Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

RandyHelzerman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 8:54 am

rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 7:57 am I guess the easiest way to say this is that I view understanding the development of these texts and how they relate to one another and other texts as an analytical problem.

(...)
The data scientists go crazy on it: They measure the dimensions of the bills, the thickness, etc. They compare the bill's fibers and materials against huge databases of paper and textiles, and note that this particular type of paper wasn't used to make any other thing. They carefully translate the latin phrase "E pluribus Unum"--out of many, one--and speculate that it has to have something to do with the numeral "1" printed all over the bill. We're always on firm ground with numeric, quantitative data!

All great stuff--and actually, all more or less true. But it massively misses the whole point: how did those ancient people, in a very different time and place, actually *use* these dollar bills?
(...)

Just want to say I love this analogy.

DrSarah wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 11:09 pm

I think it is wise to examine the assumption that the phrase brother of the Lord originated with Paul and reflects his independent rhetorical judgment.

Huh? I don’t think for a minute the phrase originated with Paul; why would he start randomly referring to some group members as the Lord’s brothers? I think he learned the phrase the same way as you’d learn that anyone was anyone’s brother; by James et al being introduced to him as ‘the Lord’s brother’ when he first visited the group.

I don't think there's any issue of randomness here. Paul plainly has some reason to refer to these men as a distinct group, and to expect that his reader will understand who they are.

But Paul would learn the phrase the same way as he learned that there was any distinction to be made, regardless of what the distinction was. Maybe it is a distinction that supports the historicity of Jesus (e.g. these men assisted Jesus during an earthly ministry), but maybe not (e.g. these men are apostles appointed by the risen Jesus, like Paul himself but unlike other apostles).

Just a reminder: the provenance of the phrase really is uncertain; we have no other contemporaneous attestations of it. Paul seems to have coined a term for some group of preachers (the "superapostles" of 2 Corinthians 11:5), but there again, as here, there are other possible origins for the term.

Although being an apostle who was also Jesus's kin or his disciple during Jesus's natural life certainly would be a distinction, such a person getting a subsidy is no argument for Paul getting the subsidy.

Oh, yeah, it’s a pretty poor argument. Reading Paul’s tone here, he’s not so much trying to build an impartial logic case as going off into a rant. ('I'm not getting counted as an apostle! Bah! Well, SCREW THEM I DON'T NEED THEIR MONEY!')

OK, that's certainly possible. But again there is no issue about whether Paul's use of the phrase supports Jesus's historicity within a Bayesian framework. The only issue is by how much.

If in order to reach a certain weighting, the analyst needs to discern the "tone" of mute marks on the page, then that puts a low ceiling on the possible weight carried by those marks, IMO. Not because Paul couldn't possibly adopt that tone, but because there's nothing on the page that eliminates that Paul knows how to be effective when asking for money (e.g. as in passages concerning the collection he took up for the Jerusalem group, 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 and elsewhere) or other valuable boons (e.g. Philemon in its entirety, seeking the rent-free use of slave labor).

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 12:21 pm My Duke U. 1990 Ph.D. was from the Religion (now called Religious Studies) Department of the School of Arts and Sciences--not the Divinity School--and my dissertation is available online for inspection. Also various publications.
If you think my curriculum and qualifications, there, and at Brandeis U., are worthless in the face of your self-presumed excellence, so you may think.

rgprice wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:10 pm I've not majored in religious studies, only taken two college courses.

It is a matter of literary forensics. Do you learn forensics in religious studies?

rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 7:57 am I'm a data scientist, with a degree in biology.

rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 7:57 amAs far as I'm concerned, solving this problem and understanding the development of these texts is best suited to those with analytical training

For someone with a degree in biology and two classes in religious studies, you are exactly as proficient in the areas of analytical training and literary forensics -- and as knowledgeable about the academic fields preparing people for such study -- as I would expect you to be.

DrSarah wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 11:03 pm

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 9:30 pm

DrSarah wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 12:53 pm when multiple passages all present or support the same viewpoint the chances of them all being hitherto undetected interpolations has to be low enough that we can ignore it for practical purposes.

at contrary, when I see that "born by woman" (Gal 4:4), "born from sperm of David" (Rom 1:3), "brother of the Lord" (Gal 4:4), support all the same viewpoint against Marcion (i.e. they are easily recognized as Catholic interpolations) then even more so the final collective verdict of authenticity has to be negative.

Not sure I follow. Are you saying that multiple comments in a work supporting the same viewpoint have to be interpolations? If so, how do you distinguish between interpolations and a work containing multiple comments supporting the same viewpoint because that was the viewpoint of the original author who did in fact genuinely make the comments?

there would be not more way to know the truth, in the general case.

In the case of Paul, we have an emphasis on the being born by woman that would be very a strange thing to be said about a human being, since all the humans are born by woman. But the specific has a lot a sense in the polemic against Marcion (= a denier of the human birth).

What is more, when one detects clear clues of expansion from the marcionite version to the pauline version of the Pauline epistles, then there would be no doubt at all about what was more close to the original version:

vocesanticae wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 2:41 pm In the meantime, BeDuhn's Apostolikon is the best text available. A close comparison of its features with those of the canonical 10 letters of Paul can and will reveal the divergences.

Here's a list of some of the post prominent that jumped out to me as I translated both texts:
1. minimal concern with fundraising in Apostolos -> enormous concern with fundraising in canonical Paul (esp 2 Cor)
2. minimal self-referential comments in Apostolos -> frequent and repeated quasi-biographical details in canonical Paul, including repeated concerns about Paul imposters and letter authorship authentication
3. minimal colleagues in Apostolos -> a massive entourage of fellow apostles and diplomatic representatives in canonical Paul
4. direct heavenly apostolic authority in Apostolos -> heavenly calling synced up with and aligned with Jerusalem/pillars in canonical Paul
5. minimal travel/itinerary details in Apostolos (and Evangelion) -> extensive travel details that synchronize the text with canonical Acts and the travel obsession in the canonical Luke redaction as well
6. occasional, poignant references to Judean scripture in Apostolos -> extensive LXX scripture catenae in canonical Paul
7. newness and radical character of the "good message" in Apostolos -> retrospective salvation-history perspective in canonical Paul (esp Rom 9-11, almost entirely missing from Apostolos)
8. clear valorization of celibacy -> making celibacy more of an option

There are many more. To me, it's crystal clear that the Apostolos reflects a significantly earlier time in the development of the Jesus movement, and that the canonical portions of Paul missing from Apostolos align significantly with the proto-orthodox program in the Pastorals and Acts.

DrSarah wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 11:31 pm Why? I mean, why do you think this would be a problem? Paul himself clearly wasn't interested in Jesus's life, but I don't see that translating into his followers refusing to have any truck with learning more.

All ok unless the teachings are not identical but if different... why would an epistle church want strange gospels turning up. that's what i think happened to explain how even late-ish pauline texts like Hebrews and pastorals are not using any gospel. different sects

DrSarah wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 11:31 pm I think it’s more that the church needed to reconcile two different strands of teaching. I believe the sequence was:

1. Original group: followed an actual human rabbi, thought he was the Messiah, went on thinking that even after his execution, believed this apparent contradiction would be/had been reconciled by God raising their leader from the dead, passed on stories of the man himself and his teachings.

2. Paul: got to know about the group, was initially opposed to them but then went off at a total tangent and started believing that actually Jesus was a semi-divine being who’d been born on earth for the sole purpose of being crucified as a blood sacrifice that would forgive eve-ryone’s sins and remove the need for the Law. Set up several satellite communities that were loosely linked with the original group but followed Paul’s teachings.

3. Pauline followers in subsequent decades: still had enough contact with the original group to be aware of the teachings of the original Jesus that were being passed down as well as the theology of their own groups, started writing/passing on gospels to bring these two strands together.

This is clean theory. Nice. Yes I think 'reconcile' was their only option
1 - Original group were rather esoteric hence parables and Odes of Solomon. Not typical guys, exotic and quixotic. Not sticklers for the Law
2 - Yes, Paul comes along. Changes things/Falls out with 1. Introduces Religion over pure Spirit. Distances himself from 1 and human Jesus
3 - Info seeped into 2, unwillingly and took 100 years for to pair up the gospels / epistles. They don't fit too well from all this

I see infighting obscuring the spiritual element that's at the core of the first layer, eg Thomas and the Odes
Original Jesus a Prophet teaching to be like he is, nothing about sin or not getting married
The Religion dominated but the Spirit origins still clear even through edited gospels and unreliable apostles (Paul needs fading down and less attention, look past him to Thomas and the Odes). This gives a relatively satisfactory reconstruction, and the differences help not have to be smoothed over which is hard to believe stuff like this took place harmoniously

DrSarah wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 11:56 pm Just want to say I love this analogy.

ty ty. May you always be on firm ground while soaring to new heights

A lot of potentially plausible things can be speculated, but one has to work from the text and the evidence.

The fact is that almost all of the works of the NT are derivative of each other. The text of the NT is highly correlated and indicates that it is a collection that grew over time and was repeatedly re-harmonized to itself.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are almost identical to Mark and about 70% of their text comes from Mark. The Gospel of John likewise shares the core of its content with the three synoptics. The Gospel of Mark shares much of its content with the Pauline letters. There is extensive overlap between Acts of the Apostles and the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of Mark. Acts also shares content with the Pauline letters. The Letter of James references the letter to the Romans. Several of the Pauline forgeries are derived from other Pauline letters. 1 Peter shares content with the Gospels and Pauline letters. 2 Peter shares content with at least 5 separate NT works, including the letter of Jude, Revelation, Pauline letters and Gospels. The long ending of Mark shares content with multiple works of the NT, including other Gospels and Acts. John 21 likewise was written in the presence of the whole collection. The Letter to the Hebrews works from other Pauline letters, hence the reason it was classified as a Pauline letter. The Johannine epistles are about the one writings that don't seem to borrow from other NT works, with the exception of the Gospel of John.

So, the reality is that these writings were not produced as part of any kind of large, diverse movement. The works were largely written in proximity to one another, and many of them were part of collections that included other NT works from the beginning, they weren't written independently.

Th e collection began with the Pauline letters and was built on from there, adding Gospels and narratives to the Pauline letter collection with the collections diverging and then being re-collected and merged back together according to various theological whims. Each time the works were revised and modified.

The context that the writings originally developed in was quite different than the context they were popularly received in. "Christianity" the religion was founded by people who received these writings out of context and imparted their own interpretation to them. They had no understanding of the provenance of the writings and conjectured how they imagined the writings came into being. Those 2nd century church fathers who imagined how they thought the writings came to be were simply wrong, because they didn't understand how the writings were actually produced.

Christianity is totally and completely a religion founded upon the reading of stories by people who didn't understand where the stories came from. The writings of the church fathers themselves tell us this directly. They clearly state everything they know about Jesus comes from these writings and no other source.

rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 7:14 am So, the reality is that these writings were not produced as part of any kind of large, diverse movement. The works were largely written in proximity to one another, and many of them were part of collections that included other NT works from the beginning, they weren't written independently.

cf with the observation (was it by Marcus Vinzent?) that the gospel writers all seem to know about each other, but nobody seems to know about them. Definitely something which makes you go 'hmm....'

We might even be able to speculate when and where that was happening. What's the gospel we know *most* about the who, what, when, where, and how's of? Marcion's Evangelion. We know he was there in Pontus, comparing gospels, in the early 2nd century, at the same time Justin Martyr, et al, seem to be all but oblivious to the existence of them.

I don't fully agree with Vinzent that they all knew each other, nor do I go along with his scenario of basically Marcion writing a draft, then a bunch of people stealing it and making changes, then him revising his draft, etc. Its quite far fetched IMO.

Secondly, there are some pretty stark layers of revision in the works. Luke 1&2 are starkly different than Luke 3-23. The theology is totally different. There are pretty extreme changes in theology. The Gospel of John has at least 3 different authors, if not 4. The original version appear to have been Gnostic in the sense that it did not consider the Jewish god to be the Father of Jesus.

When looking at things, we see that:
#1 The canonical Gospel of John is a revision to an earlier Gospel that claimed Jesus was an unborn figure who descended from heaven and became real flesh. The Father of Jesus was not the Jewish god, whom the original writer considered to be the Father of the devil.
#2 Marcion's Gospel, in some way or another (I don't fully trust the reconstructions) stated that Jesus descended directly from heaven and did not become flesh.
#3 I've proposed reasons to conclude that the beginning of the Gospel of Mark has been modified from an original version that depicted Jesus descending directly from heaven as a spirit.

So I think the evidence is quite strong that the original version of the story, whatever it was, said that Jesus descended directly from heaven and was thus unborn.

I don't think that the change of the story from Jesus descending from heaven to Jesus being born in a manger was something that took place among acquaintances. Nor do I think that the reinterpretation of a fictional allegory into literal history was something that took place among acquaintances.

More likely, I think, the original story, along with the Pauline writings and whole Pauline ministry, was all part of a secretive mystery cult. The initial set of works, all of which depicted Jesus as having a heavenly origin, were all produced within the mystery cult. Marcion participated in the cult, but then copied the writings and published them publicly. Once the writing were publicly published, they took on their own life. The mystery cult made no efforts to correct or address the public interpretation of the writings. The public set of writings gave rise to a religion that believed Jesus was a real person and the writings were modified accordingly. This is why all of the sudden all of these writings seem to come out of nowhere. The original works were all developed in secret, then some got leaked out, but the original secret cult never engaged or revealed the real details of their teachings, so everyone just made up their own interpretations of the material.

rgprice today wrote above, in part:
"....Christianity is totally and completely a religion founded upon the reading of stories by people who didn't understand where the stories came from. The writings of the church fathers themselves tell us this directly. They clearly state everything they know about Jesus comes from these writings and no other source."

Though you, rgprice, are free to write that, you do not KNOW that.
Are we, for example, do you imagine, to dismiss oral tradition just because you say so?