Who existed ? When ? Where ?

[Jax]

.. The [Pauline and other NT] letters may reflect real situations. And 'the [cor Pauline] five' may have mostly been written by one person.

But when? I think they could have been written in the early-mid 2nd century, yet the author (or a redactor) could have borrowed some aspects from texts about the mid 1st century Judea, such as the texts of Josephus, and others.

This used to be my view as well, a second century Paul would help to answer the almost complete lack of Christian material from the 1st century.

However on an other forum site called Historum I came across a poster named Moros who proposed a pre-BCE Paul -

http://historum.com/religion/100672-whe ... ctive.html - a concept that I am investigating, and which seems to hold promise. The whole reason for Paul to be in the areas that he was just seems to make so much more sense in the 1st century BCE.

Paul is mostly active in Asia Minor and around the Aegean sea [in a 'post-'diasporic'' way]. He is also very Christ-centric, and I think Christ is a largely a late 1st century to 2nd century concept.

.

The Dead Sea Scrolls however would seem to indicate that a Christ figure is a 2nd through 1st century BCE expectation. And let us not forget Philo.

[MrMacSon]

Paul is mostly active in Asia Minor and around the Aegean sea [in a 'post-'diasporic'' way].

What does that mean?

After the dispersion of Jews from Judea, and in conjunction with diaspora of or from other religions: Mithracism and Egyptian mystery religions were spreading around the eastern Mediterranean in the 1st-3rd centuries c.e., mostly by boat ie. via port-cities and towns.

The whole region was a mixing pot or stir-fry of different religions and cults.

.

[Jax]

... 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...

What five might those be Sir?

Your highlighting didn't extend far enough, and my wording wasn't adequately clear. I was referring to --- Of the seven letters generally considered to be authentic, the five of those addressed to his congregations. Those would be 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians and 1 and 2 Corinthians.

Recognizing that some of those are compilations of more than one original letter.

Ah, Thank you for that clarification.

Jax

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

Wow, thanks MrMacSon - Allen's thesis is a tour-de-force with a firm conclusion as you said :

The result of the investigation proves beyond reasonable doubt that no reliable extra-biblical/scriptural accounts exist to support the historical existence of, inter alia, Jesus of Nazareth, James the Just, or John the Baptist.

http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handl ... sequence=1

All our old friends are analysed in detail - Josephus obviously, Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius - all the way down to Thallus and Phlegon and Bar Serapion.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, he also carefully analyses many NT scholars' approach to this problem, classifying them into conservative, neutral, and sceptical. He shows that there is a strong personal religious bias in many conservative scholars (e.g. Habermas, Meier and Mason inter alia.)

He claims :

"The present situation clearly seems to reflect the issue that scholars are more concerned with preserving their constructed realities than they are with dealing dispassionately with the known historical facts. One indication of this is that the debate regarding interpolation and the degree of possible intercalation/redaction, has not been resolved even after nearly six hundred years of seemingly futile argument."

He covers scholars including : Doherty, Dunn, Ehrman, Charlesworth, Feldman, Fredriksen, Funk, Holding, Leidner, our Peter Kirby, Meier, Mason, Price (C.E.), Price(R.M.), Vermes, Wells, Zeitlin and Zindler.

Oddly though, he repeats the urban legend that the Council of Nicea decided the NT canon - quite a slip.
"Ehrman (2009: 14 -15), confirms that, inter alia, the canonical gospels should be considered to be as equally apocryphal as those writings that were not sanctified in 325 C.E. at the Council of Nicaea" p.103, also p268, p330.

Certainly worth a look.

Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

You might like to take a crack at rating:
Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias of Hierapolis, John of Patmos the Revelator, Quadratus of Athens, Basilides, Valentinus, Hegesippus.

Yup, I'll be looking into them, after some more reading and study - the more I read, the LESS certain everyone seems to be.

Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

Yes, even the good letters are sometimes a confused mish-mash of sections.

The highlighted quote of yours is actually why I feel that Paul is actually an historical person. We look at, for instance, 2 Corinthians and can see at least five individual smaller letters and a possible later interpolation; in Romans three distinct letters, Thessalonians two letters, Philippians three, etc. The letters are also heavily interpolated by later persons attempting to force Paul into their theology. Why do that if the original letters weren't authentic? Why not just start from scratch as Colossians, Ephians and Pilemon as a group do and what the Pastorals do? There is also the problem of coherence. The "Prison" letters and the "Pastorals" are very coherent and cohesive in content; not so with the letters that we think are authentic, in them Paul is all over the place, just what one would expect of letters written to address problems as they crop up. Created content would have a more structured narrative in my opinion, like the "prison" and "Pastoral" letters do. It's noteworthy that the "Prison" and "Pastoral" letters cannot be deconstructed into smaller letters like the "authentic" letters can.

Well, what exactly does 'authentic' mean ?

I think we all agree that :

• a single real person initially wrote some of the Paulines
• other letters have been combined with them
• they have been chopped and re-arranged and edited

Some real person wrote many of the letters, yes.
Does that mean the original person was a 1st C. Paul ?
No.

Kapyong

[Bernard Muller]

to Kapyong,

Some real person wrote many of the letters, yes.
Does that mean the original person was a 1st C. Paul ?
No.

Why "no"?

Cordially, Bernard

[Kapyong]

Gday,

I should have written more clearly :
"Does it mean for sure that the original person was a 1st C. Paul ?" No.

I mean that a 1st C. Paul is not certain,
I don't mean impossible.

Kapyong

[Jax]

Gday,

I should have written more clearly :
"Does it mean for sure that the original person was a 1st C. Paul ?" No.

I mean that a 1st C. Paul is not certain,
I don't mean impossible.

Kapyong

Not impossible. I agree.

If not 1st century however then when?

Can we know? Are there any hints in the other material that we know about? 1 Clement? Hebrews? James? 1 Peter? Papius? Irenaeus? Other?

I ask myself, Why was Paul (a Jew?) in Greece and Macedonia? Illyricum? On the way to Rome and then Iberia?

For what purpose?

I further ask myself, Why was Paul bringing Christ to non-Jews? What was his gain? And who were these non-Jews? Why does he stress the fellow soldier aspect of people that he is recommending?

These and other questions like them intrigue me.

[robert j]

I ask myself, Why was Paul (a Jew?) in Greece and Macedonia? ...

I further ask myself, Why was Paul bringing Christ to non-Jews?

What use was Paul's Christ to Jews? Well, I guess they could be slackers on the law.

But many Gentiles in Paul's day held the great and ancient god of the Jews in the highest esteem. Paul's Christ, according to Paul, provided a means to full participation with the Israel of god without the need of mutilation. And as a bonus, they could escape the days of wrath that Paul argued were coming soon when his Christ comes.