By paring down I simply mean identifying layers in the epistles as we have them and setting them aside so that we read what is left -- presumably the original Paul, or rather, what is the original text in Paul's name.Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:25 pm
Why do you use the term 'paring down' with reference to Paul ? I can understand you when you refer the expression 'paring down' to the rationalizations applied on the Gospels, but when I remove from Paul, as marcionite interpolation, his claim about the rulers of this age crucifying Jesus in outer space, I am not going to "paring down" Paul, I am really finding a different and older image of Paul, an image I may call 'the historical Paul'.
We have a text in the name of Paul. We know nothing apart from that text about the author. It is pointless to ask if such a "Paul" is to be more expected on mythicism or historicity. We know nothing about the author at all. We only know that the text identifies itself as written by a person named Paul. There is nothing more to work with from the text.
The next step, in my view, is to ask what the text is saying, and when and in what context it appears to have been written.
Maybe, but that's a matter of preference. The question simply does no arise in my thinking. If we can know nothing about the author then that's the end of that. What is important is the context of the letter and what function or purpose it may be hoped to serve or does serve.
If you are thinking that the proposed interpolations you point to are factors to be weighed in a historicity debate, then, as I said, that's fine, but it is not my interest. I don't see them that way. I am not interested in debating historicity of either Paul or Jesus because we simply don't have the external controls necessary to settle the question. What is more interesting to me is trying to explain the nature and origins (including context) of the earliest evidence for what became Christianity.