The start of the Jesus story

[Jax]

Some of the letters of Paul (at least 1 & 2 Corinthians and Philipians) were for each a combination of three shorter letters.

Of the Corinthian correspondence, I agree that the received 2 Corinthians is a composite of more than one letter. I have long wondered who might have complied the multiple correspondences into one letter, and just as importantly, when and why? The received composite version of 2 Corinthians makes a jumbled mess of the underlying correspondence.

Then, I was surprised when I read that from the Catholic study bible, second edition, page 450:

"... the letters we call 1 and 2 Corinthians formed part of a larger collection that originally consisted of several letters... We are left with the impression that the extant letters reflect an editing and combining of writings, compiled as the community processed and integrated the words of the apostle"

That would also mean Marcion did not have the most original Corinthians Pauline epistles, because he dealt on the combination of those.

If your suggestion about Marcion using the composite form of 2 Corinthians holds water, then that would be useful data.

Do you think that Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians? If so, other than the Catholic study bible, what (evidence) makes you think that?

This is a valid point. If I remember correctly, the writer of 1 Clement seems to know 1 Corinthians but not the second letter.

[Bernard Muller]

to robert j,

Do you think that Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians? If so, what makes you think that?

Of course, Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians.
The commentators on Marcion's Apostolikon (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius) criticised the composite form of the Corinthians letters of Marcion.
For certain, Tertullian & Epiphanius had a copy of the Evangelion and Apostolikon. I don't know about Irenaeus: maybe he got his data from Justin's lost work.
Irenaeus wrote in AH, 1.27.2.:

He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also those passages from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to Jax,

This is a valid point. If I remember correctly, the writer of 1 Clement seems to know 1 Corinthians but not the second letter.

Just because "Clement" did not mention any content in 2 Corinthians does not mean he did not know about it.

Cordially, Bernard

[robert j]

to robert j,

Do you think that Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians? If so, what makes you think that?

Of course, Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians.
The commentators on Marcion's Apostolikon (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius) criticised the composite form of the Corinthians letters of Marcion.

Would you provide the citations please.

[hakeem]

Do you think that Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians? If so, what makes you think that?

Of course, Marcion used the composite form of 2 Corinthians.
The commentators on Marcion's Apostolikon (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius) criticised the composite form of the Corinthians letters of Marcion.
For certain, Tertullian & Epiphanius had a copy of the Evangelion and Apostolikon. I don't know about Irenaeus: maybe he got his data from Justin's lost work.
Irenaeus wrote in AH, 1.27.2.:

He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also those passages from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.

Cordially, Bernard

Why are we going over the same absurdities attributed to Irenaeus, Tertullian and Epiphanius?

Those writers are not credible at all.

Irenaeus, Tertullian and Epiphanius had no idea or provided bogus information about when and who wrote gMark, gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn, Acts of the Apostles, the letters under the name of Paul, Hebrews, the Epistles of James, Peter, John, Jude and the Apocalypse [the entire NT].

The chances that authors who knew nothing and presented bogus information about the date and authorship of their own Canon can be relied on for credible information about Marcion is next to zero.

What did writings attributed to Irenaeus, Tertullian and Epiphanius say about the date and authorship of the Gospels

What they said about the date and authorship of Gospels have been rejected in totality.

Do not the writings attributed to Irenaeus, Tertullian and Epiphanius state or imply all the supposed Pauline Epistles were written by a single author?

Again, rejected by virtually all Scholars.

If one wants to find out what was preached by Marcion then the writings attributed to Irenaeus, Tertullian and Epiphanius are not the sources for such information.

Tertullian's "Against Marcion" was unknown by Christian writers for hundreds of years and was most likely a forgery.

[John2]

The evidence is clear that gLuke, Acts of the Apostles and the writings of the self proclaimed apostle called Paul are all very late writings composed after gMark, gMatthew and gJohn. No Christian writer outside of Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles make mention of any known Christian who spoke in tongues or that they themselves spoke in tongues.

I don't think it matters if Christian writings have different "special effects," because I think the concepts of resurrection and speaking in tongues are ridiculous, so any attempts to describe them as happening to Jesus or his followers are ridiculous and I don't expect all accounts to match or for everyone to have had the same level of interest in them.

Take Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, for example. He is thought by some of his followers to be the Messiah and ideas about it vary.

Since the Rebbe's death, there are those who have persisted in the belief that Schneerson is still the Messiah ...

Some of the messianists were so caught up with their hope, that they interpreted each new erosion in the Rebbe's health, and ultimately his very death, as stages in the messianic process ...

According to some scholars, the messianist divisions in Chabad can be identified by various subtler factions of those who claim the Rebbe is not the messiah but could have been as he had all the qualities of a messiah prior to his death, whether the Rebbe was the Messiah and will be Messiah again once resurrected, whether the Rebbe is believed not to have died or is believed to be God.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabad_messianism

In Jesus' case, there is the idea that he was resurrected and appeared to some of his followers, and some of them imagined that he had a spiritual body and some imagined that he had a physical body, and some imagined that he appeared in Galilee and some imagined that he appeared in and around Jerusalem. But they all believed that Jesus had resurrected and appeared to some of his followers. And because they are people and resurrection is a ridiculous concept, they had varied and ridiculous ideas about it, just like followers of Rabbi Schneerson have varied and ridiculous ideas about him.

And I think the fact that NT letters do not say where the resurrected Jesus appeared to his followers indicates that they are earlier than the gospels and Acts and that as time went on more details about it were imagined.

[Bernard Muller]

to robert j,

Would you provide the citations please.

I already gave you a quote from Irenaeus.
Irenaeus and Tertullian might not be very direct about answering your question, but you cannot blame them not to foresee that kind of inquiry some eighteen centuries after their time.

Tertullian AM, 5.2

we shall draw our evidence from the epistles of St. Paul himself. Now, the garbled form in which we have found the heretic's Gospel will have already prepared us to expect to find the epistles also mutilated by him with like perverseness--and that even as respects their number.

Tertullian AM, 5.11
(After criticising 2 Corinthians with quotes and paraphrases)

I here pass over discussion about another epistle, which we hold to have been written to the Ephesians, but the heretics to the Laodiceans.

Tertullian AM, 5.12

his first epistle [1 Corinthians], where he wrote: "The dead shall be raised Incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed" (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh

Tertullian AM, 5.15
(After dealing with Galatians, Romans and 1 & 2 Corinthians)

I shall not be sorry to bestow attention on the shorter epistles also

Tertullian AM, 5.21

I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline. His aim, was, I suppose, to carry out his interpolating process even to the number of (St. Paul's) epistles.

Epiphanius, Panarion, according to https://gnosis.study/library/%D0%9A%D1% ... 01-46).pdf

page 313

< From the > First < Epistle > to the Corinthians, number two in Marcion’s own canon and in ours

page 314

From the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, number three in Marcion’s canon and ours

page 315

This is Marcion’s corrupt compilation, containing a version and
form of the Gospel according to Luke, and an incomplete one of the
apostle Paul—not of all his epistles (10) but simply of Romans, Ephesians,
Colossians, Laodiceans, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, First and
Second Thessalonians, Philemon and Philippians. (11) (There is no version) of First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews < in his scripture
at all, and > even the epistles that are there < have been mutilated >, since
they are not all there but are counterfeits

Cordially, Bernard

[John2]

... I did not say you were trapped by fiction of Tacitus and Suetonius.

I did not mean to suggest that you did, only that just like I don't discount other things Tacitus and Suetonius say about Vespasian because they believed he performed miracles and their details about it vary, I don't discount other things the NT says about Jesus because the details about his resurrection appearances vary, particularly the things that resemble what Josephus says about the Fourth Philosophy.

[Jax]

to robert j,

Would you provide the citations please.

I already gave you a quote from Irenaeus.
Irenaeus and Tertullian might not be very direct about answering your question, but you cannot blame them not to foresee that kind of inquiry some eighteen centuries after their time.

Tertullian AM, 5.2

we shall draw our evidence from the epistles of St. Paul himself. Now, the garbled form in which we have found the heretic's Gospel will have already prepared us to expect to find the epistles also mutilated by him with like perverseness--and that even as respects their number.

Tertullian AM, 5.11
(After criticising 2 Corinthians with quotes and paraphrases)

I here pass over discussion about another epistle, which we hold to have been written to the Ephesians, but the heretics to the Laodiceans.

Tertullian AM, 5.12

his first epistle [1 Corinthians], where he wrote: "The dead shall be raised Incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed" (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh

Tertullian AM, 5.15
(After dealing with Galatians, Romans and 1 & 2 Corinthians)

I shall not be sorry to bestow attention on the shorter epistles also

Tertullian AM, 5.21

I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline. His aim, was, I suppose, to carry out his interpolating process even to the number of (St. Paul's) epistles.

Epiphanius, Panarion, according to https://gnosis.study/library/%D0%9A%D1% ... 01-46).pdf

page 313

< From the > First < Epistle > to the Corinthians, number two in Marcion’s own canon and in ours

page 314

From the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, number three in Marcion’s canon and ours

page 315

This is Marcion’s corrupt compilation, containing a version and
form of the Gospel according to Luke, and an incomplete one of the
apostle Paul—not of all his epistles (10) but simply of Romans, Ephesians,
Colossians, Laodiceans, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, First and
Second Thessalonians, Philemon and Philippians. (11) (There is no version) of First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews < in his scripture
at all, and > even the epistles that are there < have been mutilated >, since
they are not all there but are counterfeits

Cordially, Bernard

Some of your quotes validate hakeem's position that the church fathers were wrong to attribute 1 and 2 Thimothy, Titus, and Hebrews to Paul.

What else were they wrong about?

[Textus Unreceptus]

.........“No well-known ancient writer who wrote about events in the time of Julius Caesar to Nero mentioned a character called Paul a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, a bishop of Rome in the time of Nero”.

Your claim that Paul is a "Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin" and a "bishop of Rome in the time of Nero" is impossible!

It is quite strange that you should think this considering you also admitted in the same post that "Paul is a fictional character". If this is true, then how can a fictional character be a bishop of Rome in the time of Nero, as you have stated? One does not need to be a rocket scientist to deduce that it's impossible to be both a fictional character AND a bishop of Rome in the time of Nero!

It is most fascinating that you misconstrued what I wrote. I never ever claimed Paul IS a Pharisee of a tribe of Benjamin, a bishop of Rome under Nero.

I specifically stated “No well-known ancient writer who wrote about events in the time of Julius Caesar to Nero mentioned a character called Paul a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, a bishop of Rome in the time of Nero”.

You seem not to realize that the so-called Paul claimed he was a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin and that he lived in the time of Aretas and that in Acts it is claimed Saul/Paul was alive up to the time of Nero when Festus was Governor of Judea c 59-62 CE.

Again, no well-known writer who mentioned events from Julius Caesar to Nero mentioned anyone named Paul a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, bishop of Rome under Nero just like historians do not mention a character called Kent Clark Superman and Journalist.

Josephus did not mention anyone called Paul a Pharisee or bishop of Rome.
Suetonius did not mention anyone called Paul a Pharisee or bishop of Rome.
Pliny the elder did not mention anyone called Paul a Pharisee or bishop of Rome.
Tacitus did not mention anyone called Paul a Pharisee or bishop of Rome.
Philo did not mention any called Paul a Pharisee.

Paul the Pharisee or bishop of Rome was a fictional character just like Jesus the Galilean.

That is 243 words replying to a parody post.