Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

rgprice wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 5:32 am
Another thing to consider is that we really have no idea what the context was for the original material. Under my proposed model, the Gospel of Mark was an introduction to the Pauline letters, but we have no idea who the audience was or how this material was used. Was this part of a mystery cult? Was it intended for initiates? Mark contains many "hidden" references to other material, especially the Jewish scriptures. Were these hidden codes that were supposed to be taught to initiates?

What's clear is that all of the original context is lost on later readers. It seems to me that originally there was this collection that consisted of the "Gospel of Mark" followed by the Pauline letters. That collection was then modified and became the "Gospel of Luke" followed by the Pauline letters. That collection was then modified and became Marcion's Gospel followed by the Pauline letters. But yet, none of the Christians that we learn anything from ever had knowledge of these smaller collections, other than Marcion's. All of the Christians we learn anything from either don't know any Gospels at all or they know of a collection containing four Gospels.

So what this tells us is that an entire segment of early Christian history has been entirely lost and the provenance of these materials was completely unknown to the readers we hear from. The communities in which the original smaller collections were produced were entirely unknown to Roman Christians. Roman Christians view the four Gospel collection as original and authoritative, while denouncing the works that were actually more original. I believe this was generally a product of innocent confusion. Someone created the larger collection and forged material to insert anti-Marcionite material. That wasn't "innocent", it was a conscious fraud, but I think the recipients of this fraud were truly duped. I think when we get to Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, they were duped by these works, along with everyone that followed them. They were intentionally misled into thinking that their documents were genuine and that earlier documents were actually later forgeries.
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Under my model, Mark would have been based on - an elaboration of - some of the Pauline letters.

I think it's likely that a rhetorical school or a class in one, or perhaps two or three classes or two or three rhetorical schools, were involved in the production of what became known as the orthodox, small-c-catholic literature. In a flurry of concurrent activity.

It's feasible that a proto-Marcionite/proto-Luke Gospel preceded many of the Pauline letters and many of them were developed 'in community' with such a Gospel (and a proto-Mark quickly ensued or was developed concurrently).

ie. I'm not sure one can easily determine the exact relative order of the production of the first Pauline letters and 'proto-Luke' and some other early-'Christian' texts (eg. the Epistle to the Hebrews; the Apocryphon of John, ie. the [Sethian] Secret Book/Secret Revelation of John; and perhaps a version of the book of Revelation).

ie. the Marcionite or a proto-Luke might also have been based on or an elaboration of some of the Pauline letters, ie. almost or even fully simultaneous/concurrent to the writing of many or even most of the Pauline epistles and a proto-Mark. In a school or in competing rhetorical classes or among competing students in the same classes; or, as mentioned, in competing schools; using the Jewish scripture +/- Plato +/- other texts eg. Josephus'.

Writing of the Protoevangelium Jacobi (of James) is likely to have also happened at this time +/- other texts eg. Revelation, the Epistle to the Hebrews, some Johannine literature (with (i) the Apocryphon of John, ie. the [Sethian] Secret Book/Secret Revelation of John and (ii) some preliminary Johannine letter material perhaps preceding (iii) the Gospel of John material).

I think Justin Martyr was concurrent to or perhaps even preceded many if not most of these processes, ie. he was loosely aware of what was going on but wasn't dealing with orthodox, canonical texts. And I think that the Gospel authors used Justin's writings or ideas more than he used theirs.

The author of Matthew may well have been aligned with Justin or his writings. And used the Protoevangelium Jacobi (of James).

Polycarp and Papias became involved.

---

ie. I think it all may have started as relatively-innocent, novelistic* rhetoric (which got taken up as 'gospel truth' by the likes of Irenaeus)

* in both senses of the word 'novel'

@MrMacSon Yes. And whatever the case, I think the key point is this. Most people work from a "traditional" starting perspective, even if they question the validity of the traditional narrative. From this I mean they start from the basic story of the Gospels and Acts, and thus envision a scenario where first there was some ministry of Jesus, which garnered some following of people and from this began a movement involving hundreds of people, and then thousands of people established small community churches that spread throughout Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, all passing on the story of this Jesus person who had a ministry and was unjustly executed, and these communities then wrote down their stories and these writings then got passed around and collected together and became the scriptures we know today.

This narrative is essentially the story told by the writings themselves, particularly Acts.

But once we recognize that these stories have zero historical validity, this whole scenario goes out the window. Now, Dr. Sarah doesn't "buy" anything I'm selling. As far as she's concerned the Gospels are accurate historical records of real events. She sees no relationship between the Gospel of Mark and either the Pauline letters or the Jewish scriptures. She thinks my explanation of how the Gospel of Mark was written, through the use of literary allusions to Jewish scriptures around the destruction of the Temple is entirely malarky and totally baseless. She thinks that the writer of Mark had no knowledge of Paul and that the similarities between Mark and Paul are either coincidence or are product of common oral traditions. So, for Dr. Sarah, the historical validity of the Gospels is not in question, she sees them as valid historical documents of fact.

But, for people who do recognize that the Gospel of Mark is an allegorical story in which the narrative is crafted from literary references to Jewish scriptures about the downfall of Israel and the destruction of the Temple, it becomes clear that the story is not a historical account, nor is it even a record of "oral traditions" or anecdotes. It is the product of the creative mind of a single individual.

Once we recognize that this story is a creative literary invention, then we also need to recognize that there need not have been any large movement behind its creation whatsoever. The "worshipers of Jesus" could have numbered three people at the time the story was written. Furthermore, since no document known from prior to the writing of this story describes a Jesus figure anything like the one described in this story, there is no reason to think that there were any groups engaged in the worship of a figure anything like the one described by the Gospels or later readers of the Gospels. We cannot impart onto pre-Gospels writings, of which we have very few, the ideas of the Gospels.

I is entirely possible that at the time the Pauline letters were originally written, whenever that was (I'll assume prior to the First Jewish-Roman War), there were no communities exclusively worshiping "Jesus" at all. The writer of the original Pauline letters appears to be advocating for a tolerant form of Judaism that was inclusive of Gentiles, regardless of whether or not they were circumcised or followed Jewish law. It appears that Paul was in conflict with other Jews who demanded that converts must be circumcised and follow the law. It does not appear that Paul was trying to crate any kind of separate movement, merely to claim that proselytes could be considered member of the assembly of God without having to follow Jewish law. According to Paul, one could be a member of the assembly of God merely by having faith God's promise of salvation. Paul claims his knowledge of God's plan and requirements has come to him through God's revelation of his son to him, The Lord Jesus Christ. However, it would appear that Paul may never have actually stated the "name" of the Lord, as it appears that all early Christian manuscripts (including non-canonical ones), follow a single or narrow set of exemplars in referring to the worshiped figure as ΚΣ ΙΣ ΧΣ son of ΘΣ.

And we should keep in mind that there are two piece of evidence which indicate that all of this material comes from a single very narrow source.
#1 the nomina sacra. The fact that every single Christian writing prior to the 4th century uses nomina scara indicates that everything has derived from a single set of exemplars. These writings did not derive from a diverse movement or independently produced documents. Some narrow community or single set of documents at the root of the movement used the peculiar sacred "abbreviations" and everyone else follow suit.
#2 Every narrative about Jesus is essentially the same. There is really only a single narrative about this figure's ministry.

So these things really reinforce the fact that all of this come back to a single very narrow small origin point. Some individual wrote a story and that story got passed around and copied and took-on a life of its own. The story was the real driver of the movement. Prior to the story there was no meaningful movement.

From the link provided by KK to Dr. Sarah’s review of rgprice’s book---

‘Deciphering The Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed’ review: Chapter Two, Part Two

https://freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhuman ... -part-two/

Dr. Sarah acknowledges her agreement with Mark having been influenced by Paul ---


Ignoring the highly questionable “Rome” here, I generally agree with Dr. Sarah’s objection about how difficult it would have been for someone, some 15 or 20 years or more after the correspondence, to go around to all those locales to gather together the letters. I don’t think the collection came about that way. Yet someone at some time did gather all the letters together.

It would have been very foolish for Paul and his junior-partners if they didn’t keep a copy of the letters they sent, or at least the drafts. Otherwise, how would they remember the details of what they had written? If the author of GMark was a Paulinist insider, as I think he was, he could have had access to a stash of such “file copies” as source materials. The author of GMark may have even been among the authors of the deutero-Paulines, or maybe even have been one of Paul’s junior-partners named in the letters by Paul.

robert j wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 10:12 am From the link provided by KK to Dr. Sarah’s review of rgprice’s book---

‘Deciphering The Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed’ review: Chapter Two, Part Two

https://freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhuman ... -part-two/

Dr. Sarah acknowledges her agreement with Mark having been influenced by Paul ---

So, while I’m quite happy with the idea that Mark was influenced by Pauline teaching and by some of his writing …

On further consideration, I realised there was a bigger problem; how would Mark have read this many of Paul’s letters in the first place? We’re used to having them collected handily together as part of the New Testament, but that wouldn’t happen until long after the time Mark wrote his gospel. At the time Mark was writing, the individual letters would have been in the possession of the widely scattered communities to which Paul had sent them. The passages that Price identifies as those on which Mark supposedly based parts of his gospel include extracts from letters originally sent to Rome, Corinth, Philippi, and Galatia …

… a journey taking in all of them would be upwards of a thousand miles. In those days, that would have been a massive undertaking, complicated further by the difficulties of locating each community. It’s not impossible that someone could have made that mammoth journey in order to read each of Paul’s letters, but it does seem pretty unlikely.

Ignoring the highly questionable “Rome” here, I generally agree with Dr. Sarah’s objection about how difficult it would have been for someone, some 15 or 20 years or more after the correspondence, to go around to all those locales to gather together the letters. I don’t think the collection came about that way. Yet someone at some time did gather all the letters together.

It would have been very foolish for Paul and his junior-partners if they didn’t keep a copy of the letters they sent, or at least the drafts. Otherwise, how would they remember the details of what they had written? If the author of GMark was a Paulinist insider, as I think he was, he could have had access to a stash of such “file copies” as source materials. The author of GMark may have even been among the authors of the deutero-Paulines, or maybe even have been one of Paul’s junior-partners named in the letters by Paul.

Yes exactly. At this point I think that the writer of Mark is the same person who created the Pauline letter collection. I stated this as well in my piece for Varieties of Jesus Mythicism (although I don't fully agree with everything I said in that piece at this point). It would appear that the writer of Mark is the editor of the first Pauline letter collection. And once that is recognized it puts everything into a different perspective.

It also explains why the earliest known published work of Christian scripture was Marcion's collection that consisted of a single Gospel prefacing a Pauline letter collection. It also explains why there is no knowledge of a Pauline letter collection independent of the Gospels. The two were always joined together. It also explains why Marcion held the views that he did. Marcion's views were reasonable readings of the material that existed at the time, which would have been only the Gospel of Mark with Paul, the Gospel of proto-Luke with Paul, and the Gospel used by Marcion with Paul. The Gospel of Mark, even more than reconstructed versions of Marcion's Gospel, paints a poor picture of the disciples and indicates that Paul is the one true apostle. That was my reading of Mark before I even learned anything about Marcion. Now is it a coincidence that I derived from the Gospel of Mark many of the same views held by Marcion, even before I had learned anything about Marcion? Before I even knew about the works of Marcion I had concluded that the earliest version of the material must have been a single Gospel followed by Paul's letters.

As you say, someone somewhere had to be the person who put the Pauline letter collection together. Given the numerous close parallels between the Gospel of Mark and the Pauline letters that don't occur in any other Gospels, not even Marcion's (as far as we can tell), it makes sense that the earliest witness to the collection was the writer of the Gospel of Mark. That person is our earliest witness to the collection, and the next earliest witness to the collection that we know of is Marcion, who also had the letters prefaced by a Gospel. It stands to reason that if the earliest witness to the collection is the writer of a Gospel, then that same person is also the editor of the collection, and that it was the assembling of the Pauline letter collection that inspired the writing of the first Gospel.

robert j wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 10:12 am Ignoring the highly questionable “Rome” here, I generally agree with Dr. Sarah’s objection about how difficult it would have been for someone, some 15 or 20 years or more after the correspondence, to go around to all those locales to gather together the letters.

I like her. She asks really good questions.

robert j wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 10:12 am I don’t think the collection came about that way. Yet someone at some time did gather all the letters together.

It would have been very foolish for Paul and his junior-partners if they didn’t keep a copy of the letters they sent, or at least the drafts. Otherwise, how would they remember the details of what they had written? If the author of GMark was a Paulinist insider, as I think he was, he could have had access to a stash of such “file copies” as source materials. The author of GMark may have even been among the authors of the deutero-Paulines, or maybe even have been one of Paul’s junior-partners named in the letters by Paul.

Agreed.

We should remember that the epistle genre of letter-writing was common around the turn of the common era. Many authors published a collection of letters (Ovid, Horace, Seneca, Pliny) and these letters contributed to their fame.

imho it is not at all a far-fetched assumption that Paul collected a copy of his letters and copies of them were already circulating during his lifetime.

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 11:17 am imho it is not at all a far-fetched assumption that Paul collected a copy of his letters and copies of them were already circulating during his lifetime.

Perhaps, but its also important not to make anachronistic assessments of Paul either. Let's face it, the Gospels are far more powerful than the Pauline letters. Paul's fame really only rose due to his association with the Gospel collections. This is what all of these traditional models really fail to contemplate.

The Pauline letters, on their own, really don't amount to much of anything. It is very difficult to imagine any major movement being inspired by the Pauline letters alone. Some modest movement among existing proselyte communities, maybe. Perhaps among communities of Gentile wannabe converts to Judaism Paul had some traction because he offered a way into the fold without cutting your dick and following a bunch of archaic rules.

But I think two things happened. #1 the First Jewish-Roman War. I think the Pauline ministry took place prior to the war and had little traction. It was not until after the war that people started taking interest in Paul's message because they were interested in ways to separate themselves from traditional Judaism. They no longer wanted to become traditional Jews because that was now associated with disaster and opposition to Roman authority.

So, now that there was a renewed interest in Paul, there was then a motivation to publish a Pauline letter collection. BUT, the letter collection by itself was unimpressive. Its basically a garbled bunch of rambling nonsense. So, #2 the editor of the collection decides to dress it up with an introductory story. But, it turns out that the introductory story ended up taking the spotlight and running away with the show. Meanwhile the Pauline letter collection is just along for the ride.

An argument against the historicity of a Judean origin ---


And this ---

Dr. Sarah acknowledges her agreement with Mark having been influenced by Paul ---



With Markan priority among narrative gospel stories, and with the author of GMark having been influenced by the teaching and writings of Paul, then there is no extant evidence for the Jerusalem Pillars nor for Judean assemblies in Christ that can be seen as clearly independent of Paul’s letters.

In his evangelizing among Gentiles around the fringe of the Aegean Sea, Paul’s own backstories about Judean predecessors in the faith provided him with a valuable sense of tradition and authority inherent in his claims of a nascent spiritual movement taking place in the far-distant Jewish homelands.

And as an admitted criminal (Philippians 1:12-14 and 2 Corinthians 11:24-25) and admitted liar (Romans 3:7-8 **), and an accused swindler (2 Corinthians 12:16-18), Paul’s own self-serving backstories about predecessors in the faith do not constitute reliable “evidence” of the existence of a Judean origin for the stories of Jesus.


** See parts 2 and 3 ---
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8363

Ok, I overstated (and mis-recalled) her opposition. Its been a while since I read through her posts. I'll be sure to work from her posts.

rgprice wrote: It does not appear that Paul was trying to create any kind of separate movement, merely to claim that proselytes could be considered member of the assembly of God without having to follow Jewish law.

• I agree. I think it's as likely or even more likely that Paul's letters were and are rhetoric, as/than they might have been letters to communities

rgprice wrote: It appears that Paul was in conflict with other Jews who demanded that converts must be circumcised and follow the law.

• I think the end of Galatians 2 and Gal 3 show that Paul was assertively or even aggressively proposing setting The Law aside
  
  ie. the portrayal of Paul as a devout Jew is dubious in light of that

rgprice wrote: It would appear that the writer of Mark is [a re-editor] of the first Pauline letter collection.

• (pl excuse the slight reframing or rgrpice's proposal)
  I wonder if Mark might have been the first collector or one of the first collectors of the Pauline letters

WRT to a role of the Book of Revelation in the development of early Christianity:

From p.3 of the Preview PDF for
A New Perspective on the Use of Paul in the Gospel of Mark by Cameron Evan Ferguson, Routledge, London, March 2021
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mon ... n-ferguson

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sat Dec 11, 2021 2:59 am

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... In lieu of a comprehensive Forschungsbericht that situates the question of Mark’s dependence on Paul within its modern historical context, I will offer a brief overview of the works of Gustav Volkmar and Martin Werner, two exegetes whose now-classic arguments have set the terms of the debate surrounding Mark’s Paulinism for over a century, and I will summarize their exegetical legacies ... [p.3]

Part III: Gustav Volkmar and Martin Werner—settling the question?

... To understand Volkmar, one must recognize that, as the last great member of the Tübingen School, he was indebted to F. C. Baur’s famous Tendenzkritic and his conviction that much of early Christian literature could be explained on the basis of the conflict(s) between a Petrine “Jewish Christianity” and a Pauline “Gentile Christianity.” Volkmar’s particular contribution was to argue that that conflict began in earnest with the Book of Revelation. He understood this text to be a challenge to Pauline Christianity and its message of salvation for all, and he considered the Gospel of Mark to be its direct, literary rebuttal.

At the same time, Volkmar was a committed Protestant, and his project had an overtly theological tone. For him, the gospel narratives were allegorical (German: “sinnbildlich”) models of the “one gospel” (“des Einen Evangeliums”) of Jesus Christ and his apostle, Paul. During the first two centuries, prior to the imposition of Catholic traditionalism, Volkmar assumed that early Christian authors were well aware of the true didactic content (“Lehrgehalt”) of the gospel stories; indeed, they were able to modernize while simultaneously remaining true to that content.

But, as time passed, this didactic material was [according to Volmar] buried, and the gospels increasingly came to be recognized as “historical narratives” (“Geschichts-Erzählung”) penned by the hands of the apostles themselves, or, in the case of Mark, by an apostle’s amanuensis. Thus, they ceased to be primarily allegorical or figural and instead became historical. An awareness of the underlying spiritual sense (“geistigen Sinn”) implicitly persisted alongside this external conception (“äusserlichen Auffassung”), however, and, with the coming of the Protestant reformers, the spiritual sense of the gospels was elevated to the surface once more. Volkmar viewed his own project as contiguous with his Reformation predecessors: he sought to provide a means by which the gap between reason-based historical criticism and spirit-driven didactics could be bridged, and, in the process, the teachings of Protestant Christianity vindicated.

For Volkmar, then, the Gospel of Mark is not properly a “history.” Rather, it is a “self-conscious didactic-poetic composition [Lehr-Poesie] on historical ground.” He explains,

• [Mark’s] whole work is an apology for the apostle to the Gentiles [eine Apologie des Heidenapostels], a defense [Vertheidigung] for the legitimacy [Rechtes] of the community of Gentiles in the name of Jesus Christ and the Old Testament, which is, through him, fulfilled and surpassed [erfüllt und übertreffen sei] …. Indeed, throughout the whole gospel the life of Jesus, as also the life, work, and suffering of Paul, is in view [durch das ganze Ev. hin ist das Leben Jesu, wie das Leben, Wirken, und Leiden Pauli mit im Auge].

Mark’s primary concern was to portray Christ as Paul’s revealed and ascended Son of God. Thus, the historical traditions standing behind the narrative were transformed by the evangelist into allegories that (re)present the theological convictions and experiences of Paul. Anne Vig Skoven helpfully summarizes Volkmar’s project as follows:

• Mark’s Gospel is to be seen as an odyssey in which the reader travels with the historical Jesus, with the Apostle Paul and with the risen Christ (or the Christ-Spirit) …. Volkmar regards the Markan Jesus as a literary character who is based upon several literary and historical figures—including, of course, [an] historical Jesus. However, when speaking of Christ, the author often has Paul in mind. Apparently, Mark has projected Paul and his Gentile mission—as we know it from Paul’s letters and the Acts of the Apostles—back into Jesus’ life.

On Volkmar’s reading, Mark’s layering of narratives necessitates the careful delineation of complex and ubiquitous external referents to what he believed were various Markan symbols. For example, in his discussion of Mk. 9:33–50, which Volkmar takes to be superlative proof of Mark’s Paulinism, the German scholar asserts that the foreign exorcist must be a symbol for Paul on the basis of the following exegetical inferences:

1. the disciples’ question 'who is greater?' (τίς μείζων [Mk. 9:34]) refers not to an internal dispute but an external one (the disciples are judging themselves over and against outsiders);
2. the 'child' (παιδίον [Mk. 9:36]) that Jesus embraces stands as a symbol for the Gentiles who bear Christ’s name (ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου [Mk. 9:37]); &
3. the exorcist is opposed by none other than John (Mk. 9:38), the author of the Book of Revelation [who is] Paul’s greatest opponent.

On the basis of these three speculative observations, Volkmar claims that Mk. 9:33–50 is written in support of Paul and warns about the dangers of excluding Gentile converts from the early Christian mission.
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eta:
also see this viewtopic.php?p=147810&sid=5984e61b143f ... 90#p147810
which is from https://vridar.org/2016/05/05/a-simonia ... llegory-2/