A brilliant and universal product.
After 13 hours of driving, an epiphany came to me and I understood Paul.
In a world where there is no written gospel and the earthly Jesus is a collection of various oral stories, Paul decided to write a universal product for all sects, congregations and itinerant preachers. In it he referred to his own revelation and avoided making any declarations about the historical Jesus like the plague. Why? Because it would limit the market of recipients of his product. Declaring himself on the side of one myth or another, who supposedly Jesus Christ was, would cause problems for himself, and he only wanted to sell a book called Pauline Corpus. Sell to all willing buyers without unnecessary and irritating discussions.
I had previously come across another explanation by Bart Ehrman as to why the historical Jesus is not present in Paul's letters. Bart compared Paul's letters to the results of the MBL games printed in the press for baseball fans. They do not need to print rules and regulations because they know them perfectly well. They only want to know the latest results.
The problem is that in the first century there are no written rules and regulations of baseball or the life of Christ. The situation is exactly the opposite.
Selling his teaching, Paul derives it from the vision of the resurrected Jesus and has full control over the product. Sometimes women teach and prophesy and sometimes they listen to their husbands, sometimes we eat meat and sometimes we are vegetarians, parousia? - puts three proposals in the letters. Paul can be quoted or you can use his invaluable wisdom as your own. An excellent universal product written by ghostwriters.
After 13 hours of driving, an epiphany came to me and I understood Paul.
In a world where there is no written gospel and the earthly Jesus is a collection of various oral stories, Paul decided to write a universal product for all sects, congregations and itinerant preachers. In it he referred to his own revelation and avoided making any declarations about the historical Jesus like the plague. Why? Because it would limit the market of recipients of his product. Declaring himself on the side of one myth or another, who supposedly Jesus Christ was, would cause problems for himself, and he only wanted to sell a book called Pauline Corpus. Sell to all willing buyers without unnecessary and irritating discussions.
I had previously come across another explanation by Bart Ehrman as to why the historical Jesus is not present in Paul's letters. Bart compared Paul's letters to the results of the MBL games printed in the press for baseball fans. They do not need to print rules and regulations because they know them perfectly well. They only want to know the latest results.
The problem is that in the first century there are no written rules and regulations of baseball or the life of Christ. The situation is exactly the opposite.
Selling his teaching, Paul derives it from the vision of the resurrected Jesus and has full control over the product. Sometimes women teach and prophesy and sometimes they listen to their husbands, sometimes we eat meat and sometimes we are vegetarians, parousia? - puts three proposals in the letters. Paul can be quoted or you can use his invaluable wisdom as your own. An excellent universal product written by ghostwriters.
(my bold)
Hence the trajectory would be something of similar to this:
logia (oracles of the Lord Jesus) ----> fabricated Paul ---> gospels.
"John the Baptist" may resume, as invented icon, what was the polemical target of Paul, Mark and Marcion: the guy who, as a free electron, talks 'in the name of the Lord', without control at all.