angelo

I'm not shocked in the least. It's all there in black and white what to me seems extremely plausible. and probably the truth. I've gone over and over the letters of Paul that scholars claim may be authentic, and nowhere do I see/read of a historical flesh and blood human Jesus.

spamandham

There are a half-dozen or so sentences within the presumably authentic letters of Paul that clearly refer to a human earthly Jesus of the seemingly recent past. These have to be dealt with from a non-HJ perspective. To the degree I'm familiar with Doherty's work, I seem to recall he puts a mystical spin on these few sentences.

I think a simpler explanation is that they are the work of someone other than Paul. Scholars generally agree that even the genuine Pauline corpus has been reworked by multiple authors over time, and often refer to the texts in terms of these various layers. If the texts really do contain a pastoral layer as scholars tend to agree, then earthly human Jesus ideas certainly fit that layer, as do the various creeds interspersed throughout (which also happen to be the source of about half of the earthly human Jesus ideas).

mountainman

Dear "Paul".
Amen.

Some questions from Scotland Yard

1) So who forged the Pauline literature and when did this happen and why, etc?

2) How is "Paul" actually related to "Matt" and "Mark" and "Luke" and "Johnny"?

3) When and where was the New Testament literature first brought under the scope of an Editor-In-Chief?

4) Was there a publisher (and/or sponsor) and did the publisher (and/or sponsor) stand to make anything out of the deal?

5) Why was Eusebius so certain of his "facts"?

6) Are the Editor-In-Chief of the NT and the Chief Researcher of Christian "Church History" two separate, distinct and independent authors --- or the same person?

spamandham

IMHO, they were not forged. They were reworked many times. From what I can tell, this was a common practice in ancient times. The concept of copyright or of authorial rights of any kind just didn't exist back then.

angelo

Not forgetting of course, that the earliest of Paul's writings are from at least 20 years after Jesus' supposed life on earth. A long time for an oral tradition/myth to be floating about without getting polluted, or added/subtracted to.

aa5874

The concept or practice of altering or manipulating the contents of writings was not accepted and was abhorred by the Church.

The Church writers even referred to those who forged writings as devils or working for the the devil.

In a writing attributed to Tertullian "On Baptism", a presbyter was removed from office for admitting forgery.

"On Baptism" 17 The Church writers bitterly complained that many of their writings were being forged or altered and Jerome even castigated Rufinus for altering or attempting to harmonise some passages of Origen.

"Apology Against Rufinus" 1 See http://www.newadvent.org

Honesty superceded copyrights. It was expected in antiquity that copies of documents be reproduced without unauthorised alterations or additions even by the Church.

spamandham

Maybe, but I flat out don't buy the whole 'oral tradition' argument. It seems to me to be completely ad hoc. The earliest texts we have indicate the author directly invented the theology (Paul) or built on previous written works (the gospels). The few creeds we find in Paul's work seem to me to be anachronisms inserted in a later time period when the doctrine wars had already been mostly settled.

mountainman

The Pauline literature was "reworked many times"? Eusebius does not mention this anywhere I can see except for the "Marcionite Affair". The "reworked many times" suggests some form of editorship over a period of time. Exactly which century or centuries do you think the Pauline literature was "reworked many times"?

Who first drafted "Paul"?
When, where and why?


Forgery was a common practice in ancient times.

I dont think so. Porphyry preserves Euclid. The educated people who preserved the literature, at libraries such as at Alexandria and other places were usually well aware of the original and novel authorship of most works which were authored in the Greek language on a variety of subject matters.

Don McIntosh

Far as I can tell, that argument holds only if Marcion is personally a more reliable exegete or theologian than the collective custodians of the NT text. Marcion's writings only survive through the reports of the church fathers, who tell us emphatically that he is not a reliable exegete or theologian, so at best we cannot know Marcion's reliability.

The fact that Marcion did not acknowledge the physicality or historicity of Jesus certainly does not mean that Paul nowhere described Christ as born "according to the flesh." Witness the many contributors on this board arguing that kata sarka means something entirely consonant with rejection of the historical Jesus in favor of mythicism. It should also be mentioned that in Marcion's canon, entire extant books from the NT canon are missing, such as Matthew and Mark, so that he would be a poor arbiter of what phrases were and were not in the original NT canon.




They refute the same heresies just as effectively in the 21st century.

But it seems more likely to me that the more theologically developed 2nd century gnosticism was built upon 1st century proto-gnosticsm, than that the former simply appeared on the scene out of the blue and Paul's writings just happened to contain apologetic language to counter it.




If 2nd century gnosticism emerged virtually without 1st century precedent, which you seem to have implied, then the reverse is almost certainly the case -- that heresy was reaction to orthodoxy.




That's a very good question. I think it reasonable that the evangelistic enterprise initially overextended, largely in response to the violence of local persecution and the Jewish War. Rome's prominence in early church history, meanwhile, can be explained easily enough on the basis of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul believed to have occurred there.

Don McIntosh

It would be a non sequitur to suggest that Paul's use of these terms in a mystical context prohibits him from using them in an historical context. If he is like virtually every writer ever born, he frequently uses the same terms in different contexts, with different meanings emerging as a result. Understanding this fact is one of the guiding principles of biblical exegesis, indeed of verbal communication generally.

Context offers another "clue" to Christ's historicity, namely reference to "resurrection from the dead" (v. 4). This refers to the same phenomenon which Paul explains quite thoroughly in 1 Corinthians as a dead physical or fleshly or corrupt body being transformed into a living spiritual body and thereby rising bodily from a physical death, i.e., a death experienced in historical time and space. From this perspective, it is no wonder that Pilate, a mundane Roman official, should be found playing a prominent role in the execution of Christ.



Like any other author, Paul is under no obligation to explain his use of literary devices, not even as he is using them. Indeed, as C.S. Lewis and many other scholars and theologians have pointed out, it is virtually impossible for humans to speak at any length of spiritual realities without earthly referents and anthropomorphisms. That fact should not be taken to mean that such references are literal depictions of the spiritual realm.

As for the metaphor / analogy of a physical body, it's obvious enough on its face (so to speak!) that the various bodily appendages should not be expected to exactly correspond with individuals constituting a quickly growing population of believers. The truth of that contention becomes all the more evident in light of Paul's other metaphors for the church, such as a household (many bodies rather than one) or a building (an altogether non-biological structure), which are clearly not compatible with a single literal body. The church cannot literally be all those entities at once, whereas its functions and characteristics can be described legitimately and concurrently with multiple metaphors.




This appears to be a false dichotomy: We supposedly know that Paul did not use allegories when he did not state as much, because, after all, we know that when he does use allegories he states as much. Left unaddressed is the distinct possibility that Paul often used figurative language but did not always announce the fact. Recall the many instances in the Gospels involving both scenarios -- where the evangelist states that the story to follow is a parable, while Jesus tells the same story without calling it a parable.




Not necessarily. Even if kata sarka referred strictly to physical flesh, it would not prevent other phrases from being used in comparison to it for a theological purpose. Although I have not studied the particular language to nearly the same extent as you, I would say that the very point Paul is making in Galatians 4, that there is a vital difference between physical and spiritual realities, underscores the pointedly physical or "fleshly" connotation of kata sarka.




Of course it is possible, especially when there appears to be no great difference between being born directly into human flesh and being born in relation to the world of human flesh -- whatever the latter is supposed to mean exactly. Given Paul's immediate context and his general appreciation as a Jew for the role of history in the plan of God (a major theme of Romans as it happens), yours still seems to me a less plausible interpretation.




In a sense I agree with you. That's precisely why I drew the comparison between Christ-myth theories and epistemological idealism. Once we openly call into question the obvious, like the objective reality of the physical world we live in, or in this case the prima facie textual evidence indicating apostolic belief in the Incarnation (hence historicity) of Christ, all sorts of curious possibilities begin to emerge.



...at great length? Exactly how long is that discussion, in Imperial units?

In any case, I would eventually like to read your book, or at least look through it. From what I can tell, your book should provide a pretty comprehensive treatment of the subject. Though I disagree with your thesis from where I stand, I do respect the tremendous amount of work you evidently have put into it.