Iasion

Greetings Toto et al,

I don't think this is correct.

Clement mentions the "wise writings" of Paul - usually dated to c.95, but pre-70 by others e.g. Ellegård.

2 Peter cites Paul and "all his letters" - perhaps early 2nd C.

Ignatius mentions Paul briefly - perhaps early 2nd C.

Basilides apparently cited Paul (seeing Rom. 7:9 as evidence of Paul's re-incarnation) - perhaps early or mid 2nd C.

Polycarp mentions Paul - perhaps early or mid 2nd C.


Iasion

Evangelion

Oh, but these are all just "interpolations." In fact, you will soon discover that anything which doesn't support Toto's views is an "interpolation." And although he may not have any evidence to support this idea, he believes in it with a passion surpassing that of the most ardent Christian; yea verily, even unto the point of defending it with his very life, amen.

Truly, faith is a wonderful thing.

Toto

Please give a citation. I don't know what you are talking about.

Getting a little hysterical, aren't we?

First of all you set up a rule that interpolations and forgeries have to bear the burden of proof, then you claim that I have to play by your rules. I reject this.

I don't want to get into Paul's letters in depth right now. I may pick up on that later.

Toto

Contrary to Evangelion's hysterical ravings, I am quite willing to admit error or correct myself. I was under the impression that there was no edition of Paul's letters until Marcion produced them around 140 CE, which I consider mid 2nd century. I will look at your references.

Evangelion

ROTFL! Any claim bears a burden of proof. You made the claim. It is an essential part of your argument. You must therefore prove the claim. This has nothing to do with arbitrary "rules." It is, in fact, standard debating protocol.

So, once again, you demonstrate your ignorance of primary sources.

Evangelion

I'll give you a citation alright. I'll give you a citation from my response to you in the PN thread, on May the 15:

• In response, I refer you to the work of Mr Kirby (here) who presents a sound argument for an early dating of the primary Christian source documents.
  
  In doing so, he employs the same methodology which I myself prefer; to whit, that of "converging lines of evidence." Many people make the mistake of concentrating on the mss. evidence, as if this constitutes the be-all and end-all of the Christian argument.
  
  But this does not take into account the attestation of other documents, such as the writings of the early church fathers (Ignatius particularly) and the Didache.

My post remains unanswered; Mr Kirby's material continues to be avoided.

Toto

The original claim was made by GDon:

My statement was a response to his assertion that "we know from St Paul..." By your statement, therefore, GDon has the burden of proving that we can know anything from St. Paul, that there even was a St. Paul. Good luck.

Once again you demonstrate your complete inability to follow a line of thought.

Toto

This started with a question about the dating of Paul's letters. That page from Peter's web site talks about the dating of the Gospels, but I don't see anything about Paul's letters.

You bluster a lot for someone who can't keep things straight.

Evangelion

Ooops, my only mistake was in providing the wrong link!

I meant this one. (Also from the Website of Mr Kirby.)

His dating for the Pauline corpus is early indeed, as you can see from the following examples:

• 50-60 1 Thessalonians
  
  50-60 Philippians
  
  50-60 Galatians
  
  50-60 1 Corinthians
  
  50-60 2 Corinthians
  
  50-60 Romans
  
  50-60 Philemon
  
  50-80 Colossians

And of course, we have the Didache, which is largely dependent upon the Gospel of Matthew but also quotes extensively from the Pauline corpus.

the_cave

But arguments like this start to get absurd...I mean, gee, is it so unreasonable to assume that Luke got the idea of Herod being an enemy of Pilate from the possible fact that they were enemies??!

The problem is that there is a loose correlation between two facts. However, as any statistician will tell you, correlation does not demonstrate causality, even when the facts are separated in time. In other words, there could be a third fact that is the origin of the other two--or that relates the two in some other way. Nor do I see why the original fact need be literary--indeed, what if the scourging of Jesus actually happened, and went the way it did because the story of Flaccus had become popularized? Or, what if this was just a common way of mocking enemies of the state? Imagine if you read two accounts of initiation ceremonies at US collegiate fraternity houses. Let's say both involve paddling (I myself have no idea, I'm just making this up.) Why would you assume that the account prior in time must be the source of the other account of paddling? Isn't it equally reasonable to assume that paddling is a common enough fact in such ceremonies that two accounts would contain references to it? I mean, for all I know, I could speculate that the story of Flaccus had become oral knowledge, the soldiers treated Jesus in that way because they knew about Flaccus, and the author of Mark then went back to the literary source because he realized the connection, and wanted a literary model to base his account on. Maybe he was making a deliberate literary reference, not because it was manufactured, but just for the sake of beling literary. Maybe he was trying to prove a point about Flaccus as well. Who knows?

What I'm saying is, this account (of the scourging) is the closest parallel between the two cases, and yet even that demonstrates very little. So we will have to look elsewhere to determine whether the Scourging of Jesus was historical.