Re Paul. Carrier says, in quote above, that he is just not interested: "If you then want to argue that even Paul didn’t exist, that’s a whole other challenge. One I have no interest in."Leucius Charinus wrote:Thanks for the OP maryhelena. Interesting.
I too wonder why Carrier, who is usually careful to advance his command of the evidence, dismisses Brodie on the historicity of "Paul". I would be interested to hear all about his reasons for interpretting the evidence and thereby arrive with a conclusion that in the historicity stakes "The Buck Stops at St. Paul". Specifically I'd like to determine whether or not Carrier makes mention of the Dutch Radicals position on the integrity of the Pauline Letters - the hypothesis of inauthenticity.
Brodie's book is a 'Memoir of a Discovery'. It gives an overall picture of where he stands on questions of the historicity of Jesus and Paul. I believe his book, The Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings (New Testament Monographs), goes into more detail. (I think Blood may have that book as he recommended it to me.). For now - here is Brodie on the day the penny dropped re Paul:
I am also interested in what Brodie has to say about the fabrication of canonical texts. Thanks for the link to the review. I have a superficial understanding about what Brodie is attempting to outline to scholarship. It seems to be a process of mapping stuff out of the Greek LXX and into the Greek NT. I don't know his exact argument but I get the feeling that it relies on something like the following .... The more mappings Greek LXX to Greek NT that can be identified, the more it suggests a literary construction rather than an historical construction.
PAUL: THE PENNY FINALLY DROPS
One day in 2008, one beautiful morning in May, as I was walking across the
library floor, I was struck out of the blue by the depth of the similarities
between the Pauline Epistles and Hebrew narrative. For over twenty-five
years I had periodically reread or perused Alter's Art of Biblical Narrative,
all the time trying to get a better sense of what kind of writing we are dealing
with in the Old Testament, and it was with Alter's analysis in mind that I had
first wondered if one feature of Old Testament narrative, the role of dialogue,
had contributed to what Mary T. Brien had said about Romans' use of
dialogue, about dialogical structures and thinking. And the answer seemed
to be ' Yes ' : on the question of dialogue, Romans is somewhat similar to Old
Testament narrative. The dialogue in Romans is adapted-it is updated to be
more like a philosophical dialogue-yet it is dialogue nonetheless.
But that May morning brought something else. The repeated perusals of
my well-marked copy of Alter meant that l knew his chapter headings and
some key sentences almost by heart. As l left my office I was not thinking
just of dialogue. In fact, I was not thinking of Alter at all. However, as I
walked between the rows of books, near where The Art of Biblical Narrative
was lodged, suddenly almost every chapter of Alter's book connected with
the epistles. I turned back, found the book on the shelf, and started checking
the table of contents. Yes, yes, yes. Like Hebrew narrative, the epistles are
reticent. And composite. And repetitive. And, standing out from the list: like
Hebrew narrative, the epistles are historicized fiction.
Historicized fiction.
A mass of data had suddenly fallen into place.
What hit me was that the entire narrative regarding Paul, everything the
thirteen epistles say about him or imply-about his life, his work and travels,
his character, his sending and receiving of letters, his readers and his
relationship to them-all of that was historicized fiction. It was fiction,
meaning that the figure of Paul was a work of imagination, but this figure had
been historicized-presented in a way that made it look like history, historylike,
'fiction made to resemble the uncertainties of life in history' (Alter
\98 \ : 27). Page 145
One day in 2008, one beautiful morning in May, as I was walking across the
library floor, I was struck out of the blue by the depth of the similarities
between the Pauline Epistles and Hebrew narrative. For over twenty-five
years I had periodically reread or perused Alter's Art of Biblical Narrative,
all the time trying to get a better sense of what kind of writing we are dealing
with in the Old Testament, and it was with Alter's analysis in mind that I had
first wondered if one feature of Old Testament narrative, the role of dialogue,
had contributed to what Mary T. Brien had said about Romans' use of
dialogue, about dialogical structures and thinking. And the answer seemed
to be ' Yes ' : on the question of dialogue, Romans is somewhat similar to Old
Testament narrative. The dialogue in Romans is adapted-it is updated to be
more like a philosophical dialogue-yet it is dialogue nonetheless.
But that May morning brought something else. The repeated perusals of
my well-marked copy of Alter meant that l knew his chapter headings and
some key sentences almost by heart. As l left my office I was not thinking
just of dialogue. In fact, I was not thinking of Alter at all. However, as I
walked between the rows of books, near where The Art of Biblical Narrative
was lodged, suddenly almost every chapter of Alter's book connected with
the epistles. I turned back, found the book on the shelf, and started checking
the table of contents. Yes, yes, yes. Like Hebrew narrative, the epistles are
reticent. And composite. And repetitive. And, standing out from the list: like
Hebrew narrative, the epistles are historicized fiction.
Historicized fiction.
A mass of data had suddenly fallen into place.
What hit me was that the entire narrative regarding Paul, everything the
thirteen epistles say about him or imply-about his life, his work and travels,
his character, his sending and receiving of letters, his readers and his
relationship to them-all of that was historicized fiction. It was fiction,
meaning that the figure of Paul was a work of imagination, but this figure had
been historicized-presented in a way that made it look like history, historylike,
'fiction made to resemble the uncertainties of life in history' (Alter
\98 \ : 27). Page 145
He mentions the "Joshus" and "Jesus" issue almost in passing - no detailed elaboration.
What does Brodie say about the "IS" code used in the LXX for "Joshua" and the NT for "Jesus"? This is a mapping of just one fundamental code.
It looks like he got there on his own - obviously his past study opened the way - but only after the penny dropped did he look to see if others had come to the same conclusion re Paul.
Was Brodie influenced by the Dutch Radicals questioning of the authenticity of the Pauline epistles or did he independently arrive at this conclusion?
On that May morning in 2008 in the library the idea that the figure of Paul
is literary rather than historical hit me with a shock. It also hit me quite
simply as the truth. Yet just then I did not have time to look at the idea
closely, to test it more critically, nor would I have the time to incorporate it
into the talks I was due to give in the following months. I would have to go
ahead with those talks without mentioning it. I felt that to dish it up half
baked would be disastrous, but I also knew that, whether I liked it or not, it
would impinge on my presentations. When in Rome, for instance, what was I
going to say during the ceremony at the traditional site of Paul's martyrdom
at Tre Fontane?
Eventually, over a year later, on Saturday, 11 July 2009, I began to check
to see if the idea of Paul as a non-historical figure was new, and had to go no
further than an article in the Jerome Biblical Commentary ( 1 968: 4 1 :7)---a
John Kselman article I had read decades ago--to find that 'B[runo] Bauer
( 1 809-1 882) removed what historical foundation (D.] Strauss had allowed
and left only myth, concluding that Jesus and Paul were non-historical
literary fictions' .
Searching further I found that Bauer's stance was largely followed by
' Dutch, German, French and Anglo-Saxon scholars at the end of the nineteenth
and the beginning of the twentieth century' (Kiimmel 1 972: 447), but
the methods used by these scholars were very undeveloped and their proposals
faded. When Bauer reached his conclusion he had nowhere to go; he
eventually abandoned academic life to become a farmer (in German, a
Bauer!); he died a confirmed skeptic, in the words of Albert Schweitzer, 'a
pure, modest, and lofty character' (Baird 1 992: 278).
More than a century later, at the beginning of 2008, the thesis that Paul was a
literary figure was not even an idea, at least for me. Despite Bauer, it had
never crossed my mind as a genuine possibility. In fact, the celebration of the
Year of Paul made the Apostle more vivid and historical than ever. Yet by
2008 the situation had changed since the days of Bauer. The methods of
research had greatly improved, and evidence had been gathering slowly that
the epistles are not what they had seemed to be.
The evidence concerning the epistles and the figure of Paul as literary may be
called both direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence comes from the epistles
themselves; circumstantial from biblical studies as a whole. All I give here is
a minimal outline.
is literary rather than historical hit me with a shock. It also hit me quite
simply as the truth. Yet just then I did not have time to look at the idea
closely, to test it more critically, nor would I have the time to incorporate it
into the talks I was due to give in the following months. I would have to go
ahead with those talks without mentioning it. I felt that to dish it up half
baked would be disastrous, but I also knew that, whether I liked it or not, it
would impinge on my presentations. When in Rome, for instance, what was I
going to say during the ceremony at the traditional site of Paul's martyrdom
at Tre Fontane?
Eventually, over a year later, on Saturday, 11 July 2009, I began to check
to see if the idea of Paul as a non-historical figure was new, and had to go no
further than an article in the Jerome Biblical Commentary ( 1 968: 4 1 :7)---a
John Kselman article I had read decades ago--to find that 'B[runo] Bauer
( 1 809-1 882) removed what historical foundation (D.] Strauss had allowed
and left only myth, concluding that Jesus and Paul were non-historical
literary fictions' .
Searching further I found that Bauer's stance was largely followed by
' Dutch, German, French and Anglo-Saxon scholars at the end of the nineteenth
and the beginning of the twentieth century' (Kiimmel 1 972: 447), but
the methods used by these scholars were very undeveloped and their proposals
faded. When Bauer reached his conclusion he had nowhere to go; he
eventually abandoned academic life to become a farmer (in German, a
Bauer!); he died a confirmed skeptic, in the words of Albert Schweitzer, 'a
pure, modest, and lofty character' (Baird 1 992: 278).
More than a century later, at the beginning of 2008, the thesis that Paul was a
literary figure was not even an idea, at least for me. Despite Bauer, it had
never crossed my mind as a genuine possibility. In fact, the celebration of the
Year of Paul made the Apostle more vivid and historical than ever. Yet by
2008 the situation had changed since the days of Bauer. The methods of
research had greatly improved, and evidence had been gathering slowly that
the epistles are not what they had seemed to be.
The evidence concerning the epistles and the figure of Paul as literary may be
called both direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence comes from the epistles
themselves; circumstantial from biblical studies as a whole. All I give here is
a minimal outline.
Brodie then goes on to list his outline:
Paul as a Literary Figure: Direct Evidence-from the Epistles Themselves
( 1 ) Authorship. The idea that Paul is not the author of several of the epistles
is no longer a minority opinion; it is now widely accepted among scholars.
Once the principle is established that Paul's name, plus details about his life,
do not necessarily establish the history of Paul, then the road is open for
further questions about Paul's history. The situation becomes even more
unstable when the criteria (such as content and style) for establishing Pauline
authorship are not reliable. And while N.T. Wright (2005: 1 9) could take is
as certain that no one questioned Paul's authorship of 1 or 2 Corinthians,
close analysis of the discussion of the need for wise j udges ( 1 Cor. 6. 1 - 1 1 )
indicated strongly that i n fact Paul was not the actual author of 1 Corinthians.
As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the composition of I Corinthians
is so complex and precise that-like the person holding the golf
club-authorship must be granted to the person holding the pen. Adding a
signature, as Paul is said to do ( 1 Cor. 1 6.2 1 ) could not constitute authorship.
The picture of adding a signature was another piece of narrative fiction, one
that fitted well with the larger fiction of Paul's own life and also with the
contemporary convention whereby secretaries often penned epistles that
others signed. In other words, the reference to a secretary would seem to be a
fiction that brings the epistle into line with the contemporary practice of
sometimes using secretaries. And once Paul's authorship of 1 Corinthians
goes, Paul's authorship of all the epistles becomes open to question.
( 1 ) Authorship. The idea that Paul is not the author of several of the epistles
is no longer a minority opinion; it is now widely accepted among scholars.
Once the principle is established that Paul's name, plus details about his life,
do not necessarily establish the history of Paul, then the road is open for
further questions about Paul's history. The situation becomes even more
unstable when the criteria (such as content and style) for establishing Pauline
authorship are not reliable. And while N.T. Wright (2005: 1 9) could take is
as certain that no one questioned Paul's authorship of 1 or 2 Corinthians,
close analysis of the discussion of the need for wise j udges ( 1 Cor. 6. 1 - 1 1 )
indicated strongly that i n fact Paul was not the actual author of 1 Corinthians.
As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the composition of I Corinthians
is so complex and precise that-like the person holding the golf
club-authorship must be granted to the person holding the pen. Adding a
signature, as Paul is said to do ( 1 Cor. 1 6.2 1 ) could not constitute authorship.
The picture of adding a signature was another piece of narrative fiction, one
that fitted well with the larger fiction of Paul's own life and also with the
contemporary convention whereby secretaries often penned epistles that
others signed. In other words, the reference to a secretary would seem to be a
fiction that brings the epistle into line with the contemporary practice of
sometimes using secretaries. And once Paul's authorship of 1 Corinthians
goes, Paul's authorship of all the epistles becomes open to question.
Brodie's outline structure:
(2) Genre/form/kind/nature.
(3) Autobiographical passages.
(4) References about readers/communities.
(5) References to receiving traditions.
(6) References to writings from himself and his readers.
(7) Travels.
(8) Occupation as tent-maker.
Paul as a Literary Figure: Circumstantial Evidence, from Biblical Studies as
a Whole
( I ) The slow retreat away from historical claims and towards recognizing
history-like writing.
(2) The slow acceptance of attributed authorship.
(3) Growing awareness of the literary nature of the Hebrew Bible.
(4) Growing awareness of the literary nature of the New Testament.
(5) Incipient awareness of the continuity between the Old Testament and the
New Testament.
Outline of a Working Hypothesis
The production of the thirteen epistles bearing Paul's name may, perhaps,
have drawn special inspiration from one individual, but, if so, that individual's
name and history are probably irretrievable, and the available evidence
indicates rather that the thirteen epistles came not from one person but from
some form of group or school. This accords partly with occasional suggestions
about a possible Pauline school and with the view that 'Paul's letters
were not an individual enterprise'-E.E. Ellis.4 The attribution of authorship
to someone other than the actual author follows a practice of pseudonymity
that was particularly common in antiquity and that has ample biblical
precedent, especially in the attribution of diverse bodies of writing to Moses,
David and Solomon.
The production of the thirteen epistles bearing Paul's name may, perhaps,
have drawn special inspiration from one individual, but, if so, that individual's
name and history are probably irretrievable, and the available evidence
indicates rather that the thirteen epistles came not from one person but from
some form of group or school. This accords partly with occasional suggestions
about a possible Pauline school and with the view that 'Paul's letters
were not an individual enterprise'-E.E. Ellis.4 The attribution of authorship
to someone other than the actual author follows a practice of pseudonymity
that was particularly common in antiquity and that has ample biblical
precedent, especially in the attribution of diverse bodies of writing to Moses,
David and Solomon.
Pete, I have the paperback book - I also found the pdf of the book on the bookzz website - hence able to copy and paste.....
