GakuseiDon

What is surprising, at least to me, is that there is so much early literature that can't be dated since there are few clues within the text to date them. A lot of the literature is stand alone, but Paul writes quite alot without giving any real biographical details about himself or about where he is living. I don't want to turn this into a Christ myth thread, but is that something we should be surprised at?

I know that the most obvious point is that those writers weren't writing histories -- still, it does seem to be a pattern, at least with early Christian literature. Has this struck anyone else? Or am I seeing a pattern that doesn't exist?

spin

?

This is what I said:

The temple wasn't standing in the time of the writer, but for his character it was, though interestingly we get Bar 3:24, "How great is the house of god". Verse 20 said, "[l]ater generations have seen the light of day," so the writer, while claiming to have seen future, places the temple standing at the time of his character, just as Jerusalem is.

Jerusalem and the temple have left the simple here and now and has become more symbolic. Is this not the case in those references you cite?

(Jesus looking at the temple and saying that not a stone will be left on a stone, fits the same trope. You simply cannot get a temporal reference.)


spin

Ben C Smith

When do you think Baruch was written?

Ben.

gstafleu

Provided the "average" early christian document (or for that matter a lot of early christian documents) is more difficult to date than the "average" non-christian document of the same time, I would say the answer is "yes."

The obvious explanation to me would indeed be that the documents in question do not deal with history. Another explanation would be that the author's "didn't care" about the history, but given that (current) christianity prides itself on its historical origins that is a bit weak.

What would other possible explanations be, taking into account that this is apparently a wide-spread phenomenon (I remember someone else mentioning in another thread how difficult dating of early christian documents is)?

Gerard Stafleu

spin

After 70 CE, perhaps even after 135 CE (2:23). Given all the temple related literature at Qumran, one doesn't find Baruch, but note 1:14.

So is Baruch just a repetition of old Jewish ideas of you've been naughty so now you're gonna be punished but god'll save you in the end? It's obviously been written for a specific context, making it not a rerun, but use of old tropes for a new circumstance. Note 1:11's praying for the life of Nebuchadnezzar!


spin

Ben C Smith

Okay, spin, you will note that in my response I was referring to the apocalypse of Baruch (and I had in mind the Syrian, not the Greek), or 2 Baruch. This is because you mentioned that we were talking about apocalyptic.

But your references are to 1 Baruch, which is not an apocalypse (though, of course, it contains the occasional apocalyptic element).

I am frankly not clear on why the distinction matters in the first place. The epistle of Barnabas is not an apocalypse, and it very clearly indicates that it was written at a time after the temple was destroyed; 4 Ezra is emphatically an apocalypse, and it also very clearly indicates that it was written at a time after the temple was destroyed. So what difference is the apocalyptic genre supposed to make?

The issues concerning 1 Baruch are quite complex. I agree with you that the writing as a whole probably postdates 70, but its separate sections, some of which the author or compiler has not even attempted to stitch together, may be earlier.

The book as it currently stands (I am not counting chapter 6, the epistle of Jeremiah) purports to be the words of Baruch early in the exile. The mentions of the temple are confusing (as the commentators note), to say the least. In 1.1 Jerusalem has been burned (though the temple is not mentioned here); in 1.10, 14 Baruch is sent to Jerusalem in order to make an offering on the altar and a confession in the house of the Lord; in 2.26 reference is made to the house of the Lord being as it is today because of sin, so evidently the temple is in ruins here; in 3.24 the house of God is referred to as if still standing.

But what is true in all of these references is that, in each case, it is not the final author making the statement about the temple. In each case the statement is on the lips of one of the characters in the book. There is no analogy here whatsoever with 2 Thessalonians 2.4, in which it is the author of the epistle communicating with his readers.

Your analogy with Jesus and his saying about not one stone remaining upon another, on the other hand, is somewhat analogous with the case in 1 Baruch. No matter when the synoptic authors wrote, they were writing about a time during which the temple was still standing (the time under Pilate), so to have their main character, Jesus, talk about the temple as if it were still standing is the most natural thing in the world. The temple was still standing at that time.

2 Thessalonians 2.4 predicts that the man of lawlessness will take his seat in the very temple of God. If the author is writing to people who know that the temple of God has been destroyed, stone by stone, this line simply makes little sense on its own. The temple would have to be rebuilt first (compare Barnabas 16.4), before the man of lawlessness could take a seat in it as a god. One could perhaps argue that the rebuilding of the temple is one of those things the writer has already disclosed to his readers and expects them to know, but the whole point of the epistle is that his readers have failed to understand what was told them; it is more likely that this reference to the temple is exactly what it appears to be, an indication that the author wrote while it was still standing, still capable of seating a future man of lawlessness.

I will grant that there is nothing wrong with referring to the temple mount as the temple even as it lies in ruins, but to say that someone will take his seat in the temple seems to require an actual temple, not just a heap of ruins.

Let me add that in your initial post you charged me with parading the same old stuff. This kind of ad hominem statement adds nothing to your argument and positively conflicts with the indisputable fact that you yourself frequently indulge in repeating points you have already made numerous times before.

Ben.

spin

When do you think 2 Thes was written? Was it before 70 CE? Do you take it as genuine Pauline? I don't. The analogy with Jesus seems appropriate to me.

2 Thes 2:4 builds on Isaiah 14:13ff and its lawless one, the lightbringer, who sets out to take his seat in the assembly of god.

The same old stuff merely refers to assumptions you've previously espoused that still seem not to be founded on anything visibly supportive.


spin

Ben C Smith

Yes, I think it was.

Yes. Of the Pauline epistles generally ascribed to later imitators, this is the only one I accept (at the moment) as genuinely Pauline. (I reject Ephesians, Colossians, the pastorals, and the other miscellaneous epistles such as Laodiceans and 3 Corinthians).

If an imitator wrote 2 Thessalonians in the name of Paul, then the imitator must have thought Paul lived before 70. This is another piece of evidence that Paul did, in fact, live before 70.

I agree with the allusion, and will even throw in Ezekiel 28.2, but taking a seat in the temple of God is more specific than taking a seat on the mount of meeting.

I think the wicked king (Antiochus) in the book of Daniel is the basic model here, as Origen explicitly acknowledges in Against Celsus 5.46; what Paul says here is parallel to what the synoptics say about the abomination of desolation. Notice that the noun for abomination in Mark 13.14 is neuter, but Mark modifies it with a masculine participle, giving away that the desolation is in at least some way a man... like the man of lawlessness. In both cases the actual temple in Jerusalem is in view, just as in Maccabean times (back to Antiochus we go).

Likewise. But what I am saying is that ad hominem comments are completely unnecessary. There is no need to be so childish.

Ben.

spin

This support for the genuineness of 2 Thes would require too much time to plough through.

By the time Acts was written, Paul had been firmly located in time.

Sorry, god's house is god's house. The earthly temple is but a shadowy version of the heavenly temple.

As he is in Isaiah 13. (Just another case of history repeating...)

(I don't think you can get where you want based on grammatical gender. It may be necessary in English, but certainly not in Greek.)

There are layers upon layers upon layers involved in this material. Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Caligula, Nero, Vespasian and Titus, etc.

That the temple is in view is not clear. It certainly wasn't in view to those who left Jerusalem under Antiochus IV. Some literature paints the temple as destroyed along with Jerusalem (eg 1 Macc 3:45, 51). The temple is a trope.

Is this your ad hominem?

The empty apologetics regarding Aretas IV for example. I've shown in the past that the logic behind it is false. Whoever was responsible for the Damascus passage simply confused the two Aretases. The stuff that refers to the temple requiring a temple to be standing in Jerusalem is just as misguided.


spin

Ben C Smith

I think there is a very good reason why Paul was so firmly located in time.

Well, of course I agree. But when the author of Revelation, for example, wishes to describe the temple in heaven, he explicitly (and repeatedly) calls it the temple in heaven. Just so there would be no confusion.

Are you saying that it is normal for masculine participles to modify neuter nouns in Greek?

The verb used is καταπατεω, which is fairly vague. It does not have to mean that the temple was destroyed. In this case is appears to mean not much more than the βεβηλοω that accompanies it.

While I am certain that empty apologetics have been offered regarding Aretas IV somewhere by someone, I have not seen any yet on this board. Certainly, what Stephen and Andrew offered you was not empty apologetics. I am interested in the facts of the case here, not in the (mis)characterization of the opposing viewpoint.

Yes. I should have written: Please stick to the facts of the case.

Ben.