Originally Posted by aa5874

But, how do you know what "Paul" wrote? Suppose it is the other way?

Originally Posted by Toto

Vorkosigan is Michael Turton. His commentary on Mark is here.

Delbert Burkett is the author of Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark. T. & T. Clark International, 2004. Stephen Carlson has a review here and there is another review here by Douglas W. Geyer for the SBL. It can be previewed on Google books

Originally Posted by Solo

Do you believe me when I tell you that I can see a text here on IID and know it was not written by you ? How would I know ? What black magic is involved in that ? No magic. I just happen to be familiar with what you believe. So if someone comes around and writes "there is certain, high probability, that Paul lived and wrote between 40-60 CE" I know it wasn't you, even if it was signed aa5784. I simply compare the idea to what you say elsewhere about the same subject, and how it hangs together with your other ideas. You follow ?

Jiri

Originally Posted by Toto

Ramanujan's Notebooks: Part I - follow the links for parts II - V - very pricey.

Originally Posted by aa5874

But, in reality, all that is known, according to some scholars, with respect to the so-called "Pauline Epistles" is that some epistles appear to be written by the same person and other epistles appear to be written by other person/s.

All the authors of the "Pauline Epistles" called themselves "Paul," and the only other source with the so-called history of "Paul" is Acts of the Apostles which is regarded as highly dubious.

And further, Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the 2nd century, appear not to be aware of "Paul", the epistles and the Acts of the Apostles.

Now, after taking these factors into consideration, I do not know who wrote the Epistles, but it is hardly likely it is the person called "Paul" in Acts, since, it is claimed this "Paul" of Acts lived and perhaps died about one hundred years before Irenaeus claimed that some "Paul" wrote to seven Churches.

Originally Posted by Solo

I think it's quite possible that Paul developped the cross symbology later. It seems in 1 Thess (addressed to his church of the "afflicted saints") he was not quite there. The thing to notice about this earliest letter of Paul is that there is no polemic against false teachers or perverters of the gospel. But look at the way Paul introduces the cross paradox later, in 1 Cr:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel–not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
1 Cr 1:17-19

So, the cross first appears in a polemic with the baptizers. To my thinking, if Paul had simply invented it he could not have argued about its meaning with the followers of other preacher(s) (or those in his own flock coming under his (their) influence). So, Paul begins by pointing to the cross as the historical shame of the other party/parties. He had a revelation: not of the cross but the spiritual meaning of the cross which he goes on to expand on in the passage. That's his theological cudgel with which to beat up on the outrageousness of people like Cephas who proclaim Jesus while living it up down here.
Jiri

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

Everything is compatible with a historical commentary that Paul was the first to Assert that Jesus was crucified.

Originally Posted by aa5874

But, in reality, all that is known, according to some scholars, with respect to the so-called "Pauline Epistles" is that some epistles appear to be written by the same person and other epistles appear to be written by other person/s.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

I agree, and even those that "appear to have been written by the same person" are suspect, as both the person(s) originally composing the forgeries, and latter interpolaters, were all at pains to make the documents appear consistent and the work of one individual, and they succeeded to the extent that most rather naively and unquestioningly accept these writings to be exactly what they internally claim to be.

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

As to what the aim of this "dying for" was, I discovered that apart from a few instances in which those who are said to have died for others do so solely with the thought of what such a death might do for their reputation as defenders of the polis or patride, those described as dying for others are otherwise always concerned with one thing: protecting and saving from danger that which has fostered them. This may be one's parents or one's spouse, but more often than not it is one's polis or one's patride. More importantly, never, notably, does the one to whom the dying formula is applied die for or on behalf of an adversary or an enemy. The death for others, especially the "noble death", is always a death undertaken in an attempt to rescue or defend one's own.

In virtually all instances of the theme the result is not only the "salvation" of the person or thing for which the deceased has died but, notably, the eventual, if not the immediate, defeat or destruction of the persons or the powers that have caused the deceased's demise or which threaten that for which the deceased dies. For example, according to Mnascales, the effect of the deaths of those Greeks who died for their patride at Thermopylae was not only what delivered Hellas from "the tearful yoke" that the Persians had "rested on her neck" but was also that which paved the way for the victory of Greece over Xerxes and his forces. Diodorus of Sicily, following Durus, Diodore, and Cassius Dio, notes that the Roman consul Decius' devoting himself to death for the sake of his fellow Romans brought about the slaughter of one hundred thousand of Rome's enemies. In Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia's willingness to give her "body ... to be sacrified for [her] country's sake and all of Hellas-land" is what gives the Greeks "delivery victorious" over the Trojans and "saves Hellas" from the threat they represent to the freedom of her countrymen. And the author of 2 Maccabees records that the deaths of the seven brothers who, during the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, gave up "body and life for the laws of [their] fathers", brought about not only "an end of the wrath of the Almighty which has justly fallen on our whole nation" but accelerated the Jewish victory over Antiochus and his armies (2 Macc 7:1-45).

In several instances of the use of the formula -- in Euripedes, Phoenecian Women 1015-18; Iphigenia at Aulis 1379ff; Heracleidae 500-558; Demosthens, Funeral Speech 29, Diodorus 17.15.2; Aelius Aristides, Panathenaic Oration, 132 [191D, 87]; Pausanius 9.7.1, what those who die are doing at the time of their death is offering themselves up upon an altar of a god in accordance with a divine demand for the sacrifice of a life. In some others, namely, those that appear in 4 Maccabees, those who die are having to endure tortures and persecutions designed to break them of their pistis to that which they hold dear. In another, in Lycurgus, Against Leocrates 85-87, the one who dies, namely Cordrus, is carrying out a ruse that he knows will result in his being killed by those among his city's foes who, knowing that the dearth of Cordrus would bring upon then divine wrath, were trying to avoid doing him any harm.

Originally Posted by the_cave

But look at the details of Epictetus' biography; it would place him some time after Paul, not before--even for those who would place Paul's activity somewhat later than the traditional dates. So this saying would seem to be contemporary with Paul at best, but certainly no earlier. So who is to say that Epictetus was not responding to early Christian (or proto-Christian) teachings?

Originally Posted by cave

Besides, how do we know Epictetus was speaking metaphorically here, rather than hyperbolically?