Let's help biblical scholars - Paul's letters

[JarekS]

Corpus had 2-3 ghost writers. One wrote 7-8 letters, the others 2-3 letters. There was no circulation of individual letters according to the narrative contained in the letters. The entire Corpus was created by one editorial team and its narrative is an invented tradition. I wrote that 7-8 letters were written by one ghost-writer because a philologist I respect claims that 2 Tess is the most Pauline letter from the linguistic point of view. And the fact that the theology of this letter was inconsistent with 7 did not particularly concern him.

[Peter Kirby]

So how are you 'helping' here?

[StephenGoranson]

Peter K. asked how are you helping here, I assume in reference to the thread title.

If I may add, an attempt to divide the audience into two separate groups, bible scholars and rational savants, is
a rookie move.

[RandyHelzerman]

Which authors were used as controls to test the hypothesis of coherence?

Interesting. I don't recall anything either, but we might perform a sketch of an experiment here....take a letter like I Peter, which doesn't appear to have been interpolated. There's not a lot of drama over what that letter means--nobody will ever schism over a heated debate over I Peter.

But maybe a better comparison would be Romans vs. Hebrews. Both are long letters, both are highly technical, you have to work hard to follow the arguments, etc. Both deal with the issue of old covenant vs new covenant, what parts did Jesus do away with, etc. Hebrews even deals with arguably even stickier issues, like the nature of Christ--where does he fit in the cosmic pecking order of God, angels, and humans?

But is there anywhere's near the controversy over what Hebrews means as there is for Romans? I've spent many happy hours (and some darker hours) reading both books. Both of them are infinitely rich, like the gospel of Mark is. But...every time I read Hebrews, I think I understand it a little better. Every time I read Romans, I'm more confused than I ever was

e.g. What's with the OT Law?
The doers of the law shall be justified. Romans 2:13
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Romans 3:31
ok, but then:
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Romans 3:28
Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ .... We are delivered from the law, that being dead. Romans 7:4, 6

Yeah, many have offered ways to read these purportedly without contradiction...but, ultimately, it is an exercise in harmonization, and have any two scholars ever come to *the same* harmonization? cf with Hebrews, there are no two verses in Hebrews which seem to be as flatly contradictory.

If Luther didn't have Romans, only Hebrews, he still would have had a good rallying cry: "The Just shall live by faith!!" But would he have schismed over a difference of opinion in what Hebrews meant? Especially if he couldn't read it through the lens of Romans?

How to account for this. Perhaps Paul was just really struggling hard to express a new revelation he had, but didn't really have the vocabulary to explicate it in. Perhaps Paul was still in the process of figuring it all out for himself.

But I think we should leave as an option on the table, that what we are seeing here is a back and forth between Marcionites and proto-orthodox. The reconstructions of Marcion's Romans are .... let's just say they have almost infinite capacity to be improved upon So I don't know how much weight to put on this point, but most reconstructions are much more coherent than canonical Romans, and everybody has accused him of taking out all the points which contradict Marcionite theology........

We might even be so bold as to suggest that Hebrews *hasn't* been interpolated to the degree Romans has, because Marcion didn't consider Hebrews to be canonical, so the issue of differing interpretation never even came up.

Dunno any of that make any sense?

[JarekS]

The methodology of biblical research cannot answer solely on the basis of the text whether the tradition described therein is historical or invented. This is exactly as historical methodology cannot exclude the existence of a person about whom there is written testimony. The insurmountable limit of the method. The fact that the majority supports one solution does not change the fact that this alternative has no solution. Both possibilities are equally likely.

I add other non-textual criteria to check how likely it is that Pauline Corpus was created. I use Zuntz, whose commonly accepted reconstruction shows the story of Pauline Corpus. I showed how unlikely it is to create a Pauline Corpus, assuming that Paul wrote the letters, died, then someone added other letters and at the same time edited the old ones.

[StephenGoranson]

Not everyone researches bible the same way. Not news.

[Peter Kirby]

The methodology of biblical research cannot answer solely on the basis of the text whether the tradition described therein is historical or invented. This is exactly as historical methodology cannot exclude the existence of a person about whom there is written testimony. The insurmountable limit of the method. The fact that the majority supports one solution does not change the fact that this alternative has no solution. Both possibilities are equally likely.

I add other non-textual criteria to check how likely it is that Pauline Corpus was created. I use Zuntz, whose commonly accepted reconstruction shows the story of Pauline Corpus. I showed how unlikely it is to create a Pauline Corpus, assuming that Paul wrote the letters, died, then someone added other letters and at the same time edited the old ones.

What new method are you claiming to generate knowledge here? You're burying the lede. Forget Paul for a second. You're claiming to have a different technique for discovering information about the past. Explain the science.

[RandyHelzerman]

The methodology of biblical research cannot answer solely on the basis of the text whether the tradition described therein is historical or invented.

Maybe you can expatiate? Are you saying, e.g., if I read "Lord of the Rings" I have to leave open the possibility that Middle Earth was a historical age the earth went through, until I get the memo from Christopher Tolkien that his dad was making it all up?

I mean, internal evidence must be assessed critically, but if in the middle of a text, there is a sudden shift in content, and How about those Yanks? Do you think they can win the over the Sox?

[JarekS]

My technique is that I do not deal with narratives from letters that cannot be definitively described as either historical or invented. I leave it.
I look at a drawing I created showing the probable transmission of authentic letters and the creation of copies of Corpus. One Corpus was created by Paul, others may have been created by the recipients of his letters. They consist of 7 letters each. I even add further copies of this "original" Corpus. No extra letters, no interpolations, supplementation, etc...
Now I'm trying to add an additional letter - it only appears in one place. I add a second letter, I add a third letter, then I add a number of sources of interpolation, supplementation and editing to the original letters.
And it turns out that all activities: adding letters and changes must take place in one place. Because when I introduce these changes in various copies of the Corpus, I do not reach the one that was created in 100 CE and has 10 letters after deep redactions.
Adding new letters is not a problem because it is easy to explain. "I have three extra letters because Paul sent them only to us." But digging through the authentic correspondence and throwing in a number of contradictory interpolations and changes is simply inexplicable.
The corpus was created and edited in one place

[StephenGoranson]

IMO, you, JarekS, have not shown that "The corpus was created and edited in one place."