoxy.

Did Paul write the last chapter of Romans? What about the the last supper material in 1 Cor? Or the Petrine verses in Gal 2? Was he responsible for all of 2 Cor? Did he write the appearances list in 1 Cor with its 500 brethren?

We're in minefield territory.


spin

GakuseiDon

I think determining the time-line when the letters were written would be interesting to lay out, since the silence seems to extend to the end of the Second Century.

As Earl Doherty wrote: "Something extremely odd is going on here. If one leaves aside Justin, there is a silence in the second century apologists on the subject of the historical Jesus which is almost the equal to that in the first century letter writers."

And the silence isn't just around Jesus; the authors tended to give few historical details about anything.

I discuss this further in my "Elephant in the room" thread:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=262666

Steven Carr

One reference would suffice?

So if Benjamin Creme says the Maitreya is living in the East End of London, that is proof that the Maitreya exists?

Vinnie

The last chapter of Romans is probably a second letter now conflated to it. Various addresses were removed early to overcome Paul's particularity. There are several known interpolations and possibly many that we do not know of. It would be special pleading spin, to decide to hold suspect, all the verses that appear to reference a historical Jesus in the Pauline corpus.

Also, the argument that 6 are pseudonymous is based significantly on statistics which is a small textual support at the least.
The textual reconstruction is difficult. We have a few quotations and a manuscript dating ca 200. But at the same time there are other internal methods at detecting intrusions in a letter (cuts off the flow, used anachronism, vocabulary not matching other sections, is displaced or missing in various manuscripts). We also know that Paul's letters circulated wide and fast and were known by those who did imitate Paul They were also collected by Marcion (who apparently might have edited them). We would see vastly different forms scattered about and quoted if all the early copies were heavily mutilated. Do we see this in the manuscript record?

I think textually, overall, they can be used, with due caution. There is no certainty. We are in the wrong forum if we want certainty.

Vinnie

Vinnie

One reference to a historical Jesus by Paul demonstrates that Paul believed in a historical Jesus. The alleged slence in support of a mythicist Jesus in Paul crumbles. All of Paul has to be devoid for mythicism, but only one positive reference to historicism. If the mythcists are correct, much of Paul is simply nuetral---could be a God turned man or a man turned God.....it only takes one piece of historical data to argue for man turned God. The opposite requires a complete lack of evidence. We are again, speaking of the beliefs of Paul.

But if Paul accepts an historical Jesus I don't see the point of mythicism or agnosticism, do you? You don't have top accept the creedal Jesus, but there is certainly a historical one there.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I think he says in the JPuzzle that 2 John 1:7 shows some groups started believing in an HJ (late first century). So that is Doherty's model anyways. You are correct on the anything.

Vinnie