Gospel "according to" ___

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13658
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

Irish1975 wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 7:41 am The editor is contradicting not only Paul but also Marcion, who published a solitary Gospel with no attributed source.
this would prove true also in the opposed direction: "Paul"/Marcion in Galatians claims that his gospel is not "according to men" hence betraying awareness that the Marcion's enemies had already assigned names to Gospel authors. Is not this the Robert Price's and Stuart's view (= that Galatians is a reaction against Matthew)?

Hence, this would explain the Pauline silence about Jesus as deliberate Marcionite silence about the catholic gospels.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13658
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:25 pm
On the main point, though -- if the accusation that a gospel sourced to men was a put-down, then would not the more likely response be to demonstrate that one's own gospel did not derive from men but that it, too, or even moreso, derived from the risen Christ?
thinking about it, the entire gospels are about a put-down: euhemerization is always a put-down. I am reminded the following words:


There’s a comment thread in your initial “Questioning the Historicity of Jesus” post that might be worthy of reply – the commenter “Peter Piper” suggests (by means of quoting an unfavorable review of your UNCG lecture) euhemerization was a way to denigrate a deity, rather than simply creating an earthly backstory. Euhemerization would therefore not be in the interest of early Christians (unless they were employing it against other deities).

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archive ... ment-10302

unless they were employing it against other deities...: Against the Paul's Jesus, perceived as a rival deity insofar in the hands of Marcion.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:34 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:25 pm
On the main point, though -- if the accusation that a gospel sourced to men was a put-down, then would not the more likely response be to demonstrate that one's own gospel did not derive from men but that it, too, or even moreso, derived from the risen Christ?
thinking about it, the entire gospels are about a put-down: euhemerization is always a put-down. I am reminded the following words:


There’s a comment thread in your initial “Questioning the Historicity of Jesus” post that might be worthy of reply – the commenter “Peter Piper” suggests (by means of quoting an unfavorable review of your UNCG lecture) euhemerization was a way to denigrate a deity, rather than simply creating an earthly backstory. Euhemerization would therefore not be in the interest of early Christians (unless they were employing it against other deities).

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archive ... ment-10302

unless they were employing it against other deities...: Against the Paul's Jesus, perceived as a rival deity insofar in the hands of Marcion.
I often find myself at odds with Carrier but on this point I do agree with his response to the suggestion that euhemerization is a way of denigrating a deity. Like Carrier, I can't think of any instances where euhemerization functions as a put-down.

But to return to the main point of the discussion, does Paul really diminish the idea of a gospel being derived from men anywhere? He does insist that his preaching should be recognized as being directly commissioned by a deity, but that only makes him the equal of other apostles and gives him the right to act independently of those others. Paul is not implying that other apostles just made up their gospel out of their "human imaginations", though in other passages he does suggest the other apostles had a poor grasp of what they should have known, or that they are commissioned to preach to a different audience. But I don't recall Paul ever saying that others preached a gospel that originated with humans.

Or am I overlooking some fundamental text here that says otherwise?
Giuseppe
Posts: 13658
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:22 amBut I don't recall Paul ever saying that others preached a gospel that originated with humans.

Or am I overlooking some fundamental text here that says otherwise?
2 Corinthians 5:16:
Wherefore we henceforth know no man kata sarka: even though we have known Christ kata sarka, yet now we know him so no more

I concede that Doherty and Carrier insist that kata sarka here is referred to the way of knowing, not to 'man' or 'Christ', but they do so against fool apologists who interpret naively the passage as referring to a historical Jesus.

If kata sarka here is assumed gratuitously to refer to Christ, then there are two possibilities:
  • the passage is genuine: the Christ is known kata sarka during a sacred drama, where the "crucified" actor personifies the Christ.
  • the passage is an interpolation meant to explain why Paul is so silent about the historical Jesus.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13658
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:22 am but on this point I do agree with his response to the suggestion that euhemerization is a way of denigrating a deity. Like Carrier, I can't think of any instances where euhemerization functions as a put-down.
Robert M. Price talked about 'heretic' mythicist Christians considering the Gospel Jesus a "degrading heresy".
Papias was in this sense a 'heretic' of this kind, since he, coming from the circles in Ephesus around the celestial Jesus of the Book of Revelation (by having known personally the ones who knew the author of Revelation) was someway disturbed by the content of written Gospels (proto-Mark and proto-Matthew), and he preferred to ask the "oral tradition" to solve the dilemma.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13658
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

In addition, and I find this point too often ignored, the same name 'Paul' is not a real name, at least not a true name when given to a apostle who insists on the revolutionary power of the "grace". A gospel "according to Paul" is still an anonymous gospel, at least partially, differently from "a gospel according to Luke"or 'to Mark', where there is no theological irony behind the names of Luke or Mark.

It is too much evident that 'Paul' means 'the least' with implicit reference to power of grace that makes great the little.

ADDENDA: this observation about the 'gospel according to Paul' being still an anonymous gospel (insofar 'Paul' is only a theological label not a real name) makes the Trobisch's conclusion very probable, I think.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13658
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Giuseppe »

The total anonimity of Paul is made clear in the fact that he doesn't appear never in the Gospels. Only particular insiders can see Paul in Mark. Behind Jesus himself. But never behind Paul himself.

Paul was the anonymous par excellence.
yakovzutolmai
Posts: 296
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 6:03 am

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:34 am
There’s a comment thread in your initial “Questioning the Historicity of Jesus” post that might be worthy of reply – the commenter “Peter Piper” suggests (by means of quoting an unfavorable review of your UNCG lecture) euhemerization was a way to denigrate a deity, rather than simply creating an earthly backstory. Euhemerization would therefore not be in the interest of early Christians (unless they were employing it against other deities).

This couldn't be more wrong. The entire thrust of Near Eastern expectations is the hope for the divine messenger or voice. The Vedic perspective includes the explicit phenomenon of divine avatars.

There are also prophets who incarnate the divine spirit or speak with its voice. There is also the ascended master who accomplishes apotheosis by combining with the divine spirit and wearing its mantle. This is the most essential element of esoteric thought.

Identifying a prophetic vessel for the Christ spirit would be key to eschatological expectations.

Yet again, people take the Christian literature far to seriously. It's not history. It's not even a sincere author. Biblical scholars are so wrong. This isn't the product of a chain of uneducated shepherds. Highly sophisticated, literate people produced these works for reasons we don't clearly understand.
User avatar
Irish1975
Posts: 1057
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:01 am

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Irish1975 »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:25 pm It's been a while since I studied Marcion so maybe you can remind me of the evidence that the catholic editors were copying Marcion re the "gospel" part of the "title".
BeDuhn cites the investigations of von Harnack and Koester in support of the thesis that Marcion was the first to use Evangelion as "the title of a specific textual account of Jesus' life" (p. 65).

The catholic NT was published in reaction to Marcion. The NT titles are editorial additions to works that did not originally bear them (Justin, etc.). Given the unusual character of these titles, and their almost unvarying form and arrangement in the manuscripts, it seems safe to infer that the Catholic editors were correcting Marcion by imitation.
On the main point, though -- if the accusation that a gospel sourced to men was a put-down,
I haven't claimed that there was a put-down. Just that the form of the titles--which I take to be editorial features of the final redaction--probably derives from that specific verse from Galatians.

Contradiction is not necessarily a "put-down." Since the editors published both Acts and Galatians--two incompatible accounts of the same persons and events--they obviously were at least comfortable with a big tent approach. Both Paul and the 12 are included, and (tendentiously) reconciled.
User avatar
Irish1975
Posts: 1057
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:01 am

Re: Gospel "according to" ___

Post by Irish1975 »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:25 pm
The anonymity of the NT historical books should not be regarded as peculiar to early Christian literature nor should it be interpreted in the context of Greco-Roman historiography. The striking fact that the NT Gospels and Acts do not mention their authors’ names has its literary counterpart in the anonymity of the OT history books, whereas OT anonymity itself is rooted in the literary conventions of the Ancient Near East. Just as in the OT, where the authors of books that belonged to the genre of wisdom and prophetic literature were usually named while historical works were written anonymously, only the NT letters and the Apocalypse were published under their authors’ names while the narrative literature of the NT remained anonymous. The authorial intent of the Gospels’ anonymity can also be deduced from its ancient Near Eastern and OT background. Unlike the Greek or Roman historian who, among other things, wanted to earn praise and glory for his literary achievements from both his contemporaries and posterity, the history writer in the Ancient Near East sought to disappear as much as possible behind the material he presented and to become its invisible mouthpiece. By adopting the stylistic device of anonymity from OT historiography the Evangelists of the NT implied that they regarded themselves as comparatively insignificant mediators of a subject matter that deserved the full attention of the readers. The anonymity of the Gospels is thus rooted in a deep conviction concerning the ultimate priority of their subject matter.
Baum, A. D. (2008). The Anonymity of the New Testament History Books: A Stylistic Device in the Context of Greco-Roman and Ancient near Eastern Literature. Novum Testamentum, 50(2), 120–142.
Claims about anonymous authorship should be carefully distinguished from claims about how these texts were published. I'm not aware of evidence that the 4 Gospels were ever published anonymously, without their canonical titles. Justin tells us that these texts were used in Christian worship, apparently without any attributions to individuals but simply to "the apostles."
Post Reply