dog-on

True, but that is exaclty where I think Paul got the idea in the first place.

Sheshbazzar

Agreed.

aa5874

So, this would tie in perfectly with the statement from Paul: (Ro 16:7)
"Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me."

In the first place, Paul was last.

1Co 15:8 - Paul admitted that he was not the first to see Jesus.

People saw Paul's Jesus before him.

dog-on

Interpolations...

(Romans ends at 15:33 and 1 Corinthians reference is post Pauline.)

aa5874

You are now admitting that the Pauline Epistles as found canonised are late and mutilated.

If you are correct then the NT, as found canonised, is a compilation of mutilation.

It was not Marcion that mutilated the Pauline Epistles in the canon.

It was the Church writers.

Now, you must also admit then that there is really no credible evidence that Marcion had any Pauline letters in his possession. All the information about Marcion and the Pauline Epistles are from the same source that mutilated the Pauline Epistles and made bogus claims about the authorship of the same writings.

The Church writers claimed Marcion mutilated the entire Pauline Epistles except Philemon, but the Pastorals may have been written when Marcion was already dead, and after Paul had already expired.

The Church gave bogus information about the entire authorship and chronology of the NT.

What you have expiosed is that the Church may have writen the version of the Pauline Epistles found canonised.

dog-on

I agree, though "now" would not be accurate.

I do not agree as I believe that Marcion was the first collector of Paul.

The church writers had their own agenda.

For the most part, possibly.

Yes, I believe that this is the case that the letters were edited. I think it was done around the time that cannonical Luke/Acts made their appearance. Around the time of Ireneaus.

ApostateAbe

It is pretended to be a direct eyewitness statement, but it is a lie.

gurugeorge

Indeed, "Paul" has to fit into the hokey story the Church is constructing (about having bishops whose lineage goes back to people who knew Christ personally) somehow. How? Well, he came late, naturally, after all the interesting stuff had happened (the stuff that involved the Jerusalem apostles-construed-as-personal-disciples).

The idea might actually have started quite innocently - after the Diaspora, the true origins of the movement were perhaps muddled, and the belief came about, amongst some Christians (Romans, Alexandrinians, perhaps), that some of the apostles must have known Christ personally. In reality, none of the Jerusalem people nor Paul had known the Christ of which they spoke, whom they proselytized about, personally. He was an entity they believed had existed (on the basis of Scripture and visionary experience), and worshipped, but not a human being they had known in their lives as a human being.

That's it right there, the central nubbity-nub of the whole barrel of confusions.

Further: it might be helped along by Jewish exiles, trying to lord it over the Roman church, trying to "capture" it in a sense - "What on earth have you guys been up to? Look, we come from that part of the world, our people are lineal descendants of the apostles - some of whom knew Christ personally".

Who would be any the wiser?

That might be the very seed idea of orthodoxy, in fact, because it does lead to a theology that can be interpreted as an intellectual construct based on words from the Master's mouth while he was living, instead of the more mystical, gnostic salvation "Paul" is talking about, and gospels derived from it - which are ten-a-penny.

One senses a sort of common-sense attitude in early orthodoxy. It seems to be a confluence of the hypothesized Jewish post-Diaspora influence noted above, plus the desire of (one senses) tidy, rationalist, Stoic-influenced Roman Christian minds, sensible Christians who wanted a bit of neatness and order in all this unruly movement, comprised of a gaggle of prophecies coming from the various communities who had descended from the "Paul"'s original visionary push (now, by the turn of the 2nd century, starting to turn into eclectic, syncretic Gnosticism).

Marcion is the last straw; they put a stop to prophecy, they discourage the construction of new gospels, and firm up a Canon based on their inherited visionary version of what Christ actually said - and fool themselves into believing that their bishops - the Jewish post-Diaspora connection again - are lineal descendants of the apostles, who (they believe, or would like others to believe) knew The Man personally. The visionary deliverances of their gospels (which are no different, in essence, from any other groups') are special, because of this supposed personal connection.

Again, cf. the Pseudo-Clementines for the argument - I know they're later, but they're said to be based on a text that may have been written around the same time as Acts, and I think it may have come from the same stable, or perhaps an even more Jewish-centric version of the same idea, as Acts, with the same ulterior motive, the same logic. In fact, it looks like the Pseudo-Clementine version is an abortive attempt, perhaps because it's too biased towards "Peter", too biased towards the Jewish connection. Acts is more rounded, more ... catholic.

Summat like that, anyway.

ApostateAbe

That is well argued. If, at any time, Paul needed to use the Greek word for the literal genetic brother, then he would have to use the word, "adelphos." If there was any doubt about what the word means, then the doubt should be resolved by "James" being listed as one of the literal brothers of Jesus in two of the synoptic gospels. Further, the phrase, "brother of the Lord," is seemingly used as an identifying title, because there were many men named James, including inside the Christian community (one of the original disciples was named "James").

It is simply not enough that Paul uses the phrase, "brother," in a metaphorical sense plenty of other times, because that is only a secondary way to interpret a meaning of a word in a specific use of it. The primary way is to look at the specific context of the usage.

If you want to propose that, "brother of the Lord," was used as an honorary title for a Christian leader, then that proposal needs evidence. The traditional interpretation already has evidence. That is what makes the other explanation ad hoc--it is an interpretation that is very new and lacks evidence.

Same goes for the ad hoc explanation behind Paul having met Peter. If "Cephas" is not the same as "Peter," then the proposal is OK, but evidence is what makes the difference. If it is the same Peter but he was integrated into the gospel accounts only later (as some have proposed), then the proposal is fine and good, but it needs evidence before it is accepted. The HJ position has the evidence that makes unified sense, and HJ is what is left after Occam's Razor is applied. Occam's Razor is necessary, because there is ambiguity everywhere in Biblical scholarship, which means that any model can be logically consistent with enough exegetical gymnastics, but the theory that wins is the theory that is the most unified, most likely and has the least amount of unevidenced leaps.

aa5874

Why do you believe the people who mutilated their own writings? Why don't you believe the writings of Irenaeus were also mutilated or manufactured?

If the writings of Paul were mutilated, then Irenaeus must be mutilated in order to appear to be corroborative or in sync with Paul as found canonised.

If Paul was mutilated and Irenaeus left un-mutilated then major discrepancies would immediately be found. The same applies to Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius or any writer who wrote about Paul, these writings must be mutilated to be in SYNC with the canonised Pauline Epistles.

You must now begin to understand what happened.

Virtually all the writings with the name Paul or passages of the Pauline Epistles from the Church writers were mutilated, and this include writings with the name Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius and others.

The writer called Paul and his Epistles, as found canonised, are non-historical, but mere propaganda from the Church in order to promote a fraudulent history of Jesus believers.