Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

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ABuddhist
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by ABuddhist »

rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:09 pm 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.
Perhaps YHWH/Jesus was understood by the writer of the Pauline letters as a subordinate deity, akin to YHWH's role in Gnosticism.
RParvus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by RParvus »

I think that early on someone did indeed get a hold of some bare-bones letters of Paul, meshed them with material from his own community, thereby appropriating them for his own purposes. My guess is that the culprit a Simonian. From what Irenaeus says about them, they liked to bring their Lord, Simon, into various religious scenarios. And it appears that among those scenarios was a hidden descent for him reminiscent of the one in the Vision of Isaiah. They claimed too that it was their Simon who had in fact suffered in Judaea. If a Simonian reworked Paul’s letters, the name above every name in Philippians 2 was Simon.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 3:29 pm
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.
Good points Neil. I would add this. I think there is a very reasonable case that the Epistle of James meets the case of #1. I think there are quite a few scholars who would agree that James is a Jewish letter that was repurposed, perhaps by adding the greeting and a few passages at the end of c1 and the beginning of c2. (The Father and Jesus). To what degree do these concerns apply to James?

I agree, however, that Paul is more problematic, since it seems that there are citations of Paul from prior to the publication of the full set of Pauline letters by Marcion.

Still, I can't get away from the sense that the writer was simply talking about the Lord as traditionally understood as the figure from the scriptures. The issue I see is that the "name of the Lord' was so complicated and so convoluted by the first century. If we look for example at this evidence: http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/05_2/troyer_names_of_god.htm

Recognizing "the name of the Lord" must have been quite complicated for first century Greek speaking Jews. And certainly there would have been Jews or God-fearers who, reading so many appeals to the name of the Lord in the scriptures, would have sought to call the Lord by name, against the mainstream prohibitions. What name would such Greek speaking Jews have used and how would they have written it?
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

RParvus wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 5:27 pm I think that early on someone did indeed get a hold of some bare-bones letters of Paul, meshed them with material from his own community, thereby appropriating them for his own purposes. My guess is that the culprit a Simonian. From what Irenaeus says about them, they liked to bring their Lord, Simon, into various religious scenarios. And it appears that among those scenarios was a hidden descent for him reminiscent of the one in the Vision of Isaiah. They claimed too that it was their Simon who had in fact suffered in Judaea. If a Simonian reworked Paul’s letters, the name above every name in Philippians 2 was Simon.
Except, Phil 2 references Isaiah 45, which identifies the name as YHWH.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

According to some basic searches, these are the "names of God" in the Jewish scriptures:

Adir — "Strong One".
Adir —
Adon Olam — "Master of the World".
Avinu Malkeinu — "Our Father, our King".
Avinu Malkenu —
Boreh — "the Creator".
Boreh —
Ehiyeh sh'Ehiyeh — "I Am That I Am": a modern Hebrew version of "Ehyeh asher Ehyeh".
Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzchak ve Elohei Ya`aqov — "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob".
El ha-Gibbor — "God the hero" or "God the strong one".
Emet — "Truth".
E'in Sof — "endless, infinite", Kabbalistic name of God.
Ro'eh Yisra'el — "Shepherd of Israel".
Ha-Kaddosh, Baruch Hu — "The Holy One, Blessed be He".
Kaddosh Israel — "Holy One of Israel".
Melech ha-Melachim — "The King of Kings" or Melech Malchei ha-Melachim "King of Kings of Kings", to express superiority to the earthly rulers title.
Makom or Hamakom — literally "the place", meaning "The Omnipresent"; see Tzimtzum.
Magen Avraham — "Shield of Abraham".
YHWH-Yireh (Yahweh-Yireh) — "The Lord will provide" ( Genesis 22:13, 14).
YHWH-Rapha" — "The Lord that healeth" ( Exodus 15:26).
YHWH-Niss"i (Yahweh-Nissi) — "The Lord our Banner" (Exodus 17:8-15).
YHWH-Shalom — "The Lord our Peace" ( Judges 6:24).
YHWH-Ra-ah — "The Lord my Shepherd" ( Psalms 23:1).
YHWH-Tsidkenu — "The Lord our Righteousness" ( Jeremiah 23:6).
YHWH-Shammah — "The Lord is present" ( Ezekiel 48:35).
Tzur Israel — "Rock of Israel".
Ha Shem — "The Name"

The Lord was also apparently called "Yah", Yahu, or Ya, written as YH.

Of course all of these are transliterated in reverse, so in Hebrew all the names were written backwards. In addition, these names were often not written out, but instead were replaced with symbols or dots or abbreviations.

According to wikipedia regarding the name "Jesus":

East Syriac Ishoʿ
Aramaic and Classical Syriac render the pronunciation of the same letters as ܝܫܘܥ yeshuuʿ (yešuʿ) /jeʃuʕ/ and ܝܫܘܥ ishoʿ (išoʿ) /iʃoʕ/. The Aramaic Bibles and the Syriac Peshitta preserve these same spellings. Current scholarly consensus posits that the New Testament texts were translated from the Greek, but this theory is not supported directly at least by the name for Jesus, which is not a simple transliteration of the Greek form as would otherwise be expected, as Greek did not have a "sh" (ʃ) sound, and substituted (s); and likewise lacked and therefore omitted the final ʿayn ([ʕ]). Moreover, Eusebius (early 4th century) reports that Papius (early 2nd century) reports that Jesus's disciple Matthew the Evangelist wrote a gospel "in the Hebrew language". (Note: Scholars typically argue the word "Hebrew" in the New Testament refers to Aramaic; however, others have attempted to refute this view.) The Aramaic of the Peshitta does not distinguish between Joshua and Jesus, and the Lexicon of William Jennings gives the same form of ܝܫܘܥ for both names. The Hebrew final letter ʿayin (ע) is equivalent to final ܥ in Syriac varieties of Aramaic. It can be argued that Aramaic speakers who used this name had a continual connection to the Aramaic-speakers in communities founded by the apostles and other students of Jesus, thus independently preserved his historical name Yeshuuʿ and the Eastern dialectical Ishoʿ. Those churches following the East Syriac Rite still preserve the name Ishoʿ.

Yeshua, Yehoshua, and Yeshu in the Talmud
In the Talmud, only one reference is made to the spelling Yeshuaʿ, in verbatim quotation from the Hebrew Bible regarding Jeshua son of Jozadak (elsewhere called Joshua son of Josedech). The Talmud does refer to several people named Yehoshua from before (e.g. Joshua ben Perachyah) and after Jesus (e.g., Joshua ben Hananiah). In references to Jesus in the Talmud, however, where the name occurs, it is rendered Yeshu, which is a name reserved in Aramaic and Hebrew literature from the early medieval period until today, solely for Jesus, not for other Joshuas. Some scholars, such as Maier (1978), regard the two named "Yeshuʿ" texts in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a and 107b) to be later amendments, and not original.

Rabbinical commentary on the difference Yeshuʿ/Yeshuaʿ
In general rabbinical sources, the name Yeshuʿ is used, and this is the form to which some named references to Jesus in the Talmud as Yeshu occur in some manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud, though some scholars, such as Maier (1978) have argued that the presence of the name Yeshuʿ in these texts is a late interpolation. Some of the Hebrew sources referencing Yeshu include the Toledot Yeshu, The Book of Nestor the Priest, Jacob ben Reuben's Milhamoth ha-Shem, Sefer Nizzahon Yashan, Sefer Joseph Hamekane, the works of ibn Shaprut, Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas, and Hasdai Crescas.

The name Yeshu is unknown in archeological sources and inscriptions, except for one ossuary found in Israel which has an inscription where someone has started to write first "Yeshu.." and then written "Yeshuaʿ bar Yehosef" beneath it.There are 24 other ossuaries to various Yeshuas and Yehoshuas. None of the others have Yeshu. All other "Joshuas" in the Talmud, rabbinical writings, modern Hebrew, are always Yeshua or Yehoshua. There are no undisputed examples of any Aramaic or Hebrew text where Yeshu refers to anyone else than Jesus

We add to this the issue of the nomina sacra. The major nomina sacra are ΘΣ (God) ΚΣ (Lord ) ΙΣ (Jesus) ΧΣ (Christ), however in P46 three letters are used for Jesus and Christ.

One of the oldest manuscripts of any NT text is P46, which also has the nomina sacra. https://apps.lib.umich.edu/reading/Paul ... sacra.html

In it the name of Jesus is written: ιηϲ (Ihs)

The Greek form of YHWH is apparently Ἰαω (Iáō), at least this is how it was written in 4QpapLXXLevb.

However, in some Greek scrolls, the tetragram of the name of Yahweh was written in paleo-Hebrew instead of Greek.

With all of this, and given the context of how the Pauline letters talk about and describe "the Lord Jesus", it is difficult not to conclude that somewhere along the line there was a misunderstanding about the Name attributed to the Lord and that the Lord being talked about in the earliest tradition was in fact Ἰαω all along.
RParvus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by RParvus »

rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:57 pm
RParvus wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 5:27 pm I think that early on someone did indeed get a hold of some bare-bones letters of Paul, meshed them with material from his own community, thereby appropriating them for his own purposes. My guess is that the culprit a Simonian. From what Irenaeus says about them, they liked to bring their Lord, Simon, into various religious scenarios. And it appears that among those scenarios was a hidden descent for him reminiscent of the one in the Vision of Isaiah. They claimed too that it was their Simon who had in fact suffered in Judaea. If a Simonian reworked Paul’s letters, the name above every name in Philippians 2 was Simon.
Except, Phil 2 references Isaiah 45, which identifies the name as YHWH.
You're assuming that Simonians interpreted Isaiah the same way Jews did. I'm not so sure about that.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

RParvus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:03 am You're assuming that Simonians interpreted Isaiah the same way Jews did. I'm not so sure about that.
There would need to be some evidence as to how they interpreted it.

On a different note. I know that the use of codes, secret words, and hidden messages was common in religious literature at the time.

It is interesting that God, Lord, Jesus and Christ all end in a sigma, whereas the spelling of YHWH in Greek does not (Ἰαω).

Does this have any significance? ΚςΙηςΧρς

That would be the nomina sacra for Lord Jesus Christ from P46.
RParvus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by RParvus »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:20 am
RParvus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:03 am You're assuming that Simonians interpreted Isaiah the same way Jews did. I'm not so sure about that.
There would need to be some evidence as to how they interpreted it.
Yes, all we really have is what the earliest heresy hunters wrote about Simon and his adepts. According to Hippolytus, Simon twists the meaning of the Scriptures, giving them “a different application” [from the one intended by the holy writers], thereby “deifying himself” (Refutation of All Heresies, 6,14). And he supposedly did violence not just to the Jewish Scriptures, but to those of the Gentiles too, putting himself forward as being Zeus under a different name. Irenaeus mockingly writes that he “was willing to be called whatever men call him” (Against Heresies 1, 23,1), including the “Son who suffered in Judaea.” The important thing for his followers was to place their hope in Simon, because “by his grace men are saved, not by just works” (1,23,2).
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MrMacSon
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by MrMacSon »

FWIW, A version of the Simonian Great Declaration (by Robert M Price) is here: https://thegodabovegod.com/great-declar ... mon-magus/

The parts which include quotes from Isaiah are


As it is written in Scripture: “For the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and a man of Judah is a well-loved shoot” [Isaiah 5:7]. And if a man of Judah is a well-loved shoot, it is evident that a tree is nothing but a man. As to its being divided and distributed, Scripture has spoken plainly enough and suffices for the instruction of those who have ripened unto perfection, to wit: “All flesh is mere grass, and everything in which mortals glory is like the wildflower. The grass is dried up, and the wildflower droops, but the word of the Lord endures through the aeon” [Isaiah 40:6-9]. Now the word of the Lord is the speech which comes to flower in the mouth and in the Word, for where else may it be produced?

In sum, therefore, the Fire, partaking of such a nature, containing both all things visible and invisible, and in like manner, those heard within and those heard aloud, the numerable and the innumerable, may be called the Perfect Intellect, since it is everything one can think of an infinite number of times, in an infinite number of ways, whether of speech, thought, or deed.




... The male gazes down from the height and remembers its partner, while the earth below receives from the heaven the fruits of intellect that rain down upon it and correspond to the things of earth. For this reason does the Word often and faithfully contemplate those things generated from Mind and Thought, heaven and earth, and says, “Hear, O heaven! Give ear, O earth, for the Lord has said, ‘I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have shoved me aside'.” [Isaiah 1:2]. And who says this? It is the seventh Power, he who has Stood, who Stands, and who will Stand, for he is the creator of those things Moses eulogized, saying that they were very good [Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31].

Next come Voice and Name, which are sun and moon. After them are Reason and Reflection, or air and water. And in all of them was mixed and mingled the Great Power, the Boundless, he who has Stood, who Stands, and who will Stand.




All eternal ideas, like grammar or geometry, are inside us as potential, but not as actual. And if they encounter appropriate discourse and teaching, and if the bitter thus becomes sweet, like spears turned to pruning hooks and swords into ploughshares [Isaiah 2:4], the Fire will not have reaped husks and sticks, but perfect fruit, not malformed, as I said above: equal and similar to the Unbegotten and Boundless Power. For now the axe is set at the root of the tree. Every tree that fails to bear good fruit is chopped down and flung onto the fire [Luke 3:9].


lclapshaw
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by lclapshaw »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:20 am
RParvus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:03 am You're assuming that Simonians interpreted Isaiah the same way Jews did. I'm not so sure about that.
There would need to be some evidence as to how they interpreted it.

On a different note. I know that the use of codes, secret words, and hidden messages was common in religious literature at the time.

It is interesting that God, Lord, Jesus and Christ all end in a sigma, whereas the spelling of YHWH in Greek does not (Ἰαω).

Does this have any significance? ΚςΙηςΧρς

That would be the nomina sacra for Lord Jesus Christ from P46.
What I find interesting about KCIHCXPC in p46 is that IC and XC are now being elaborated into IHC and XPC while KC and Theta C are not. This coincidence timewise, mid second to mind third century, with the abbreviation IC also now being equated with IHCON is very interesting imo.

It would seem likely that the first letter of the abbreviation followed by the declension was the original rendering of these abbreviations, but now abbreviations for IC and XC need to be elaborated into IHC etc for a clarity that wasn't necessary before. All this around the same time that the church fathers are pushing the name IHCOYC, IHCON as the name of the abbreviation IC.
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