Today I received a review copy from Cambridge University Press of Nina E. Livesey’s The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. I have already read the Introduction and Chapter 4 and highlighted along the way a few dozen other works referenced by Livesey to follow up. But what I found most inviting is that quite a few other references I have already posted about — and in some cases translated — here on Vridar. It is encouraging to meet a friend who likes and has found value in my other friends.
The first reference that stands out is Patricia Rosenmeyer. I posted on one of Rosenmeyer’s works in 2006 and it is one Livesey refers to often (as I also have done in subsequent posts):
Livesey references many scholars I have discussed here (some more extensively than others) but some names stand out as being more “radical” than others — to name but a handful some long-term blog readers may recognize:
- Bruno Bauer — whose relevant works discussed by Livesey I translated and made available here: see his Pauline Letters and Christ and the Caesars. Livesey writes of BB, “his arguments are more sophisticated than those typically found in current Pauline scholarship” (19). Nice.
- Paul Louis Couchoud — a very nice surprise to see him make an appearance
- Rudolf Steck — my translation of one of his works is online at https://vridar.info/
- Joseph Tyson — I posted at length on his work on Marcion and Luke-Acts
- Herman Detering — whose scholarship is vastly under-rated by at least one prominent name who notably failed to do a basic Bayesian analysis of his work (see Staged Forgeries — another work I have translated)
- Markus Vinzent
- Richard Pervo
- Boyarin, Daniel — of whom Larry Hurtado expressed distinct discomfort for his forays into New Testament studies
Nina Livesey argues that the Pauline letters all date from the mid second century — after the Bar Kochba War.
I feel a little ashamed that till now I have only allowed myself to wonder if all of the New Testament writings should be dated to the post Bar Kochba war period. Livesey takes that step boldly.
Drawing on Rosenmeyer and numerous others I look forward to reading Livesey contextualizes the Pauline letters within the ancient custom of “schools” and teachers writing letters in the name of others in order to teach and persuade. Paul’s letters are not the product of a “wandering charismatic preacher” but of someone belonging to the wealthy elite.
Such a portrait, however, poorly suits an individual both trained and socially positioned to produce such letters. On the other hand, there is ample evidence of creative literary activity and production in schools (haereses). As I argue in what follows, a second-century social and political context and a school setting, such as that of Marcion, are suggestive of a viable location for the creation of doctrinal exhortative letters written in the name of the Apostle Paul. (xif)
And the thesis extends beyond the letters:
While certainly a contentious and debated issue, the dating of NT writings plays an important role in my thesis. Not only Acts, but also the canonical Gospels are more recently considered not first- but second century writings. If we consider – as did the Dutch Radicals – that the Pauline letters were produced alongside of and in a complex and dynamic relationship with the Gospels and Acts, the forward shift in the dating of the latter lends further support to a second-century provenance of the letters. (27f)
So it’s back to Marcion and the post Bar Kochba era for “everything”.
“Christian” teachers arrived in Rome in the wake of the Bar Kokhba revolt and established schools under Roman authority near one other. “Christian” literature, including gospel texts, flourished during this time, with compositions reflecting a post-Jewish temple and post-Judaea social and political reality. Marcion’s publication of what has been interpreted as the First New Testament, consisting of a gospel (Evangelion) and a collection of Pauline letters (Apostolikon), is likely one of the earliest among these compositions. (251)
I look forward very much to reading the work in full and posting about it as opportunity permits.
Livesey, Nina E. The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.
Neil Godfrey
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I have published two articles positing the likelihood that the Pauline letters were originally produced in the 40’s BCE. In their original form, they were completely unrelated to Christianity, probably contextualized in the Roman civil war in which Jewish military units (auxilliaries) were involved. I would further agree that Marcion likely adapted and edited those letters for a new and unrelated purpose. For further reading see: https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2022/03/reassessing-pauls-timeline-by-bart.html and https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2022/03/part-2-reassessing-pauls-timeline-by.html.
I have been fascinated by your argument that Paul’s original letters – whatever they may be – should be dated to the 1st century BCE.
You may find interesting, therefore, a truly fascinating work which I have in translation. Alas, the books are in storage, but I hope to read them in a few months. They contain, in addition to prefatory and commentary remarks by their translator, the religious writings of Upahat Ba Phoi, a Laotian nobleman and Clerk in the French colonial government. Despite his staid and collaborationist occupation, Upahat Ba Phoi was devoutly Buddhist, albeit adhering to a form of Buddhism with strong apocalyptic aspects. Upahat Ba Phoi was apparently respected by other Laotian Buddhists for his wisdom, and his writings are a mixture of history of his community, autobiography, and interpretation of events from an apocalyptic Buddhist perspective. The manuscript of his writings was not copied, and for some decades it remained within his family. But then his manuscript was found by scholars, copied out, and translated into English. I think that just as Upahat Ba Phoi was a prolific writer about religious matters whom other adherents of his apocalypticly oriented version of a religion on the fringes of a great empire respected, so Paul could have been, as the narrative in both Bible-based mainstream and Bible-based mythicist scholars, a writer about religious matters whom other adherents of his apocalypticly oriented version of a religion on the fringes of a great empire respected. The difference is that Paul intended his religious writings for use by his communities but Upahat Ba Phoi did not – but in both cases we have prominent people in apocalyptic versions of non-apocalyptic religions – which the authors did not claim to have founded – writing apocalyptically oriented texts which were not commented about or widely known about for several decades after the authors finished writing.
Re “Marcion’s publication of what has been interpreted as the First New Testament, consisting of a gospel (Evangelion) and a collection of Pauline letters (Apostolikon), is likely one of the earliest among these compositions”
And that was published in 144 CE if I recall rightly, which dates all of the canonical gospels, except maybe proto-gMark since they drew from those works in theirs (Mark in later edits) which turns the NT topsy-turvy!
I said in the post that my translation of a work by Rudolf Steck is not yet ready for public reading — I was wrong. I had forgotten I had posted it at https://vridar.info/ — https://vridar.info/xorigins/Steck/steck-galatians-english.pdf
If these core New Testament writings were written during the 2nd century CE, as this non-mythicist scholar accepts as possible, and if the gospels were not based upon oral traditions but were literary creations, as another non-mythicist scholars suggests, and the Testamonia by Josephus are both interpolatiobs (as some non-mythicist scholars accept), then where does that leave the search for the historical Jesus?
Is Hebrews (which even many mythicists accept as pre-70 CE) sufficient to reconstruct a historical Jesus?
It leave the “search for the historical Jesus” to the chasing o’ a wisp. Historians cannot “reconstruct” the historical King Arthur from literary tales about him, nor a historical “Robin Hood” from Walter Scott’s novels or various ballads. Even with Socrates, historians gave up trying to reconstruct “the historical Socrates” long ago.