Sheshbazzar

I have not mentioned it in a long time, but it is my conviction that 'Paul', rather Saul was a real life, genuine Pharisaic Jew, one well familiar with Torah and the Prophets, who was convinced that circumcision was not required of 'righteous gentiles' that believed in and worshiped the Elohim of Israel, they already being circumcised in the foreskin of their hearts.
Believing this, Saul wrote letters on this subject to various synagogues, and traveled extensively visiting these Jewish synagogues.
Emerging christianity co-opted and capitalized on these genuine Jewish writings, and upon Saul's reputation. heavily rewrote , interpolated and extensively expanded these Saul-ine writings to create a new religion, one that the original Saul would have in no manner endorsed. The name need to be altered into 'Paul' as a 'marker' and means of differentiating the 'christianized' 'Pauline' writings from those genuine Jewish Saul writings that still survived.
In my view it is likely that the real Saul the Jew never met, or ever even heard of a such a thing as a 'christian' or any 'Jesus Christ'.

Duvduv

Shesh, this is a very interesting line of inquiry and needs elaboration. Now if this did happen, then why didn't the redactors discard the name of Saul altogether since no one would have known the difference or cared? And why didn't they care to eliminate the contradictions between Acts and Galatians once they were putting both together?

What might come from this is that in fact all types of Jewish-friendly epistles that were adopted and adapted by the christians had existed in the days prior to the 4th century (i.e. Hebrews, Peter, etc.) which avoided the need to reinvent the wheel from scratch.

In any case, it is most curious that the ancient apologists did not fill in any gaps about their beloved apostle Paul with information not found in the epistles or Acts (especially since the attempt to do so in Acts itself created more questions than it answered!).

Sheshbazzar

Given that I believe that the Pauline writings are a cobbled together mess, I can sometimes identify this source or that source that was plagiarized in their composition.
I do not however, claim to be able to explain every contradiction or discrepancy that occurs between the various epistles (and Gospels). They are what they are, and why the writers didn't get their heads together so that what they were producing would be consistent and in agreement, or why church did not do a better job of editing these texts to eliminate the contradictions and inconsistencies I do not know, and I have never read a satisfactory explanation.
But I tend to think they were so busy infighting about and murdering one another over how god was related to god, that they really paid very little attention to how inconsistent the details of their texts were about the 'history' of their religion and 'Paul'.
Seems that this facet wasn't recognized as a problem until much latter, and by that time the texts were already far to well known, copied, and established to be able to much of anything about it.

So they did the same thing christians have done ever since, and still do to today. Try to ignore these discrepancies. If ignoring them don't work, Deny, If denying don't work, come up with some off the wall far fetched apologetic, If that don't work attack the integrity of the questioner, if that don't work, simply disappear from the debate.

Sheshbazzar

It is quite certain to scholars that many pre-christian Jewish text were 'christianized', such as 'The Shepherd of Hermas', 'The Wisdom of Solomon', 'The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach' (Ecclesiasticus), 'The Book of Enoch', 'The Book of Tobit', and 'The Epistle of Barnabas'. All of which also provided fodder incorporated into the Christian 'Gospels' and 'Epistles'.
Nothing to say that writings of various other 'convenient' Jewish sages were not plagiarized, 'borrowed', and expanded upon under new 'christian' pseudonyms.

aa5874

I have gone through ALL of Acts of the Apostles and there is no statement that Saul wrote letters to Churches.

In fact, in Acts of the Apostles, it was Saul who Persecuted the Christians or those who ALREADY believed and Preached the Jesus story.

Saul in Acts did NOT start the Jesus cult--Saul attempted to destroy them.

It is claimed in Acts 7 that SAUL was aware of or responsible for the Stoning of Stephen.

In Acts 8, SAUL was hauling Believers to prison in a house to house campaign.

In Acts 15--Saul delivered letters from the Jerusalem church.

In Acts, the Jerusalem Church WROTE letters--NOT Saul.

Please, Let us deal with actual Written statements in Acts.

Now, up to the end of the 4th century, John Chrysostom, an Apologetic writer, declared that many were NOT even aware of the book of Acts and its author. See Homily on Acts.

Not one letter of Saul has ever been found and dated to the 1st century.

Incidently, Josephus himself did argue that Non-Jews should NOT be compelled to be circumcised.

Life of Flavius Josephus 23 Even Josephus the Jew, a Non-Christian, argued that Non-Jews should not be Forced to be circumcised and did so Before Acts of the Apostles may have been composed.

No manuscript of Acts has been found and dated to the time of Josephus. The evidence suggest that the author of Acts was AWARE of the writings of Josephus.

Sheshbazzar

Just to be clear, I didn't even suggest that Saul or 'Paul' ever wrote any letters to Churches.
My statement was concerning my persuasion that a certain Jewish Pharisee -some time before the arrival of christianity-, wrote letters to some Jewish synagogues, -that latter christians ripped off and rewrote for their own use.
They didn't start with a 'clean sheet of paper'.

The Saul I suggest here never hunted down any christians, and likely never even heard of any such thing as 'christians'.
As I do not accept that the account in Acts is true, or historical, but a late second century church authored fictional account, I deal with it on that basis. Not accepting it as any valid scenario.



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aa5874

That is exactly the problem. You are introducing an unknown character and is making statements of which there is no evidence.

It is not necessary at all to assume any character existed and did things that cannot be found in any sources.

Acts of the Apostles is an extremely significant book because it is Canonised and claimed to be authentic by the Church and its agent.

Written statements are not dumped and ignored merely because they are fiction.

Any written statement whether true or false can be used as evidence.

The written statement of a defendant is not ever dumped because the defendant may have lied.

Let those without evidence assume.

Let us deal ONLY with the evidence, the written statements from antiquity.

tanya

Now if only we knew the source of this comment.
Ah, here, at the end, we have this link to one of our forum's most distinguished members, D.S. Murdock, aka Acharya S.

Thank you Shesh, for including her text, which I found quite interesting, and which almost addresses my original question to you:

WHERE's the link to the Greek text which specifically states: "The Memoirs of the Apostles"? Your babble about "learning something new" from the effort of searching, is not what I had hoped to encounter, after reading your post stating that you had confidence in Justin's text. I have spent a lot of time, searching in vain for this citation in Justin Martyr's three extant Greek texts, without success.

Murdock's article, written as an appropriate, and well done rejoinder to Bart Ehrman's nonsensical best seller, offers some tantalizing clues, but in the end, I still don't have what I seek:

a LINK to the precise Greek text which unequivocally states, ".....whatever, as written in 'The Memoirs of the Apostles'."

Here's what she suggests:

Shesh, you are very well educated, and you know Greek, but, isn't that translated, as Memoirs of the Apostles, not The Memoirs of the Apostles?

Ok, that's a trivial point, I don't disagree, but, the concept is not trivial, if one imagines that ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων refers instead to "memories of the apostles", all lower case, meaning, not a title, but Justin's recollections, of something he has seen, or heard. I know people who can play Bach clavecin without reading the music. It is possible to memorize whole sections of the bible, my grandmother did it, in French, not Greek. I am not convinced that Justin Martyr is referring to an actual book when he wrote, (wherever, we don't have a link) ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων.

Acharya S wrote: "Justin discusses several times". ok. Good. Please, one link, to show us, exactly what Justin wrote, including the context, so that we can put this issue to bed. I remain unpersuaded that there exists any such book, or codex, or collection of sheepskins, or papyrus, with some ink splattered across the first page, stating "The Memoirs of the Apostles" (in Greek of course).

Fine, you don't like my use of the term "old testament", sorry. How about 'Hebrew sacred texts', instead. Justin quotes from them, throughout his text, without giving a specific reference.

Here's a different viewpoint, with a link
Thank you D.S. Murdock, thank you Shesh, thank you Markus Vinzent. I remain skeptical, and filled with doubt and disbelief, on top of a profound ignorance.

I am keen to encounter the Greek text with an unequivocal declaration that Justin is looking at, or reading from, or quoting from, a text he has seen, touched, and fondled, entitled: "The Memoirs of the Apostles", not memories of the apostles.

Is there a distinction, in Koine Greek, between "Memoirs", and "memories"?

Sheshbazzar

I don't 'dump' Acts. As you say, it is evidence___that is, evidence against the claims of christianity.

Acts of the Apostles however is NOT any actual history, nor is it any evidence that a dead Jew continued to carry on conversations from heaven, or that a holy ghost bird ever flew in the window and invaded the disciples bodies, or that the heads of these disciples spouted flames, or that they all magically became proficient in xenoglossia, or that 'Peter', 'Paul' or any other disciples were able to magically raise the dead or perform other miraculous feats.

And then again it has also been your argument that 'Acts of The Apostles' was not even written or known during Justin's life, that Acts is a forged writing produced in the late 2nd century or latter.
If so, then Acts is not any evidence at all for what was really taking place in the 1st century CE.
There were lots of unknown 'characters' in the 1st century and before. These unknown characters are what supplied Justin with that 'christian' material that he writes so much about.

Unless you want to posit and defend that Justin his self was the first originator and inventor of 'Jesus Christ' and of christianity, and that Justin was the actual sole source of everything to do with christianity?

If not, then there must be 'unknown characters' that actually had lived and wrote about 'Jesus Christ' and christianity before Justin composed his works.

It is therefore not much of an assuption that 'unknown characters' did indeed live and write about Jesus Christ before Justin.

Justin even tells us they did, in citing the 'Memoirs of the Apostles' and 'The Acts of Pilate', making it clear that he did not write these texts.
We are left with the FACT that some 'unknown characters' were responsible.

As I am quite familiar with the Hebrew text of the Tanaka, and with the content and the theological trends of pre-christian 1st and 2nd century CE Jewish thought and writings, I have little difficulty in recognizing the thought and the hand of a real life Pharasic Jew named Saul scattered throughout these texts.

Thus my conviction that the christian church of the second century CE had came across some old Jewish writings by the Pharasee Saul, and finding certain things therein favorable to their own theology, co-opted these old JEWISH writings and rewrote them as christian writings.

Certainly this view is, and has to be dependend upon a certain amount of speculation which is as yet unevidenced. I believe that in time, that concrete and dateable archaeological evidence will turn up.
And even if it never does, it will not remove the FACT that what we DO HAVE in Justin, tells us that there WERE earlier 'unknown characters' who WERE resposible for originating that christian material Justin was working with,__
and that evidently neither they, these 'unknown characters', nor Justin were aquainted with 'The Acts of The Apostles' , or any 'Paul' or 'Pauline Epistles', or any 'Gospels' identified as 'Matthew', 'Mark', 'Luke' or 'John'.

These 'unknown characters' pre-Justin being the real originators of christianity, ARE NOT to be found nor revealed within the content of any 2nd century CE church produced fogeries such as 'The Acts of the Apostles', or other similar 'Paul' promoting church productions.

You are NOT going to (presently) find any remaining concise and accurate statements about what was REALLY going on in the development 1st century christianity.
These factual accounts were, for at least the first 6 centuries of the Common Era, sought out by christian 'authorities' as being 'heretical writings' and destroyed, so as to cover their tracks and to create the false trail of a false and fabricated religious movement.

If you exclude consideration of every writing or bit of evidence from the time -before- Justin Martyr, that does not explicitly name or reference Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ you will never be able to recover how, where, and why this fictional religious character originated. Justin was NOT the beginning.




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Sheshbazzar

How does this match up with the statement;
Are you objecting that Justin didn't supply you with -the VERSE NUMBERS- of the 'Hebrew sacred texts' he quoted?

Are you kidding???