Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Ulan wrote:

Stephan Huller wrote:Marqe takes tsur (rock) as an Aramaic word to argue that that form or image of God was present

Stephan Huller wrote:The same word appears in Gal 4:9 to be formed  CPA, Syr. AphDem18.351ܕܼܲܡܵܐ ܕܿܢܸܬܿܬܿܨܼܝܪ ܒܿܟܼܐ܃  until the Messiah is formed in you

Thanks, Stephan. This also pretty much lines up with the explanation Philo himself gives. I know that I know much too little about how Jewish scholars like Philo interpreted the Tanakh.

I'm more or less just interested, in the context of this thread, how the human mind tends to process information. Peter brought this Moses+Christ quote up to make a certain statement. The answer was - underwhelming. This may be in part because the readers already thought about the implications of Paul's statement, or it's an old hat for you and you know your Philo. On the other hand, with some readers, it may just be the result of subconscious information processing, which usually helps us to get things done, but may sometimes get into the way of discovering stuff outside of our thought patterns. The automatic reaction will be something like "Christ + Moses = wrong timeframe, so not history but obvious allegory". This automatic processing is quite efficient, and nobody here will doubt the outcome.

However, nothing in Paul's statement distinguishes it from statements about Christ at other times. So we have to be careful with thoughts like "Christ + crucifixion = right timeframe, so probably historical". What does "right timeframe" mean? Did Paul specify the time of the crucifixion, yes or no? Do we just retroject baggage from the gospels?

This may be a very basic observation, and it is just a repetition of why this example was brought up in the first place, but from the reaction, I have the feeling that the conscious realization and our subconscious treatment of this observation don't necessarily match.

andrewcriddle wrote:One problem here is that Marcion seems to have included (some form of) 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. Which (if authentic) probably requires Pauline belief in a historical Jesus.

I'm dubious about using absence in Marcion as strong evidence for interpolation in canonical Paul without also using presence in Marcion as strong evidence for authenticity of canonical Paul.

Peter Kirby wrote:I'd say that's an excellent point, Ulan, but then I would say that wouldn't I.

Ulan wrote:

Peter Kirby wrote:I'd say that's an excellent point, Ulan, but then I would say that wouldn't I.

In my defense, I mentioned that's why you posted that.

Peter Kirby wrote:Sorry, communicating in text is horrible sometimes. Everything can have edges that aren't intended. I wasn't criticizing.

Peter Kirby wrote:

Peter Kirby wrote:As a matter of fact, how do we prove that Paul is a "Christian"? He does not use the word. .... the question becomes whether Paul was a pre-Christian author who had some ideas that fed into the birth of Christianity proper....

Apparently William Arnal has already published on this topic (but without the same exact angle, of course)


The Collection and Synthesis of "Tradition" and the Second-Century Invention of Christianity

The following paper argues that "Christianity" as a discursive entity did not exist until the second century CE. As a result, the first-century writings that constitute the field of inquiry for "Christian origins" are not usefully conceived as "Christian" at all. They were, rather, secondarily claimed as predecessors and traditions by second-century (and later) authors engaged in a process of "inventing tradition" to make sense of their own novel institutional and social circumstances. As an illustration, the paper looks at the ways that a series of second-century authors cumulatively created the figure of Paul as a first-century predecessor, and how this process has affected the way the first-century Pauline materials are read. At issue in all of this are our imaginative conceptions of social entities (including "religions") and what they are, and of how canons and notions of social continuity attendant on them are formed.

This process certainly has "affected the way the first-century Pauline materials are read."

Ben C. Smith wrote:

andrewcriddle wrote:One problem here is that Marcion seems to have included (some form of) 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. Which (if authentic) probably requires Pauline belief in a historical Jesus.

I'm dubious about using absence in Marcion as strong evidence for interpolation in canonical Paul without also using presence in Marcion as strong evidence for authenticity of canonical Paul.

Hi, Andrew. Been a while. Good to see you again.

What, if I may ask, do you think of the usual arguments for and against 1 Thessalonians 2.14-16 as an interpolation?

Ben.

M.R.Goode wrote:

Peter Kirby wrote:

Peter Kirby wrote:As a matter of fact, how do we prove that Paul is a "Christian"? He does not use the word. .... the question becomes whether Paul was a pre-Christian author who had some ideas that fed into the birth of Christianity proper....

Apparently William Arnal has already published on this topic (but without the same exact angle, of course)


The Collection and Synthesis of "Tradition" and the Second-Century Invention of Christianity

The following paper argues that "Christianity" as a discursive entity did not exist until the second century CE. As a result, the first-century writings that constitute the field of inquiry for "Christian origins" are not usefully conceived as "Christian" at all. They were, rather, secondarily claimed as predecessors and traditions by second-century (and later) authors engaged in a process of "inventing tradition" to make sense of their own novel institutional and social circumstances. As an illustration, the paper looks at the ways that a series of second-century authors cumulatively created the figure of Paul as a first-century predecessor, and how this process has affected the way the first-century Pauline materials are read. At issue in all of this are our imaginative conceptions of social entities (including "religions") and what they are, and of how canons and notions of social continuity attendant on them are formed.

This process certainly has "affected the way the first-century Pauline materials are read."

This paper is actually available on academia edu: This a quote I found most interesting "Christians origins are really to be sought in the ways in which a rapidly self-defining social movement of the second century invented a tradition for itself. It did so by laying claim to, and thus retrojecting its own sense of identity onto, scattered and variegated past artifacts... This act of laying claim was supported by redaction and embellishment of the artifacts in question, now generating a cumulative and synthetic body of putative forerunners, now invested with a retrospective unity and identity."

See how easy that is say for a scholar who isn't beholden to a confessional creed!

andrewcriddle wrote:I have sometimes wondered whether the passage is authentic except for the last clause but God's wrath ... to the end. There is (very tiny) Latin support for omitting this clause.