Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

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Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

schillingklaus wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 8:37 am Probability is a non-negative sigma-additive measuer on a sigma algrebra over a non-empty base set with total measure 1.

Most blunder is done by people tacitly assuming independence and identical distribution without any justification. Cariier is the worst of all freaks as he even fails to specify a base set, let alone a sigma algebra and a measure.
If we're talking about On the Historicity, Carrier projects a never-specified universal hypothesis set onto a set with two specified mutually exclusive hypotheses. This is uncontroversial and routine Bayesian practice. The resulting sub-universe (so to speak) {H1 OR H2, H1, H2, null} can obviously support a measure.

Carrier also prefers to use sets of possible measures (intervals) rather than a single measure for each of H1 and H2. There are Bayesians who object to that approach, but it is not rare in practice.

I hold no brief from Carrier, but fair is fair.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by neilgodfrey »

schillingklaus wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 8:37 am

Most blunder is done by people tacitly assuming independence and identical distribution without any justification. Cariier is the worst of all freaks as he even fails to specify a base set, let alone a sigma algebra and a measure.
I would be interested in particular instance/s of where Carrier "assumes independence and identical distribution without justification" in his application of Bayes. Can you provide one/some specific/s?
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

Please discuss Carrier is some other thread.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »


16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, in order to keep you from doing whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, 20 idolatry, witchcraft, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Assuming that this passage was part of the first layer of Pauline writing, it help to explain the perspective.

"Paul" preached a personal relationship with Christ the Lord. This relationship was made possible by "the Spirit". Those led by the Spirit had a personal relationship with the Lord, and thus did not need to follow the Law, because the Law was for those who were not led by the Spirit and did not know the Lord "personally".

Because Paul and his associated worshipers knew the Lord personally, and were not subject to the Law, they could address him by his Name.

I think clearly the Lord that "Paul" and his peers were worshiping was the Lord of the scriptures, not some person. They did not conceive of the figure they were worshiping as being separate or different from the Lord they read about in the scriptures.

Whether they referred to this figure simply as "Christ" and "the Lord" or with some name, they did not think of this figure as some new or separate being. The question is, did they actually specify some name? How did they write the name? Was "Jesus" the name? Or was something else the name that was written using symbols that got misunderstood as Jesus?

I'm quite confident that the name Ἰησοῦς was never present in the original Pauline letters. Was it just ΙΣ or ΙΥ from the beginning? Was it some other symbol or abbreviation? If the name being used or referred to by the earliest worshipers was in fact "Jesus/Joshua", then how they would have arrived at that name I'm not quite sure. I think its far more likely that the name was not actually "Jesus".

This would also indicate that the worship of "Jesus" stems from the writings. There was no one worshiping "Jesus" until writings using the name "Jesus" were popularized. This may have begun with Gnostics/Marcionites. This complies with the idea that the Vision of Isaiah may record a narrative that precedes any of the other Gospels. VoI does not use the name Jesus.

I do think there is a link between the concept of Christ in the Pauline letters and the narrative in VoI. I think whoever wrote the Pauline letters was familiar with such a narrative.
Last edited by rgprice on Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:57 am, edited 5 times in total.
lclapshaw
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by lclapshaw »

Threads like this are why I no longer desire to come here any more.

There's no Jesus in the early texts. Period. Just declensions of I and IH. Further, all we have are texts that use IC etc so speculation as to there being texts that lack it is just useless jacking off.

We will never get anywhere until this basic fact is acknowledged.
gryan
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by gryan »

@rgprice,

Is there no attestation for the name "Jesus" in Ben Smith's lost, reconstructed, Marcionite epistles?
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

gryan wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:07 am @rgprice,

Is there no attestation for the name "Jesus" in Ben Smith's lost, reconstructed, Marcionite epistles?
If indeed the name were missing or different originally, it would likely have been Marcion that would have added/changed it.
Charles Wilson
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by Charles Wilson »

rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:59 amIf indeed the name were missing or different originally, it would likely have been Marcion that would have added/changed it.

Another alternative: Nicholas of Damascus, who was in Herod's Court for years and knew the inner workings of the relationships between Rome the Superior and the Client State Judea under Herod.

Second alternative: Mucianus, Procurator of Syria, who loved Titus and convinced Vespasian to take the Throne.

Possible identifiable Writers: Tacitus (Compare 1 Corinthians 1: 11 - 16 to Histories, Book 4), etc., and Pliny the Younger. I don't believe that the Paulines came from these 2 but the rewrites are related by one or two rewrites, combining all of these people.

CW
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

Some examples of what the scriptures say about the "name of the Lord" or indeed the "name of Yahweh".

26 To Seth also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then people began to call upon the name of the Lord.


3 And he went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, 4 to the place of the altar which he had made there previously; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.


13 Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees me”; for she said, “Have I even seen Him here and lived after He saw me?” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.


33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.


25 So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.


14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God furthermore said to Moses, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is the name for all generations to use to call upon Me.


13 But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their memorial stones, and cut down their Asherim 14 —for you shall not worship any other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God


24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”


8 Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name;
Make His deeds known among the peoples.
9 Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;
Speak of all His wonders.
10 Boast in His holy name;
Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be joyful.


9 Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth!


7 Some praise their chariots and some their horses,
But we will praise the name of the Lord, our God.


I will praise Your name, Lord, for it is good.


1 Sing to the Lord a new song;
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, bless His name;


1 Praise the Lord!
Praise Him, you servants of the Lord,
Praise the name of the Lord.
2 Blessed be the name of the Lord
From this time on and forever.

3 From the rising of the sun to its setting,
The name of the Lord is to be praised.
4 The Lord is high above all nations;
His glory is above the heavens.


4 Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“Please, Lord, save my life!”


4 And on that day you will say,
Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name.
Make known His deeds among the peoples;
Make them remember that His name is exalted.


To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial,
And a name better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name which will not be eliminated.

6 “Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
To attend to His service and to love the name of the Lord,
To be His servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it,
And holds firmly to My covenant;


6 There is none like You, Lord;
You are great, and Your name is great in might.


2 “This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to create it, He whose name is the Lord: 3 ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.


5 And the Lord, the God of armies, The Lord is His name.


26 You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied,
And you will praise the name of the Lord your God,


9 And the Lord will be King over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one.

This is a sampling of passages from the Jewish scriptures that talk about the "name of the Lord", which, in Hebrew in many cases would have name the name of YHWH.

The scriptures contained a lot of passages that talked about the name of the Lord or the name of Yahweh. There were many passages that employed the faithful to call on his name.

Yet, supposedly, by the 2nd or 1st century BCE, Jews were being told NOT to say the name of the Lord.

2 To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

Now, if indeed the writer of these letters made any association between the God they worshiped and the God of the Jewish scriptures, how possibly could they ascribe the name "Jesus" to the Lord? This writer acknowledged the importance of the name of the Lord according to the scriptures. The scriptures do not say that the Lord's name is Jesus. However, the reality is that the name of the Lord was quite obscured and confused. There were in fact several different names ascribed to the Lord, and they were often not fully written out. On top of that, Jews were forbidden from saying the actual name. But nowhere was the name Jesus ascribed to the Lord.

Philippians 2: 9 For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This cites Isaiah 45:
21 Declare and present your case;
Indeed, let them consult together.
Who has announced this long ago?
Who has long since declared it?
Is it not I, the Lord [YHWH]?
And there is no other god besides Me,
A righteous god and a Savior;
There is none except Me.
22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;
For I am God, and there is no other.
23 I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out from My mouth in righteousness
And will not turn back,
That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
24 They will say of Me, ‘Only in the Lord [YHWH] are righteousness and strength.’
People will come to Him,

Citing this equates "Jesus" to Yahweh. The writer of the Christ Hymn must either have used the name Yahweh in some form originally, or must have believed that the name he was using was the name referred to in Isaiah 45. The writer was equating the name that he wrote, whatever it was, to the name cited in Isaiah 45. To the writer, these figures were one and the same.

Romans 10: 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13 for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Verse 13 here is obviously citing a scripture that would have identified the name of the Lord as YHWH. However, the authenticity of these passages is certainly in question. It seems very odd to simultaneously cite a scripture that identifies the name of the Lord as YHWH and also to say that someone with a different name was the Lord.

What I am confident of is that, at least the original version, the Pauline letters identified the Lord with the Lord of the Jewish scriptures. It would seem, then, that there are a few possibilities:

1) The writer of the Pauline letters did not know the name of the Lord and somehow arrived at the conclusion that the Lord's name was Jesus.
2) The writer of the Pauline letters used some symbol or abbreviation for the Lord's name that was later misinterpreted as "Jesus".
3) The writer of the Pauline letters never used any name, but the name Jesus was later added to the letters.

But it should really be abundantly clear that the writer of the Pauline letter at no point intended to state that some other figure was "the Lord".

The point is that this has to be an issue simply of naming confusion. If, for example, the name "Yahweh" had been written in Greek in the Pauline letters, instead of "Jesus" everyone would be able to agree that these letters weren't talking about a real person, rather they were talking about the Lord of the Jewish scriptures.

It's my contention that, whatever the name says now, the original writer was talking about "Yahweh" all along.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:09 pm
It's my contention that, whatever the name says now, the original writer was talking about "Yahweh" all along.
Can I raise a couple of thoughts that I think must follow from such a contention:

1. Presumably whoever was responsible for adding the name Jesus to the epistles was operating in an environment where Paul's original meaning was forgotten. If so, then there was an interest in reviving the letters to serve the interests of the worship of Jesus. If that is the case, what was the original purpose of the letters (to what readership were they being addressed?) and why or how did the intent of those letters then become lost or forgotten, and why were they chosen to later advance the interests of "Jesus"?

2. If we accept that the epistles of Paul were subject to much controversy in the second century, is there any indication of any of those controversies arising over the identity or name of "The Lord"? Do all competing parties appear to accept that the Lord in the letters is Jesus? If there are passages in the letters that are reasonably suspected as being interpolated by various scholars, do they, also, contain passages where the name Jesus was subsequently added to that interpolated passage? Or did the interpolators add the name Jesus to explain who "the Lord" was in even those apparently interpolated passages? You can see problems that would arise from a situation where we have Paul's letters thought to have been the subject of controversies with interpolations being added to reinforce one side and the other in such debates.
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