post tenebras lux

As there have been a few MJ/HJ threads recently, I'm not sure if I asked on this thread or one of the others but I did ask what (historical rather than biblical) evidence there was for a HP.

No HJer (or a BC&Her generally) replied with even a linky or somesuch.

So ... what is the evidence for a HP folks?

Thanks in advance

Toto

The evidence for a Historic Paul is that we have some letters written by someone who calls himself Paul. Most people accept that as sufficient evidence. Even if the letters were forged, they were presumably forged in the name of a significant person.

Much of what people think they know about Paul, however, comes from Acts, which is no more reliable than the gospels as a source of history.

post tenebras lux

So there's no extra-biblical evidence?

Nada?

And the letters contain too many errors (imvho) to have been written by someone who actually had undergone the training and on-the-job experiences that 'Paul' claims for himself prior to his Damascine change of heart. That bit reminds me of the fundies who start their witnessing with an 'I was an atheist too ... blah blah blee' spiel.

dog-on

What about Detering's hypothesis concerning Paul?

post tenebras lux

And his hypothesis was .... :huh:

Even if most BC&Hers know it, I don't (offhand) and neither will any lurkers we may have attracted.

So could you please give it in your own words or provide a linky?

Clivedurdle

Does a discussion of ghosts and spirits help with understanding sub lunar realms?

When someone dies, they breathe their last - or their spirit leaves them. Hebrew rauch is both breath and spirit.

What did the ancients think aer was? Martin Luther definetely thought evil spirits caused waves on a lake.

Were spirits seen as dwelling in aer or were they somehow coterminus - the air is spirit? We think in terms of mediums - sound travels through air, what did the ancients think carried a noise from one place to another - was it a spiritual medium?

What does God is with us and God created everything mean? Was God understood as one of the elements?, Did they separate the spiritual and physical world as we do or was it all one and the same, so no problem as in genesis of the gods lying with women or as in Matthew the Holy Spirit lying with Mary?

dog-on

You are correct, my apologies.

http://www.radikalkritik.de/in_engl.htm

Hermann Detering: The Falsified Paul - Early Christianity in the Twilight JHC Volume 10, No. 2 - Fall 2003 (English translation of: Der gefälschte Paulus, 1995, translated by Prof. Darrell Doughty

This is a very interesting read.

post tenebras lux

Thanks dog-on, at 203 pages it looks like quite a read, but I'll try to during my upcoming long weekend. I've already noticed that he mentions Pope Ratty's interpretation of 'Fortunate Hans' on page 182.

Didymus

Well, it's a helluva lot easier to dismiss Doherty as an un-peer-reviewed amateur than it is to refute him. Much as I respect Ehrman's work with text criticism, I think he and most other scholars are out of their element here, so they are trying to dodge the issue for as long as they can. After all, the question of Jesus' historicity was settled for them in the fifth grade.

A response to Doherty would put their academic reputations at risk ("We don't debate amateurs. Why are you giving that crackpot an academic forum?") and grant him academic stature of a sort, which in turn would send other scholars scurrying to get up to speed.

It could happen, but I'm looking for a lot more specious appeals to authority before it does.

Didymus

Didymus

I can agree only with the last sentence.

What basis do you have for the all-or-nothing-at-all rule? I think that someone who believes that only 20% of the gospels are historically accurate can rightly be considered a mythicist, depending on which 20%, of course.

What if, for example, several of the non-miraculous events in the synoptics actually happened, but happened to several different people? - not all of them preachers, not all of them tektons, not all of them based in Galilee, not all of them even living in the first century?

Do you really think that such a theory would qualify as historicist?

Didymus