Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Sinouhe
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Post by Sinouhe »

According to Dr Carrier, 2 Peter was a forgery by later historicists. But take out that one passage, and it reads pretty much like nearly all the rest of the literature of the time: lack of details, not just about Jesus, but about everything else as well. If historicists were creating forgeries, why not fill them full of quotes and specific deeds about Jesus? A similar situation exists with 1 Timothy, as I show in the thread link above.

I do not know if 2 Peter is a creation by later historicists but it is clear on the other hand that 2 Pierre is one of the worst source in the NT :

- anonymous
- false testimony (2 Peter 1:16-18)
- plagiarism

That's a lot for such a short letter....
2-Peter-and-Jude-e1535680395855.jpg
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

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GakuseiDon wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:21 am
Paul is simply not unique. To examine Paul as if he WAS unique is the wrong starting point. The mystery isn't why Paul rarely quotes Jesus (as well as other historical details about anything else), it is why we see the same darn thing in the literature over the first few centuries. It's not until we get to Christians who are writing history that such details about time, people and places become frequent.

So the question "Why Paul never quotes Jesus" really needs to be extended to much of the literature of the first two centuries.

A partial explanation might be a process of self-selection.
This is indeed a problem. One begins with a hypothesis of Christian origins and finds a "mystery" when one turns to the evidence because the evidence is not what was expected -- significant evidence is missing -- according to the hypothesis. To solve this mystery one next attempts to contruct another hypothesis to explain the missing evidence for the first hypothesis.

A problem indeed.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:07 am
GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 1:24 amAccording to Dr Carrier, 2 Peter was a forgery by later historicists. But take out that one passage, and it reads pretty much like nearly all the rest of the literature of the time: lack of details, not just about Jesus, but about everything else as well
I have never understood why this fact (you insist continually on) would be a point going against Carrier.
In this case, it isn't a point against Dr Carrier's mythicist theory so much as pointing out a failure of analysis. It starts with the question which I addressed in the other thread I started that I linked to: "what is the difference between those texts that are regarded as mythicist and those as historicist?"

If there are so few differences, such as a simple sentence can flip one to the other -- as we see in, say, 2 Peter and 1 Timothy, and both texts share a lack of interest in details about not just Jesus but historical details generally then how does that set the expectations about what should appear in a 'historicist' text and a 'mythicist' text?
Giuseppe wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:07 amIf you have just called "indifference about a historical Jesus" the partial absence of historicist details in the post-pauline writings, then accordingly you should call "ignorance about a historical Jesus" the total absence of historicist details in the pauline epistles.
I wouldn't use those definitions myself. What I'm arguing is that we need to set our expectations about what a 'historicist' text would look like. I'll repeat the comment by Doherty from his "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man" that I gave above:

"As one can see by this survey, if one leaves aside Justin Martyr there is a silence in the 2nd Century apologists on the subject of the historical Jesus which is virtually equal of that found in the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 485)"

Is that what we would have expected? Is 2 Peter and 1 Timothy what we would have expected from 'historicist' texts? That's the point I'm making.

Let me flip the question of "Why is Paul silent on historical details about Jesus?" on its head, and ask instead "Why SHOULDN'T Paul be silent on historical details about Jesus?"

Is the answer: Paul shouldn't be silent because if he believed that Jesus was historical his letters would be filled with details on that Jesus? BUT we don't see that happening in those other texts that are deemed 'historical', do we? So where is that expectation coming from?

The expectation is coming from an assumption that a historical Jesus is a "newspaper reporter" Jesus, as I wrote above. That is, the idea that if you think Jesus is historical, then you think that people followed Jesus around writing down the things he did and said, and that's what we see in the Gospels. But nearly everyone here knows that the Gospels were written as literary texts shaped by the Old Testament, and it is hard to determine what, if anything, went back to Jesus.

Giuseppe, let me ask you this question that I'd like to see Dr Carrier answer: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you'd expect to see in a 'historicist' text?
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:44 am
Giuseppe, let me ask you this question that I'd like to see Dr Carrier answer: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you'd expect to see in a 'historicist' text?
potentially one may answer that there is historicism even in Hebrews, a text considered by Carrier absolutely a "proof-text" of mythicism. More a text is late, more it is assumed to know the Gospel Jesus, hence the silence of Paul about the historical Jesus is more decisive than other silences (beyond if true or false silences) about the historical Jesus that are found in other texts (Hebrews, Odes, Didake, 1 Clement, Diognetus, etc), because Paul is assumed to write in the precise time when a historical Jesus could have lived.

Hence if the maximum of silence about the historical Jesus is found just in Paul, when compared to all the other Christian texts, then one has to wonder why.

He/she has the right to raise a problem.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

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Giuseppe wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:10 am
GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:44 am
Giuseppe, let me ask you this question that I'd like to see Dr Carrier answer: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you'd expect to see in a 'historicist' text?
potentially one may answer that there is historicism even in Hebrews, a text considered by Carrier absolutely a "proof-text" of mythicism. More a text is late, more it is assumed to know the Gospel Jesus, hence the silence of Paul about the historical Jesus is more decisive than other silences (beyond if true or false silences) about the historical Jesus that are found in other texts (Hebrews, Odes, Didake, 1 Clement, Diognetus, etc), because Paul is assumed to write in the precise time when a historical Jesus could have lived.
Perhaps, but my question is: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you would expect to see in a 'historicist' text?

This is about setting expectations. The statement that Paul is silent and that needs to be explained implies that this is unexpected and odd. But if this unexpected and odd, then it suggests that other texts are not so silent. Is this the case? Thus my question about the other NT texts that are regarded as 'historicist'.
Giuseppe wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:10 am Hence if the maximum of silence about the historical Jesus is found just in Paul, when compared to all the other Christian texts, then one has to wonder why.

He/she has the right to raise a problem.
Sure. So lets start with the comparing: which historicist NT text are you comparing Paul to? If, in the NT, Paul has "maximum silence", which NT letter (so not the Gospels or Acts) has "maximum 'noise'"? We can then compare the two.
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:44 pmmy question is: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you would expect to see in a 'historicist' text?
why do you address this question to me, living in 2022 CE?

You may address that question to a false Paul, since he is better titled to list the things the historical Paul would have had to write, and didn't write.

Here is a false Paul who talks:

But God Almighty, who is righteous, would not cast away his own creation, BUT HAD COMPASSION ON THEM FROM HEAVEN, 13 and sent his spirit into Mary IN GALILEE,15 that by that flesh whereby that wicked one had brought in death (had triumphed), by the same he should be shown to be overcome. 16 For by his own body Jesus Christ saved all flesh [AND RESTORED IT UNTO LIFE], 17 that he might show forth the temple of righteousness in his body

https://pages.uoregon.edu/sshoemak/321/ ... thians.htm
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mlinssen
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

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Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 3:34 am
GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:44 pmmy question is: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you would expect to see in a 'historicist' text?
why do you address this question to me, living in 2022 CE?

You may address that question to a false Paul, since he is better titled to list the things the historical Paul would have had to write, and didn't write.

Here is a false Paul who talks:

But God Almighty, who is righteous, would not cast away his own creation, BUT HAD COMPASSION ON THEM FROM HEAVEN, 13 and sent his spirit into Mary IN GALILEE,15 that by that flesh whereby that wicked one had brought in death (had triumphed), by the same he should be shown to be overcome. 16 For by his own body Jesus Christ saved all flesh [AND RESTORED IT UNTO LIFE], 17 that he might show forth the temple of righteousness in his body

https://pages.uoregon.edu/sshoemak/321/ ... thians.htm
Giuseppe, I think the point that GakuseiDon makes is the following:

1. You claim that Paul is silent on Jesus.
2. But compared to what and whom is he silent? If you consider all the texts of the NT except the gospels, then aren't they all silent on Jesus?
3. Perhaps a different question: when you say "Paul", which exact NT texts do you mean?
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

mlinssen wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:52 am 1. You claim that Paul is silent on Jesus.
yes.
mlinssen wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:52 am 2. But compared to what and whom is he silent? If you consider all the texts of the NT except the gospels, then aren't they all silent on Jesus?
For example: compared to 3 Corinthians (see quote above).
mlinssen wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:52 am 3. Perhaps a different question: when you say "Paul", which exact NT texts do you mean?
the so-called 4 cardinal letters: Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 3:34 am
GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:44 pmmy question is: which NT texts (outside of the Gospels) contains those quotes and actions of Jesus' (miracles, etc) that you would expect to see in a 'historicist' text?
why do you address this question to me, living in 2022 CE?
Because you wrote: "Hence if the maximum of silence about the historical Jesus is found just in Paul, when compared to all the other Christian texts..."

This is about that comparison. I'd like to start that comparison with the NT texts. The earliest "historicist" texts are the most obvious starting place to compare to Paul.
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 3:34 amYou may address that question to a false Paul, since he is better titled to list the things the historical Paul would have had to write, and didn't write.
That analysis might be worth doing later on, but 3 Corinthians wasn't in the NT and not attested to until around the Third Century CE. I'd like to start with the earliest historicity texts. This is about setting expectations about what we see in the earliest texts.

If the letters of Paul represent "maximum silence" about a historical Jesus, which single NT epistle represents "maximum noise" in your view? Select the NT epistle that has the most "historicity elements" in it, and then we can do the comparison with regards to quotes, actions, events, places, etc.
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spin
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Re: Why Paul never quotes Jesus

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Peter Kirby wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:34 am
Philologus wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:17 pm Why does Paul never quote Jesus, unambiguously, even in contexts where it would have helped his arguments?

1 Corinthians 7


1 Corinthians 11

Peter, are you saying 1 Cor 7 was cited by the collator of Mk and that 1 Cor 11 has a direct quote from Lk (which was written 50+ years after Paul)?

--------

(Not interested in Schilling assertions.)
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