James The Least

I wasn't arguing against Ehrman, I was arguing against the gist of this thread which says that it is an interpolation.

aa5874

We are just going in circles with Ehrman. He presented a STRAWMAN "TF" which is NOT found in any source of antiquity.

On page 61 of 'Did Jesus Exist?' Ehrman presented an altered TF with all the evidence that Jesus was Myth completely ERASED--the RESURRECTION of Jesus is Missing.

Ehrman Admitted that Josephus could NOT have written the the UNALTERED TF. See Page 59- line 23-32, Page 60- line 1-13 of Did Jesus Exist?

As soon as Ehrman ADMITTED that Josephus did NOT write the TF then his whole book is Rubble. Ehrman must use ADMITTED unrealiable sources for the history of his anti-mythicists Jesus.

Duvduv

As a work "in progress " I think these verses were inserted later from a marginal gloss or a writer who was referring to is own problems.

Vorkosigan

...and hare-brained?

thief of fire

Michael are you going to address this?

Grog

He does not inform his lay reader of the depth of the scholarly argument. His readers do not know that scholars widely regard all of 1 Thess 14-16 as an interpolation, not just the last phrase. Lay readers cannot be expected to know what scholarship says, Ehrman has a duty to be honest about that, but fails.

There is no "manuscript" evidence. The question were bits and pieces edited in or out, or was the whole thing inserted whole. Ehrman spends quite a lot of time, as Carrier describes, murdering electrons on the argument for a partial interpolation. He spends next to nothing explaining the arguments for the entire passage being an interpolation. As was already noted, he refers to Doherty's argument on disgressions in Josephus to argue against this. He does not engage the peer-reviewed scholarship (cited in Theissen & Merz, but then ignored) that demonstrates the passage is a seam in the text (T & M cite Norden). For a better discussion, by far, the lay reader should read Theissen & Merz's The Historical Jesus. It is much more thorough and reasoned than Ehrman's "crap." Although on this point (the discussion of Josephus), I think they fail to account for Norden, even after citing the work.

He says he doesn't, but the fact that he includes it in his discussion and the way he tilts the argument in his favor suggest otherwise.

Grog

He might well have been a liar, so we should evaluate his writings, as one would anyone's writings, with skepticism toward what he says. However, if he is attempting to sway people to his point of view, we can probably accept what he says on that (his point of view), can't we?

I think there is reason to doubt his autobiographical pronouncements. I think his Jesus-beliefs accurately reflect what he felt were reasonable arguments to evangelize people into the Jesus Christ-cult.

Solo

Paul does not say "be imitators, brothers, of the churches in Judea". Look up the translations of the verse. It is evidently a mistake. I am suggesting Ehrman was aware, somewhere in his mind of Paul's maxim "be imitators of me", and that Paul is rather insistent on his independence. He is combining the reading of 1 Th 2:14 and 1 Cor 11:1.


Ok, I see where the problem is. Two things: one, Paul's invariably references his own Gentile communities. Reading the Paul of Acts into this passage does not work, since Paul / Saul would have been one of the Jews doing the "driving out". And I am not sure you want to believe he was such a hypocrite.

Two, the writer of this passage is apparently aware of the proscription of saving the Gentiles that the Jewish Jesus of Matt 10:5 proclaims. TMK, there was no other taboo on saving Gentiles that the Jews enacted. The Jews have always been actively proselytizing.

Best,
Jiri