Turmel: Jesus undertook to do in Palestine what, fifteen centuries later, Joan of Arc did in France

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Turmel: Jesus undertook to do in Palestine what, fifteen centuries later, Joan of Arc did in France

Post by neilgodfrey »

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'.
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 pmSo, given that just found image of Paul (an image that is not a reduction, since it doesn't disturb none, save the marcionites and the catholics), the next step is to ask: a such Paul, is he more expexted on mythicism or on historicity ?
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.
Giuseppe wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:25 pmFrankly, as I have said more times in past, a Paul without the hymn to Philippians, without 2 Cor 2:6-8, without the various passages where he is shown as an hallucinator, is a Paul more expected on the assumption of a historical Jesus than otherwise.
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.
Giuseppe
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Re: Turmel: Jesus undertook to do in Palestine what, fifteen centuries later, Joan of Arc did in France

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:39 pm

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.
Well, on this point I would like to follow Carrier when he says that, given even only one change in our knowledge of background, we are justified to iterate again the test 'did Jesus exist?'.
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:39 pm
If you are thinking that the proposed interpolations you point to are factors to be weighed in a historicity debate
Well, at the cost of begging the issue in a grotesque way :oops: , it is not a mystery in this forum that for me the authenticity of 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 implies tout court mythicism. With the same tenacity I should claim that the contrary (the not-authenticity of 1 Corinthians 2:6-8) implies eo ipso historicity.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Turmel: Jesus undertook to do in Palestine what, fifteen centuries later, Joan of Arc did in France

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:30 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:16 pm

But we don't find a Jesus like that after removing the Marcionite and Catholic layers in T's view. Read the normal sized font in italics in his letters at the end of the commentaries and there is no such Jesus to be found.
True, but it also true that in whiletime we have added new knowledge (by removing the interpolations), hence we are justified to apply Bayes again, and to repeat the iteration given that, docet Carrier, our knowledge of background has been just modified.

Can you imagine a Carrier who accepts the challenge (to re-write his opus magnum in the light of a 'reduced' Paul without more archons and celestial hymns) ?

It is not a coincidence that Carrier attacks a priori who talks too much about marcionite interpolations in Paul. In this, he has a Mythicist precursor: Edouard Dujardin.
There is a place for Bayes and it is for assessing probable truth of a hypothesis. It can never prove the truth, the facts, but only assess the "probable" strength of a hypothesis that seeks to explain certain data.

I don't need Bayes to tell me there is no evidence for the historicity of Jesus that meets the norms (e.g. external controls) used to establish the historicity of other figures in ancient or other times.

As a historian (again, in the wake of historians like Moses I. Finley) one is obliged to set aside the question of the historicity of Jesus and look at the data that we have and seek to explain it. That's what we should be focusing on.

Building up hypotheses about Jesus and Paul is of little relevance to the question of how, exactly, we can understand Christian origins from the sources that we have.

If we rely on hypotheses about Jesus to explain the data then all we will end up with is a sky-hook with a mirage between the hook and the ground.
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Re: Turmel: Jesus undertook to do in Palestine what, fifteen centuries later, Joan of Arc did in France

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:46 pm Well, at the cost of begging the issue in a grotesque way :oops: , it is not a mystery in this forum that for me the authenticity of 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 implies tout court mythicism.
I agree, but I thought you were addressing the question of the historical Paul. But I don't want to be like the apologists who find a single text and use it as a proof-text to claim to make a case for the historicity of Jesus. The question does not hang on a single, or even a few, disputed passages in Paul. I can see many indications of a heavenly Jesus, a literary Jesus, a spirit Jesus, etc, but those passages tell us about what those texts are arguing and then we have to explore their most likely contexts and how they help us explain Christian origins. The historicity of Jesus per se is a discussion that only distracts, I think, from this core question.
Giuseppe wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:46 pmWith the same tenacity I should claim that the contrary (the not-authenticity of 1 Corinthians 2:6-8) implies eo ipso historicity.
Again, I would see this as proof-texting, like the apologists who point to Galatians 1:19 to prove the historicity of Jesus, as if there is nothing more to be said.
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