Carrier's take on 1 Corinthians 15:6

[toejam]

I've been doing some reading on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, and came across a footnote in Richard Carrier's On The Historicity of Jesus, p.516, regarding 15:6 - Paul's claimed resurrected Jesus' appearance to the infamous yet mysterious 500 brethren at one time. I hadn't heard this idea before and found it rather interesting. Here it is:

"I believe 1 Cor. 15:3-9 has become multiply corrupted, deliberately and accidentally, and that it originally may have referenced only Cephas and Paul and "all the brethren at the Pentecost" (not "five hundred brethren", the word pentakosiois being just a few letters away from pentekostes, 'Pentecost', meaning the very event fictionalized by Luke in Acts 2. I think the verbal and narrative similarities are too numerous to be a coincidence)."

pentakosiois = πεντακόσιοι
pentekostes = πεντηκοστῆς

If Carrier is right, this would make so much sense of this otherwise curious verse. Is there anything else that might support this view? What are some other ideas on this verse? Even as someone who holds 1 Corinthians to be more or less authentically Paul, I've always had doubts over the authenticity of this verse. It's always stuck out to me as overblow.

[andrewcriddle]

A number of scholars have held that Pentecost in Acts and the five hundred brethren in 1 Corinthians refer to the same event.
See Resuurecting Jesus
I have not previously come across the idea that the word for Pentecost and the word for five hundred have been confused.

Andrew Criddle

[Bernard Muller]

I would not be surprised at the switch because I think 1 Cor 15:3-11 is an interpolation written with knowledge of gLuke. And I take 'Acts' written a few years after gLuke.
http://historical-jesus.info/9.html
http://historical-jesus.info/63.html
http://historical-jesus.info/76.html

There is no Jesus' reappearance described in the Pentecost of 'Acts'. Maybe that caused the switch from Pentecost to the five hundred?

Cordially, Bernard

[outhouse]

I dont think it is an interpolation.

I think it is straight up mythology/fiction which was typical divinity building prose.


It does one thing however it was written. It shows the author/s intent.


Carrier can no more show a chain of corruption then I can show outright fiction. Its typical unsubstantiated Carrier rhetoric.

[Bernard Muller]

to outhouse,

I dont think it is an interpolation. ... Carrier can no more show a chain of corruption then I can show outright fiction

But did you read my blog post: http://historical-jesus.info/9.html?

Cordially, Bernard

[outhouse]

to outhouse,

I dont think it is an interpolation. ... Carrier can no more show a chain of corruption then I can show outright fiction

But did you read my blog post: http://historical-jesus.info/9.html?

Cordially, Bernard

I don't like your arguments on this Bernard my friend.

I find fault in most. You seem to dependent that these authors needed other text to create their literary art.

They did not. The text we possess is a fraction of what once was and all the gospels were compilations and community written making interpolation very hard to detect with any certainty.


I do not rule it out but certainty is not there for you, and not for Carrier either.


Now with the criticism part over, I think you have some decent ideas but I see assumptions I cannot follow.

[toejam]

^Is anyone asking or expecting "certainty" though?

[outhouse]

^Is anyone asking or expecting "certainty" though?

Don't you think Bernards conclusions are based on perceived certainties?

[Ben C. Smith]

^Is anyone asking or expecting "certainty" though?

Don't you think Bernards conclusions are based on perceived certainties?

Bernard wrote: "I would not be surprised at the switch because I think 1 Cor 15:3-11 is an interpolation...."

You wrote: "I don't think it is an interpolation. I think it is straight up mythology/fiction...."

You both seem to express the probabilities/possibilities in the same basic terms, do you not?

[outhouse]

^Is anyone asking or expecting "certainty" though?

Don't you think Bernards conclusions are based on perceived certainties?

Bernard wrote: "I would not be surprised at the switch because I think 1 Cor 15:3-11 is an interpolation...."

You wrote: "I don't think it is an interpolation. I think it is straight up mythology/fiction...."

You both seem to express the probabilities/possibilities in the same basic terms, do you not?

Here is a small example Ben, of many


1 Cor 15:3b-4 "... Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures"
Nowhere in the pre-Pauline scriptures there is anything about someone rising on the third day. But it seems our interpolator knew about gLuke!


The bolded part is a certainty on two levels . One he demands we follow his assumption there is an actual interpolator, and that said possibility knew about Luke.

These are certainties on his part, regardless of possible historicity levels of plausibility. For him there is no question. for me there still is.


One of many examples played over and over on every page the man produces.