gmx wrote:A frequently cited problem with the NT is the absence of references within the Paulina to the details of Jesus' life as presented in the Gospels. One explanation is that the Pauline epistles were composed before the invention/fabrication of the synoptic narrative expansion. My question is whether this explanation holds for the deutero-Pauline and pastoral epistles, the Petrine and Johanine epistles, and the near-contemporaneous apocrypha (Clement et al)? If anyone can point me in the way of scholarly research of the above, or wants to venture their own opinion, that would be greatly appreciated.
My own personal and non-scholarly opinion: we don't know why Paul and others gave few historical details, but there are plenty of examples going into the Second Century CE where this occurs. And the thing to keep in mind is that these writers didn't just give few details about Jesus, but also few historical details about
anything. To the extent that it is very difficult to understand when letters were written, other than in wide date ranges. See the main page of Peter Kirby's "Early Christian Writings" website, and check the date ranges listed.
I've given some quotes from my review of Doherty's "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man" below on this. But it simply seems to be how they wrote in those times. Why? I suggest culture and cost. On costs: Imagine that emails cost $10 a word -- how would this affect the content? What would you put in and leave out?
Anyway, snippets of my view on this from my review of JNGNM below from here:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseid ... view2.html
Doherty responded to my review here:
http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/Cr ... nJNGNM.htm
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2.1 Silence in early Christian Writings
When reading through the epistles generally attributed to Paul, one recognises something quite odd: they contain few – if any – references to the teachings or actions of a historical Jesus. Looking more broadly at the other epistles in the New Testament, we see the same pattern: details representing Jesus as a person living in some time or place appear almost non-existent.
Broadening our scope to the Second Century apologists and other texts, we see the same pattern continuing. Doherty examines these First and Second Century writers and concludes that they are silent about a historical Jesus for good reason: there was no historical Jesus Christ at the core of those authors' Christianity.
This is the end of Doherty's analysis. But is this the end of the story?
If we continue on with our examination of early literature, we begin to see that it is in fact not only silent about a historical Jesus, but that it contains few historical details about anything. Many epistles are hard to date for this reason, and we have to rely on hints within the text – usually names or events that we can date via other texts – to determine a possible date of origination, and even then it is often a date range extending over decades. (See the date ranges given on the excellent earlychristianwritings website.)
Why did they write in such a fashion? It certainly isn't what we would expect. But what Doherty doesn't note in JNGNM is that there are writers who, while undoubtedly believing in a historical Jesus,
nevertheless wrote in the same fashion.
Silence in the Second Century Apologists
In JNGNM, Doherty examines the writings of Second Century apologists, and concludes:
- As one can see by this survey, if one leaves aside Justin Martyr there is a silence in the 2nd Century apologists on the subject of the historical Jesus which is virtually equal of that found in the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 485)
Doherty describes this lack of appeal to a human Jesus in Second Century apologetic writings as a situation that is 'too bizarre' (page 487). He is correct that it is not what we would expect. With a few exceptions -- Justin Martyr being the most notable one -- the Second Century apologists appear to have little interest in the historical Jesus. (And in fact, we are lucky to have even Justin Martyr's writings. Had not a Byzantine scribe copied out some of Justin's letters in the 14th Century CE, we would have little more than a scattering of quotations today, and all our extant Second Century apologists would have been silent about a historical Jesus.)
Doherty and I have already crossed swords on the topic of the silence of Second Century apologists in 2005. I won't cover the same material here, so I invite interested readers to read my articles and Doherty's responses for background information before continuing.
Doherty's conclusion that Second Century apologists like Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix and even Justin Martyr (whom Doherty claims subscribed to a non-historical Jesus early in his Christian life) were not believers in a historical Jesus is quite fantastic. Even scholars who lean towards mythicism do not hold this view. G.A. Wells notes that, for all their unexpected silences, they nevertheless betrayed an acquaintance with the Jesus of the New Testament [1]. Richard Carrier notes that many of the Second Century apologists who were silent on the Gospel Jesus appear to be familiar with one or more of the books of the New Testament.
Here the reader needs to decide: Is Doherty's case about the majority of Second Century extant Christian apologists not having a historical Jesus in view within their Christianity convincing? If not, what implications does that have for how we evaluate the First Century silence? I will look at that shortly. At the least, this “too bizarre” situation should make us wary about placing our modern expectations on any ancient writer.
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Silence in First Century writings
In JNGNM, Doherty notes similarities between the Second Century apologists and the First Century epistle writers. He writes:
- Another aspect is the fact that in almost all the apologists we find a total lack of a sense of history. They do not talk of their religion as an ongoing movement with a specific century of development behind it, through a beginning in time, place and circumstances, and a spread in similar specifics. Some of them pronounce it to be very "old" and they look back to roots in the Jewish prophets rather than to the life of a recent historical Jesus. In this, of course, they are much like the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 477)
And this is so. For Doherty, the reason for the similarity is simple: both groups didn't have a historical Jesus at their core.
As Doherty notes, the similarities go further than just a lack of a historical Jesus. They include a dependence on the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament rather than the life of a historical Jesus. In my Tertullian example above, we see that he quotes Solomon rather than Jesus. He prefers attributing sayings to the 'prime wisdom' rather than to Christ. And he would rather talk about 'the name being taught' rather than Christ being incarnated and having a human ministry. Such use of allusions have their parallels in the writings of the First Century.
Again, note that all these writings – First Century and Second Century – give few historical details about anything. This is not something unique to Christian writings. Stanton notes that precise historical and chronological references are few and far between in the numerous Jewish writings discovered in the caves around the Dead Sea near Qumran. [2]
Silence in the Gospels
This pattern can also be found in the Gospels. While the Gospels do contain a few historical markers, Sanders notes that the events depicted are often linked together by phrases such as 'at this time' which, though implying a chronological setting, was probably used to link individual pericopes together. [3]
As many have noted, the Gospels surprisingly tell us little about Jesus. How long was his ministry? One year, or three? What did he look like? Was he short or tall? Married or single? Even if the Gospels were fiction or the details were pulled from Scriptures, if they had been important to the author's audience the authors should have been able to include them.
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