Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

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John T
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by John T »

schillingklaus wrote: Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:02 pm And even if it was used a gazillion of times, it could be interpolated.
How many zeros are there in a gazillion? Or is it just a make believe number like mythicits are make believe scholars?

Therefore, "interpolated" is a make believe excuse by mythicits who live in a make believe world.
ABuddhist
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by ABuddhist »

John T wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 5:51 am
schillingklaus wrote: Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:02 pm And even if it was used a gazillion of times, it could be interpolated.
Or is it just a make believe number like mythicits are make believe scholars?
Some mythicists are real scholars. Cf., Robert M. Price and Thomas Brodie.
Charles Wilson
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by Charles Wilson »

You're being dishonest here, JohnT.

For ex.. I asked about *YOUR* views and you quote RGP. Now, quoting RGP is always edifying but you use it as a Straw Man to deflect the question.

WHAT IS YOUR VIEW? What are you bringing to the table?
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John T
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by John T »

Charles Wilson wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 9:03 am You're being dishonest here, JohnT.

For ex.. I asked about *YOUR* views and you quote RGP. Now, quoting RGP is always edifying but you use it as a Straw Man to deflect the question.

WHAT IS YOUR VIEW? What are you bringing to the table?
What I bring to the table is common sense, RGP not so much.

I already responded to your question directly. I will try to be more clear this time.

It is probable that Paul indeed mention Jesus in his writings.

It is not probable that over 200 mentions of Jesus by Paul are all interpolations.

Probable: 1. Likely to occur or be 2. reasonably so, but not proved. Webster's dictionary.

:cheers:
schillingklaus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by schillingklaus »

John T knowsw nothing about probability theory.
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John T
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by John T »

schillingklaus wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:01 am John T knowsw nothing about probability theory.
Yeah, you right I know nothing about your use of the word probability.

Other than several years ago on this forum, I thoroughly debunked Richard Carrier's misapplication of the Bayesian theorem regarding the existence of Jesus.

In short: Figures lie and liars figure...probably.
ABuddhist
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by ABuddhist »

John T wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:52 am Other than several years ago on this forum, I thoroughly debunked Richard Carrier's misapplication of the Bayesian theorem regarding the existence of Jesus.
Would you be kind enough to link to those posts? I would be interested in reading such refutations.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

To get back to the original point of the post...

In the oldest copies of letters of Paul as we have them, in fact the "name" Jesus doesn't appear, the nomina sacra do.

But, I wonder about the possibility that the Pauline letters originally mentioned Yahweh or some version of Yahweh instead of "Jesus/Joshua".

My understanding is that Yahweh would itself not have been written out. Instead YHWH itself may have been rendered using a variety of symbols or abbreviations for the divine name.

The Pauline letters were written in Greek, but in the Greek LXX YHWH was rendered as Kyrios. But what if the writer of the Pauline letters felt that the name of Kyrios was important. What name would he give to Kyrios, and how would he write it in Greek? What if in the original, the "name" for Kyrios was not fully rendered or was rendered with a symbol?

There is a manuscript of Genesis from the 3rd century with YHWH written as ZZ with a line through it. (http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/nomin_s.pdf)

The point is, is it not possible that somehow, a rendering intended to mean YHWH or perhaps even Man-YHWH or YHWH the Man, akin to "the angel of YHWH" but intended to mean an earthly manifestation of YHWH, was interpreted by a later reader(s) as "Jesus". And could not it have been Marcion who made the leap from YHWH or "the man YHWH" to Jesus? And from such a reading, Marcion's version of the Pauline letters was produced and from those letters are derived the first recognizable Gospels using the name Jesus to refer to a "person" instead of the divine name of the Lord YHWH?
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MrMacSon
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by MrMacSon »

rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:29 am The Pauline letters were written in Greek, but in the Greek LXX YHWH was rendered as Kyrios. But what if the writer of the Pauline letters felt that the name of Kyrios was important
  • or, perhaps, the name of an equal or near equal deity or divine being; or perhaps an agent of Kyrios ...

    Which you maybe capture or intended to captured in your post with -
    • rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:29 am ... is it not possible that somehow, a rendering intended to mean YHWH or perhaps even Man-YHWH or YHWH the Man, akin to "the angel of YHWH" but intended to mean an earthly manifestation of YHWH, was interpreted by a later reader(s) as "Jesus"
    That concept may be venturing into some of the things Secret Alias has posted about

Re -
rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:29 am And could not it have been Marcion who made the leap from YHWH or "the man YHWH" to Jesus? And, from such a reading, Marcion's version of the Pauline letters was produced and from those letters are derived the first recognizable Gospels using [either] the name Jesus [or the IS or IΣ (or similar) nominum sacra] to refer to [or portray] a "person" instead of the divine name of the Lord YHWH?
- perhaps one could say, 'from such a reading of the Pauline letters, Mark's gospel was produced and from that, and those Pauline letters, are derived the other Gospels' ?

(I dunno how Mark and Marcion related to each other)
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

So, realistically, if we take a passage like:

1 Cor:
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Is there a reasonable way to get from the passage above to a passage in which the name "Jesus" was not actually present originally? Something like:

1 Cor:
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ the Man by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ the Man and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Yahweh the Man Christ—their Lord and ours:

3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Yahweh the Man Christ.

This obviously looks kind of ridiculous, but you get the point of where I'm going with it.

Unfortunately for me, I just don't know enough about these languages to really understand the details of these issues.

I guess a main question I have is simply: If someone wanted to actually write out the name Yahweh in Greek, how would they write it? Of course it was never written in the LXX.

If someone wanted to say something like "the angel of Yahweh" in Greek, how would it be written? If someone were writing "Yahweh the Man" how would they write it in Greek?

Paul makes mention multiple times of calling on "the name of the Lord". But he did in fact have a name. Jews were forbidden from saying his name. Paul disagreed with multiple points of Jewish doctrine, including circumcision, that Gentile converts needed to follow Jewish law, and apparently multiple other points of doctrine. It would seem to me that Paul disagreed with the prohibition against using the name of the Lord, and in fact was proscribing the use of the Lord's name.

This problem is compounded by the fact that we don't actually fully know the real name of the Lord. We know YHWH, and presume this was Yahweh, but that's only conjecture.

It seems to me that Paul was not claiming that "some person" was "the Lord", rather he was simply using the name associated with the Lord of the Jewish scriptures. And somehow, the name that Paul used for YHWH got misinterpreted as "Jesus".
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