The case for Post First War Paul?

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Giuseppe
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

I think that RGPrice makes a good point, when he raises the implication:
  • no gospels before Paul ---> no reason to invent Paul
The viceversa is equally, strongly, true:
  • A gospel before Paul ----> a strong reason to invent Paul.
Bolland appears to be inclined to the last implication.
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maryhelena
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by maryhelena »

rgprice wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:00 am
The Gospel stories are really what drew notice -- the Pauline letters just along for the ride. I think if not for the Gospels we never would have known about the Pauline letters. I mean quite honestly the Pauline letters aren't anything special. They are kind of a mess and actually don't do a very good job making any kind of case. I think on their own they are pretty unremarkable.
The gospels as a marketing ploy? Yes, the Pauline epistles would most likely have faded away as of no particular value. After all - ideas are two a penny. The Pauline writings might have drawn some interest from the philosophy inclined but of no particular interest to the man on the street. But a story based on tera firma - that can be related to and thus hold it's audience enthralled. Every marketing manager knows the power of a story - whether it's a TV advert designed to sell the latest product - or simply the face of a celebrity promoting a face cream or hair product.

However, I would not go so far as to say the gospels were a marketing ploy for the Pauline epistles. Could the gospels have survived without the Pauline epistles? Perhaps - but then would not eager readers want a sequel? Dead men staying dead - well - was he really dead - someone else took his place on the cross - he escaped to India. Yes, the gospels have the dead man resurrected - but he does not stay around for long - he disappears again. Enter the Pauline epistles and their emphasizing the 'body of christ' and the 'mind of christ'. The Pauline shift away from tera firm to a spiritual/philosophical world view.

Methinks it's a case of the horse and carriage - one can't have one without the other.

As to a gap between the gospels and the Pauline epistles - perhaps to get the christian movement off the ground a step away from the gospel story was necessary. After all, the context of the gospel story is Jewish history - a Jewish messiah story. That would need to be side-stepped - at least until post 70s. Jewish nationalism would not be the way to win gentile converts prior to 70 c.e. A different focus was necessary. (That of course does not mean the gospel story was first written post 70 c.e. - it simply means that the gospel story was not used as a gentile conversion tool that early - whether it was valued by a Jewish audience is another matter.)

Book 1. The very Jewish gospel messiah story.
Book 2. The sequel; the Pauline philosophical story of neither Jew nor Greek.

A time gap between the Jesus story and it's Pauline sequel ? Since the cart can't move without the horse - both stories, the gospel story and the Pauline philosophy - are part and parcel of the same story. Perhaps the proposed gap is a bit like the situation today: One part of the story becomes of relevance for a particular context. For example, the Carrier mythicists downplay the gospel story and focus on the Pauline epistles. The Jesus historicists trump the gospel story over Pauline philosophy.

As of now - the above seems to make sense to me... :)
davidmartin
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by davidmartin »

it is remarkable though that a giant chunk of the NT consists of Paul, and i think one has to include the ones that are Paul inspired, like the pastorals and Hebrews. Apart from the Gospels, Revalation and James it's really all Paul. 1 John appears very Pauline

Yet we know the scanty evidence or awareness of Paul in the earlier patristic sources

I wonder if this is simply an artifact of Nicea's decision on which texts to include whereas in the 2nd century many more texts were in use and Paul's writings and ideas were not as dominant as they appear to be. Perhaps orthodoxy became more Pauline by the 4th century

On the other question. You can have a pre-Paul gospel story sure combined with a Paul that's reluctant to make use of it which carries through into the later works done in his name. That particular avenue makes a lot of sense. He's a renegade from a normative Jewish perspective. Why shouldn't he be one from a Pre-Paul Christian perspective?
rgprice
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by rgprice »

I would argue that virtually every work in the NT is related to Paul.

James is a response to Romans and makes references to Romans.
1 Peter is Pauline and may be a misnamed Pauline forgery, either that or it was written like Acts to make Peter sound like Paul.
2 Peter references Pauline letters.
Of course the Pauline forgeries are related to Paul.
As you say Hebrews is related to Paul.
And I argue that all of the Gospels are also derived from Pauline letters as well.

Mark is based directly on Paul's letters, with all of Jesus' teachings actually coming from Paul. Marcion's Gospel further embraced Pauline teachings and highlighted some of the relationships between the Markan narrative and Paul. This is preserved in Luke. Matthew diminishes the Pauline nature of the story, but nevertheless repeats the many Paulisms from Mark and Marcion. John of course also derives from Mark and Marcion, and thus is reliant on the Pauline works.

About the other things not reliant on the Pauline letters that I can tell are the Letter of Jude and the Revelation of John. As for the Johannine letters, I guess I'm on the fence about their relationship to Paul.
andrewcriddle
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by andrewcriddle »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:37 am
andrewcriddle wrote: Sun Oct 10, 2021 2:05 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Oct 10, 2021 1:35 pm


<SNIP>


I think the strongest reason for beginning with a second century provenance for the letters is Lemche's point about "scientific dating". If they were from the mid-first century we seem to have no evidence of any impact they -- or Paul himself -- made at that time, and hence no obvious reason why the letters were preserved.

Also we have what I consider to be a fact -- that the letters are stylized with intertextuality from the OT. They are not "natural" writings but literary compositions. Example: the author parallels himself with Jeremiah and others, and his emotional rage is an artistic adaptation of a passage from Jeremiah. Is not Paul -- all the different Pauls -- are they not all suddenly found in the second century?
Clement of Rome provides evidence of knowledge of Paul's letters c 100 CE. (I'm not sure whether you accept the traditional dating of this work.)

Andrew Criddle
You must think there are lots of silly scholars out there who simply don't know the basics of their trade. If we read the sources uncritically, naively, then your remarks carry weight. But for those of us who are more interested in critical approaches to the sources, to investigating the provenance of the sources, the evidence for their integrity, etc, .... that is, all the things historians in other fields routinely do, then no, Clement does not provide the evidence you claim. You will need to present an argument to justify such a claim -- with awareness of the relevant critical scholarship.
I don't see any explanation for the present form of chapter 47
Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the gospel first began to be preached? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you. But that inclination for one above another entailed less guilt upon you, inasmuch as your partialities were then shown towards apostles, already of high reputation, and towards a man whom they had approved. But now reflect who those are that have perverted you, and lessened the renown of your far-famed brotherly love. It is disgraceful, beloved, yea, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of your Christian profession, that such a thing should be heard of as that the most steadfast and ancient church of the Corinthians should, on account of one or two persons, engage in sedition against its presbyters. And this rumour has reached not only us, but those also who are unconnected with us; so that, through your infatuation, the name of the Lord is blasphemed, while danger is also brought upon yourselves.
other than knowledge of something like what we know as 1 Corinthians.

IIUC you are dubious about the integrity of our present text of 1 Clement. However, I was not claiming that 1 Clement provides conclusive evidence of early knowledge of Paul, my point was that it (and other works) provides enough prima facie evidence of early knowledge of Paul to counter your concern about the lack of early impact. By treating this evidence for early knowledge of Paul sufficiently sceptically one can generate an apparent lack of such impact, but this procedure does not really establish anything.

To clarify, I think your argument quoted above about the problem caused by a lack of early Pauline impact requires that this lack of impact be not only a plausible reading of the evidence but the clearly preferable reading. IMO it is not clearly preferable at all.

Andrew Criddle
davidmartin
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by davidmartin »

Mark is based directly on Paul's letters, with all of Jesus' teachings actually coming from Paul
i think that might be a step too far!
maybe in some cases and as a layer on top but the parables are quite different in perspective and there's contradictions to be found with Paul
to put it another way Jesus comes across as a different character than the apostle
its really hard to see the apostle as the gospel jesus inspiration i mean if Paul's all about the cross it can't of been him who was crucified
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by neilgodfrey »

andrewcriddle wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:19 am IIUC you are dubious about the integrity of our present text of 1 Clement. However, I was not claiming that 1 Clement provides conclusive evidence of early knowledge of Paul, my point was that it (and other works) provides enough prima facie evidence of early knowledge of Paul to counter your concern about the lack of early impact. By treating this evidence for early knowledge of Paul sufficiently sceptically one can generate an apparent lack of such impact, but this procedure does not really establish anything.
Sceptical inquiry is not about pushing evidence to vanishing points to suit our agendas, though the term is sometimes used as if that is what is meant by it. If you see evidence in 1 Clement for a broader impact of Paul's activity within the parameters conventional wisdom assigns to it, then that's fine. Not all of us see that datum of testimony in the same way and it could be discussed at length. -- Without assuming anything about the Pauline correspondence that we have in our canon, and thinking through the contents of 1 Clement more generally, especially his references (or lack of them) to Paul, questions and doubts must inevitably surface.

For one -- that an author writing 100 CE should find the same conditions in Corinth as Paul presumably found there, with the same idealized(?) factions, must surely raise questions.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
gmx
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by gmx »

neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:53 am
andrewcriddle wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:19 am IIUC you are dubious about the integrity of our present text of 1 Clement. However, I was not claiming that 1 Clement provides conclusive evidence of early knowledge of Paul, my point was that it (and other works) provides enough prima facie evidence of early knowledge of Paul to counter your concern about the lack of early impact. By treating this evidence for early knowledge of Paul sufficiently sceptically one can generate an apparent lack of such impact, but this procedure does not really establish anything.
Sceptical inquiry is not about pushing evidence to vanishing points to suit our agendas, though the term is sometimes used as if that is what is meant by it. If you see evidence in 1 Clement for a broader impact of Paul's activity within the parameters conventional wisdom assigns to it, then that's fine. Not all of us see that datum of testimony in the same way and it could be discussed at length.
The documentary pedigree of Christian origins is highly consistent, from the earliest fragments of papyri, to the earliest complete manuscripts, to the present day.

That's not to say there are no holes, inconsistencies, or the whiff of interference. All of these exist in non-trivial quantities.

But what of the fact that eyewitness testimony is inherently unreliable and inconsistent ? That is acknowledged in the modern era when testimony and event are incredibly proximate.

What would we expect to find when an event and it's witness statements are 100 years divorced ?

We can point to suspicious redaction. We can point to the absence of documentary evidence outside of Catholic orthodoxy.

Sometimes I ask myself, as a lurker, if we assumed the Catholic orthodox "story" of Christian origins to be true (as in, a real, historical, revolutionary Jewish preacher named Jesus was crucified under Pilate, in 30 CE, with a small, uneducated but dedicated core of disciples convinced of his divinity), what would we expect to find in terms of documentary records 200 years later, or 2100 years later ? Would we expect to find something radically different to what we have ?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by neilgodfrey »

gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 am The documentary pedigree of Christian origins is highly consistent, from the earliest fragments of papyri, to the earliest complete manuscripts, to the present day.
Not sure what is meant by "highly consistent" in this context. There are many diverse texts.


gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 amBut what of the fact that eyewitness testimony is inherently unreliable and inconsistent ? That is acknowledged in the modern era when testimony and event are incredibly proximate.
The question that comes to mind here is where we find "eyewitness testimony"? Not the Gospel of John, I take it. Luke's prologue sits most discordantly with what follows and introduces us to no eyewitness at all.
gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 amWhat would we expect to find when an event and it's witness statements are 100 years divorced ?
This is my favourite question. In order to ask it, we have to assume that the gospels are indeed derived from historical events through some train of transmission, oral or textual. Why assume that? Because the author was wanting readers to believe the historical events he was writing about? But that is simply begging the question. How do we know it is based on historical events? Does not the writing of the narrative itself point us in the direction of other literary sources, especially the Jewish Scriptures?

gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 amSometimes I ask myself, as a lurker, if we assumed the Catholic orthodox "story" of Christian origins to be true (as in, a real, historical, revolutionary Jewish preacher named Jesus was crucified under Pilate, in 30 CE, with a small, uneducated but dedicated core of disciples convinced of his divinity), what would we expect to find in terms of documentary records 200 years later, or 2100 years later ? Would we expect to find something radically different to what we have ?
The problem with that scenario is that it confuses two opposing concepts. One, the Catholic orthodox story is opposed to the notion of Christianity beginning with a "revolutionary Jewish preacher" etc. The orthodox story allows for no doubt: it was not a matter of a few deluded disciples believing in the divinity of Jesus but rather many others along with them, via miracles etc, believing in him.

It is more appropriate for scholars to downplay that story and to focus on a naturalistic rationalization. But many of the same scholars still pray to that Jesus believing he is still alive and really is divine. Not all, I know that. It is good for atheists to be welcomed into the scholarly guild, too. That gives the naturalistic rationalizations credibility.

But how are we to imagine a "small, uneducated" band of disciples who dare to go against all that their prevailing religion teaches and believes ever gaining traction and then expansion? We have to imagine super-charismatic persons and miracles, I suggest, to make it work. Once we remove the miraculous from the earliest witnesses the story loses all credibility.

I just added an additional comment to my previous post. It illustrates the same point to some extent, I think. We find in the writings of 1 Clement a reference to a letter by Paul to the Corinthian church. How credible is it that a generation after Paul supposedly described a situation in Corinth in a very specific way should find the same situation that can be met with the same Pauline rejoinder? There is something artificial about such sources. Especially so when that same Paul is evidently not to be mentioned by any sources other than the "heretics".

And so we return to my first question: what is meant by "highly consistent" in reference to the "documentary pedigree of Christian origins"?

If we understand Christianity's origins as beginning with social collectives led by reasonably well-educated literates (as distinct from a few deluded uneducated disciples) we think we come closer to matching our model to the earliest sources.
gmx
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Re: The case for Post First War Paul?

Post by gmx »

neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:08 am
gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 am The documentary pedigree of Christian origins is highly consistent, from the earliest fragments of papyri, to the earliest complete manuscripts, to the present day.
Not sure what is meant by "highly consistent" in this context. There are many diverse texts.
Simply that the NT as we know it from physical fragments from 100 CE onwards is highly consistent across the vast majority of texts handed down to the present day. The commentary around those texts is also highly consistent over 2000 years. As mentioned previously, you can point to inconsistencies, holes, etc. We must be impressed by the consistency of the documentary record of the NT, heavily preserved as it is, in many, many languages, from an early date, and then over 2000 years, must we not ?
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:08 am
gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 amBut what of the fact that eyewitness testimony is inherently unreliable and inconsistent ? That is acknowledged in the modern era when testimony and event are incredibly proximate.
The question that comes to mind here is where we find "eyewitness testimony"? Not the Gospel of John, I take it. Luke's prologue sits most discordantly with what follows and introduces us to no eyewitness at all.
We find documents which purport to describe the life story of the founder of a new religious movement (opposed to the establishment of the time), and the troubles and tribulations of the communities that received that story and attempted to live by the founder's message. The orthodox explanation is that these stories reached a written form 50-100 years after the events they describe. I don't have the education to determine whether the documents that comprise the NT as we have it today would match what we would expect to find in such a circumstance.
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:08 am
gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 amWhat would we expect to find when an event and it's witness statements are 100 years divorced ?
This is my favourite question. In order to ask it, we have to assume that the gospels are indeed derived from historical events through some train of transmission, oral or textual. Why assume that? Because the author was wanting readers to believe the historical events he was writing about? But that is simply begging the question. How do we know it is based on historical events? Does not the writing of the narrative itself point us in the direction of other literary sources, especially the Jewish Scriptures?
Well that *is/was* the exact assumption of my question, omitted in your quotation. Having said that, should it not be the default assumption, as that is what the documents and their associated commentary, and the 2000 year pedigree of the documentary record purport to show. Is it not ? Should we not start by demonstrating that the historically accepted, default, and orthodox explanation is untenable ?
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:08 am
gmx wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:34 amSometimes I ask myself, as a lurker, if we assumed the Catholic orthodox "story" of Christian origins to be true (as in, a real, historical, revolutionary Jewish preacher named Jesus was crucified under Pilate, in 30 CE, with a small, uneducated but dedicated core of disciples convinced of his divinity), what would we expect to find in terms of documentary records 200 years later, or 2100 years later ? Would we expect to find something radically different to what we have ?
The problem with that scenario is that it confuses two opposing concepts. One, the Catholic orthodox story is opposed to the notion of Christianity beginning with a "revolutionary Jewish preacher" etc. The orthodox story allows for no doubt: it was not a matter of a few deluded disciples believing in the divinity of Jesus but rather many others along with them, via miracles etc, believing in him.
I find that less relevant. What an institution ultimately decided to make (in theological terms) of that geographically widespread, textually consistent, documentary distribution, is to me, less interesting.

To me, what is interesting is the textual consistency, across multiple languages, over two millennia, and the lack of dissenting witnesses.
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:08 am But how are we to imagine a "small, uneducated" band of disciples who dare to go against all that their prevailing religion teaches and believes ever gaining traction and then expansion? We have to imagine super-charismatic persons and miracles, I suggest, to make it work. Once we remove the miraculous from the earliest witnesses the story loses all credibility.
This argument makes no sense whatsoever, with all due respect.

How many delusional cults exist in the mainland USA today ? And how many are based on a charismatic leader ? And how many of their adherents believe that that leader is performing or is capable of performing super-natural feats ? Or, if not in this particular moment, how many "sects" would fit this characterisation in the last 100 years ?

To say, "well, no one could have walked on water, or conjured Moses and Elijah for that matter, and therefore, the whole episode is fabrication", is to be in intellectual denial of history. People believe what they believe, and the factual basis underlying it often runs last.
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