Who existed ? When ? Where ?

[Paul the Uncertain]

Neil

Begin be asking what evidence we would expect to see if such and such was the basis for Marcion's gospel.

"Such and such was the basis for Marcion's gospel" is a hypothesis. You have selected it before performing your analysis, else you couldn't have formulated the question.

On the contrary, this is indeed the type of question Bayesian reasoning is very well designed to resolve.

Not contrary to what I said, though, is it?

The issue was not the resolution but the formulation of the question (= the identification of at least two seriously possible alternative hypotheses, the second one usually being something more specific than "not the first one").

Must be contrary to something else.

[Bernard Muller]

I could fairly ask Bernard -

Considering our historical evidence is only second century, why do you insist it be placed in the first century ?
Just because the story is set in the first, and Christians believed it to be from the first century ?
Anything else ?

Regarding the gospels, the internal evidence put the synoptic gospels & Acts well into the first century CE:
Dating of gMark: http://historical-jesus.info/41.html
Dating of gMatthew: http://historical-jesus.info/57.html
Dating of gLuke & gJohn: http://historical-jesus.info/62.html
Dating of Acts: http://historical-jesus.info/63.html
And there are 1st century external evidence for these gospels & Acts. See http://historical-jesus.info/gospels.html
Of course, it is not as abundant as for the ones in the 2nd century, but everything fit and can be justified.

Cordially, Bernard

[robert j]

Paul’s seven letters (or five? six?), flawed as they may be, are as close as we can get to primary evidence in the search for early Christian origins.

James, John and Cephas/Peter? Their scant stories, such as they are presented by Paul, may very well have been fabricated by Paul, or he may have very loosely based them on real people. The concepts associated with those men held by many today could very likely have been shaped by the author of GMark, as he brought Paul’s heavenly Christ spirit down to earth in his tale set in recent times --- a tale far more accessible to a wider audience than Paul’s scripture-based heavenly Christ.

Strictly my opinion of course, to rely on Robert M. Price to paint an accurate picture of Paul is to be misguided. Have you read his relatively recent, The Amazing Colossal Apostle ? In my opinion, Price has built a complex house of cards with an all-too shaky foundation.

Even more problematic, in my opinion, Price has missed or ignored the consistent personality and on-going human dramas threaded through several of Paul’s letters --- on-going dramas that would be inconceivable in Price’s picture of a “pile of literary scraps” (p. 534) consisting of fragments patched together by so many competing factions over so many decades.

Added verisimilitude in Paul’s letters? It’s possible. But the five letters (generally considered to be authentic) addressed to his congregations reveal human dramas, Paul’s hubris and thirst for authority, distinct personalities and cultural paradigms for each congregation, and clashes of cultures between Paul’s Jewish provenance and his gentile converts that are all so well integrated, intertwined, and consistent that for it all to have been concocted by a clever author or redactor to add believe-ability to the letters is itself beyond reasonable belief.

And one can’t ignore that portions of Galatians and 1 Corinthians fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2396). Together they reveal a significant portion of Paul’s back-story.

I think Price’s characterizations of a “pile of literary scraps” and “a pile of flaking puzzle pieces” (p. 534) provide a much better description of his evidence, than of Paul’s letters.


some drama – viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3253&p=71356#p71356

[hakeem]

to hakeem,
I don't know why papyri 46 is relevant in the discussion.

Your admission that you don't know why Papyri 46 is relevant in the discussion shows you have very little or no understanding that the earliest manuscripts which mention a character called Paul is dated to the mid 2nd to 3rd century.

It is most absurd to use non-historical writings that are without corroboration as clear cut evidence.

But there is corroboration of the existence of earthly Jesus through Paul's epistles, 'Hebrews', gMark (and other gospels), Tacitus and Josephus (Ant. 20).

The earliest writings with the name of Paul [P46] dated mid 2nd-3rd century are products of belief and fiction about Jesus.
Hebrews is an anonymous source of unknown date of authorship and cannot be shown to be historical.
gMark and the Gospels are non-historical sources from conception to resurrection. Every event about Jesus is implausible or did not happen.
Tacitus did not mention any person called Jesus in Annals 15.44.
Jesus in Josephus Ant.20 was alive in the time of Albinus or up to at least 63-64 CE.

Acts of the Apostles is a non-historical source of unknown authorship and date which does not even admit anywhere that a person called Paul wrote Epistles to Churches.

Arguments from silence again, imagining that an author has to say everything about a character or event.
Arguments from silence and alternate possibilities and far-fetched interpretations are the mythicist best friends and most of their so-called evidence.
How do you know Acts of the Apostles is totally a non-historical source?

It is not an argument from silence that Acts of the Apostle is an anonymous non-historical source.

It is a fact that no author is named in Acts of the Apostle.

It is a fact that stories of the resurrected Jesus, the Holy Ghost and Paul in Acts are non-historical. In Acts it is claimed Jesus resurrected and ascended, that the Holy Ghost came down from heaven on the day of Pentecost, and that Saul/Paul spoke to the ascended Jesus after he was blinded by a bright light.

Acts of the Apostles date of authorship is also unknown.

There is no historical source that corroborates a single event about Jesus, Paul and the Holy Ghost in Acts.

[Bernard Muller]

That's not my new pet theory or anything, it's just a measure of how undecisive is the evidence.
Asking bigger and better questions.

It is a measure that anybody can write anything to support his/her agenda, even if the evidence is slim in favor & large against.
About gMarcion dated AFTER gLuke: http://historical-jesus.info/53.html
About Marcion's Pauline epistles dated AFTER the orthodox ones: http://historical-jesus.info/73.html

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

Your admission that you don't know why Papyri 46 is relevant in the discussion shows you have very little or no understanding that the earliest manuscripts which mention a character called Paul is dated to the mid 2nd to 3rd century.

So what, that does not mean that the Pauline epistles had to be written soon before the dating of the papyri.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

But in the first century we have no independent evidence pointing to any impact Paul made on others in his own day.

Argument from silence again.

Cordially, Bernard

[hakeem]

Your admission that you don't know why Papyri 46 is relevant in the discussion shows you have very little or no understanding that the earliest manuscripts which mention a character called Paul is dated to the mid 2nd to 3rd century.

So what, that does not mean that the Pauline epistles had to be written soon before the dating of the papyri.

Cordially, Bernard

You are engaged in an argument from silence.

You very well know that there is no corroborative contemporary historical source for a character called Paul the Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin.

[perseusomega9]

I was able to use my awesome ability of using the websites search function.

[Bernard Muller]

For your reading pleasure:
From far-fetched & ill-evidenced no-HJ theories to ultra minimalist HJ reconstructions not being popular:
http://historical-jesus.info/49.html
Also this one:
http://historical-jesus.info/47.html

Cordially, Bernard