Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

[GakuseiDon]

The idea that Paul didn't know Jesus but saw him 'only through visions' BUT NEVERTHELESS BECAME THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY is a problematic construct.

How is that a problematic construct? Isn't that pretty much the standard position???

Paul only knew Jesus through visions. Yes, agreed. Paul became the founder of Christianity. The Jewish Christian side got wiped out in 70 CE, so yep, sounds good.

[Ben C. Smith]

I dispute that Paul is the founder of Christianity; I dispute that he is even the founder of Greek Christianity. No one knows who founded the churches at Rome and Alexandria, for example.

[GakuseiDon]

I don't think something strange is going on.

Well then you are a dishonest person. Most of us (me) would have just assumed that Acts was a romantic history developed from the orthodox POV. I've heard it argued that the author wasn't familiar with the contents of the Pauline letters. But this new angle I think argues against that or perhaps reinforces that the author had some notion of Paul as a visionary 'learning' about Jesus from 'visions' (as in the Clementine literature). At the very least there seems to be a caricature of Paul which is known to the author.

I see Acts as showing the friction point between Jews and Christians at its earliest stage: whether the Christ of the Christians was validated by scripture. You can see the same friction in Ignatius and Justin Martyr. The argument wasn't about what Jesus said or did, it was about whether their claims matched what the prophets wrote. So Paul's focus on scriptures in Acts and the trial is not strange at all, IMHO.

[rgprice]

I dispute that Paul is the founder of Christianity; I dispute that he is even the founder of Greek Christianity. No one knows who founded the churches at Rome and Alexandria, for example.

Yeah, it depends on what one means by "founder of Christianity". In some sense I'd say that the writer of Mark was the "founder of Christianity" as we know it.

But I agree, clearly Paul wasn't the first person to go around espousing some kind of belief in some salvation messiah under the name of Joshua.

But getting at what "Christian" even means becomes more difficult the deeper you dig into it.

If we talk about a belief that Jesus Christ was a real person who was executed by Pilate, and through his execution by Pilate he atoned for the sins of X (the world, Gentile, those that believed in him, etc.), then I think we have to call the writer of Mark the founder of that version of "Christianity".

Paul was certainly an advocate of belief that some figure called Jesus engaged in a sacrifice that abolished the law, making it possible for Gentiles to join the convent of Jewish people with the Lord without having to adhere to the Torah.

But the question is, what did people other than Paul believe prior to Paul?

Carrier, Doherty and others bring up good points as well about people calling themselves "Christians" who didn't even believe in Jesus, indeed one person in the second century (I forget who) who even denied that Jesus had anything to do with Christianity. According to him, the claim that a crucified person was a leader of the group was a slander against the religion.

But when we try to identify early "Christianity" is becomes very difficult. This is a particular challenge with trying to determine "who wrote" various pseudepigrapha. Does belief in resurrection mean the writer was a Christian? Does a ceremony that uses "bread of life" and "cup of life" indicate Christian? Does belief in a final sacrificial atonement for sins mean Christian? The problem is all of these things can be identified here and their in various Jewish works that seem to have no relationship to what we know as Christianity. Does saying that Gentiles don't need to be circumcised and follow the Torah mean Christian?

I think Paul clearly thought of himself as an observant Jew and saw his mission as converting Gentiles to Judaism.

We don't know what the "churches" that existed in Paul's time believed or what made them fellow believers with Paul. Was it belief in the risen Christ? Was it something else entirely? Was belief in Jesus even central to the movement in the beginning? Was the focus on Jesus something that Paul drove or was it already central before Paul?

[Secret Alias]

I dispute that Paul is the founder of Christianity; I dispute that he is even the founder of Greek Christianity. No one knows who founded the churches at Rome and Alexandria, for example.

He was considered to be a founder of Christianity by the Marcionite Church which I believe antedated its rival the 'orthodox' Church. But the point is clearly that there was a Pauline Church which considered itself to be 'the true Church.' I don't even know if Ben is being serious here.

[Secret Alias]

The Jewish Christian side got wiped out in 70 CE, so yep, sounds good.

I do not see 'Jewish Christianity prior to 70 CE' as a given in the way Paul is a given. It is postulated to have existed but 'Jewish Christianity' was absolutely unproductive. It disappeared.

[Irish1975]

Carrier, Doherty and others bring up good points as well about people calling themselves "Christians" who didn't even believe in Jesus, indeed one person in the second century (I forget who) who even denied that Jesus had anything to do with Christianity. According to him, the claim that a crucified person was a leader of the group was a slander against the religion.

Minucius Felix, Octavius ch. 29:

For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.
...Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with handsoutstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.

[davidmartin]

I think Paul clearly thought of himself as an observant Jew and saw his mission as converting Gentiles to Judaism

He was converting Gentiles to his gospel which is hard to understand as representing Judaism as Judaism, then or now, doesn't think Paul was doing this and thought he was an apostate to their convictions
It's as clear as day that the writer of Acts wanted Paul to appear to be normative as possible simply to make Christian orthodoxy appear to be the true Judaism and it is a political writing in this context
Acts is contrived in this area and is trying to smooth over differences, not only between Christianity and Judaism but between different Christian sects which were it's intended audience
Acts is derivative, several layers upon layers removed from anything original but it tells a lot about early 2nd century Christianity, it's not very useful for what occurred 75-100 years earlier. It reflects the authors desire to describe his present day theological beliefs and isn't interested in examining the past to conclude anything about the past

[rgprice]

For one thing, what I suspect is that belief in Jesus wasn't the start of the communities of earliest Christianity. Most likely thee were existing "churches" that shared some set of Christian type beliefs, and then "visions of Jesus" were introduced into the cult. In other words, there were communities throughout Asia Minor, likely Jewish-Gentile (god-fearers) congregations that believed in something about a coming final judgement and held existing beliefs about the abrogation of Jewish law and putting an end to animal sacrifice and who had existing rituals that involved the sharing of bread of life and the cup of life, and into these communities visions of a heavenly messiah and an atoning final sacrifice were introduced.

So when Paul talks about existing churches and communities and leaders, etc. that's not something that would have just sprung up in the wake of the execution of a person. Those were likely communities that had existed for decades spread across Palestine and Asia Minor.

[Secret Alias]

Ok but we don't need all this speculation. Here are the facts:

1. Irenaeus writes as if the Marcionites were pre-existent and they understood Paul to be the founder of Christianity, author of the gospel.
2. Irenaeus posits a 'true Church' with Peter and Paul as its head centered at Rome based on an apostolic succession list derived from Hegesippus (c. 147 CE).
3. Hegesippus's visit to Rome mid second century prompts the production of this succession list as well as an encounter with a Christian heretic names Marcelina (c. 147 CE).
4. This Marcelina somehow becomes confused by Irenaeus into an appearance of Marcion at Rome during Anicetus and it is introduced to the same chronology of Hegesippus (because Polycarp's visit under Anicetus becomes an encounter with Marcion not Marcelina) c 147 CE.
5. the introduction of the succession list seems to prompt the mention of Polycarp and his defense as a reliable source (as if he were Hegesippus further complicating the 'mistake' of Marcelina for Marcion) c 147 CE
6. Hegesippus is also the source of the Jerusalem succession list with its purported 'family of Jesus' (which ends 147 CE because that's when Hegesippus was published)
7. Justin's claim of having seen Marcion in Rome seems related to the 'mistake' in Irenaeus, Irenaeus after all introduces Justin's promise to write a work against Marcion as the basis for his own work Against Marcion preserved in Latin by Tertullian (Tertullian seems to have been in the habit of preserving original Greek works by Irenaeus in Latin and then not crediting Irenaeus as the original author). c 147 CE
8. Irenaeus says surprisingly little about the 'Ebionites' or Jewish Christianity. He simply assumes that there was a Jerusalem Church (undoubtedly because of what he read in Hegesippus) and puts forward a copy of Galatians which has Paul declare that he submitted his gospel to the authority of James and his Church 'for an hour.' This apparently helps confirm a scenario like the fourfold gospel (i.e. where more than one gospel said the same thing). c 147 CE

Based on the information in Irenaeus:

a) he presumes a Jerusalem Church existed but pays very little attention to it (other than what is confirmed in Acts)
b) he is aware of Marcionism but claims that Marcion got all his ideas from a stolen copy of orthodox New Testament and which he subsequently misunderstood or misrepresented.
c) he imagines a Christianity stripped of the ascetic principles of Marcionism and Alexandrian Christianity (which he completely omits mentioning).
d) in fact he invokes a Christianity which has little going for it other than baptism and creed recitation.

Bottom line: you can't get too far relying on Irenaeus for any information about early Christianity. It is hard to argue that Irenaeus knew ANYTHING about Christianity he didn't learn from ONE BOOK published in 147 CE and a New Testament canon he established (undoubtedly owing to his skills as a grammaticus sometime thereafter). I am not sure that Irenaeus was even a Christian.

In summa: orthodox Christianity appears to be little more than ancient parallel to a Canticle for Leibowitz i.e. an absurd religion based on a (corrupt) copy of an old book - in this case Hegesippus.