Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
lsayre
Posts: 769
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:39 pm

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by lsayre »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:36 pm Is r.g. price's first name [also] Robert? (he's always presented himself as r.g., afaik)
Good point.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:42 pm 1 What are you implying here, Giuseppe? That r.g. price was referring exactly to what you're referring to?

Or, are you trying to recruit or co-opt r.g. price to a typically oblique take of yours?
The entire argument (resumed above) is found in R.G.Price's book, about the relation between Paul and Thomas. Very strange that you ignore his argument.

Off topic: Note, McMrSon, that you are (dishonestly?) misunderstanding totally Markus Vinzent and Matthias Klinghardt when in another thread you have confessed:
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:02 am I don't see hostility against YHWH as a feature of the development of and/or evolving narration about Jesus, whether he was being anthropomorphised or not.
...since any introduction of Marcion in the synoptic question requires to deal with Marcion's anti-demiurgism.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by mlinssen »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:14 pm (I also wonder if most of the Pauline epistles are that much earlier than Mark's & the other canonical authors' gospels: I wonder if they were doctored together in later times eg. when Acts was being put together).
I have always wondered: why does everyone think and claim that Paul is earlier?
I know little to nothing of the Bible, yes I've read it back and forth a few times, in the duty of tracing Thomas, but other than being raised Roman Catholic I've never been impregnated with (much other) dogma

When I read Mark, I see a feeble attempt at depicting Jesus cs, a rough sketch. Like gives it direction to "the Gentiles", Matthew gives it purpose and addresses the Jews, Judeans

Paul? Paul comes down on all of them with a full blown Christology, speaking of Jesus Christ, Lord Christ Jesus: the divinity, the Gawd-man, and it is Paul who first exploits the "dying for our sins" of you look only at him and the four canonicals

It is impossible, out if the question, that Paul came before any of these.
Why do people - and I grant that such is a far majority I think - claim that Paul is earlier, even much earlier?
It is very much like arguing for Matthean priority, really. So please help me, I'm sincerely lost there
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by mlinssen »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:38 pm
mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:24 pm Anyone clubbing Thomas together with any other text doesn't have more than a handful of brain cells. When I compare Thomas with the Gospel of Truth it's like comparing Genesis 1 with Romans
You'd be contrasting those texts? :)
Which ones LOL. Genesis 1 is beautiful on a spiritual level, if you read the Hebrew with a fine tooth comb, detailing the genders, the plural, the exact grammatical form for Elohim - plural - and the entire incentive that breathes through the text. It is a very lovely and loving Creation story, myth folklore fiction of course, but just picture it as a native American narrative and you'll appreciate it without a doubt, it is a fine whisper on a river of compassion and contemplation

Romans? A bragging, boasting marketing sales pitch, screamed at the top of lungs, chest thumping piece of dirt and crap and lies and claims - claiming, claiming, claiming, continuously claiming attention. Me me me me me, it's sickening

Thomas? Read my parable of the Net interpretation, the sower, the mustard seed, splitting every single lemma. The sower is full of magic and double entendre

https://www.academia.edu/43717037/The_P ... t_religion

Gospel of Truth? It is claiming attention to its claims to being the right flow, stream, hierarchy, whatever. Exploiting and proclaiming "the slain Jesus", etc. Revolting. All the Aeons nonsense, all the explaining, it's all directly opposed to Thomas. Is it reusing typical Thomas words and concepts? By the hundreds, yes - but just like the canonicals it is ripping them completely out of context and applying them to quite a different goal
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by MrMacSon »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:17 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:42 pm 1 What are you implying here, Giuseppe? That r.g. price was referring exactly to what you're referring to?

Or, are you trying to recruit or co-opt r.g. price to a...take of yours?
The entire argument (resumed above) is found in R.G.Price's book, about the relation between Paul and Thomas.
Cheers.

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:17 pm Very strange that you ignore his argument.
Meh. I'm not that interested in that argument.

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:17 pm Off topic: Note, McMrSon, that you are (dishonestly?) misunderstanding totally Markus Vinzent and Matthias Klinghardt when in another thread you have confessed:
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:02 am I don't see hostility against YHWH as a feature of the development of and/or evolving narration about Jesus, whether he was being anthropomorphised or not.
...since any introduction of Marcion in the synoptic question requires to deal with Marcion's anti-demiurgism.
I disagree: I don't think Marcion's 'anti-demiurgism' has much to do with the propositions and arguments of Markus Vinzent and Matthias Klinghardt that the synoptics - indeed, all the canonical gospels (the synoptics and John) - were written [quickly] after the Marcionite gospel had been distributed (and/or that Marcion or the Marcionite community then produced a second edition of the text they had).

To my mind, the role of 'anti-demiurgism' would only become relevant if it could be shown other texts, such as but not limited to the canonical gospels, had been produced in response to such anti-Demiurge theology; or, if the anti-Demiurge theology could otherwise be shown to be part of the genesis of development of Christianity.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:17 pm I disagree: I don't think Marcion's 'anti-demiurgism' has much to do with the propositions and arguments of Markus Vinzent and Matthias Klinghardt
How can you think this, when Markus Vinzent is obliged, in virtue of his thesis (Marcionite priority) to assume that, for example, the logion "man cannot serve two masters" was interpreted in Marcion (in Vinzent's view: the author of the Earliest Gospel) as opposing the demiurge (YHWH) against the supreme god.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by MrMacSon »

mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:25 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:14 pm (I also wonder if most of the Pauline epistles are that much earlier than Mark's & the other canonical authors' gospels: I wonder if they were doctored together in later times eg. when Acts was being put together).
I have always wondered: why does everyone think and claim that Paul is earlier?
I think it's mainly due to tradition and following the tradition of scholars who are or have been almost all followers of Christianity who, in the absence of good history of the text, want them to be as early as possible to support their belief it's all true.

mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:25 pm When I read Mark, I see a feeble attempt at depicting Jesus cs, a rough sketch. Like gives it direction to "the Gentiles", Matthew gives it purpose and addresses the Jews, Judeans

Paul? Paul comes down on all of them with a full blown Christology, speaking of Jesus Christ, Lord Christ Jesus: the divinity, the Gawd-man, and it is Paul who first exploits the "dying for our sins" of you look only at him and the four canonicals.

It is impossible, out if the question, that Paul came before any of these.
Why do people - and I grant that such is a far majority I think - claim that Paul is earlier, even much earlier?
It is very much like arguing for Matthean priority, really. So please help me, I'm sincerely lost there.
There are a few contrarian views [which I think are very plausible], such as the late Hermann Detering's view that Paul is a mythical character, or the views of the likes of Robert M Price that the Pauline letters are mostly the product of of 2nd century authors including Marcion, Polycarp, a ghost-writer, +/- others, as well as a Paul somewhere / sometime.

There's also the view of one of the 19th century Dutch Radicals, AD Loman, as summarized by Detering, in The Fabricated Paul: Early Christianity in the Twilight, 1995, that --

.
"Christianity in its origin was nothing else than a Jewish-Messianic movement ... the figure of Jesus had never existed, but represented a symbolization and personification of thoughts that could only make full headway in the second century. A gnostic messianic community later appeared alongside the Jewish-Christian messianic community. In the period [supposedly] between 70 and 135 CE the two groups opposed one another with bitter animosity.

"Only in the middle of the second century did they achieve a reconciliation, in which the gnostic community had Paul as its representative and the Jewish-Christian community had Peter. The result of this process of reconciliation was [the beginning of] the formation of the Roman Catholic Church. ... the letters of Paul are all inauthentic and represent the product of the newly-believing, gnostic-messianic community."
.

[p. 50, I think]
Last edited by MrMacSon on Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by MrMacSon »

mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:46 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:38 pm
mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:24 pm Anyone clubbing Thomas together with any other text doesn't have more than a handful of brain cells. When I compare Thomas with the Gospel of Truth it's like comparing Genesis 1 with Romans
You'd be contrasting those texts? :)
Which ones LOL. Genesis 1 is beautiful on a spiritual level, if you read the Hebrew with a fine tooth comb, detailing the genders, the plural, the exact grammatical form for Elohim - plural - and the entire incentive that breathes through the text. It is a very lovely and loving Creation story, myth folklore fiction of course, but just picture it as a native American narrative and you'll appreciate it without a doubt, it is a fine whisper on a river of compassion and contemplation

Romans? A bragging, boasting marketing sales pitch, screamed at the top of lungs, chest thumping piece of dirt and crap and lies and claims - claiming, claiming, claiming, continuously claiming attention. Me me me me me, it's sickening

Thomas? Read my parable of the Net interpretation, the sower, the mustard seed, splitting every single lemma. The sower is full of magic and double entendre

https://www.academia.edu/43717037/The_P ... t_religion

Gospel of Truth? It is claiming attention to its claims to being the right flow, stream, hierarchy, whatever. Exploiting and proclaiming "the slain Jesus", etc. Revolting. All the Aeons nonsense, all the explaining, it's all directly opposed to Thomas. Is it reusing typical Thmomas words and concepts? By the hundreds, yes - but just like the canonicals it is ripping them completely out of context and applying them to quite a different goal.
Cheers. My question and the :) was meant to reflect the often, in English-language exams anyway, the olde "Compare and Contrast X and Y".

I looked at the Larry Hurtado's paper about the nomina sacra you provided the url-link to in another thread and was surprised to read him, in that paper, lauding the Gospel of Truth with regard to its Father and Son commentary and it supposedly being relevant to early Christian reverence for the name of Jesus. I'm drafting two new thread posts for this forum about that paper, one on Hurtado's interesting commentary on the supposed reverence for Jesus's name, and the other about him citing several scholars saying the nomina sacra started in Judaism for either θεός or κύριος or both (he then pleads they're Christian based on Christians using gematria, which seems a bit far-fetched).
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by MrMacSon »

mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:46 pm
Genesis 1 is beautiful on a spiritual level, if you read the Hebrew with a fine tooth comb, detailing the genders, the plural, the exact grammatical form for Elohim - plural - and the entire incentive that breathes through the text. It is a very lovely and loving Creation story, myth folklore fiction of course, but just picture it as a native American narrative and you'll appreciate it without a doubt, it is a fine whisper on a river of compassion and contemplation

Romans? A bragging, boasting marketing sales pitch, screamed at the top of lungs, chest thumping piece of dirt and crap and lies and claims - claiming, claiming, claiming, continuously claiming attention. Me me me me me, it's sickening.
Yes, the contrast is marked.

mlinssen wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:46 pm Thomas? Read my parable of the Net interpretation, the sower, the mustard seed, splitting every single lemma. The sower is full of magic and double entendre

https://www.academia.edu/43717037/The_P ... t_religion
.
Interesting -

.
General explanation

The second parable of Thomas, like all others it splendidly demonstrates the metamorphosis model: a subject (1) that is in a begin state, (2) transitions into a strongly contrasting, usually even opposite end state (4) by means of an action or metamorphosis catalyst (3), and when all that has come to pass is said and [d]one, there is a spin-off, an end result (5), which is strongly linked to the action. And it is that end result that is the parable goal, and it is the action, the parable catalyst, that leads straight to it.

----

There are three metamorphosis catalysts / parable actions that fail .... they are extremely important pointers that give direction to the journey. ...

---

Have you also noticed that the path, the rock, and the earth are all singular, yet the acacias are plural? There is no seed or seeds that grows into fruit, in the end it is the earth that does things: it produces fruit, and "he" "comes of 60/120 'per measure'" - and we'll also get to who or what this "he" is. You might think you know what you read when you read Thomas, but he says something slightly or even quite differently from what you think he does - hence why only a very purely literal translation can reveal his meaning ...

https://www.academia.edu/43717037/The_P ... t_religion
.

davidmartin
Posts: 1589
Joined: Fri Jul 12, 2019 2:51 pm

Re: Paul versus Thomas: who is before?

Post by davidmartin »

I agreed that Price is making a mistake here and too sure of himself

That quote from Isaiah is likely to have been a popular quotable phrase and/or paraphrase back then, a common currency
The fact one person said it or Jesus or whoever really doesn't seem to have much value because it must have been very common
If it wasn't ultimately derived from Isaiah I'd agree there's something meaningful here

But even then i think his own argument is shaky
Lets say Jesus was known for quoting it and along comes Paul quoting it, why shouldn't Paul sometimes quote something associated with Jesus?
It would make sense if he did
And if Thomas has it as Jesus's saying, so what?
I like Price but he's shooting from the hip here for sure, and just taking the easy option
The trouble is for folks like Price is many have read works by GRS Mead and seen what a powerhouse a real old school scholar can be - who did more with less material and worked harder
Post Reply