Top suspects that could have invented the historical Jesus?

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robert j
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Re: Top suspects that could have invented the historical Jesus?

Post by robert j »

Chris Hansen wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:39 pm
For Rom. 1:3 there is only one singular manuscript which lacks it, but that is not due to it not being written but because there is a huge lacunae where ink was unfortunately erased (Codex Boernerianus).
On what basis do you claim that the mostly blank section in Codex Boernerianus (G), where Romans 1:3 is found in other extant manuscripts, was "erased"?

Sure, G suffered some water damage, and some of the text from an opposite leaf has been transferred within the otherwise blank area, but I'm not aware of evidence that any of the missing text in that mostly blank area was ever present.
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Re: Top suspects that could have invented the historical Jesus?

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

As I see there are two possible explanations against the theory of interpolation here:

1) the text was damaged ("erased")
2) the text is working from a corrupt exemplar (paralleled with F, i.e. Codex Augiensis) and the open space left is a memorial space. This also explains why there are huge lacunae elsewhere. Following Calhoun (see Paul's Definitions of the Gospel in Romans 1), the scribe recognized the exemplar was defective and left a large space to note this. We are able to further confirm this since there are these same spaces in other places. Thus the exemplar was likely *damaged* or in some other way defective and memorial spaces were left (which would explain similar absences in 2:17-24, 1 Cor. 3:8-16, 6:7-14, Col. 2:1-8, Phile. 21-25).

In either case, no recourse to interpolation is needed. I find (2) after having read much more in the last few days to be the most likely, given the parallel with F.
robert j
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Re: Top suspects that could have invented the historical Jesus?

Post by robert j »

Chris, thanks for your response. So no, no evidence that at the beginning of Romans in the manuscript the missing text had been written but had been “unfortunately erased”.

I think the text of chapter 1 of Romans as found in manuscript "G" Is part of a larger body of evidence that raises important questions. I am devoting a very limited amount of time to this forum these days, perhaps someday you and I might revisit this further.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Top suspects that could have invented the historical Jesus?

Post by MrMacSon »

Chris Hansen wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:26 am I see no method that has been proposed which is not just based on a series of assumptions about the texts which can indicate which of these is more likely than not. As such, the silence of Tertullian cannot indicate the textual reliability of the passage either.
When you say 'the texts' I presume you're referring to Galatians 1 and 2, particularly the end of chapter 1 and the first part of chapter 2.

The issues with those passages goes beyond Tertullian's silence.

Gal 1:18-24

These verses are unattested as being in Marcion. Irenaeus (A.H. 3.13), Tertullian’s quotation of Marcion (A.M. 5.3.1), Augustine (Quaestionum Evangeliorum 2.40, Migne PL vol. 35 col. 1355), John Chrysostom (Commentary on Galatians 2.1, Migne PG vol. 61 col. 633), a certain Greek Catena in epistulam ad Galatas (e cod. Coislin. 204, page 27, line 10), the Bohairic Coptic version, and a manuscript of the Vulgate have Galatians 2:1 without the word “again.”

There is some level of expectation that Tertullian would have quoted it in an attempt to show subordination of Paul to Peter and James.

Some or all of these verses are considered an interpolation on other grounds by J. C. O’Neil (The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, p. 25), Frank R. McGuire (“Did Paul Write Galatians?“), Hermann Detering (“The Original Version of the Epistle to the Galatians,” p. 20), David Oliver Smith (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul, p. 72), Robert Price (The Amazing Colossal Apostle, p. 415), and in some comments online.

http://peterkirby.com/marcions-shorter- ... -paul.html


G. D. Kilpatrick - in Peter, Jerusalem and Galatians 1:13-2:14 Novum Testamentum Vol. 25, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 318-326 - examined Gal 1:13-2:14, noting these verses have a large number of unusual features. He says "we can only conclude that a real difference of language exists between Gal 1:13-2:14 and the Pauline epistles as a whole."

Peter Kirby wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:59 am
Earlier thread on this topic [Galatians 1:19]:

Shorter Readings of Paul
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... f=3&t=1447

Non-HJ Interpretations
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... ation+paul

Especially starting here ("90% of the passages..."):
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1458&p=33194#p33194


An extremely high proportion of the supposed references to a historical Jesus in the letters of Paul are absent from the Apostolikon... and, in all likelihood, absent from the letters of Paul and inserted as post-Marcionite interpolations (some of them anti-Marcionite interpolations).

In Against Heresies Irenaeus appears to quote the usual reading of Gal. ii, 1 – “went up again to Jerusalem“ – but makes no specific reference to the Pauline visit described in Gal. i, 18f. Where Tertullian, in his Prescription against Heretics, alludes to Paul’s having gone to Jerusalem to meet Peter it soon becomes apparent that Tertullian is simply reading his own interest in Peter into the account of the meeting with Peter, James and John.


Frank R. McGuire, in 'Did Paul Write Galatians?', Hibbert Journal, 1967, 66 (61): 52ff, proposed, reiterated, or noted -
  • Galatians is a response to Acts.
  • more than one „Paul“ had a hand in the writing of Galatians.
  • Galatians and II Corinthians are not by the same writer
  • "the underlying implication [of Galatians], as Paley observed [in Horae Paulinae], is that Paul’s own commission was „inferior and deputed“. Accordingly, the first chapter of Galatians emphasizes the divine origin of his apostleship while the second emphasizes Paul’s independence of Jerusalem."

    Paley had concluded the author of Acts had not read Galatians as he (and we) know it today, "otherwise he would not have omitted the Arabian interlude and various meetings between Paul and Peter."

But McGuire induced that
absolute neglect of Galatians is not the problem. The actual literary problem is Luke’s apparent relative neglect of the epistle. How can he have made limited, largely negative use of Galatians, as he seems to have done, without knowing its contents? Was Galatians there for Luke to know, or is it the Pauline writer who makes limited, negative use of Acts?

To repudiate Luke’s image of Paul, Bruno Bauer was to declare sixty years after Paley's Horae Paulinae, was part of the purpose of Galatians. Several modern scholars who accept the traditional authorship of Galatians have come remarkably close to saying the same thing e.g. Johannes Weiss (Earliest Christianity) suggests that Galatians was directed against some account not unlike Acts.

Christianity was not 1st century, messianic Judaism hellenised by Paul or anyone else, Bauer contended, but an originally Greek religion judaised in the second century. Acts, with its „apostolic decree“ and the like, is an expression of this quasi-Jewish movement and Galatians a literary reaction. That the author of Galatians had read Acts, Bauer evidently never got around to demonstrating in concrete terms.

McGuire looked at the internal evidence -

Let us tentatively suppose, with Enslin, that Paul’s flight from Damascus is most reliably described in II Cor. xi, 33-3; that the account in Acts ix, 23-5 is secondary, the same incident being only barely alluded to in Gal. i, 17. Paul has somehow antagonised the Arabian political authorities and has taken refuge in Damascus. The „governor under King Aretas“ has posted a guard on the city walls, with orders to arrest Paul should he venture outside Damascus, hence his unceremonious escape – not from immediate danger, however, but through danger.

Luke, wishing to commend Christianity to the Roman authorities as apolitically inoffensive movement, represents Paul as the victim of Jewish persecution for purely religious reasons. Not only his liberty but even his life is threatened by local Jews, yet in Acts ix, 26 we next find him in Jerusalem. Although Jerusalem would be the least likely destination for a Paul who had fled from Damascus for the reason given in Acts, in the light of II Corinthians – which does not say where he went – it does not seem at all unreasonable. But where doe she go in Galatians? Into Arabia – where, on the evidence of II Corinthians, the danger is greatest.

Despite the marked similarity of the two epistles, I submit that Galatians comes from a later hand and presupposes the reader’s knowledge of II Corinthians. If Paul did go to Arabia, what did he do there and how long did he stay? In the absence of such details, Gal. i, 17 serves no other purpose than to improve on the earlier first-person account and refute Luke’s version of his movements between Damascus and Jerusalem.

The remainder of Galatians 1 is at variance with the first half of Chapter 2 of the same letter. In 1, 15-19 „Cephas“ (Simon Peter?) and „James the Lord’s brother“ emerge as well known apostles; in 2, 2f if they are merely reputed pillars of the church at Jerusalem, and Paul gives the impression of meeting them for the first time.

. . // . .

Treating Acts ix, 26f as the account of Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem, Tertullian seems to apply both Gal. ii, 1-10 and an account similar to i, 18f to the second visit. Moreover, in this instance Tertullian is writing primarily for orthodox consumption; in his early 3rd century anti-Marcionite treatise, where he must meet hostile readers on their own ground, Tertullian refers to Paul as going up (not „up again“) to Jerusalem after fourteen years „so great had been his desire to be approved and supported by those whom you [Marcion] wish on all occasions to be understood as in alliance with Judaism!“ Obviously Marcion’s text of Galatians did not include the account of a previous visit „after three years“ and Tertullian, if indeed he had ever seen such a reading, was not inclined to take it seriously.

According to the original text, then, Paul returned to Damascus after his sojourn in Arabia (Gal. 1, 17) and did not go up to Jerusalem until whatever is implied by „after fourteen years“; whether a full fourteen years later, or in the fourteenth year of his apostleship, makes little difference.

A second writer considers an interval of three years sufficient to demonstrate Paul’s independence of Jerusalem; he may also have noticed, as William Paley was to do some 1600 years later, that the „many days“ which the Paul of Acts spends in Damascus could have amounted to three years.

The author of Gal. 1:18-24 did not bother to coordinate the second chapter with his own account; perhaps he hoped to displace the earlier Pauline version of Paul’s first apostolic contact with the church at Jerusalem. To differentiate between the two visits now recorded, a still later „Paul“ inserts the word „again“ so conspicuously absent from Tertullian’s reading of Gal. ii, 1. Perhaps from the same hand comes such incongruities as Peter at the head of a mission to the circumcised (ii, 7-8),* anticipating the arrangement to which Peter becomes a party in the verse that follows.

While the narrative of Galatians is more plausible if stripped of known or demonstrable interpolations, the second chapter is still basically nonsensical. It does not become less so in light of Acts-Luke’s fifteenth chapter, the reader’s acquaintance with which is tacitly presumed throughout, it simply makes the unintelligibility more understandable.

Frank R. McGuire, 'Did Paul Write Galatians?', Hibbert Journal, 1967, 66 (61): 52ff

* There's many scholars who've had issues with Gal 2:7-8, too -
  • Ernst Barnikol, Der nichtpaulinische Ursprung des Parallelismus der Apostel Petrus und Paulus (Galater 2 7-8) (Forschungen zur Entstehung des Urchristentums des Neuen Testament und der Kirche 5; Kiel: Muhlau, 1931)

    Translated into English by Darrell J. Doherty with B. Keith Brewer as
    • Ernst Barnikol, 'The Non-Pauline Origin of the Parallelism of the Apostles Peter and Paul', J. Higher Criticism 5/2 (Fall 1998), 285-300.
    Barnikol referred to Gal 2:7b-8 as a textual problem representing apostolic parallelism in the second century, and offered insights into the history of the origin of it.
  • William O Walker Jr, 'Galatians 2:7b-8 as a Non-Pauline Interpolation', The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 4, Oct 2003, pp. 568-587.
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Re: Top suspects that could have invented the historical Jesus?

Post by Peter Kirby »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:50 am The issues with those passages goes beyond Tertullian's silence.
Thanks for this post, MrMacSon, nicely said.
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Joseph D. L.
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MBI's Ten Most Wanted for Inventing the Historical Jesus

Post by Joseph D. L. »

1) R. Akiva, friend and supporter of Simon bar Kochba

2) Aqulia, possible nephew of Hadrian and student of R. Akiva

3) Peregrinus Proteus, wanted for parricide and larceny

4) Marcion, owner of shipping yards on the Black Sea

5) Hadrian, promised to rebuild the Temple for Jews

6) Hegesippus, plagiarized historical works

7) Zephyrinus, codified the New Testament

8) Irenaeus, hated marginal groups of Gnostics for no apparent reason

9) Johanan ben Zakkai, rabbi and leader

10) Justin Martyr, a man named Justin who was a martyr.

There is no reward for their capture.
robert j
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Re: Paul's Arabian Adventure

Post by robert j »

Just a comment from the peanut gallery. I’ve previously developed and posted the table at least a couple of times in other threads.


It never ceases to amaze me the mental gymnastics that some scholars employ. Case in point [highlighting and underlining mine]---

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:50 am
... McGuire looked at the internal evidence -

Let us tentatively suppose, with Enslin, that Paul’s flight from Damascus is most reliably described in II Cor. xi, 33-3; that the account in Acts ix, 23-5 is secondary, the same incident being only barely alluded to in Gal. i, 17. Paul has somehow antagonised the Arabian political authorities and has taken refuge in Damascus. The „governor under King Aretas“ has posted a guard on the city walls, with orders to arrest Paul should he venture outside Damascus, hence his unceremonious escape – not from immediate danger, however, but through danger.

Luke, wishing to commend Christianity to the Roman authorities as apolitically inoffensive movement, represents Paul as the victim of Jewish persecution for purely religious reasons. Not only his liberty but even his life is threatened by local Jews, yet in Acts ix, 26 we next find him in Jerusalem. Although Jerusalem would be the least likely destination for a Paul who had fled from Damascus for the reason given in Acts, in the light of II Corinthians – which does not say where he went – it does not seem at all unreasonable. But where does he go in Galatians? Into Arabia – where, on the evidence of II Corinthians, the danger is greatest.

Despite the marked similarity of the two epistles, I submit that Galatians comes from a later hand and presupposes the reader’s knowledge of II Corinthians. If Paul did go to Arabia, what did he do there and how long did he stay? In the absence of such details, Gal. i, 17 serves no other purpose than to improve on the earlier first-person account and refute Luke’s version of his movements between Damascus and Jerusalem.

...

Frank R. McGuire, 'Did Paul Write Galatians?', Hibbert Journal, 1967, 66 (61): 52ff

These kind of arguments, in my opinion, reveal a lack of understanding of Paul and his modus operandi.

Paul developed his characterizations of his Jesus Christ, his gathering together of assemblies, and the coming wrath from free, creative, and generative borrowings from the Jewish scriptures. Paul used the same methodology to develop his own backstories.

I think Paul’s seemingly enigmatic sojourn in Arabia, very briefly mentioned in Galatians 1:17, has a straightforward and reasonably simple explanation.

It seems Paul used Numbers chapter 12, along with Jeremiah and Isaiah, to construct his story about his earliest experiences with a belief in Jesus Christ. And also to construct his story of his "calling" through the grace of God by means of a revelation. Paul associated himself with Miriam from Numbers because he was also ignorant and sinned when he persecuted the assemblies of God, and also like Miriam he was redeemed by God's grace and, like Miriam, the cleansing was capped by a sojourn in the land of Moses. Paul drew on the story of Miriam to construct his own backstory.

Paul evidently told the Galatians and the Corinthians the story in some detail during his initial evangelizing visit --- and he reminded them about the story in his letters as seen in the first citations in the table. The portion about Paul's sojourn in Arabia is highlighted in the last row ---

Paul
Galatians chapter 1
and 1 Corinthians chapter 15
Numbers
Chapter 12 (LXX)
and a bit of Jeremiah and Isaiah
For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism … (Gal 1:13)

For I delivered to you first of all … (1 Cor 15:3)
... I was persecuting the assembly of God … (Gal 1:13)

… I persecuted the assembly of God. (1 Cor 15:9)
And Mariam and Aaron spoke against Moses … (Numbers 12:1)

"And why were you not afraid to speak against my attendant Moses?” And the anger of the Lord’s wrath was against them ... (Numbers 12:8-9)
And last of all, as the ektroma, he was seen by me also … because I persecuted the assembly of God. (1 Cor 15:8-9)

[Paul was like the ektroma because, like Miriam, he was ignorant and he sinned]
… Mariam was leprous like snow … And Aaron said to Moses, “I beg you, Sir, do not lay extra sin upon us, because we were ignorant in that we sinned. Do not let her be like unto death, like an ektroma coming out of a mother’s womb… " (Numbers 12:9-12)
But when God, the One having selected me from my mother's womb, and having called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. (Gal 1:15-16)And a word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb, I had consecrated you; a prophet to nations I had made you.”(Jeremiah 1:4-5).

[And like Jeremiah, Paul's calling, his appointment, came later. Jeremiah was a youth (1:6) when the Lord said to him --- ]

"Behold, today I have appointed you over nations ... " (Jeremiah 1:10)

[Paul also used Isaiah 49:5-6 here]
… the gospel having been preached by me, is not according to man … but by a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11-12)

But when God ... was pleased to reveal His Son in me ... (Gal 1:15-16)
… And the Lord … said to them, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet of you for the Lord, in a vision I will be known to him, and in sleep I will speak to him." (Numbers 12:5-6)
But when God … having called me by His grace … (Gal 1:15)

… I went away into Arabia and returned again … (Gal 1:17)


[Like Miriam, Paul separated himself in the land of Moses, and returned cleansed]
And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, I beg you, heal her!” And the Lord said to Moses … Let her be separated for seven days outside the camp, and afterwards she shall enter.” And Mariam was kept apart outside the camp … until Mariam was cleansed (ἐκαθαρίσθη).
(Numbers 12:13-15)

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MrMacSon
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Re: Paul's Arabian Adventure

Post by MrMacSon »

robert j wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 9:52 am
It never ceases to amaze me the mental gymnastics that some scholars employ. Case in point [highlighting and underlining mine] ---
MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:50 am
... McGuire looked at the internal evidence -

.
Despite the marked similarity of the two epistles, I submit that Galatians comes from a later hand and presupposes the reader’s knowledge of II Corinthians. If Paul did go to Arabia, what did he do there and how long did he stay? In the absence of such details, Gal. i, 17 serves no other purpose than to improve on the earlier first-person account and refute Luke’s version of his movements between Damascus and Jerusalem.

Frank R. McGuire, 'Did Paul Write Galatians?', Hibbert Journal, 1967, 66 (61): 52ff

These kind of arguments, in my opinion, reveal a lack of understanding of Paul and his modus operandi.

Paul developed his characterizations of his Jesus Christ, his gathering together of assemblies, and the coming wrath from free, creative, and generative borrowings from the Jewish scriptures. Paul used the same methodology to develop his own backstories.

I think Paul’s seemingly enigmatic sojourn in Arabia, very briefly mentioned in Galatians 1:17, has a straightforward and reasonably simple explanation.

It seems Paul used Numbers chapter 12, along with Jeremiah and Isaiah, to construct his story about his earliest experiences with a belief in Jesus Christ. And also to construct his story of his "calling" through the grace of God by means of a revelation. Paul associated himself with Miriam from Numbers because he was also ignorant and sinned when he persecuted the assemblies of God, and also like Miriam he was redeemed by God's grace and, like Miriam, the cleansing was capped by a sojourn in the land of Moses. Paul drew on the story of Miriam to construct his own backstory.

Paul evidently told the Galatians and the Corinthians the story in some detail during his initial evangelizing visit --- and he reminded them about the story in his letters as seen in the first citations in the table. The portion about Paul's sojourn in Arabia is highlighted in the last row ---

Paul
Galatians chapter 1
and 1 Corinthians chapter 15
Numbers
Chapter 12 (LXX)
and a bit of Jeremiah and Isaiah
For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism … (Gal 1:13)

For I delivered to you first of all … (1 Cor 15:3)
... I was persecuting the assembly of God … (Gal 1:13)

… I persecuted the assembly of God. (1 Cor 15:9)
And Mariam and Aaron spoke against Moses … (Numbers 12:1)

"And why were you not afraid to speak against my attendant Moses?” And the anger of the Lord’s wrath was against them ... (Numbers 12:8-9)
And last of all, as the ektroma, he was seen by me also … because I persecuted the assembly of God. (1 Cor 15:8-9)

[Paul was like the ektroma because, like Miriam, he was ignorant and he sinned]
… Mariam was leprous like snow … And Aaron said to Moses, “I beg you, Sir, do not lay extra sin upon us, because we were ignorant in that we sinned. Do not let her be like unto death, like an ektroma coming out of a mother’s womb… "
(Numbers 12:9-12)

But when God, the One having selected me from my mother's womb, and having called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. (Gal 1:15-16)
And a word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb, I had consecrated you; a prophet to nations I had made you.”(Jeremiah 1:4-5).

[And like Jeremiah, Paul's calling, his appointment, came later. Jeremiah was a youth (1:6) when the Lord said to him --- ]

"Behold, today I have appointed you over nations ... " (Jeremiah 1:10)

[Paul also used Isaiah 49:5-6 here]

.
… the gospel having been preached by me, is not according to man … but by a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11-12)

But when God ... was pleased to reveal His Son in me ... (Gal 1:15-16)
… And the Lord … said to them, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet of you for the Lord, in a vision I will be known to him, and in sleep I will speak to him." (Numbers 12:5-6)
.
But when God…having called me by His grace (Gal 1:15)

… I went away into Arabia and returned again … (Gal 1:17)


[Like Miriam, Paul separated himself in the land of Moses, and returned cleansed]
.

And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, I beg you, heal her!” And the Lord said to Moses … Let her be separated for seven days outside the camp, and afterwards she shall [re]enter.” And Mariam was kept apart outside the camp … until Mariam was cleansed (ἐκαθαρίσθη).

(Numbers 12:13-15)

Cheers robert j. That was one part of McGuire's commentary I skipped over (and wondered whether to omit; I've omitted others' significant commentaries about other aspects of Galatians 1 and 2).

I have wondered if " … I went away into Arabia and returned again … " - Gal 1:17 - was a also specific point-of-difference with the Jewish concepts of going into Egypt and returning again that was, of course, also part of the beginning of the gospels accounts of Jesus.
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