Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I am not sure why you do not equate the "god of this age" θεὸς αἰῶνος with the "rulers of this age" ἀρχόντων αἰῶνος. It seems that when Paul uses this construction he is not talking about Romans.

First, "god" is singular and "rulers" is plural. And a god and a ruler is not the same.
Second, "rulers" = 'archon' is used for Romans' authorities in 'Romans'.
Third, "Satan" = 'satanas' (5 occurrences in Pauline deemed authentic epistles) is never said by Paul to have subordinates.
Fourth, Paul had never evil spirits or demons as rulers.

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:

I am not sure why you do not equate the "god of this age" θεὸς αἰῶνος with the "rulers of this age" ἀρχόντων αἰῶνος. It seems that when Paul uses this construction he is not talking about Romans.

First, "god" is singular and "rulers" is plural. And a god and a ruler is not the same.

Trivial, I think. More important "of this age" seems to refer to demons.

Second, "rulers" = 'archon' is used for Romans' authorities in 'Romans'.

In Romans 13, but not in Romans 8:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers [ἀρχαὶ], nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.


[/quote]
Third, "Satan" = 'satanas' (5 occurrences in Pauline deemed authentic epistles) is never said by Paul to have subordinates.[/quote]

Maybe not directly, but he certainly does reference principalities and elemental powers.

Fourth, Paul had never evil spirits or demons as rulers.

Cordially, Bernard

see Romans 8:38 referenced above.

Another possible counter:

Eph 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers [ἀρχάς], against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

Here the rulers are explicitly evil, unlike the rulers in Romans.

EDIT
Anticipating challenges, here's more versions of Ro 8:38:

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. NASB

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. NIV
*k-or nor heavenly rulers

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ASV

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, KJV

Blood wrote:There's a serious flaw at the heart of Carrier's analysis, which is, he follows the theologians and supernaturalists in asserting that there are such things as "authentic Pauline epistles" from which one can gain historical information. As long as he sticks to this method, he will always be trailing the theologians.

Having said that, I still think there is much to gain from his work in those parts where he doesn't mindlessly follow theologians down the rabbit hole.

I haven't ruled out that there are no authentic pauline epistles. I don't consider the matter settled, though. Carrier seems to have decided that they are. In fact, I'm surprised by how much weight he gives to several writings, in particular 1 Clement and the letters of Ignatius. However, what he pulls from those documents is very interesting.

Trivial, I think. More important "of this age" seems to refer to demons.

Not trivial, a god cannot be multiplied. "of this age" can refer to anything "of this age".

In Romans 13, but not in Romans 8:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers [ἀρχαὶ], nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yes, I knew it but 'archon' is not exactly 'arche'.
'arche' can mean many things including earthly rule, principality and magistracy.

YLT translation: "for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things about to be, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of god, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

'Ephesians' was not written by Paul, so is Lk 12:11 "And when they bring you before the synagogues, and the rulers [arche], and the authorities, be not anxious how or what ye may reply, or what ye may say,"
and Lk 20:20 "And, having watched him, they sent forth liers in wait, feigning themselves to be righteous, that they might take hold of his word, to deliver him up to the rule [arche] and to the authority of the governor,"

BTW, on this blog post, I explained that Paul thought that Jesus was executed in Zion, among Jews:
http://historical-jesus.sosblogs.com/Hi ... b1-p22.htm

Cordially, Bernard

Here's a link to one on-going review and discussion of Carrier's latest book:
http://www.skepticink.com/humesapprenti ... us-part-2/

The Paradox of Paul

A key element of Carrier’s theory is the observation that evidence from our presumed earliest source, the authentic Pauline epistles, does not resemble what we would expect if we assume that the J2CH is true:

Many historians fail to grasp the mathematical point here. They will explain away any single instance of something not being mentioned and then conclude that that explains why none are, not aware of the fact that the latter is less probable. For example, suppose for any given chapter of Paul’s letters there was only a 1 in 20 (a mere 5% chance that he would mention or describe some definitely historical fact about Jesus. There are over sixty chapters in Paul’s letters. Even if such a mention in any one of those chapters is that improbable (1 in 20), that there would be no mention in any of them is even more improbable: P(none) = 1 (0.05)^60 = 0.046 (rounded), in other words, less than 5%. Which means here is a more than 95% chance we would have at least one such mention. So the fact that we have none is bizarre. (OHOJ, p.518-519fn)

Carrier also cites Gerd Ludemann:

Not once does Paul refer to Jesus as a teacher, to his words of teaching, or to [any] Christians as disciples. In this regard it is of the greatest significance that when Paul cites ‘sayings of Jesus’, they are never so designated; rather, without a single exception, he attributes such saying to ‘the Lord’.

Ludemann goes on to note that Paul only “shows a passing acquaintance with traditions related to [Jesus’] life and nowhere an independent acquaintance with them. In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus (quoted in OHOJ, pp. 519-520, cited to Ludemann, Sources of the Jesus Tradition, pp. 196-212.)

Such sentiment is expressed by historical Jesus scholars. For example, Paula Fredriksen refers to Paul as a source for the historical Jesus as a paradox:

Who then is Paul’s Jesus? Paul identifies him only briefly in ways that, decades later, dominated the gospel narratives: as a human being (anthropos) though “from heaven” (1 Cor 15-39; cf Rom 5:12-17); a man born of woman , under the law, that is a Jew (Gal 4:4; Rom 9:5); a descendent in fact of King David (Rom 1:4), and thus the messiah. But Paul spends little time either arguing or demonstrating from episodes in Jesus’ life or from the LXX that Jesus is the messiah. He uses the Greek term, Christos, more as a name than as a messianic title: Jesus Christ, not Jesus the messiah. (From Jesus to Christ, pp. 55-56).

So the point that Carrier is making here is not just an argument from silence, but a strong argument from silence. Where we would expect to see evidence of some phenomenon, we do not. In Paul’s letters we see no references to Pilate, Judas, Mary, Joseph, Nazareth, John the Baptist…none of the biographical data that we see later in the Gospels. There are no references to the earthly teachings of Jesus. There is nothing definitive to set Paul’s Jesus on Earth in the reasonably defined past (my opinion, as opposed to a mythical past). While all of this is explainable on mythicist assumptions, it is not as easily explained according to the historicist (J2Ch) assumptions.

How do historicists deal with this early, but paradoxical evidence?

They essentially remove Paul from the chain of evidence from the early origins of Christianity. So, for example, Fredrickson treats the “early followers” as the source of the Gospels and as distinct from Paul, thus attempting to transpose Paul’s epistles and the Gospels:

Paul thus places himself at some distance from those traditions [about the earthly Jesus], presumably emanating from the earthly ministry of Jesus, that the later evangelists eventually wrote down.

Of importance here, note Fredrickson says “presumably emanating” because that is the underlying assumption behind transposing Paul and the Gospels and treating the Gospels as closer to the historical truth than Paul’s own writings. Historical standards would say that Paul is most important source being a) primary, and b) closer in time to the events in question. Fredrickson is rationalizing why Jesus scholars are justified in setting aside the earliest and best source for early Christian beliefs. Likewise, Thiessen and Merz follow this same logic:

The letters of Paul are older than the Synoptic Gospels, yet the latter are historically closer to the historical Jesus. This is first of all because they contain many individual traditions which are older than the letters of Paul, but above all because they are free of the Pauline ‘tendency’ to see Jesus as a pre-existent, mythical being (Historical Jesus, p. 17).

You can see here that the reasoning is circular. The Gospels are closer to the historical Jesus because Paul’s letters presume a pre-existent, mythical being. They are unfortunately not in the correct chronological order to support the Jesus to Christ hypothesis.

So the question here:

Is Carrier correct that evidence we have from Paul is not what we would expect if there were an actual historical person whose teachings and crucifixion inspired the origins of Christianity?

If not, are the rationalizations offered to explain that evidence convincing?

Is the evidence from Paul more or less likely to be true on the mythicist hypothesis? Is there anything in the Pauline letters that convincingly falsifies the mythicist hypothesis?

pakeha wrote:Here's a link to one on-going review and discussion of Carrier's latest book:
http://www.skepticink.com/humesapprenti ... us-part-2/

Right here, almost immediately there is a problem:

Under the proposition that Jesus was a myth, the gospel of Mark created fictional brothers named James, Joses, Simon and Judas but prior to that Paul called someone named James ‘the brother of the Lord.’ What are the odds that Paul would call someone the brother of the Lord who just so happened to have the same name as one of the fictional brothers mentioned in Mark? - See more at: http://www.skepticink.com/humesapprenti ... zUnLS.dpuf

On the mythicist position, the idea that James was the brother of Jesus comes from Paul's letter, Galatians, itself. There are no odds of coincidence to calculate, no one is arguing that it occurred by coincidence. If historicism depends mostly on this point, Covington says here:

If there is anything like a ‘knockdown drag-out’ argument for a historical Jesus, it’d have to be Paul’s reference to James, the “brother of the Lord” in Galatians 1:19. - See more at: http://www.skepticink.com/humesapprenti ... Nh61p.dpuf

then historicism is in trouble.

Hawthorne said:
... While all of this is explainable on mythicist assumptions...

This is one of my concerns of the "mythicist assumptions"... Like any good Young Earth Creationist street-preaching theist who can "expain" any piece of old Earth evidence away by appealing to the infinite power and wisdom of their God, mythicists have the same inexhaustible and infinitely flexible supernatural realm to appeal to for their assumptions. Where we criticise YECs for their infinite "God of the gaps", is it possible that Carrier and the like a appealing to a "myth of the gaps"?

I know that sounds snarky. But it's just a thought. And I know it kind of cuts both ways. But the concern is that the hypothetical myth being proposed can always be adjusted to explain away the evidence for a historical Jesus. E.g. Paul says Jesus had Davidic ancestry... "Oh no, that was all part of the myth!", Everyone says Jesus was crucified and buried... "Oh no, that was all part of the myth!" etc.

toejam wrote: But the concern is that the hypothetical myth being proposed can always be adjusted to explain away the evidence for a historical Jesus. E.g. Paul says Jesus had Davidic ancestry... "Oh no, that was all part of the myth!", Everyone says Jesus was crucified and buried... "Oh no, that was all part of the myth!" etc.

Saying Jesus had Davidic ancestry seems rather far-fetched: would that be via Jesus paternal lineage or his maternal lineage, or both?

All parts of the narrative, including "Jesus was crucified and buried", are unsubstantiated assertions. Reference to 'everyone' seems irrelevant.

toejam wrote:This is one of my concerns of the "mythicist assumptions"... Like any good Young Earth Creationist street-preaching theist who can "expain" any piece of old Earth evidence away by appealing to the infinite power and wisdom of their God, mythicists have the same inexhaustible and infinitely flexible supernatural realm to appeal to for their assumptions. Where we criticise YECs for their infinite "God of the gaps", is it possible that Carrier and the like a appealing to a "myth of the gaps"?

I know that sounds snarky. But it's just a thought. And I know it kind of cuts both ways.

Huh? How do mythicists 'appeal' to "the supernatural realm"?

You posit false analogies: (1) Young Earth Creationist street-preaching theist/s, & (2) "myth of the gaps"

The NT stories are not substantiated by contemporary sources: no other non-Christian texts; no artifacts; no archaeology sites - for at least 2 centuries

MrMacSon wrote:MrMacSon said:
Saying Jesus had Davidic ancestry seems rather far-fetched: would that be via Jesus paternal lineage or his maternal lineage, or both?

The point is not whether or not he actually was a descendant, or if so, through which line. I'll leave that for the Biblical inerrantists (and maybe James Tabor) to mull over! My guess would be that he wasn't from the Davidic line (or that if he was there was no reliable way to verify). The point is that if Paul and the earliest Christians we know of were claiming Jesus was a descendant of David, it begs the question to say they meant in a "spiritural" or "otherworldly" sense. Paul never qualifies his descendant remarks with "in the heavenly realm" etc.