Vridar

2024-08-27

“I am not persuaded” — valid criticism or merely posturing?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

How often does one encounter the “I am not persuaded” copout? I call it a copout because it usually functions as an easy escape for one who is unable to say why a disliked argument is faulty. Here’s a formal response to the “I am not persuaded” line:

How might we recognize inappropriate doubt masquerading as valid criticism? Such doubt generally does not attend to the actual data and its explanation, falsifying it directly. It begs the question. Or, more commonly, it suggests a comparative situation but fails to supply the comparison; a given argument might be pronounced insufficient to convince, but what exactly establishes argumentative sufficiency is not stated (and usually cannot be). Of course, such judgments are meaningless without an overt standard or measure of sufficiency. And that measure is the data itself in relation to the broader object under investigation and the current explanation in play! Do these actually match up, or is a problem discernible in their relationship(s)? If the latter, the appropriate critical process should elicit doubt, along with the modification or abandonment of the hypothesis. Modification or the clear provision of an explanatory alternative is a signal that the appropriate critical method and doubt are operative. Without these elements, a doubting critic runs the danger of merely posturing.

Campbell, Douglas A. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2014. p. 18

2024-08-25

Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

These past few weeks I’ve been trying to untangle my way through the data strands that seem to relate to Christian origins and early development (again) and I find myself coming back to the chimerical figure of Paul (again).

When I reach this point, as I have done so many times before, I tend to seek out (again) critics of the radical views and defenders of some form of canonical figure. This time, one of those critics I have dusted off from my database of electronic files is Richard Carrier. About nine years ago he posted The Historicity of Paul the Apostle in which he sharply criticized the arguments of Hermann Detering and Robert Price proposing that Paul was not a historical person. In this post I am more interested in what he has to say about Detering’s case than Price’s since it is Detering’s work (and works he engages with: Schoeps and Schwegler in particular) that I have been deeply immersed in recently. Carrier writes of Detering:

The best formal attempt to argue for the non-historicity of Paul is that of Hermann Detering (see The Fabricated Paul). I cannot ascertain his qualifications in the field. But his writings are well-informed. They just trip over logic a lot. His case is not sound. Nor is anyone else’s I’ve examined. They falter on basic methodology (like ignoring the effect prior probability must have on a conclusion, or conflating possibility with probability) and sometimes even facts (e.g., Detering seems to think self-referencing signatures commonly appear only in forgery; in fact, they are commonly found on real letters—I’ve seen several examples in papyrological journals).

Before I continue, some readers may think that my focus has been slanted towards “extreme” or “fringe” positions — terms that I find problematic despite their appearance in scholarly publications — but I must hasten to explain that the reason I don’t post so often on mainstream views is simply because they are widely recognized and readily accessible for anyone interested anyway. There are in fact two recent works on Galatians in particular that have made rich contributions to reading that epistle in new ways but within the parameters of “mainstream scholarship” that I would like to post about here, too. But I need to see if I can unravel a few questions relating to core issues first. Everything in its time. And speaking of time, I do point out again that the post by Carrier I am addressing is almost a decade old so I am not assuming he would necessarily write the same today.

I must also make it clear that I am not addressing the Paul-Simon Magus connection argument even though that was the focus of Richard Carrier’s criticism. I will address what I consider a few less well-founded criticisms of Detering, however.

But to the chase, and I have no doubts that that will be a collegial dialogue. (I further note that the blog post of 2015 has a tone of one of those pieces “written on the fly” — leaving the reader with the impression that more care and detail would have been added in a different venue at another time.)

Carrier’s first specific criticism:

Detering seems to think self-referencing signatures commonly appear only in forgery

I do not see evidence to support that criticism in any of Detering’s work, including in the specific item I understand Carrier was addressing: The Falsified (or Fabricated) Paul. The specific passage in focus here is Galatians 6:11

See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!

The link is to a page with thirty plus translations of the same passage.

Detering’s focus in The Falsified Paul is the inconsistency among scholarly exegetes:

The writer’s reference to his handwriting in 2 Thessalonians 3:17—’I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write’—is regarded by most exegetes as a sign of the letter’s inauthenticity. Why is the corresponding reference in Galatians not so regarded?

(Detering, p. 55, my bolding)

What would interest me is a comparison of the specific terminology of the signatures we have in the Pauline letters and an explanation for these statements. A quick cross check on ChatGPT yields the following instances:

Self-referencing signatures in ancient letters were a way for the author to authenticate the document, demonstrate authority, or add a personal touch. Here are a few notable examples from different cultures:

1. Letters of Cicero

The Roman statesman Cicero often ended his letters with a personal note or signature. In some letters, he explicitly mentions writing with his own hand, such as in a letter to Atticus: “Ego enim has quidem, Attice, litteras scripsi meis manibus.” (“For these letters, Atticus, I wrote with my own hand.”)

2. Aramaic Letters from Elephantine

In the 5th century BCE, Jewish mercenaries stationed at Elephantine in Egypt sent letters back and forth, some of which include self-referencing signatures. For example, in a letter from the archive, one of the writers adds a line in his own hand, noting that he wrote the letter himself as a way to authenticate it.

3. Papyri from Oxyrhynchus

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a collection of Greek texts from Egypt, includes many personal letters where writers occasionally mention that they are writing with their own hand. For instance, one letter might end with the phrase “ἐγὼ αὐτός,” meaning “I myself,” to indicate the writer’s personal involvement in the composition.

4. Babylonian Cuneiform Tablets

In ancient Mesopotamia, some cuneiform letters on clay tablets were signed by the scribe or author. Although they might not have used the phrase “with my own hand” due to the nature of the script, they often included personal seals or mentions of the scribe’s name as a way of authentication.

5. Biblical Letters

As mentioned earlier, Paul’s letters in the New Testament include self-referencing signatures, such as in 2 Thessalonians 3:17, where he writes, “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand,” to assure the recipients of the letter’s authenticity.

6. Egyptian Hieratic Letters

In some ancient Egyptian letters written in hieratic script, the writer might add a personal note or a self-referencing line at the end of the letter to indicate that the content was personally composed or approved by them, though this was less common than in Greek or Roman letters.

These examples show that self-referencing signatures were a widespread practice across various cultures and periods in antiquity, often serving as a way to authenticate or personalize a document.

Unless Paul expected the original single letter to “the Galatians” — presumably implying a very wide geographical area with multiple church assemblies — should be preserved for a reading (and visual inspection) in each church area, without it being copied, one must wonder what such a distinctive handwritten signature was likely to accomplish. Did not the author expect the letter to be copied by another hand? In the case of Cicero writing to Atticus I can understand such a signature. But in a letter to be circulated among a wide geographical distribution of churches? Not so much. Either way, such a signature cannot serve as decisive evidence for the historicity of its claimed author.

With respect to Carrier’s criticism of Detering, I may have missed the evidence for Detering seeming “to think self-referencing signatures commonly appear only in forgery“. If that has been a point in any of his arguments it is one I have not recently located — though I cannot say I have read everything or even most of his works, in English or German.

Carrier launches into the main body of his criticism with “The Prior Probability” rubric. Now I like Bayes’ theorem. It has a place in research of any kind, as the cover and title of Sharon McGrayne’s book on the theory demonstrates:

McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy. New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012.

Don’t knock Bayes’ theorem.

But historians work with multiple tools, not just one. And much depends on the way we conceptualize the questions. Here is an example of what I mean:

Jesus belongs to several myth-heavy reference classes. He is a worshipped savior deity. He is a legendary culture hero. He is a Rank-Raglan hero. And he is a revelatory archangel (already as early as the earliest writings we have, granting the letters of Paul are such). All of those classes of person already start with a high prior probability of being mythical, because most members of them are mythical (or for culture heroes, about even). And these are beings all of whom are claimed to be historical, yet are usually in fact mythical. Just like Jesus.

(Carrier, The Historicity of Paul the Apostle)

Agreed. But we can make it even simpler. The Jesus that all historians have to work with is a literary Jesus — by definition. He is found in no other ancient place than literature or inscriptions or scribblings. The same, we must hasten to add, is true of any “historical” person — whether we are talking about Winston Churchill or Julius Caesar. What I am saying is that history is dead; it no longer exists; there is nothing there — except in written or other forms of recording. All our historical persons live only in our minds as we read the surviving records. Some of those imagined figures once had a historical reference figure who was real — but that reality now escapes us in its fullness and can only be reconstructed according to our “best lights” of imagination fuelled by inscriptions or writings or other evidence. The historian’s job, or at least one of them, is to study those texts and images to discover what led to their creation, whether it was a reality or a fiction.

Yes, Bayes’ theorem can help us answer the question of whether certain texts and images reflect a real or an imaginary figure as their source of inspiration. But there is a but. It begins with how we frame our question.

So let’s get back to Paul. In contrast to Jesus, Carrier writes:

Paul … falls into the class of ordinary persons who wrote letters and had effects on history. In ratio, most of such people claimed to exist, actually existed.

So in Carrier’s blog post of nearly ten years ago Jesus was presented as a miracle working, death-defying man-god — a clearly mythical figure — while Paul was, by strikingly mundane contrast, an “ordinary person who wrote letters and had effects on history”.

That starting point is where I have a problem.

No, Paul did not write letters like any “ordinary person”. An “ordinary person” reveals their personality or their ideas through letters. Contrast Paul as a letter writer as summed up by Albert Schweitzer:

The odd thing is that [Pauline scholars] write as if they understood what they were writing about. They do not feel compelled to admit that Paul’s statements taken by themselves are unintelligible, consist of pure paradoxes, and that the point that calls for examination is how far they are thought of by their author as having a real meaning, and could be understood in this light by his readers. They never call attention to the fact that the Apostle always becomes unintelligible just at the moment when he begins to explain something; never give a hint that while we hear the sound of his words the tune of his logic escapes us.

(cited in Hart, 131f)

Carrier referred to an article on Paul by James Tabor and it is worth returning to Tabor’s words in this context:

There are four different “Pauls” in the New Testament, not one, and each is quite distinct from the others. New Testament scholars today are generally agreed on this point.

(Tabor referencing F.C. Baur and more recent scholars such as Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Jerome Murphy-O’Conner)

So which one is “the historical Paul”? We know that the author of Acts most certainly did not consider an “ordinary letter writer” to be the historical Paul.

I could fill several posts pulling out similar statements by scholars testifying either to the obscurity, or to the anything-but-ordinary “incomprehensible genius”, of a figure behind the letters.

Furthermore, on what basis can we assert that Paul “had effects on history”? Does not the evidence indicate that Paul’s letters had been somehow lost or forgotten while the churches grew, and that it was only from the mid second century that the letters were coming to light and being embraced. Christianity was evidently well established quite apart from any memory of Paul by the early second century. That sounds like Paul had little impact on history in the first century. Does not the evidence rather suggest that Paul was a product of second century history?

Another question comes to my mind here: Is it not somewhat hard to understand how a “brilliantly inconsistent” thinker could have had a serious and long-lasting impact on many other persons? A philosopher can be expected to write with a bullet directed point of view. Paul’s many contradictions, non sequiturs and mis-matches are sometimes said to be indications of his febrile genius or simply of an expansive and fluctuating intellect. Maybe that was the case. I wonder how many such persons have dramatic impacts on history, though. (I am open to being better informed here, so leave a comment if you can contribute to this point of discussion.)

Let Bayes be used to test the different options.

Carrier writes,

We can say several things about what are regarded as the six authentic letters of Paul . . .

First, they all cohere in style (idioms of vocabulary, connotation, grammar, punctuation, sentence length). The forged letters do not. They neither cohere with each other (except when produced as a unit, like the Seneca correspondence), nor with the style features of the authentic six. So one person did write those six (even if, as the letters openly state, they also reflected the views of a co-worker whom Paul sometimes names in each case).

No, they do not all cohere in style. I recently posted Harold Hoehner’s demonstration that Galatians has a style quite distinct from other letters attributed to Paul. Douglas Campbell in Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography, reminds readers that Paul’s letters are…

characterized by a remarkable variation in argumentation, structure, and expression. Just Romans and 1 Corinthians, whose authenticity is usually uncontested, when placed side by side, seem to come not infrequently from overtly different places in conceptual terms. Meanwhile, adding only 2 Corinthians and Galatians to the comparison diversifies the overall situation further, creating a fundamental methodological challenge. How are interpreters to supply a unified account of various aspects of Paul himself as his texts strain in multiple directions?

The same scholar addresses the range of stylistic differences that have divided scholars over questions of authenticity of both whole letters and parts of letters. While Campbell seeks to resolve many of these arguments (including with a discussion on computer assisted stylometric analysis), his detailed work is at the same time a reminder that scholars have long been troubled by what they see as a lack of coherence and inconsistency of style in the letters of Paul. Paul may have used a vastly varying range of styles or maybe we should test the idea of multiple authors as the preferred explanation — either way we must explain the lack of coherence in style! It makes no difference to the question of historicity. But let’s adhere to the real state of the evidence.

Carrier’s next claim:

Second, they are stitched together from pieces of other letters. Each full letter named in the New Testament actually contains pieces of several letters, whose full content and original destination are now lost (see OHJ, p. 511). Sometimes so badly connected up as to be nearly unintelligible (e.g. the transition between 1 Cor. 8 and 9: OHJ, pp. 582-83). One does not forge letters that way. Which makes this another good indicator that these are not forgeries. Rather, someone tried to semi-reverently keep an original collection, but just the parts they liked, and assembled them together into a new whole in the most logical way they could. Their meddling after that was small and nitpicking, as the manuscript evidence shows, or blatant and obviously un-Pauline, as some of the interpolations made before 150 A.D. show.

Here Carrier is assuming that a historical Paul wrote the pieces of letters stitched together when in fact that is the question being raised. If we have a “Pauline school” of scribes, with different authors contributing individual perspectives to a whole, we then have a literary corpus not unlike some of the Old Testament works claiming to be by this or that prophet or by Moses himself. Collaborative efforts found ways to accommodate different perspectives up to a point, often stitched somewhat crudely together. This is arguably part of the catholicizing process that we see in other New Testament writings (especially Luke and Acts). So the evidence is open to multiple interpretations.

Next,

Third, they all make arguments and interact persuasively in a context where the Jewish temple was still standing and its cult operating. And in a context where views of Jesus and the Church that appear in the Gospels have not yet come to exist (not even to denounce or counter or rebut, much less use or co-opt or transform). This is very unlikely unless the letters were written before the year 66 A.D. (when the Jewish War began, an event wholly unknown to the author), and before the Gospels were written (which could be as early as 70 or 75 A.D. for Mark).

This is a common point of view but it is not a solid argument. The most basic principle of dating documents is to begin where we have the most certain evidence. That means it is sound method to begin with the middle of the second century for the indisputable existence of the Pauline letters. It is only in that century that we have independent confirmation of the existence of the letters. As we work back we rely more on hypothetical reconstructions. Mark “could be as early as 70” but it could equally be as late as the second century (cf arguments for the influence of Josephus and the abomination of desolation pointing to Hadrian’s time). There are passages in Romans and 1 Thessalonians that make a lot of sense in a context after (even well after) the destruction of the temple and end of its cult. So the historical context is not so clear cut. Similarly for the opponents of Paul that we read about in Galatians and the Corinthian correspondence. Scholars have had to assume the existence of various types of “heresies” for which we have no first century evidence. It is only when we come to the second century that we begin to read evidence for the existence of “false gospels” and some Christians attempting to impose circumcision on believers and the heated controversy over the teachings and authority of Paul vis a vis Jerusalem apostles. The second century does indeed look very much like a potential home for the letters of Paul. I elaborate a little on this point in addressing the next section of Carrier’s argument.

In Carrier’s view,

That third point is important, because the letters explicitly present themselves internally as having been written in the 50s A.D. . . . So the congruence of that fact with their content totally ignoring later existing doctrinal and tradition battles in the Church is very likely if the 50s is indeed when they were written.

I have to disagree. It is in the second century that we find debates over circumcision and whether the law should be obligatory on Christians (one example: Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho), over whether meat sacrificed to idols should be eaten, speaking in tongues (Montanism in Asia Minor from the 150s), questions of celibacy, the competitive status of Paul and the Twelve (Marcionism from the 140s). It is as if Paul’s letters (and the Jerusalem council of Acts 15) had all been forgotten somehow. But how convenient it was that in the midst of those competing claims we find the first evidence of Paul’s letters and, lo and behold, they happened to give decisive — “historical” — answers to such pressing second century questions.

Carrier continues:

Note that letters that don’t speak to a forger’s own time and circumstances, even covertly or obliquely or prophetically, run counter to a forger’s interests; the last thing forgers want to do is work hard to produce a document that is circumstantially obsolete before it is even published.

Circumcision and the requirements of the law were questions in Justin Martyr’s time (mid second century) and Justin had no knowledge of a first century apostolic council to bring to bear on the discussion. The Elchasite “heresy” originated in the early second century (the time of Trajan) and was so significant that it became influential in the subsequent rise of Manichaeism and Islam. The Elchasites taught a “gospel”, a “good news” that required circumcision for believers in Christ (who happened to be a great angel from heaven) and revered certain days and “elements of the world” (water, heaven, earth, bread, oil, salt, wind) — blithely unaware of Paul’s letter to the Galatians that sought to combat the distinctive features of that second century “heresy”.

So I do sympathize with Carrier when he writes:

I can’t even think of a single example of an ancient forger successfully ignoring all the central doctrinal and tradition disputes of their own day merely to produce a convincing period-accurate but thereby contemporarily-irrelevant document. The temptation to support or attack the then-going views (usually by fabricating early support for them, e.g. 2 Peter) is simply too strong, and in fact is the usual motivation for forging documents in the first place.

Very true. But I believe he is mistaken when he adds, “In short, the letters of Paul make no sense in the second century.” On the contrary, the second century is when we find the most relevance for Paul’s letters.

As far as I aware we have no evidence outside the letters themselves (and Acts) for these controversies existing in the first century.

Carrier:

Most Detering-style arguments are based on claiming hundreds of interpolations in these letters that conveniently and circularly support Detering’s conclusions, all based on a series of ad hoc assumptions about the second century history of the Church, when in fact almost everything we know about that is speculation, not established fact. The more assumptions you have to rely on, and the more conveniently complex they are, the lower the prior probability of your thesis. Speculation in, speculation out. Detering does not seem aware of this logical fact. He thus falls into the common trap of all bad historians: any theory you can gerrymander to fit all the evidence must be true. Because look how well it fits! Sorry. Illogical.

I don’t know the evidence on which Carrier bases the above characterization of Detering’s arguments. I have not seen arguments of his that are “based on claiming hundreds of interpolations . . . . and . . . . ad hoc assumptions about the second century history of the Church”. On the contrary, I have seen in Detering’s works an abundance of documented source material from the second, third and fourth centuries that address the state of “the Church”, with varying degrees of reliability, in the second century. I have translated a 270 page essay by Detering on this era and you can make the judgment for yourself. As for the 85 page book Falsified Paul a word search on “interpo” (for interpolation/interpolator…) yields only three hits. Nor should we overlook the undeniable fact that letters and biographies of Paul really were written by forgers in the second century. We have several of those forged letters in the New Testament (the Pastorals, for example). And we know for a fact that there were disputes about what was original in Paul’s letters, what had been cut out by opponents, and so forth. This situation is a fact that any historian must be aware of when examining the evidence.

It is true that the state of the evidence does not often allow a historian to do more than reconstruct “a more plausible scenario” for early Christianity. To that extent there is inevitably a degree of speculation in our reconstructions. The use of Bayes can help us refine the “most plausible” scenario. But when it comes to the question of “how/when/where Paul began”, whether as a historical figure behind the literature or as the literary figure itself, I think at least some “Detering style arguments” are well worth serious consideration.

Campbell, Douglas A. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, 2014.

Carrier, Richard. “The Historicity of Paul the Apostle.” Richard Carrier (blog), June 6, 2015. https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643.

Detering, Hermann. “Die Gegner des Paulus – Judaistenthese 2. Jahrhundert – Radikalkritik,” July 4, 2018. http://radikalkritik.de/die-gegner-des-paulus-judaistenthese-2-jahrhundert. — Translation: The Opponents of Paul: A Second Century Judaizers Thesis

Detering, Hermann. The Falsified Paul: Early Christianity in the Twilight. Journal of Higher Criticism, 2003.

Tabor, James. “The Quest for the Historical Paul.” Biblical Archaeology Society, June 13, 2024. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/the-quest-for-the-historical-paul/

Hart, Patrick. A Prolegomenon to the Study of Paul. Leiden ; Boston: BRILL, 2020.

And with thanks to Chrissy Hansen’s articles alerting me to more works to read and ideas and criticisms to ponder, if not always to agree with.

2024-08-17

What Others have Written About Galatians — A Computer Analysis

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Stylometry

Stylometry is the mathematical analysis of style in writing. Style can come in the form of word choice and vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, grammatical usage, and other factors. People have been looking at the style of the New Testament books for nearly as long as they’ve been in existence. Early Church Fathers, for example, debated over the style of Hebrews and if Paul was the author or not. However, our very limited ability to navigate Koine Greek meant we would have to find another approach to stylometry. This is where computerized stylometry comes into play.

Computerized stylometric analysis of the New Testament goes back to the 1980s with Anthony Kenny’s A Stylometric Study of the New Testament. . . .

Unsurprisingly, stylometry has come a long way since the 1980s. Recently, researchers have been able to be as precise as knowing whether Donald Trump wrote a given tweet or one of his interns did, and identifying J. K. Rowling as the person behind the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

(Britt and Wingo, loc 2823, Kindle)

You can read more about the program (Stylo) used by Britt and Wingo on the New Testament and other early “Church Father” writings at

https://journal.r-project.org/archive/2016/RJ-2016-007/index.html
https://github.com/computationalstylistics
https://computationalstylistics.github.io/publications/stylo

So what did their analysis show about Galatians? Here is a composite image of the results of the program’s analysis of various works. On the left you can see that the program, Stylo, groups modern authors correctly. In the middle image we can see the Stylo results for various ancient authors such as Josephus, Origen, and others. Again, the results are what we would expect: noncontroversial works by Josephus are all grouped together, for example. The third image on the right covers results for some of the New Testament letters. The first two chapters of Galatians are closer in style to the letter of 1 Peter and part of 2 Corinthians. (2 Corinthians is widely thought by scholars to be a stitching together of several letters.)

Galatians

I quote here the commentary by B&W on Galatians. Marcion was the second century leader of a form of Christianity that claimed to have been the true followers of the apostle Paul and that the original twelve apostles had failed to carry on the true message of Jesus. Other “proto-orthodox” Christian leaders accused Marcion of falsifying the letters of Paul and argued that Paul and Peter and the other disciples were all united in their theological outlook. Marcion famously went to Rome with his gospel, bringing with him a large sum of money as a gift. In 144 CE the leaders of the church in Rome rejected Marcion’s gospel and his money.

Galatians is a heavily interpolated text, making a clearer stylometric read difficult. The first two chapters of Galatians seem to be a mishmash of writers attempting to explain Paul’s backstory, including striking parallels to Marcion’s personal story. Throughout the second half of the 2nd century and into the 3rd century there are varying accounts of what the letter said at the time, so we know it was still going through edits quite late. On the other hand, in line with what Tertullian says about Marcion “discovering” the letter, the content in chapters 3-6 tends to align more with Marcionite theology aside from verses scattered here and there which seem to contradict the bulk of the content. Such verses are likely from a later early church editor sometime in the process of the creation of our canonical version of the letter.

What seems most likely is that Galatians 3-6 represents the original content of the letter as drafted by someone in Marcion’s church. This was written prior to the falling out with the Roman church, so likely the late 130s or early 140s. Then, after Marcion is excommunicated, more biographical information is added into Paul primarily in chapters 1 and 2. Significant portions of the content in these chapters seem to reflect Marcion’s experiences, and they are likely projections of Marcion’s biographical information back onto Paul. This would explain why the authors look slightly different but still within the larger branch. It could be the same author at a different time or someone else writing a bit later. Eventually, other church leaders affiliated with the Roman church would add verses throughout the text to try to make Paul more acceptable to their theology.

Regardless, both sections of the text come up in the same general group as 1 Corinthians and the majority of the Romans segments. This indicates that no matter how many hands were initially involved in writing the letter, it was written around the same time and by the general same group as the other two letters. These three letters, along with parts of 2 Corinthians makeup whatever the core Paul character might have been.

(Britt and Wingo, loc 3454-71, Kindle)

Britt, Matthew, and Jaaron Wingo. Christ Before Jesus: Evidence for the Second-Century Origins of Jesus. Cooper & Samuels, 2024.

What Others have Written About Galatians – Harold Hoehner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Paul’s letter to the Galatians has “always” been understood to have been as certainly “Pauline” as his letters to the Romans and Corinthians. Other New Testament epistles (e.g. Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy) have fared less well in the authenticity stakes along with reasons explaining why someone other than Paul wrote them: difference in style and vocabulary, difference in themes and theological perspectives.

Most lay people like me would assume that scholars have rigorously applied the same criteria to all of the New Testament Pauline letters and on that basis have determined that Galatians passes all the tests to qualify as genuine.

But most lay people, me included, would be mistaken. One scholar has taken the trouble to apply the same standards to Galatians as are used to prove the inauthenticity of other epistles and finds that Galatians likewise falls short. Yet, no matter, he still believes Paul wrote Galatians. Criteria are no more than guidelines, after all. They are not immutable laws. Here is what he wrote (with my bolding):

If the criteria used to demonstrate non-Pauline authorship of the disputed Pauline letters were applied to the letter to the Galatians, many issues would arise that would indicate that Galatians should be considered as one of the disputed letters. . . . .

(1) Impersonal Nature: According to Gal. 1:1-2 this letter is addressed to the churches of Galatia. The first thing to notice is that he addresses “churches” which is not found elsewhere in Pauline literature. . . . . This is the only time he addressed churches in the plural. He could have used “to the saints who reside in Galatia,” which would be more traditional Pauline style.

If Paul wrote Galatians, it is interesting to notice that there are no personal greetings to individuals in the various churches of Galatia which seems strange since he had been with them only a short time ago (1:6, 13; 4:13-14).

(Hoefner, 153f)

Than point 2, Language and Style:

It is thought by many that Ephesians has too many unique words to be Pauline. Statistics shows that Ephesians has 2423 words with a total vocabulary of 527 words. When the data from Morgenthaler were put into a database, it is interesting to note that among the 527 words in Ephesians, 35 words appear only in Ephesians within the NT; and another 44 words appear in Ephesians not found elsewhere in Paul’s writings, but they appear elsewhere in the NT. Using the same method, among the 519 words in Galatians, 30 words occur only in Galatians within the NT; and another 55 words occur in Galatians not found elsewhere in Paul, but they occur elsewhere in the NT. . . .

Lincoln notes that Ephesians has not only distinct vocabulary but more importantly it has distinct combination of words or phrases (15 of them) “unique within the Pauline corpus and reflect this letter’s distinctive mode of expression.” Hence, it would indicate that it was not written by Paul. But there are even more expressions in Galatians which are unique within the Pauline corpus. . . . So many unique expressions (20 of them) in such a small book (8% shorter than Ephesians) would seem to argue for a non-Pauline authorship of Galatians.

Further, the frequent use of the prepositions έκ and ύπό in Galatians would point to a non-Pauline authorship of Galatians. . . . .

The style of Galatians differs from Paul’s other letters. In reading the Greek text one becomes aware of disjunctures of logic. For example, the curse in verses 1:8-9 has ended abruptly.24 Then the logic is hard to follow in verses 10-11. It seems that verses 10-11 really go back to verse 1 rather than verse 9. . . .

Curiously, there is no thanksgiving in Galatians. In all the other Pauline letters with the exception of the Pastoral epistles and possibly 2 Corinthians 1:11 (cf. Rom. 1:8; 1 Cor. 1:4,14; Eph. 1:16; Phil. 1:3; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:2; 2 Thess. 1:3; Philm. 4) Paul gives thanks for his addressees. Does this suggest that Galatians was written by the same hand as the Pastorals? . . . .

(p. 155, 161ff, )

Hoehner next turns to “historical considerations“. He contrasts the well-known discrepancies between the Acts narrative of Paul on the one hand and what we read in Galatians on the other. In the latter Paul is at pains to dissociate himself from the Jerusalem apostles. Hoehner reads the works as historical artefacts and believes Acts is to be preferred since its author, Luke, was a close companion of Paul and not likely to have been mistaken. The letter to the Galatians is also at direct odds with Jewish believers, another notion not found in Acts.

Next, there are “theological distinctions“:

First, there is in Galatians an emphasis on grace. The writer explains that if justification were through the law the death of Christ was of no purpose (2:21). Simply stated, the writer states that justification is on the basis of grace by means of faith (2:16-21). However, the writer also maintains that grace can be lost. . . . In the accepted Pauline literature there is no indication of falling from grace.

Second, along with grace there is in Galatians a significant emphasis on faith. The use of the noun “faith” in Galatians is almost twice as frequent per 1000 words (9.85) as in Romans (5.62) . . . .

Third, the law is another prominent subject in Galatians. . . . .

Finally, there is a great emphasis on the Spirit.

On the other hand, the absence of the parousia [return of Christ from heaven] in Galatians is worthy of note.

(p. 166f)

Hoehner notes that other scholars have seen evidence that the author of Galatians appears to have tried to pass himself off as Paul by borrowing from other Pauline epistles:

Gal 6:1 “he that is spiritual”

1 Cor 2:13 “These things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual”

Gal 6:6 “Let him who is taught the word share all good things with him who teaches”

1 Cor 9:7-14 & 2 Cor 11:7-10, 12, 13-18

Gal 6:5-8 ⁵For each one shall bear his own load.⁶Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.

⁷Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. ⁸For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

2 Cor 9:6 “But this I say: He who soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he who soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”

Conclusion:

There are more arguments that could be used to bolster the supposition that Paul did not write Galatians. However, space limitations curtail further development. Certainly not all the arguments are of equal weight. However, these among other arguments are used to demonstrate that the disputed letters were not written by Paul. But interestingly these same arguments are not applied to the Hauptbriefe [= main letters — Romans, 1& 2 Corinthians, Galatians]. Everyone assumes that they are the genuine letters. I remember discussing this over dinner with a NT professor from Germany who accepted pseudepigraphical works of Paul. I suggested that the same authorship criteria should be applied to Galatians as are applied to the disputed books of Paul. He concurred. Another well-known NT scholar sitting next to him said, “Don’t do that, I like Galatians.” I replied, “That is a good existential reason for supporting the Pauline authorship of Galatians.” He saw my point.

What is my actual position? Personally, I think we are using a double standard. We apply these rules to the disputed books of Paul but not to the Hauptbriefe. Those who have attempted to raise the question of authenticity of Galatians have been quickly dismissed and ignored. How dare anyone question the authenticity of Galatians! Furthermore, many arguments used against the authorship of the disputed letters are invalid. Yet, all too often NT scholars use these arguments to demonstrate inauthenticity of the disputed Pauline letters but do not use them on the undisputed letters. . . . Variations can be accounted for due to differences in content and differences in the character and needs of the recipients of the letter. Furthermore, it must be accepted that a creative person such as Paul is not sterile in his expressions; allowances must be made for development in his own thinking. These elements are evident even in his undisputed letters. In addition, it is rather limiting to determine Paul’s style and vocabulary based only on the writings that are canonical. If more of his writings were available, it would be easier to evaluate variances and consistency of vocabulary and style. Content, mood, and recipients all affect the vocabulary and style of an author whether it be in the first or the present century. In fact, repeating the same content in identical or nearly identical circumstances would still produce variances in vocabulary, style, and sentence length. Authors are not machines that duplicate these entities. . . .

Do I think Paul wrote Galatians? Yes. To be sure there are some difficulties, as mentioned above, but they are not insurmountable. May I say in closing that it is much easier to write a paper marshalling arguments for the inauthenticity of a biblical book than defending its authenticity. It is much easier to engage in destructive criticism than constructive criticism. When I do not accept authenticity of a work the burden of proof demanded of me is not as great.

(pp 168f)

I have several problems with the above conclusion. Yes, variations can be accounted for — up to a point. But though authors are “not machines” they are distinct personalities with their own unique, well, “personalities”, like fingerprints, and that includes distinctive modes of verbal expression. There is a limit to the extent to which I can change my style and manner of speaking — and writing. Changing writing style is easier, I suppose, if I take the time to study and work at rephrasing what I have written. But then the task of disguising myself would become more important than what I am wanting to express.

But why take the line that one finds arguments “not insurmountable”? That sounds like there is a preferred default position that should be defended as long as possible. Is that an objective position?

Notice, further, the assumption that in Paul we have a “creative person” who is presumably capable of writing in such a varied manner. Is not this a circular argument — assuming that style and themes that would otherwise indicate a different author can be found within the single person as large as Paul?

The other difficulty I have with the conclusion is the notion that testing a document for authenticity should be considered either “destructive” or “constructive” criticism. That smacks of ideological or apologetic bias. What is wrong, what is “destructive”, about questioning and determining the authenticity of a document? Should not the historian be interested in establishing “the truth” of a matter? Whether a document can be demonstrated to be written by X or Y is surely a good thing in its own right. If it means having to revise traditional beliefs, that is also surely a positive step.

Hoehner, Harold W. “Did Paul Write Galatians?” In History and Exegesis: New Testament Essays in Honor of Dr. E. Earle Ellis for His 80th Birthday, edited by Sang-Won Son, 150–69. New York: T & T Clark, 2006.

2024-08-10

Is there Evidence for Christianity before Constantine? (Or, Some Fundamentals of Doing History)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Is it necessary to have archaeological evidence to be reasonably confident that Christianity in some form existed prior to the fourth century? Some people think so, or at least they claim that the lack of archaeological evidence is reasonable grounds for doubting the existence of Christianity prior to Constantine. Let me explain why I believe that that view arises from a misunderstanding of the nature of evidence and how historical events are reconstructed by historians.

Now it is certainly true that there are clear cut cases where archaeological evidence does nullify written historical narratives. Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the medieval stories of King Arthur, said to have performed his various exploits in late Roman times, are fictions. Similarly, archaeology has overthrown the historicity of the Genesis Patriarchs, the Exodus, the Israelite conquest of Canaan and the vast united kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon.

But what happens when we have no explicit archaeological evidence for a historical narrative? The archaeological evidence that specifically informs us about the conquests of Alexander the Great is virtually nonexistent. We have coins with Alexander’s bust stamped on them but they don’t tell us about his military adventures from Egypt to India. For that information we only have very late (Roman era) written accounts. Fortunately, however, the authors of those histories inform readers that they were drawing upon historical records composed by Alexander’s contemporaries. Further, given the widespread influence of Greek culture and Greek settlements throughout the Levant and Mesopotamia after Alexander’s time, we have good reason to believe that something dramatic happened to give rise to this new situation, and the surviving testimonies of historians who read writings of Alexander’s contemporaries are thus by and large made credible.

Again, we have no archaeological evidence from the fifth century BCE testifying to the historical existence of Plato. There are no surviving manuscripts of Plato’s works from his own time. But we do have scores of later manuscripts that are evidence for an activity of reasonably faithful copying of Plato’s dialogues. We can cross check these writings with manuscripts of copied works of other authors who were evidently contemporaries of Plato. So we again have reasonable grounds for believing in the historical existence and literary productivity of Plato.

But what is the difference between primary and secondary sources? It is on this question that I understand some doubts about pre-Constantinian Christianity arise.

Primary sources are those that clearly belong to the period being investigated. Secondary sources are from times later than the events or persons being studied. One biblical historian whom I have quoted in the past because he wrote at some length on this question is Niels Peter Lemche. Lemche takes readers ‘back to the basics’, in this case to the writings of the “father of modern history”, Leopold von Ranke.

When von Ranke and historians since his time are referring to an acknowledged contemporary source, they indicate first of all that kind of information which can be dated without problems. They also say that the source must physically belong to the period about which it is taken to be firsthand information. A slab of stone with an inscription found in situ, that is, where it was originally placed by the person who erected the stone to commemorate some event of his own day, is without doubt a primary and contemporary source. A description of the same item found in some ancient literary source is, however, not a contemporary source except in the case where it goes back to the same time as the stone inscription. Thus Livy’s description of the Second Punic War is not a contemporary source, as it is removed by about two hundred years from the days of Hannibal and Scipio. Suetonius’s life of August is not a primary source because it is about a hundred years later than the time of August. The Monumentum Ancyranum¹ can, however, be considered a firsthand piece of evidence from this period, since it relies on an official document from the days of August, and was placed on his temple in Ankara shortly after his death.

1. An inscription found on the Temple of August in Ankara, based on an official document authorized in the last year of August’s reign (C.E. 14), partly based, however, on an earlier source, the Res Gestae, and edited before it was published. The inscription has been known since 1555.

Lemche, Niels Peter. The Israelites in History and Tradition. London : Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. p. 22

A Digression on Leopold von Ranke and Positivist History

Now the mention of Ranke has the unfortunate side effect of causing some readers to roll their eyes in despair while complaining, “But von Ranke was a positivist and that kind of history went out of fashion by the middle of the twentieth century.” To those who react that way (and there are a good many biblical scholars who are guilty) I must point out that “positivism” is too often confused with a preoccupation with “getting the facts right”, or with a history that is “all about ‘the facts'”. No, that’s a misunderstanding of positivism.

Positivism in history is an attempt to treat history as a science, as an effort to discover laws of historical processes, as summed up in an earlier reference if mine to Collingwood. The facts are still bedrock.

We have heard of “history wars” in recent times. Historians continue today to research to find “the actual facts” that lie behind various controversial questions. Was there a culpable genocide of Australian aborigines by white settlers throughout the nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries? Facts and evidence lie at the very heart of that debate. Focus on “the facts” is still of first importance. Hewing to facts is not committing the sin of positivism.

But there is another way of understanding “positivist history” and in this second sense Ranke is sometimes upheld as an exemplar. The idea that history can be an objective reconstruction of what “exactly” happened in the past — a fact-based, “objective and true” portrayal of events, especially political events — is another form of history that is no longer practised, generally speaking. Nobody can escape bias of some kind; everybody necessarily perceives events through a particular point of view. Nor are political and military events the totality of human experience: history has branched out into investigating economic, social, cultural, family and personal events.

As for being “completely objective”, the American Civil War is viewed by some historians as a conflict over states rights; by other historians as a conflict over slavery. That does not mean that there is no absolute truth to the question but it does remind us that all events are perceived through our preconceptions and biases. The historian ideally will be aware of their biases and make allowances for them in their research and presentation of their narrative. To support one point of view against another a historian will seek to present more factual evidence on which their point of view rests.

As for Ranke, he is perhaps best known for his famous phrase . . .

To history has been given the function of judging the past, of instructing men for the profit of future years. The present attempt does not aspire to such a lofty undertaking. It merely wants to show how it essentially was (wie es eigentlich gewesen).

From Preface to the First Edition of Histories of the Latin and Germanic Peoples (October 1824), in: Ranke, Leopold von. The Theory and Practice of History. New York, N.Y: Irvington Publishers, 1983. p. 86

Some critics translate the phrase as “how it actually was” and thus present a more “positivist” view of Ranke than others would necessarily warrant.

Today historians are more aware of the inevitable bias or subjectivity of a “point of view” when examining events, and of the impossibility of fully objectively recreating a wholly true account of a past event, but searching out and understanding “the facts” is still paramount in most cases.

Photos of my team teachers from an old school album

In high school I was introduced to history by a couple of teachers who were pioneering a new kind of history-teaching, J. H. Allsopp and H. R. Cowie, authors of the two-volume text Challenge and Response. Students were immersed in a questioning-and-research approach to each historical period, beginning with the French Revolution. The springboard question was derived from the famous historian Arnold Toynbee’s thesis that historical change follows a “law” of civilizations responding to specific challenges. As students we were challenged by a positivist thesis (not that we knew anything about the term ‘positivism’ in those high school years) and taught to question. That was anything but a dry fact-based study of history. When we came to studying Marxism we were introduced to another positivist form of history, a grossly simplified form of Hegel’s theory that a thesis produces an antithesis and out of the ensuing clash of these opposites emerges a synthesis . . . . which in turn becomes a new thesis, and so on. (Hence the theory that the owners of production produce a working class and the resulting clash leads to a classless society.) Especially since the later 1960s historical studies in universities have moved away from the idea that through history historians can discover laws of human behaviour. Historical positivism is “past history” now.

The point is this: Ranke’s fundamental principle is that the facts must first and foremost be determined by sources known to be from the actual time and place of the events being investigated:

But from what sources could this be newly investigated? The foundations of the present writing, the origins of its subject matter, are memoirs, diaries, letters, reports from embassies, and original narratives of eyewitnesses. Other writings were considered only when they seemed either to have been immediately deduced from the former or to equal them through some kind of original information.

Ranke, Leopold von. The Theory and Practice of History. New York, N.Y: Irvington Publishers, 1983. p. 86

That principle is still the foundation of most historical research today. (I am bypassing here discussions relating to postmodernist theories about knowledge and adhering to the same general principles as are applicable in common everyday discourse and courts of law with respect to the value we ascribe to testimonies of various kinds — hearsay, recorded, witnessed, etc.)

Back to the Question: Evidence for Pre-Constantinian Christianity

One proponent of the view that Christianity as we understand the term was a fourth century invention has proposed that historical evidence can be divided into two types:

Primary evidence — which means archaeological evidence, or “real knowledge” from the time in question;
Secondary evidence — which survives only in manuscripts physically dated long after Constantine’s time and is therefore “hypothetical” knowledge”.

Here is where I believe we are getting confused with terminology.

To begin with, notice that in the preceding section we saw that evidence is divided into two kinds:

that which can be dated without problems to the time or event under investigatio
that which is dated after that event.

It is not true that the ONLY kind of evidence that can be dated “without problems to the time or event under investigation” is archaeological evidence. As we saw above, some manuscripts dated long after the time of Alexander the Great or Plato contain information that can be dated “without problems” to the times of Alexander the Great and Plato. Our manuscript evidence is testimony to multiple efforts to copy those texts through the ages.

To contradict this point and argue that the texts were invented in late antiquity or the early middle ages is to meet the “conspiracy theory” fallacy.

Yes, it is theoretically possible that all witnesses, and all knowing associates of such witnesses, who were in any way involved in a cover-up or falsification of the historical record, such as (let’s say) the moon landing, conspired to maintain the public fiction. But life experience leads me to think that such a coherently successful accomplishment among diverse witnesses (or “non-witnesses”) is unlikely. Unless evidence can be produced that suggests that such a widespread agreement across time to falsify the historical record, or data/sources upon which the historical account is produced can be shown to have been fraudulently manipulated, then I think it is reasonable to believe in the existence of Plato as an author of dialogs and in the conquering actions of Alexander the Great.

So where does that leave the evidence for the existence of pre-fourth century Christianity?

Let’s take the Gospel of Mark. We first discover an explicit reference to this work in the writings of Irenaeus, a late second century “church father”. Those who propose a post Constantine origin for this gospel also propose a post Constantine date for the writings attributed to Irenaeus. If we were to accept such an argument we would need to be mindful of all the writings of Irenaeus and imagine a situation where they would be manufactured for nefarious purposes to belong to a time much earlier than that in which they were really written. When one looks at the totality of those writings one would surely conclude that an awful lot of effort was spent on producing such a fraud. But let’s keep it simple and confine ourselves to the Gospel of Mark.

A literary analysis of the Gospel of Mark indicates that it fits well with the first and second Jewish wars (66-70 and 135 CE). Its “little apocalypse” chapter has been dated to either war. Its theological outlook is inconsistent with the Christology of later periods. The same gospel denigrates Peter and the twelve disciples as faithless failures; it presents a Jesus who appears to have become a “son of God” at the moment of his baptism. It is unlikely in the extreme that a fourth century forger who believed in the exaltation of the Twelve Apostles and the pre-existence and inherent divinity of Christ would have written such a gospel. Other gospels followed that evidently sought to “correct” Mark’s flaws.

I think it is safe to conclude that the widely varying presentations of Jesus and the apostles (including Paul) would not have been produced by a single-minded program to make Christianity appear older (back into the second or first centuries) than it actually was. Is it really likely that such a program produced gospels that contradicted the later orthodox christology and the revered place of the apostles and then followed up by composing other gospels that found different ways to correct those evidently earlier efforts?

Dating ancient texts

Now it is certainly not valid to assume that a historical narrative that we read in a text is “true”. We all know the difference between historical fiction and real history and we look for signs that enable us to distinguish the two.

However, to continue with our Gospel of Mark example, we find in this gospel prominent allusions to false christs, crucifixion, destruction of the temple, and so forth — all of which can be found to match the events of the Jewish war from the late first century and right through the time of Trajan and Jewish messianic rebellions and on to the events of the final rebellion under Bar Kochba in the 130s CE. One may well imagine a later author fabricating a text to appear as if it were written in that period, but how could one imagine the same author presenting a view of both Jesus and the apostles that was contradicted by the established church of a much later time?

In this case we find the evidence strongest for a time and place that did not highly esteem the apostles and did not place a strong emphasis on the pre-existent “sonship” of Jesus or the importance of his resurrection appearances. (The latter are absent in the Gospel of Mark.)

The Gospel of Mark is evidently a product of pre-fourth century conditions when Jesus could be made a son of God at his baptism and when the disciples could be depicted as failures. It now belongs to the orthodox canon but it is made safe for orthodoxy by being placed alongside other gospels that “corrected” Mark’s apparent failings.

Real versus Theoretical Knowledge?

I have heard it said that archaeology is “real” evidence and later texts are “theoretical” evidence — implying that evidence derived from stones is superior to that derived from texts found on much later surviving manuscripts.

This is a false dichotomy.

A stone inscription speaking of a person’s exploits tells me nothing unless I first interpret it. Is the person described really a historical person or are they a false image of someone else pretending to be greater than they in fact were? Are the inscribed exploits true or a lie or something in between? Is the inscription a fictional propaganda employing contemporary literary tropes? Note how even a stone inscription must be first “interpreted” before it can be understood:

As with the Hammurapi, Sargon and Idrimi monuments, it is more than style and form that establish the Active qualities of Mesha’s inscription. Literary metaphor also lies behind the use of the name Omri itself. Omri ‘dwelling in Moab’ is not a person doing anything in Transjordan, but an eponym, a literary personification of Israel’s political power and presence. It is clear that the reference to Omri in the Mesha stele is literary, not historical.

Thompson, Thomas L. The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. New York: Basic Books, 1999. p. 13

You may disagree with Thompson’s interpretation but whatever your view you will need to justify your alternative reading – as Thompson does his. Either way, it should be clear that a stone inscription does not automatically give us “pure historical fact”: stone inscriptions need to be interpreted as much as does the text of a manuscript. We cannot say that the former source gives us “real” knowledge while the latter gives us “theoretical” knowledge. Both kinds of data need to be tested for provenance and original meaning.

The information gleaned from a stone inscription is just as much a product of interpretation as is the information we glean from a late surviving manuscript.

Both must be subject to analysis and interpretation before we think we know what they have to tell us.

It is a fallacy to say that we have no “real” knowledge about Christianity prior to the fourth century because we have no pre-fourth century archaeological evidence for Christianity while all our text-based knowledge is “only theoretical”.

What we have, most fundamentally, is raw data. Raw data must be interpreted. It tells us nothing apart from our interpretation of it. Raw data can come from stone monuments and manuscripts alike, whatever their date. (I could cover all of this argument in many pages of text but am hoping for now that the above context makes my point clear.)

Conclusion

In fact I believe we do have archaeological evidence for Christianity before Constantine but in this post I am addressing the claim that manuscript evidence is somehow less “real” than archaeological evidence.

My argument is that all “historical knowledge” is at some level “theoretical” but that fact does not make it any less “real” or “valid” at the same time. I could argue on philosophical and epistemological grounds that newspaper reports and diaries from relevant persons in the last century do not “prove” that Australian aborigines were displaced wholesale, but that would not change the reality of the interpreted evidence from a layman’s — or courtroom juror’s — perspective.

The claim that all of our evidence for Christianity physically post dates the time of Constantine and was actually the creation of scribes from that era and later falls for the same reason other conspiracy theories fall. Yes, of course Christian scribes were “biased” and yes, we do have some evidence that they doctored manuscripts. At the same time, we also have evidence that they preserved and copied texts that were not doctrinally consistent with fourth century orthodoxy. They found ways to preserve “unorthodox” writings without denying their own faith.

Archaeological evidence, when tested, can be securely dated to a particular time in question but the “truth” or otherwise of its inscriptions is just as “real” as are the “truths or otherwise” of text written in ink on manuscripts. All data needs to be tested for authenticity, provenance, context and interpreted. The absence of archaeological evidence from the fifth century BCE testifying to the existence a dialog-writing Plato does not mean our knowledge of Plato is “theoretical” as distinct from “real”, and the same applies to the existence of gospels, epistles and other Christian literature prior to the time of Constantine.

2024-07-24

What Others have Written About Galatians (and Christian Origins) – Rudolf Steck

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

A book that concludes to assign the Epistle to the Galatians and the other main Pauline epistles to the second century requires, more than any other, a few words of introduction. Not that I believe that any preliminary remarks can remove the impression of bewilderment that such an undertaking must initially make on any theological reader, regardless of their direction. However, it is important to me to leave no doubt about the sincerity of my intention, and I hope to achieve this by explaining how I arrived at my view. (Steck’s opening words – translated – of Der Galaterbrief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht nebst kritischen bemerkungen zu den Paulinischen Hauptbriefen, or The Epistle to the Galatians examined for its authenticity along with critical remarks on the main Pauline letters, published in 1888.)

Steck described his university years and his arrival at the firm conclusion that the four main Pauline epistles (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians) expressed the purest thought of earliest Christianity. He had heard of the existence of sceptical views that discounted the authenticity of those letters but ….. in his own (translated) words:

Although I had heard doubts about the authenticity of these epistles, I only received the impression that there were also such oddballs among theologians who had to doubt even the sunniest clarity, and Bruno Bauer appeared to me as an unscientific tendentious writer whose audacity had not shied away from an attack on these most genuine monuments of early Christianity.

Bruno Bauer had such an unsavoury reputation that it took him some time before he was eventually led by circuitous routes to read the words of the devil for himself, and once he had done so….

Only then did I turn to Bruno Bauer’s critique of the Pauline epistles from 1852, which I had previously only known through references. Despite its facile argumentation and often offensive presentation to theological ears, I found in it much that was accurate and previously unnoticed, solidifying my view until it became a full conviction.

A few pages into his first chapter Steck added:

The criticism of Bruno Bauer has so far not been refuted by competent scholars, and although it is of such a nature that no one likes to deal with it, scientific necessity demands a closer examination, even if only to refute it thoroughly.

Ignored, but not refuted. A situation that has by and large continued through to today, unless I am mistaken.

I copy here a translation of Steck’s concluding statement of the findings of the detailed analysis of the preceding five chapters. The formatting is mine:

Consequently, the Epistle to the Galatians must be regarded as

a literary product not of Paul himself, but of the Pauline school,

presupposing the existence of the Epistle to the Romans and the two Epistles to the Corinthians.

Its dependency on these predecessors, particularly on the former, has become evident from a closer consideration of many individual passages, leaving little room for doubt. Of course, if the matter were merely that our epistle repeatedly contains expressions, phrases, entire sentences found in other major Pauline epistles, little would be proven. That can happen and, in itself, is not a sign of inauthenticity. It is quite natural for the same writer to use the same thoughts and sometimes expressions repeatedly as opportunities arise. . . . .

However, the matter is not that simple. The passages in our letter that prompted us to look for parallels in other letters were those

where the context was lacking,

where thought and expression did not seem quite natural,

where one had to ask whether the previous explanations had all remained forced and contrived. . . .

(pp 147f)

In short, obscurities of argument and puzzling loose ends in Galatians are clarified only when we turn (mostly) to Paul’s letter to the Romans. The author of Galatians presupposed a knowledge of the epistle sent to Rome. In Steck’s view, whoever wrote Galatians had either earlier written or certainly read and embraced the Romans tract and the two letters to the Corinthians. The corollary here is that the author further assumes that his primary audience of Galatians will understand his various points because they, too, are familiar with the other epistles. In the earlier chapters of Galatians where “Paul” sets out historical details from the time of his conversion to the time of his meeting with apostles in Jerusalem, the author was seeking to rebut the account in the Acts of the Apostles.

. . . [The author] addresses this letter as the purest expression of his spirit and opinion to the erring communities, a letter from which one should clearly recognize the Apostle’s actual stance towards Judaism. The letter would thus have been written not only long after the fall of the Jewish people and state (4:25) but also after the Acts of the Apostles. Since the latter writing cannot have originated before the beginning of the second century, as its acquaintance with Josephus proves for the Lucan writings in general, the Epistle to the Galatians is to be placed under the reign of Hadrian, and specifically after 120 AD.

(p. 148)

But how could it be so?

This view will undoubtedly be challenged by asserting that it claims the impossible. A letter as fresh and lively as the Epistle to the Galatians bears the stamp of the Pauline spirit too clearly for it to have been composed by a mere imitator. It is a work of a single cast and does not at all give the impression of a patchwork based on other letters. This objection is very understandable, and the perspective on the Epistle to the Galatians that underlies it was also long shared by the author.

. . . . One does not necessarily need to see in him a mere imitator; he could be a Pauline follower with an independent, sharply defined intellectual individuality who knows how to use the catchphrases of early Paulinism in a new, spirited way and to combine individual elements into a new whole. In such questions, one easily forgets that a letter merely attributed to Paul does not necessarily have to be the miserable work of an unoriginal imitator. If a significant, intellectually powerful personality stands behind it, the work will also bear its stamp despite the partial reliance on earlier material.

(p. 150)

In the second part of the book Steck examines all four major Pauline letters since if Galatians is not by Paul then the argument infers that the others are likewise not by a mid-first century author. To begin with, he analyzes the shared material among these four and demonstrates that it is Galatians that drew upon the others, and that Galatians was the last written and Romans the first. Steck then examines the evidence for the Pauline works drawing upon canonical gospel material. The evidence there is not overwhelmingly strong but in Steck’s view it is suggestive. Next, Steck sets forth the evidence for these letters drawing upon a knowledge of the works of pseudepigraphical writings (in particular the late first century/early second century Fourth Book of Ezra), and Philo and Seneca. If we accept the case for the epistles drawing on a knowledge of these works then we must date them to the very late first century at the earliest. Other arguments include overviews of patristic references to the Pauline writings — including the letters of Clement and Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, Justin Martyr, Marcion and other works.

We may even add a knowledge of the Ascension of Isaiah — courtesy of Roger Parvus’s studies.

I may post some of Steck’s evidence in detail in future posts but right now I am still in the process of digesting it all. I need more time to reflect.

I was intrigued to find one part of Steck’s thought running parallel with a certain notion of Christian origins that I had been exploring. Steck confronts the problem of finding an early gentile Christianity in Rome that existed quite independently from the synagogue.

Judaism and Christianity existed entirely separately in Rome at that time. This could not be the case if Roman Christianity had emerged from the synagogue. Thus, we are led to assume that Christianity in Rome emerged very early and somewhat autochthonously. The exclusive use of the Greek language in the Roman community until deep into the second century suggests that the roots of the oldest Roman Christian community lie not in the Jewish, but in the Greek colony of Rome. From this stratum of the population, the Christian doctrine gathered a circle around itself, as indicated in the 16th chapter of Romans, consisting largely of slaves but interspersed with elements reaching into the higher and highest social strata. The “Roman Hellenism,” elevated beyond the ordinary thoughts and pursuits of paganism by the advanced Platonic philosophy represented by Seneca in the Roman capital, had become acquainted with the religious teachings of refined Judaism through the Alexandrian Bible and the writings of Philo. With or without the form of proselytism, it sympathized with Jewish monotheism and its purer moral teachings. This environment became the cradle of the first Christian community in the world’s capital. Just as the Oriental cults of all kinds found fertile ground in Rome—where, according to Tacitus’s bitter expression, “all atrocious and shameful things from everywhere flow together and are celebrated”—so too did Rome become a receptive field for the higher aspirations emanating from philosophy. These aspirations aimed to elevate humanity’s moral consciousness and bring the good and the beautiful closer to realization. Among the driving forces of this new outlook was the belief in the personal realization of the ideal in a living bearer of that ideal. This was parallel to the widespread contemporary religious belief in a helping and saving Savior, as propagated by the cults of Serapis and Asclepius. This belief naturally drew new strength and definition from the messianic prophecies during the study of the Old Testament. Everything was thus prepared, only waiting for the trigger to initiate the realization of these tendencies in a specific community.

(p. 377)

For Steck, that trigger was “the news of the Messiah’s appearance in the East”. (I wonder if a stronger case can be made for the trigger being related to the destruction of “Judaism’s” centre in the 66-70 CE war.)

This trigger would have been the news of the Messiah’s appearance in the East. Here, disregarding chronology, we can almost fully adopt the depiction given at the beginning of the Clementine Homilies. Clement, who had spent his youth in chastity and moderation, had fallen into deep sorrow over the tormenting questions about the origin and destiny of the world and humanity. He turned to philosophy but found no certainty in the conflicting teachings, especially regarding life after death. In this doubtful state, he became aware of news that reached Rome under Emperor Tiberius one spring and kept growing: as if an angel of God were traveling through the world, and God’s plan could no longer remain hidden, the news was that someone had risen in Judea and was preaching the eternal kingdom of God to the Jews, confirming his mission with signs and wonders. This news spread more and more, and already assemblies (συστήματα) were eagerly discussing who the newcomer was and what he wanted. In the autumn of the same year, an unknown man publicly proclaimed: “Men of Rome, hear, the Son of God has appeared in Judea and preaches eternal life to all who are willing to listen, if they act according to the will of the Father who sent him,” and so on. This account in the Clementine romance probably contains more truth than is generally attributed to it. This or a similar scenario must have occurred in the formation of the first Roman Christian community. The news of the Messiah’s appearance spread from the East, found fertile ground in the circles in Rome who were alienated from the world and pursued philosophical ideals, and formed a small Christian community from the Roman population. To this, individuals from the Jewish colony (like Aquila and Priscilla in Acts 18:2) and proselytes may have joined, without affecting the Gentile Christian character of the community. Thus, it would be somewhat like the Reformation—a dual origin of the new religious principle. On one hand, it arose in Palestine through the messianic movement originating from Jesus and his disciples. On the other hand, it was prepared by the development of pagan philosophy and religion in Rome to such an extent that the mere news of the Messiah’s appearance sufficed to bring it to life in the world capital, where it naturally took on a unique character from the beginning and retained it for a long time.

(pp 377ff)

I have been trying to think through how a similar scenario among Jews/Judeans was preparing the way for Christianity but Steck has added a balance to that perspective by reminding us of the evidence for the earliest Christian community in Rome being distinctively gentile in origin. There is certainly much to think through.

Even if this view can only initially present itself as a hypothesis, it is surely worthy of closer examination. At the very least, it easily explains how the Christian community in Rome, at the time Paul arrived, could already be an established and well-founded one, yet not be connected with the Jewish colony there. It then also explains the distinctly Gentile Christian character of the Roman Christian community from the outset, as assumed by the Epistle to the Romans and particularly evidenced by the findings in the catacombs. Moreover, this view sheds new light on the further development of Christianity. If Christianity emerged simultaneously in a dual form—one Jewish Christian and the other Gentile Christian—then this separate existence of the two centers, Jerusalem and Rome, could persist for a time. Eventually, however, as the Christian church continued to grow and unify, these two halves had to merge into one cohesive entity. The integration of the two halves, the Eastern and the Western, could not occur without a transformation process affecting both. The Jewish Christian communities of the East had to abandon their traditions, insofar as these had not already been disrupted by Paul’s activities, for their Christianity to be feasible within the greater church. Conversely, the Gentile Christian communities of the West had to accept certain customs and practices carried over from Judaism if they wished to join the closer fellowship with those communities. Notably, they could not reject a lifestyle aligned with the essential demands of Judaism, as prescribed for proselytes. This process was prefigured by Paul’s historical activities, which first established the connection between the two halves of the Christian population. Accordingly, the process could not unfold easily or naturally; resistance was inevitable on both sides, potentially leading to extremes that pushed the opposition to its peak. This painful but beneficial process of integration is testified by the literature of early Christianity, and specifically, the Pauline letters are symptomatic expressions of the resistance from the more liberal faction in the Roman community against attempts to Judaize them. From the Epistle to the Romans to the Epistle to the Galatians, this conflict escalates to its highest point before subsiding as the extreme demands of the Judaizers fail to prevail, while moderate ones gain acceptance.

(pp 379f)

Steck, Rudolf. Der Galaterbrief Nach Seiner Echtheit Untersucht Nebst Kritischen Bemerkungen Zu Den Paulinischen Hauptbriefen. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1888. http://archive.org/details/dergalaterbriefn0000stec.

English translation is available at The Epistle to the Galatians examined for its authenticity along with critical remarks on the main Pauline letters [PDF – 5 MB, on my vridar.info page]

2024-07-17

What Others have Written About Galatians – Alfred Loisy

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

(La question n’est obscurcie que par le préjugé, très respectable, et que nous respectons infiniment, des interprètes. p.44)

The influential French theologian who was excommunicated by the Pope for his views, Alfred Loisy, concluded that there were two different “Pauls” authoring the main letters attributed to him. The reason Paul’s letters are generally considered “hard to understand” is because they intertwine two incompatible messages of the Christian faith. Loisy acknowledges that scholars of his day — as they still do today — attribute the contradictions to the fervid mind of an enthusiastic genius. But he also points out that if contradictory notions were indeed birthed in the one mind then that one mind would find a way to reconcile them before setting them down in writing.

Two theories of salvation:

The first message is simple, coherent, and supported by a typical rabbinical exegesis of the Jewish Scriptures. All Christians are promised entry into the coming Kingdom of God if they believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and was soon to come again to establish the kingdom of God. Just as God had promised Abraham that his seed (understood by Paul to refer to Christ) would inherit the earth, and just as Abraham believed God, so all who believed in Christ would be made immortal with Abraham in Christ’s kingdom. This message was grounded in a subtle interpretation of the Scriptures: e.g. interpreting the “seed” of Abraham as the single person of Christ despite its otherwise original meaning to refer to multiple descendants. Salvation comes from faith in the promise that God made to Abraham for his believing offspring. Loisy calls this the “eschatological” gospel message. Here the Law in the “Old Testament” is a blessing but not obligatory on those who believe, just as Abraham was justified by his trust in God’s promise before he was circumcised.

The second message was mystical. Abraham did not feature at all. Instead, we begin with Adam who sinned and thereby consigned all of humanity to a state of sinfulness. At the appointed time a “second Adam” came, that is, Christ, who lived a perfect life, died as a sacrifice to make amends for humanity’s sin, and was resurrected, so that all who likewise “died” with him (in the ritual of baptism) and believed in him would also “live anew” with Christ in them — so undoing the sin of Adam and offering salvation to all. Salvation comes from faith that Christ has redeemed the believer from sin. In this mystical gospel the Law found in the “Old Testament” is a curse.

For Loisy, the original letters expressed the simple and coherent eschatological message of salvation. At some point another hand had attempted to qualify and redirect that message by adding the message of the mystical gospel. This second hand preceded that of the famous arch “heretic” of the second century, Marcion. A few years ago I had asked Roger Parvus to post his investigations into the origins of the Pauline epistles on this blog and he, influenced by Loisy, also concluded that the changes to the letters were made before Marcion. (Contrast the view of Loisy’s contemporary, Joseph Turmel — discussed earlier — who saw Marcion as the primary redactor of Paul’s letters.)

Two theories of salvation are revealed to us in the body of the Epistle to the Romans; however, only one of the two authors can be easily defined. This author evokes with a profound sense of his Israelite origin and his love for his people the promise made to Abraham, which currently benefits both Gentiles and Jews. Regarding the mystical personality that opposes Paul of the eschatological theory or assimilates him to transform him into the unique apostle of the mystery, we have found barely any trace. It seems that the mystical theory initially existed independently and was later adjusted as a corrective to the eschatological theory by a disciple of its first author. However, a mystical Paul appears elsewhere, notably in the Epistle to the Galatians and in some main parts of the two Epistles to the Corinthians, where he not only titles himself the apostle of the mystery but also proclaims himself the unique apostle of this mystery of salvation, which would be the only true Gospel. (Loisy, 33 — translation)

If Loisy’s analysis is correct and the early epistles of Paul that we have in our Bibles are the product of at least two hands, each arguing for a different gospel or message of salvation, then the following implications follow for our reading of the first chapters of Galatians.

The Paul who wrote the first draft of the letters was teaching the common message being spread by other apostles of the earliest “Christian church”. However, the mystic Paul who deemed himself to be the uniquely called apostle of the only true gospel and owed nothing to any of the other leaders of the Jesus followers wrote in Galatians 1:

¹¹I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. ¹² I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. . . .

¹⁵But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased ¹⁶to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. ¹⁷I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

A “proto-orthodox” devotee of Paul saw the danger of allowing that passage to stand without qualification so he added — with a strident declaration that he was not lying! — the following words to remind readers that Paul was indeed submissive to, or at least on a par with, the other apostles, just as we read in Acts:

¹⁸Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. ¹⁹I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. ²⁰I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

The second Galatians chapter as we have it is another mix of two Pauline accounts. In Acts 15, which Loisy sees as essentially historical on this point, Paul was sent to Jerusalem with others to discuss and decide whether gentile converts should be circumcised. The “mystical Paul”, on the other hand, added to the letter to the Galatians that he did not go to Jerusalem at the behest of others but went up because of a divine revelation. The same mystical Paul forgot that the only reason for the Jerusalem meeting was to nut out the question of circumcision and immediately made a point, otherwise inappropriately, that he “presented his gospel” to the Jerusalem leaders. A more “historical Paul” added that he did so as an act of acknowledgement of the authority of the Jerusalem apostles. Galatians 2:

¹Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. ²I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. ³Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. ⁴This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. ⁵We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

⁶As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. ⁷On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. ⁸For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. ⁹James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.

The mystical Paul has added here a quite unrealistic scenario. It would have been quite impossible for such a neat division of audiences between Cephas/Peter and Paul. The gospel was always preached initially to both Jews and gentile attendees in the synagogues. Loisy adds that at the time of the Jerusalem council (mid 40s CE) there were no “super apostles”. That status was a later (second century) memory projected back into earlier times.

What is not natural, what is historically inconceivable, what is a pure fiction imagined long after the origins, is the very division of humanity to be converted. Never, during his lifetime, was Paul the unique Apostle, charged by Christ, to provide for the evangelization of the Gentiles. Never did Peter and the Twelve consider themselves the sole authorized missionaries to Judaism, especially since most of them probably never were missionaries. The conditions of Christian preaching in apostolic times are well known: the Gospel was not first offered to the pagan world as such; it could not be, it was first offered within the Jewish world of the Dispersion; but the Christian preaching reached, at the same time as the Jews, the pagan clientele of the synagogues, the proselytes and half-proselytes that the synagogues gathered around them throughout the Roman Empire. It is certain, not only from the consistent account in Acts but also from the Epistles as they echo Paul’s personal ministry, that he, in every locality where he brought the Gospel, spoke first in the synagogues, and consequently addressed the Jews, and when he was no longer tolerated in the synagogues, settled nearby, continuing to attract both Jews and proselytes indiscriminately. In Jerusalem in 44, there could not have been a division of the world between two apostolates, and the fiction could only have been conceived at quite a distance, invented to characterize two legendary figures for the sake of a controversy. The issue that could have been and was dealt with in the Jerusalem assembly was that of legal observances, which our author seems almost uninterested in, because, in reality, he is focused on something entirely different. Thus, the only difficulty in our current problem is to historically situate the mystical Paul. Identifying him outright with Marcion or one of his followers is a drastic solution, since the mystical Paul is not Marcionite. On the other hand, the historical Paul, much to the dismay of champions of authenticity, would have been the blindest of polemicists, the most notorious liar, or the most insane of fools if he had spoken the language attributed to him by his spokesperson. One only has to look at the text to realize this. The issue is only obscured by the very respectable prejudice of the interpreters, which we infinitely respect. (43f – translation)

Loisy, A. Remarques sur La Littérature Épistolaire Du Nouveau Testament. Librairie Emile Nourry, 1935.

2024-07-09

What Others have Written About Galatians – Pierson and Naber

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

I have copied here a translation from an 1886 publication of …

… two researchers from different fields of knowledge …. A. Pierson is the theologian …, whose work has made him known as an astute and fearless critic …. S. A. Naber, on the other hand, is a philologist and thus offers a guarantee of complete impartiality. The work therefore also claims to have brought the truth to light along a path that has hitherto been almost untrodden. The motto taken from Galen, which compares ordinary exegetes with those quacks who triumphantly cure a sick patient suffering from dropsy, reveals the opinion that the authors have of the exegesis of the New Testament to date. Why are there so many obscure passages in the New Testament which, despite all attempts at explanation, have only become more and more incomprehensible and where the work of the exegetes, instead of removing the difficulties, has only piled up new ones? The answer to this question is: because the New Testament consists of writings which are not homogeneous in themselves, but represent a basic text which has been revised and interpolated many times. (Steck, 18 — translation)

The original publication, Verisimilia, is in Latin. As per my original intent to address only the first two chapters of Galatians I post here only as much as is directly relevant — again with all bolded highlighting being my own. I have added text boxes with the relevant passages (Young’s Literal Translation) from Galatians for easy reference. (Some text references might not align correctly, presumably misprints, but the contents of the text boxes should make the argument followable.) —– One more note: Pierson and Nabor refer to “Bishop Paul” in order to identify the author of various interpolations into an originally thoroughly Jewish document as belonging to the later “episcopal age” of the church.

This epistle consists of two parts: one historical (1:1–2:14) and the other dogmatic and paraenetic (2:14–6:18). The transition from the former part to the latter is made through verse 2:14, the first part of which is historical and the latter part dogmatic. More will be said about this below.

The fact that the part we have called historical is beset by such grave difficulties should not seem surprising to us; for the things recounted in it reveal a varied origin and are mixed and confused in remarkable ways. We believe we will be able to show that these accounts are not to be attributed to a single writer, as they contain diverse and plainly contradictory statements about himself. We will compile in one place what we have observed about this matter.

He denies that there are two Gospels (1:9) and writes that the Gospel he opposes is not different from his own.

⁶I wonder that ye are so quickly removed from Him who did call you in the grace of Christ to another good news; ⁷that is not another, except there be certain who are troubling you, and wishing to pervert the good news of the Christ; ⁸but even if we or a messenger out of heaven may proclaim good news to you different from what we did proclaim to you — anathema let him be! ⁹as we have said before, and now say again, If any one to you may proclaim good news different from what ye did receive — anathema let him be!

He solemnly curses others (1:8); then, as those who give advice and exhortation in a kindly manner often do, he repeats what he had once said, although saying it once was entirely sufficient.

He does not wish to please other men (1:10), but his disciples will judge whether he has achieved this in his ministry (2:2: μήπως εἰς κενὸν τρέχω).

¹⁰for now men do I persuade, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if yet men I did please — Christ’s servant I should not be. . . .

2²and I went up by revelation, and did submit to them the good news that I preach among the nations, and privately to those esteemed, lest in vain I might run or did run (μήπως εἰς κενὸν τρέχω)

He was set apart from his mother’s womb and called by God’s grace (1:15) and until manhood advanced in Judaism and persecuted and attacked the Church of God.

He speaks of Jesus as if he were an image or leaven that had long been hidden in the heart (1:16: εν εμοι) and likewise speaks of Jesus as if he were a mortal man, whose brother he even knew (1:19). Continue reading “What Others have Written About Galatians – Pierson and Naber”

2024-07-07

What Others have Written About Galatians – J. C. O’Neill

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The fact that a century of such patient and devoted scholarship has yielded so few agreements on difficult passages and fundamental issues makes me think that the nineteenth-century debate is not yet over. (O’Neill, 8f)

John Cochrane O’Neill had a reputation for being a controversial critic but his attempt to sift through the many variant manuscripts (and to resolve the remaining inconsistencies even when those sources agree) was driven by a desire to “get to the truth about Paul”. O’Neill was not afraid to engage with that earlier “unmentionable” critic among theological circles, Bruno Bauer. Contrary to Bauer’s view, however, O’Neill viewed the interpolator or glossator of the epistle to the Galatians as a person who respected Paul and wanted to expand the original text in ways that did honour to Paul:

[Bruno Bauer] … argued that the epistle could not have been written by Paul to the congregations to which it purported to be addressed, and that all the ideas and most of the expressions were clumsily derived from Romans and the Corinthian correspondence—indeed, could often only be understood if one knew the original setting. The author of Galatians was, in short, a compiler.

Apart from a brief introduction, the whole part devoted to Galatians— seventy-four pages— is packed with precise, well-argued exegetical observations. The only general weakness in his argument is that no compiler would have made such a bad job of compilation as this author seems to have done; a compiler is more likely to have produced a smooth and understandable epistle than this. The more Bauer vents his sarcasm on the compiler for clumsiness in using his sources, the less likely does he make the hypothesis that a compiler was at work. (O’Neill, 4 — bolded highlighting is mine in all quotations)

O’Neill turns the obscurities in Galatians into evidence for the fundamental authenticity of the epistle:

How are we to explain that Paul was an independent apostle, who yet thought he should have his preaching approved in Jerusalem; that the Jerusalem leaders, James, Cephas, and John, solemnly agreed to approve his special work, and yet Cephas was able to act in such a way that Paul had to call him to book publicly at Antioch? The obscurity of the situation as it is presented in Galatians has given a foothold to those who wish to deny completely the authenticity of the book, but it remains an obscurity that is as good a guarantee as any of authenticity, for what falsifier would be so implausible and obscure?

I shall suggest that some of the difficulties have arisen because glossators tried to explain difficulties and fill in details. But, however much the picture has been retouched and repainted, the strong master-strokes have not been completely obscured, and on these we must fix our eyes. They may not fit our preconceptions, but nor do they fit the conceptions of the second-century Church. I think that the clue to the strange relations between Paul and the Jerusalem leaders has been given by the Danish New Testament scholar, Johannes Munck (1904-65). He argued that the Jerusalem leaders and Paul agreed that the conversion of the Gentiles, as well as the conversion of the Jews, was part of God’s plan for the world; they differed about strategy, the Jerusalem leaders holding that the Gentiles would come in when Israel had responded, and Paul holding that the conversion of the Gentiles might well have to ‘precede that of the Jews. Munck’s exegesis of Galatians I do not find satisfactory, but his insistence that Paul and the Jerusalem leaders could agree that there were two different and distinct missions to be carried out alongside one another provides the key to the relationships at the centre of the epistle. (9f)

Each of us may have our own ways of responding to the argument that I have highlighted with yellow background.

O’Neill is far from dogmatic about his proposed interpolations and glosses and makes no secret of his motive:

I cannot hope to have been completely right at every point in assigning this verse to Paul, and that to a glossator, and the other to an interpolator . . .

I hope [that] an historical study that removes obscurities and explains the meaning of the words will help to clear the way for a fresh conviction that Paul was in fact an apostle of the Son of God. (10, 13)

Following are the main points of O’Neill’s analysis of Galatians 1 and 2. I have added the table format and text of Galatians alongside O’Neill’s arguments or references to them.

Galatians 1-2 with passages O’Neill considers additions to the original epistle crossed through.	References to O’Neill’s discussion that is available publicly on archive.org. I have copied quotations that I think will be of most interest to readers.
1 Paul, an apostle — not from men, ~~nor through man~~, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who did raise him out of the dead — 2 and all the brethren with me, to the assemblies of Galatia: 3 Grace to you, and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ,	Explanation on page 19
4 who did give himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of the present ~~evil~~ age, according to the will of God even our Father, 5 to whom [is] the glory to the ages of the ages. Amen	Explanation on pages 19f
6 I wonder that ye are so quickly removed ~~from Him who did call you in the grace of Christ~~ to another good news;	He could hardly mean that the defection or threatened defection of the Galatians from his teaching, serious as it was, was complete defection from God. He regarded Jews who failed to acknowledge Jesus Christ as still worshipping God, even if they did not wholly obey him (Rom. 10.2; cf. 9-4f). Bruno Bauer adduced the idea that defection from Paul’s position was defection from God as evidence that the true author of Galatians was far removed from the time and circumstances of Paul.1 I cite in support of the possibility that Paul here refers to his own preaching the sentence in Gal. 5.8: ἡ πεισμονὴ οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦντος ὑμᾶς [=This persuasion is not from him who calls you] where it is possible that Paul referred to himself. If Paul had meant in 1.6 that the Galatians were defecting from God, he would hardly have called that to which they were defecting εὐαγγέλιον, in however qualified a sense. (21)
7 that is not ~~another~~, except there be certain who are troubling you, and wishing to pervert the good news of the Christ;	Explanation on pages 20f Verses 6 and 7 as amended may be paraphrased like this. “I marvel that you are changing over so quickly to some other good news—which is not really good news at all. I would marvel, had there not been people who are disturbing you and wanting to pervert the good news of Christ.”
8 but even if we or a messenger out of heaven may proclaim good news to you different from what we did proclaim to you — anathema let him be! 9 as we have said before, and now say again, If any one to you may proclaim good news different from what ye did receive — anathema let him be!
10 for now men do I persuade, ~~or God~~? or do I seek to please men? for if yet men I did please — Christ’s servant I should not be.	Explanation on pages 23f
13 for ye did hear of my behaviour once in Judaism, that exceedingly I was persecuting the assembly of God, and wasting it, 14 and I was advancing in Judaism ~~above many equals in age in mine own race, being more abundantly zealous of my fathers’ deliverances,~~ 15 and when God was well pleased — having separated me from the womb of my mother, and having called [me] through His grace — 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might proclaim him good news among the nations, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem unto those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia, and again returned to Damascus, 18 then, after three years I went up to Jerusalem to enquire about Peter, and remained with him fifteen days, 19 and other of the apostles I did not see, except James, the brother of the Lord. 20 And the things that I write to you, lo, before God — I lie not; 21 then I came to the regions of Syria and of Cilicia, 22 and was unknown by face to the assemblies of Judea, that [are] in Christ, 23 and only they were hearing, that `he who is persecuting us then, doth now proclaim good news — the faith that then he was wasting;’ 24 and they were glorifying God in me.	These verses have been interpolated into Paul’s argument by a later writer who wished to glorify the apostle. The argument is irrelevant and anachronistic, the concepts differ from Paul’s concepts, and the vocabulary and style are not his. . . . . The interpolation is anachronistic because it regards Judaism as an entity distinct from Christianity. Jews at the time used the term ’Ιουδαϊσμος to describe their faith in opposition to heathenism (2 Macc. 2.21; 8.1; 14.38; 4 Macc. 4.26; synagogue inscription in Frey, C.I.J. I.694), but the use of the term in a Christian context seems to imply that Christianity is a system completely distinct from Judaism. Paul was well aware of the tragic gulf that had opened up between those Jews who believed in Jesus Christ and those who refused to believe, but he still held fast to the fact that “theirs were the fathers” (Rom. 9.5), that the fathers of those who believed in Christ were also the fathers of the unbelieving Jews. But this interpolation speaks in the terms to be found in the Apostolic Fathers of the second century, when Judaism had become a foreign entity (Ignatius Magn. 8.1; 10.3; Philad. 6.1). The concepts employed are rarely found in Paul, or are entirely absent. In verse 23 πίστις [=pistis/faith] is used of the Christian religion, as in Acts 6.7, and the only possible parallels in Paul are at 3.23-5, 6.10, and Rom. 1.5, all passages that are of doubtful authenticity. . . . Because he was employing old traditions, the interpolator did not regard his additions as illegitimate. He saw himself as enriching a treasured epistle by an edifying reminiscence of the conversion of St Paul, which could appropriately be put onto his lips. (pp 24-27)
2,1 Then, after fourteen years again I went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, having taken with me also Titus; 2 and I went up by revelation, and did submit ~~to them~~ the good news that I preach	The verse should then be translated, “But I went up in obedience to revelation, and I submitted the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles, but to the authorities in private, lest I be running or had run in vain”. . . . The commentators who . . . take it to refer to the apostle’s fear, try to avoid the implication that Paul himself is afraid of anything. They suppose that the words “must be taken to express his fear lest the Judaic Christians, by insisting on the Mosaic ritual, might thwart his past and present endeavours to establish a Church on a liberal basis” (Lightfoot). This strained interpretation is required because the commentators relate the last clause to the very act of submitting the gospel, but the reading I have adopted relates the last clause to the privacy of the consultation. The apostle submitted the gospel privately, in case he was running in vain. The tortuous interpretation cited from Lightfoot, and followed by most commentators, seems necessary in order to avoid a blank denial of all that Paul has been insisting on in the first chapter of the epistle. If his commission was given by God and if he made no attempt to please men, he could not have admitted to asking the Jerusalem leaders to tell him whether or not he was in the right. Yet we cannot deny that the whole of this second chapter of the epistle portrays the Jerusalem leaders as authorities exercising a quasi-judicial power. As Lightfoot shrewdly notes, to his own discomfort, the natural drift of verse 2 is “slightly favoured by οὐδέν προσανέθεντο [=nothing added], ver. 6”. . . . . But what can be the point of submitting to the judgement of the Jerusalem apostles if the judgement did not concern the very thing that Paul has insisted in chapter 1 was beyond human judgement, his preaching to the Gentiles? What else can the Jerusalem apostles be deciding than that Paul has been right or wrong from the very beginning? They were deciding, I believe, no such general issue, but simply the concrete particular issue whether they, as the leaders of Israel that had acknowledged her Messiah, would accept the Gentiles who had also acknowledged Jesus as Messiah, but without becoming proselytes, as the firstfruits of the obedience of the Gentiles which had been promised. Had they decided not to accept Paul’s work, Paul would have known that his race had been in vain. This would have been a staggering blow to him, meaning that Israel was not yet ready to accept one of the promised messianic signs, but the blow could not strike at his personal commission from God. Paul deliberately sought private audience so that, if the authorities were not yet ready to accept the Gentiles, the refusal would not have been public, and Paul would not have had to labour against the disappointment the Gentile Christians would have inevitably suffered at their first rebuff. He would have continued to work for a response from the Gentiles, and he would have continued to hope for an acceptance of these Gentiles by the representatives of Israel, the leaders in Jerusalem. What was the content of this commission, which hitherto we have described generally as the commission to preach to the Gentiles? We must now be more precise. The commission was to preach Jesus Christ to the Gentiles without at the same time asking that they become Jews. That commission Paul could never give up to please men, but at the same time that commission had to be carried out, had to be submitted to the test of history, and could have proved, for the time being, fruitless. The first test was successful, and the Gentiles began to believe. The second test might have been unsuccessful, but it too succeeded. The representatives of Israel acknowledged Paul’s work, did not compel Titus to be circumcised, and laid no conditions … on the Gentile congregations through Paul their representative. (28ff)
3 but not even ~~Titus~~, [instead, “my companion”] who [is] with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised —	It is easy to see how the name could have been added to the text. The original may well have been, … “But not even my companion, who is a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised” . Explanation on pages 30ff
4 and [that] because [~~even~~] of the false brethren brought in unawares, who did come in privily to spy out our liberty that we have in Christ Jesus, that us they might bring under bondage, 5 ~~to whom~~ not even for an hour we gave place by subjection, ~~that the truth of the good news might remain to you~~. 6 And [~~now~~] from those who were esteemed to be something — whatever they were then, it maketh no difference to me — the face of man God accepteth not, for — to me those esteemed did add nothing,	Without the particle, the whole phrase goes easily with the preceding verb: “for not even my companion who was a Greek was compelled to be circumcised on account of the false intruding1 brothers who came in to spy out the freedom we have in Christ Jesus” . The intruders must have been intruders into the church at Antioch, otherwise we should have to suppose, on the previous argument, that they managed to penetrate into the private meeting between Paul, Barnabas, and Titus with the “pillars” in Jerusalem. But then there would be nothing to “spy out” ; the meeting was openly concerned with the issue. This description of the false brothers must apply to their activities away in the churches from which Paul has come. The sense of verses 3 and 4 is that the pressure brought by these agitators was not sufficient to lead even to the requirement that a Greek received by the Jerusalem congregation be circumcised, much less that Greeks in a Greek environment be circumcised. (32f) The original text of 2:3-6 O’Neill conjectures as follows: Not even the one who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, because those who came in unawares, to spy out our liberty that we have in Christ Jesus, that us they might bring under bondage. Not for an hour did we yield in subjection. Of those esteemed to be something, whatever they were then, it maketh no difference to me — the face of man God accepteth not, for — to me those esteemed did add nothing… Explanation on pages 33-36
7 but, on the contrary, having seen that I have been entrusted with the good news of the uncircumcision, ~~as Peter with [that] of the circumcision~~, 8 for He who did work with ~~Peter~~ to the apostleship ~~of the circumcision~~, did work also in me in regard to the nations, 9 and having known the grace that was given to me, James, and Cephas, and John, who were esteemed to be pillars, a right hand of fellowship they did give to me, and to Barnabas, that we to the nations, and they to the circumcision [may go], 10 only, of the poor that we should be mindful, which also I was diligent — this very thing — to do. 11 And when Peter came to Antioch, to the face I stood up against him, because he was blameworthy, 12 for before the coming ~~of certain~~ from James, with the nations he was eating, and when ~~they came~~, he was withdrawing and separating himself, fearing those of the circumcision, 13 and dissemble with him also did the other Jews, so that also Barnabas was carried away by their dissimulation. 14 But when I saw that they are not walking uprightly to the truth of the good news, I said to Peter before all, `If thou, being a Jew, in ~~the manner of the nations~~ dost live, and not in the manner of the Jews, how the nations dost thou compel to Judaize? 15 we by nature Jews, and not sinners of the nations, 16 having known also that a man is not declared righteous by works of law, if not through the faith of Jesus Christ, also we in Christ Jesus did believe, that we might be declared righteous by the faith of Christ, and not by works of law, wherefore declared righteous by works of law shall be no flesh.’ 17 ~~And if, seeking to be declared righteous in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, [is] then Christ a ministrant of sin? let it not be!~~ 18 for if the things I threw down, these again I build up, a transgressor I set myself forth; 19 for I through law, did die, that to God I may live; 20 with Christ I have been crucified, and ~~live no more do I, and Christ doth live in me~~; and that which I now live in the flesh — in the faith I live ~~of the Son~~ of God, who did love me and did give himself for me; 21 I do not make void the grace of God, for if righteousness [be] through law — then Christ died in vain.	Explanation on pages 37 to 46 Paul shows that he was not afraid to stand up to Cephas— whose authority as one of the “pillars” he has already acknowledged—in order to show Cephas that he was a transgressor. How much more should the Galatians stand up to men without any such authority who try to persuade the Gentiles to give up their status as the Gentile part of God’s economy in the messianic age. (44) . . . . The first sentence in verse 20 has a different view of the life of a Christian from that expressed in the rest of verse 20 and in verse 21. The ego dies to be replaced by Christ, and the Christian man is substantially changed. In the rest of the verse, on the other hand, the Christian man undergoes not a change in substance but a change in the centre of his trust. The death he went through did not change his nature but changed his allegiance. He still lives in the flesh, expecting death and resurrection with Christ. I conclude that the first sentence of verse 20 is a perfectly understandable gloss on Paul’s argument. Paul’s mention of death could not but suggest to a theologian living in the Hellenistic world the mystical change of nature whereby an initiate was incorporated into the divine life and deified. Compare the prayer to Hermes, “ Come to me Lord Hermes, as babies to women’s wombs . . . I know you, Hermes, and you know me. I am you and you are I.” (45f)

O’Neill, John Cochrane. The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. London: S.P.C.K., 1972.

2024-07-06

Dying and Rising Gods? Scholars are Divided

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Some argue….

Some argue that it is misleading to speak of “dying and rising gods.”⁶⁵ Greece (Eleusis) and the East did know of dying gods; there were always two, usually an older female goddess and a younger male partner who dies. The older female mourns, and death is partially abolished, but Gerd Theissen argues that there is never a real resurrection.⁶⁶ Osiris is killed violently, struck or drowned by his brother Set, then cut to pieces. The overcoming of death is not resurrection: Osiris rules as king of the underworld. The ritual around the fate of dying deities is lamentation: cult members join the female deity in mourning the loss of the partner deity. Cult members do not experience the death themselves but lament it. Other scholars argue that . . . .

Balch, David L. “The Suffering of Isis/Io and Paul’s Portrait of Christ Crucified (Gal. 3:1): Frescoes in Pompeian and Roman Houses and in the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.” The Journal of Religion 83, no. 1 (2003): 49.

So what do the #65 and #66 cited sources say?

⁶⁵ Gerd Theissen, The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), pp. 58-59.

It is certainly true that in antiquity we find belief in dying gods. Here there are always two gods: an older female deity and a younger partner deity, usually a male partner. The younger partner deity suffers death. The older one mourns this. In the conflict between life and death, death is partly abolished – but there is never a real resurrection.¹⁹

The following survey shows that most of these deities come from the East.²⁰ Only in Eleusis do we find a genuinely Greek cult:

Original area of dissemination Older female deity Younger partner deity

Eleusis Demeter Persephone

Mesopotamia Ishtar Tammuz

Ugarit Anath Baal

Phoenicia Cybele Attis

Phrygia Cybele Attis

Egypt Isis Osiris

In the Greek view the gods are really immortal. They live at a distance from death. But the myth which underlies the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries shows that even the world of the gods is not spared the intervention of death. That is even more true of the Eastern gods. The intervention of death is described in different ways. In the first three cases, with Persephone, Tammuz and Baal, the young partner deity is carried off into the underworld and kept there. In the last three cases the deity is killed violently: Osiris is struck or drowned by his brother Seth and then cut in pieces. Attis castrates himself and dies. Adonis is killed by a wild boar. The overcoming of death is not resurrection. Osiris rules as king of the world of the dead. Persephone has to spend four months of the year in the underworld. The corpse of Attis does not decay. Flowers rise from the blood of Adonis. It is therefore misleading to talk of ‘dying and rising gods’. There are dying gods who wrest some ‘life’ from death by compromises.

Only some of these deities were worshipped in mystery cults, i.e. in cults which were not celebrated in public but into which individuals had to be initiated. Thus there were mysteries of Demeter, Cybele and Isis. At best one could see an analogy to Christian baptism as a dying with Christ in these initiation rites. But that would be to overlook an important difference: the festivals (whether public festivals or ‘private’ mysteries) in which the fate of the dying deities is celebrated are all associated with rites of lamentation; the adherents of the deity join the older female deity in mourning the loss of the partner deity. The adherents thus do not experience the death themselves, but lament it. They identify more with the older, mourning, deity than with the younger, dying, deity, even if there are also the beginnings of the latter identification.

19. For the following remarks cf. above all Dieter Zeller, ‘Die Mysterienkulte und die paulinische Soteriologie (Rom 6, 1-11). Eine Fallstudie zum Synkretismus im Neuen Testament’, in Hermann P. Siler (ed.), Suchhewegungen. Synkretismus kulturelle Identität und kirchliches Bekenntnis, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1991, 42-6.

20. The table of different partner deities reproduced below comes from Dieter Zeller, Christus unter den Göttern. Zum antiken Umfeld des Christusglaubens, Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1993, 42. There is more information about the individual cults in Hans-Josef Klauck, Die religiose Umwelt des Urchristentums I. Stadt- und Hausreligion, Mysterienkulte, Volksglaube, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne: Kohlhammer 1995, 77-128.

(Theissen 58f)

⁶⁶ Theissen, p. 58, citing Dieter Zeller . . . . See also A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1987); Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 23, 27, 87, 99-101. See Frederick Brenk, review of Ancient Mystery Cults, by Walter Burkert, Gnomon 61 (1989): 289-92.

The question with which we started out, the possibility of influence of the ideas of the mysteries upon Christian ideas about resurrection led us to steer a hazardous course between the Scylla of so tight a definition of ‘resurrection’ that some Christian accounts of the phenomenon of Christ’s resurrection would be excluded, and the Charybdis of overlooking fundamental differences of substance between various myths and the Christian story. . . .

But once a deity is seen as a symbol of, for instance, the natural cycle of vegetation, or perhaps even came into being as a symbol of that cycle, then it would seem appropriate to speak of that deity’s death and resurrection. But is it? A number of scholars have insisted that it is far more appropriate to speak of the deity’s return. That point may be granted; the vegetation deity returns only to die again; it does not effect any final victory over death, at least not qua vegetation deity, although it may as a god of the dead or a solar deity. Nor, in the Graeco-Roman world, did its devotees see their own destinies in terms of resurrection. . . .

It is when Christians came to express in their own terms the beliefs of non-Christians that we find the tendency to describe those beliefs as including the resurrection of the deity or of his devotees. Now it is true that this means that they saw in those beliefs at least a superficial similarity to their own. But that need not mean that the similarity was anything more than superficial. It is quite another thing to suggest that those beliefs somehow generated the Christian ones. Had the dominant Christian claim been, for instance, one to the effect that Jesus had ascended, had been snatched up to heaven, either pagan (or indeed Jewish) beliefs could have been adduced as possibly influential in the formation of the Christian belief, but ‘resurrection’ is another matter and it is this that is the dominant expression of Christian beliefs about Jesus and also of Christians’ beliefs about their own destiny.

(Wedderburn, 208, 209, 210)

Burkert…

. . . . the pagan evidence for resurrection symbolism is uncompelling at best.

To sum up, there is a dynamic paradox of death and life in all the mysteries associated with the opposites of night and day, darkness and light, below and above, but there is nothing as explicit and resounding as the passages in the New Testament, especially in Saint Paul and in the Gospel of John, concerning dying with Christ and spiritual rebirth. There is as yet no philosophical-historical proof that such passages are directly derived from pagan mysteries; nor should they be used as the exclusive key to the procedures and ideology of mysteries.

(Burkert, 23, 101)

Other scholars argue that . . . .

….. Other scholars argue that Osiris is indeed raised from the dead.⁶⁷

(Balch, 49)

And where does that citation lead us? Continue reading “Dying and Rising Gods? Scholars are Divided”

2024-07-05

What Others have Written About Galatians – Joseph Turmel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The previous post presented a historical Dutch language criticism of Galatians and here I offer a sceptical analysis from France. I have selected from Henri Turmel’s discussion those paragraphs that address Galatians 1-2, — as per my earlier explanation. In my coming post on J.C. O’Neill’s detailed discussion, both Bergh van Eysinga and Turmel are overlooked in the historical survey of criticism. O’Neill pulls back hard on the reins of those critics who have doubted the historical Paul wrote the bulk of our epistle. But before that post, here is Turmel’s take. Note how different are the interpretations of these verses.

Turmel follows Alfred Loisy in the view that the Paul of Acts is closer to the historical Paul than the Paul of the epistles. The Galatian apostle is a Marcionite.

The original text (French) is from

Turmel, Joseph. La Seconde Épître Aux Corinthiens, Les Épîtres Aux Galates, Aux Colossiens, Aux Ephésiens, À Philémon: Traduction Nouvelle Avec Introduction Et Notes. Paris: Rieder, 1927. — pages 67-73

I have made it available on archive.org.

As for the archive.org project itself, please do add your signatures to the petition in their legal battle.

Paul’s words are in italics.

The Marcionite writing is in straight characters.

The Catholic redaction is small type.

3. Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles.

I pass to the long piece which goes from I, 8 to III, 5 and, among the assertions which one meets there, I note first of all those which relate to the apostolate of Paul. According to I:16 Paul was charged with announcing the Son of God “among the Gentiles”. According to II, 2, he explained to the Christians in Jerusalem the gospel he was preaching “among the Gentiles”. The notables recognized that the gospel (II, 7) had been entrusted to him “for the uncircumcised”. Therefore (II,9) it was agreed that Paul and Barnabas would address “the Gentiles”. In a word, Paul is the apostle of the Gentiles.

Let us now open Acts. Paul, immediately after his conversion (IX, 20) preaches in the synagogues of Damascus. Later (XIII, 5) he announces the word of God in the synagogues of Salamis of Cyprus. In Antioch of Pisidia (XIII, 14) he preaches in the synagogue. Driven out of Antioch he goes to Iconium and there again (XIV, 1) he goes straight to the synagogue. But there are cities where the Jews are not numerous enough to have a synagogue. Such is the case of Philippi. What does Paul do? He conjectures that, if there is no synagogue, there must at least be a modest oratory, and that this oratory must be placed near a watercourse where ablutions can be performed. When the Sabbath arrived (XVI, 13), he went to the small river that flowed near the city. There he finds women gathered. He speaks to them and one of them, Lydia, “a God-fearing woman”, is baptized with her family. In Thessalonica “the Jews,” says the author of Acts (XVII, 1), “had a synagogue.” Paul enters it and for three Sabbaths he speaks in it. Chased out of Thessalonica, he went to Beroea and went to the synagogue (XVIII, 10) to exercise his apostolate. In Athens, in Corinth, it is again in the synagogue (XVII, 17; XVIII, 4) that he speaks. And it is also in the synagogue of Ephesus (XVIII, 19; XIX, 8) that, during his two stays in that city, he preaches Christ.

It is true that in three places (XIII, 46; XVIII, 7; XXVIII, 28) he threatens the Jews to turn away from them and to turn to the pagans; but it is recognized that these threats belong to interpolated texts and do not deserve to be taken into consideration¹ . It is also true that in Athens, after several weeks’ contact with the philosophers who swarmed the city and whose life was lived in the square, Paul spoke before a pagan audience which listened to him with excited curiosity. But this exceptional case aside, the fact remains that the apostle, wherever he went, carried out his propaganda in the synagogues or, as in Philippi, in places that served as synagogues. His listeners were partly Jews and partly proselytes. The latter were not always circumcised, which explains the case of the Galatians who were won over by Paul to the Christian cause while they were still uncircumcised, but they were affiliated with Judaism, they had ceased to belong to the pagan religion. Paul evangelized the Jewish world and its dependencies; he did not evangelize the Gentile world. And the long section of the Epistle to the Galatians that presents him as the apostle of the Gentiles is a fiction devoid of reality.

1. Loisy, Les Actes des apôtres, p. 541, 692, 938

LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

1.Paul an apostle not from men or by man, but through Jesus Christ and God the father who raised him from the dead, 2 and with me all the brethren in the churches of Galatia, 3 Grace and peace be yours from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this evil age according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

6 I marvel that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you to the grace of Christ for another gospel. 7 Not that it is another gospel, but there are those who trouble you and want to overthrow the gospel of Christ.

GOD REVEALED HIS SON TO PAUL

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you any other gospel than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so now I say again: If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than that which you have received, let him be accursed. 10 Now shall I plead my cause before men, or before God? Or am I trying to please men? If I still pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ. 11 I inform you, brothers, that the gospel which I preach is not of man. 13 For I received it not from man, nor was I taught by man, but by revelation from Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard how I formerly behaved in Judaism, how I persecuted excessively and ravaged the church of God. 14 I surpassed in Judaism many of those of my age and my race because of the immoderate zeal that I had for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when it pleased him who distinguished me from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, 16 to reveal his son in me to proclaim him among the Gentiles, immediately I consulted neither flesh and blood, 17 and I did not go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I departed for Arabia and returned again to Damascus. 18 Then¹ after three years I went up to Jerusalem to meet Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 But I saw no other of the apostles except James the brother of the Lord. 20 What I write to you, behold, I declare before God that I do not lie. 21. Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And I was unknown to the churches of Judea which are in Christ. 23 Only they had heard it said: He who formerly persecuted us now proclaims the faith which he fought against. 24 And they glorified God in me.

1. Catholic interpolation intended to magnify Peter whom Paul wants to get to know, more precisely whom he wants to “contemplate”. It contradicts the context in which Paul displays his disdain for those who “appeared to be something.”

4. Paul is dead to the law.

In the same piece in which he claims the title of apostle to the Gentiles, Paul solemnly declares that the law no longer means anything to him. And he gives to his declaration this sharp turn (II, 19):

Through the law I died to the law that I might live for God.

Now, according to the Acts (XVIII, 18), before leaving Corinth, Paul took the Nazirite vow, which involved shaving his head. Upon arriving in Jerusalem (XXI, 26), he completed his vow in the temple accompanied by four indigent Nazirites, and it was in the midst of these sacred exercises that he was arrested by the Jews. But that is not all. In the epistle, Paul insists on behaving as a man dead to the law, and he refuses (II, 3) to allow his Greek companion Titus to be circumcised. However, in Acts XVI, 3, we see him circumcising Timothy, who, being the son of a Greek father, had not been circumcised. The two stories of Titus and Timothy have always puzzled exegetes. Nevertheless, until our time, it was believed that, with goodwill, they could be reconciled with each other. Today, it is acknowledged that they contradict each other,¹ and that one of them was entirely invented to counteract the other. It is said that the fiction lies in the account of Acts, whose author intended to neutralize the text of the epistle. However, it is accepted that Paul indeed took the Nazirite vow.² This concession is enough for us. The man who performed in the temple the rites imposed on a Nazirite could very well have circumcised Timothy, and there is no reason why he would have obstinately refused to circumcise Titus. In any case, he did not consider himself dead to the law; he did not believe that death to the law was an indispensable condition for life with God. Here again, the text of the epistle belongs to the realm of fiction, and the apostle it depicts has nothing in common with the historical Paul.

1. Loisy, p. 620.
2. Id. p. 796.

5. God revealed his son to Paul.

The dissertation from I, II-III, 5 is not by Paul. Who is its author? Let’s see where it leads. Its author, who is dead to the law in order to live for God, adds that he was crucified with Christ and lives by the life of Christ. This mystical theology is exactly the same as we encountered in the Epistle to the Romans¹. There too, we learned that the Christian grafted onto Christ dies with Christ and lives by the life of Christ. Now, we know that the section Ro., V-VIII was written by a disciple of Marcion.

1. L ‘Epître aux Romains, p. 29.

The dissertation from 1,11-III, 5 is of Marcionite origin. This origin gives us the key to various details that until now had remained mysterious. It specifically explains the revelation that Paul boasts about and the disdain he shows for the apostles. The Son of God whom Paul preaches is the good God, the God who came to earth to rescue men from the empire of the creator God, but whom men, blinded by the latter, did not receive or, which amounts to the same thing, did not understand. Therefore, it was not from human teaching that Paul could know this God. He would have always been ignorant of Him without a revelation. He received this blessing. God revealed His Son to him, meaning He revealed Himself with the ethereal garment He wore during His time on earth.

When Paul received his revelation, he at first avoided all contact with the apostles, who were men of flesh and blood, in that they believed in a carnal Christ destined to raise up the kingdom of David. His apostolate was carried out in Arabia and then in Syria and Cilicia. However, after fourteen years he went to Jerusalem. He would never have made this decision on his own, but a revelation forced him to do so. To obey God’s command, Paul went to Jerusalem and evangelized the Christian community there. He was the one who acted as an apostle, for he presented his gospel (II, 2), the gospel he had received from God, but nothing was presented to him, no attempt was made to instruct him (II, 6b). The three “pillars” of the Jerusalem community, James, Cephas and John, believed in his mission; they promised him to cooperate in his work among the circumcised and asked him to help them materially. The results of Paul’s apostolate in Jerusalem were therefore consoling. Unfortunately, they did not last. James returned to his carnal dreams, and Peter did not have the courage to resist him. Needless to say, everything in this account is fictitious except for the trip to Jerusalem and the collection for the poor, and these two facts have been distorted (the collection is presented as a help requested by the apostles).

II. Then, at the end of fourteen years, I went up again ¹ to Jerusalem with Barnabas, having also taken Titus with me. 2 I went up there by virtue of a revelation and expounded to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, especially to those who were most respected, so that they would not run or have run in vain. ². 3 But Titus who was with me and yet was a Greek, was not even forced to be circumcised, 4 because of the false brothers who had slipped in among us to invade the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us . 5 We did not yield to them even for a moment in the spirit of submission, that we might maintain the liberty of the gospel among you. 6 But on the part of those who appeared to be something – what they may have been in the past does not matter to me: God is no stranger to persons – therefore those who were the most seeing that the gospel had to me entrusted for the uncircumcised as he was entrusted for the circumcised to Peter, 8 for he who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcised worked in me for the apostleship of the Gentiles, 9 and knowing the grace which had given me was granted, James, Cephas and John who were considered as pillars, gave me and Barnabas their hands as a sign of association so that we were for the pagans and they for the circumcised. 10 But they asked us to remember the poor, which I hastened to do. considered taught me nothing. 7 But, on the contrary, seeing that the gospel was entrusted to me for the uncircumcised as it was entrusted to Peter for the circumcised, 8 for he who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcised worked in me for the apostleship of the Gentiles, 9 and knowing the grace that had been given to me, James, Cephas and John, who were considered as pillars, gave me and Barnabas their hands as a sign of association so that we would be for the Gentiles and they for the circumcised. 10 But they asked us to remember the poor, which I hastened to do.

1. Particle added by the Catholic editor who interpolated I, 18-20. The Marcionite editor obliged by Acts XI, 30; XII, 25 of leading Paul to Jerusalem did everything necessary so that the dignity of the apostle did not suffer.

2. Catholic addition which safeguards the primacy of the apostles. It contradicts the context in which Paul claims to have his gospel from heaven.

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch I resisted him to his face because he was reprehensible. 12. For before the coming of some from James he ate with the Gentiles. But after their arrival he withdrew and kept away for fear of the circumcised. 13 The other Jews concealed with him so that Barnabas himself was carried away by their dissimulation. 14 But when I saw that they were not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles and not as the Jews, how can you constrain – do you want to Judaize Jews? 15 We are Jews by birth and not sinners among the Gentiles. 16 Now knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Christ Jesus, we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law ¹. 17 But if seeking to be justified by Christ we also are found sinners, is Christ then the minister of sin? Far from it1. 18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I constitute myself a transgressor. 19 For by the law I died to the law that I might live unto God. 20 I am crucified with Christ. I live, but it is not me, it is Christ who lives in me. Now that I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not reject the grace of God, for if righteousness is obtained by the law Christ and therefore died in vain.

1. This piece has its climax in 17 which responds to the same spirit as Ro. III, 5 and came from the same pen. See L ‘Epître aux Romains, p. 47.

2024-07-04

Why Damn the Old and Create a New Method?

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by Neil Godfrey

They damned the old method, and self-consciously proposed a new method — not because they sought to create a new theological or scholarly party but because they believed the new method was forced on them by the nature of the Bible itself. Gunkel and his friends were convinced that Wellhausen and his school did not understand the religion of the Bible. If it was true that one understands as much as one has the power to love and to give honour, then the implicit challenge was that Wellhausen did not love enough and honour enough the religion he studied. — J.C. O’Neill, 115

Amen. — at least to the highlighted sentence. The same sentiment applies precisely to the reason underlying many of my posts relating to biblical studies. If I had some bee in my bonnet about Christianity such that I had a mind to “attack” or “undermine” or “expose” traditions, then the tone of my posts would be very different from what I believe it to be. The reason I select topics on which I sometimes take a radically different stance from the conventional wisdom is because I believe that much of biblical studies is held captive to tradition and theological bias. My background is in historical studies and I am interested in approaching Christian and Jewish origins from the perspective of the normative standards of research in other areas of historical inquiry.

As for the second half of that quote, I can’t say I “love” the Bible, but I do love research into understanding the Bible. Does an Assyriologist “love” the often cruel and superstitious inscriptions they must study? I doubt it. But they do love what they can understand and share about another culture and dimension of human experience. It is a sad (though inevitable) admission of the bias in which biblical studies has been held captive that one must justify one’s methods by declaring they are rooted in a “greater love” for the religion built upon them.

(P.S. — If I am completely honest and transparent I have to admit that the quotation I offered above had the impact it did because of my recent experience with the earlywritings forum where the moderator waxed at great length and in multiple comments that my interest was in trying to find some new and most extreme “out there” notion that I could, just to be different for the sake of being different, or “to create a party” as per the quote.)

O’Neill, J. C. “Gunkel Versus Wellhausen: The Unfinished Task of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.” The Journal of Higher Criticism. 2, no. 2 (Fall 1995): 115–21.

2024-07-02

What Others have Written About Galatians – Bergh van Eysinga

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The following is by the “Dutch Radical” Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga (1874-1957). I have translated it from the Dutch with the assistance of machine translators. The 1946 Dutch work from which this chapter (#4) on Galatians is an extract is available at https://archive.org/details/eysinga-servieres/mode/2up

Bergh van Eysinga, G. A. van den. De Oudste Christelijke Geschriften. Servire’s Encyclopædie. Den Haag: Servire, 1946. pp 115-120

The bolding highlight is, as usual, my own.

115

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians

The well-known peculiarity of Paul’s letter is also found here, when Paul appears to be writing alone and with a staff of brothers (1: 2, 8 ff.). In order to reconcile the contents of this letter with the accounts of Paul’s travels in Acts, the Roman province of that name was assumed to be Galatia in the address, which encompassed much more than Galatia in the narrow sense, so that in this letter Paul would have been addressing congregations in Lystra, Derbe, etc. Schürer has rightly called this hypothesis a curious fallacy of criticism and sought the Galatians of the letter in Galatia proper, the central plateau of Asia Minor, the old Celtic country, the area of the river Halys. Nowhere does it appear that the inhabitants of Pisidia and Lycaonia were ever called Galatians. How could a letter with this address intend to exclude the actual Galatians? But then the great difficulty arises, that Paul, who is regarded as the founder of the Galatian churches (1: 6-9), has according to Acts never been to that mountain country. Furthermore, we are surprised by the assumption that they were susceptible to Pauline preaching and were considered to be very high as churches (3: 1-5), yes, even that they were able to understand this letter, which cannot be expected from an uncivilized mountain people. Loman therefore compared this letter to these readers with “Hegel for the Atchinese”. Supposing, however, that a short time ago they had been able to understand and agree with the profound Pauline Gospel, how can they now suddenly fall away and how can these spiritual Christians – not one, but all of them – become the prey of “someone” or “some” who are zealous for circumcision (l:6f; 3:1; 4:8-11; 6:12f)? How could they thus thwart Paul’s whole missionary work among them? As long as he was with them, everything went well (4:18), but as soon as he leaves, all those convinced Pauline Christians in all those Galatian congregations suddenly want to get circumcised.

116

Contrary to the tolerant spirit we know from elsewhere, where Paul becomes all things to all people to win them over for the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:19ff), this letter contains numerous vehement statements. Right from the start (1:8), there is a curse, and it is repeated (1:9); the designation: “foolish Galatians” (3:1,3); the words: “if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you” (5:2); “you who seek to be justified by the Law have severed yourselves from Christ; you have fallen from grace” (5:4). The sharpest statement is: “Oh, that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves (i.e., castrate themselves; Calvin found this too harsh and translated it as ‘perish’)” (5:12). However, everything said about this falling away is so vague that it could apply to many situations. When a specific circumstance is hinted at, the situation does not become any clearer: Paul had not intended to stay in Galatia, but illness forced him; “it was because of an illness (not: despite) that I preached to you” (4:13). Surely, it requires an extraordinary effort of body and mind to convert a foreign people, in an extensive land with many cities and without a specific center. Does this happen just incidentally and because of “illness”? People have speculated about the nature of this illness, thinking of epilepsy, malaria, leprosy; also an eye disease as a result of the stoning in Lystra (Acts 14:19). But illness or weakness is the traditional phenomenon that accompanies the gifts of the man of God, so that he does not boast in himself (cf. 2 Cor. 12:7ff).

If the writer wants to express the participation of the Galatians in Paul’s suffering, he falls into tremendous exaggeration: they received him as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus himself (4:14). How did these pagan-thinking and feeling people come to this not-so-obvious idea? Subsequently, it is said that they would have gouged out their eyes and given them to him, if that had been possible (only the word “necessary” would have made sense here), then it seems to be spoken to a small circle of intimate friends. However, one must not forget that Paul writes this to the congregations of Galatia! A clear proof of the artificiality of the whole. The conversion of Galatia is depicted as a miracle of God, and the Apostle as a superhuman being.

117

The historical part of the letter (1:6-2:21) contains a defence of Paul’s independence, but the whole is a fervent plea for the doctrine of justification by faith and not by works of the Law. Yet, something is always taken back from the sharpest statements. When Paul, 17 years after his conversion, goes to Jerusalem, it happens by higher guidance (2:2), but also out of fear of objections from some (2:1-10). He bitterly criticizes the Apostles there; he considers himself their superior and wants no fellowship (2:6), yet he presents his Gospel to them for judgment, and they force nothing upon him, indeed, they extend the hand of friendship to him (2:9). When Paul was converted by a revelation of Christ, he consulted none of those who were Christians before him (1:17). Allard Pierson drew attention to the improbability of this fact by the following parallel: a younger contemporary of Plato, born in Southern Italy, who as a fervent Sophist had rejoiced deeply over Socrates’ death, but comes to different thoughts a few years later, now realizes that thinking, feeling, teaching, living like Socrates, identifying completely with Socrates, is the one necessary thing. What does he do now? Quickly travel to Athens, where Plato and Alcibiades still live, who have seen, heard, and known Socrates? None of that. He travels to Egypt, stays there for three years, writes and speaks lifelong about Socrates and is considered by a gullible world to be the most credible witness about the wise man, the most reliable interpreter of his teachings and intentions!

The work of an earlier Pauline follower in the spirit of Marcion has been moderated in this letter by a more temperate, Catholicizing Paulinist. This dual origin is evident from the dual naming of the Rock Man, who is alternately called Cephas and Peter; and the capital of the Jews, which is referred to as Hierosalem and Hierosolyma. “Abraham’s seed” is used in one place (3:7, 29) as a title for believers, and elsewhere for Christ (3:16). There is only one Gospel, the Pauline one,—thus says the original, uncompromising author; there are two Gospels, for the more Jewish-tinged one is also recognized,—thus says the Catholic editor, who offers something for everyone (1:6). Alongside the sharp opposition to circumcision, there is indifference to this practice (5:6; 6:15). Although the Galatians are immediately instructed in the Pauline Gospel, they are expected to have a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament and especially the Law.

118

Gnosis (Marcion) and the emerging Great Church (Justin) are the two factors that we may constantly assume in the emergence of the canonical Pauline collection. Van Manen has attempted to restore the shorter letter as Marcion possessed it and made its higher originality plausible. Tertullian calls Paul, in opposition to Marcion, “your Apostle.” Original Paulinism considers revelation the highest authority, not tradition or Scripture (1:16). Christians are spiritual people; the Jewish is the carnal; just as God stands in opposition to the world, so also to the Law, which is powerless to save people and even brings them under a curse (3:3, 10). The Spirit, freedom, and the Gospel take its place. Mystical piety speaks from the words: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (2:20). The Law was ordained through angels (3:19), added to the promise given to Abraham, and “because of transgressions”; this has been interpreted as “to restrain transgressions”; but Augustine and Calvin heard from it: “to increase transgressions.” The letter to the Romans (4:15; 5:13, 20; 7:11ff) sheds the necessary light on this. Indeed, many otherwise incomprehensible passages in our letter are clarified by what we remember from previous letters. If it says: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us” (2:13), we naturally ask: why is the Law a curse? Romans 1-2 provides the answer. One must know the whole complex of ideas developed there to understand this enigmatic expression. Thus, one must have read Romans 4 to understand the unprepared word: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (3:6). “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (3:27) is a combination of Romans 6:3 and 13:4. One thinks of the mysteries, where putting on the garment of the god makes one a god. If those who belong to Christ are called Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise (3:29), we must recall how Romans 9:6ff distinguishes between descendants according to the flesh and according to the promise. The impossibility of a man coming up with the idea of being in labor again over children he has already brought into the world (4:19) only becomes understandable when one remembers 1 Corinthians 4:14ff, where Paul appears as the father of the congregation because he gave them spiritual life. The follower of this metaphor made something absurd out of it. The writer claims to have previously said that those who commit various sins will not inherit the Kingdom of God (5:21). However, we do not find this word earlier in our letter, but in 1 Corinthians 6:9ff.

119

It can be said that the content of this writing is a brief summary of the system that the author developed in Romans. This already refutes the view of the Tübingen School, which suggested that this letter, as the sharpest and most uncompromising expression of Paul’s anti-legalistic spirit, would have been his first work, after which he wrote more calmly in 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans. Bruno Bauer, Steck, and Van Manen reverted to the old traditional order of these letters. Whoever compiled them in their present form has clearly assembled them as parts of one book.

120

Only after 70, with the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the priesthood, could the story arise that Christ had appeared some time ago and founded a new community. Christianity, as an authoritative world religion, claims the legitimate inheritance of the Jewish hierarchy. Jerusalem already appears in this letter as servile (4:25), Judaism as a closed entity, and in direct opposition to Christianity.

When we see that the differences of origin, social position and sex in the Christian community have been erased, then this phenomenon finds its parallel in the congregations of the Mystery Cults. Those who surrender to the Redeemer are one (3:28; cf. Rom 10:12).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allard Pierson, de Bergrede e.a. Synoptische fragmenten, Amst. 1878: 98-112. — Loman’s Nalatenschap I, Gron. 1899. — Rudolf Steck, Der Galaterbrief, Berl. 1888. — Mijn: Pro domo in N.T.T. 1923: 186 w.. — Heinrich Schlier, Der Galater-Brief, Gött. 1941. — W. C. van Manen in T.T. 1887: 382 vv.; 431 w..

2024-07-01

What Others have Written About Galatians – Robert M. Price

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

To freeload off the Gospel of Luke’s prologue, inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order an account of those things which have been written in Galatians, I have decided not to add my own variant to their number, but to set forth one by one the accounts of our predecessors so that ye may understand the breadth of understanding that has gone before us, compare, and ponder.

I hope to cover the views of Bruno Bauer, G. A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, J.C. O’Neill, Joseph Turmel, and any others that come to mind along the way. (Suggestions welcome but not necessarily followed up.) My main focus will be on the first two chapters of Galatians since this exercise is partly an attempt to think more clearly about the questions I raised in my previous post. I should also add a range of commentaries where they focus on Galatians 2:6.

First off the rank will be Robert M. Price’s presentation of Galatians 1 and 2 from The Pre-Nicene New Testament.

… In my view, Marcion wrote only what we read as chapters 3-6. The first two chapters, in their first form, were added subsequently by Marcionites as a rebuttal to the story in Acts, which attempts to co-opt Paul, and with him Paulinists (Marcionites, Encratites. Gnostics), for Catholic Christianity. (316)

Price makes some reasonable points, I believe:

Bruno Bauer, Rudolf Steck, W. C. van Manen, and others have observed numerous contradictions and anachronisms implying that the work is multi-layered, having gone through the hands of various redactors, and that even the original form was pseudepigraphical. Van Manen judged that Marcion himself wrote the first draft. I take Marcion as the author, partly because of the striking comment of Tertullian (Against Marcion, 5: chap. 3) that “Marcion, discovering the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians,… labors very hard to destroy the character of these Gospels which are published as genuine and under the names of the apostles.” If we take “discover” in its strongest sense, the comment implies no one had seen the epistle before. (315)

The translation and notes in the right hand column are Robert Price’s. The italics in Price’s translation indicate disputed passages that are not found in all manuscripts. I have added the green-ish shading to make them more easily noticed. I would normally use a more familiar translation (RSV, NIV, etc) but hopefully the publishers will not mind if I copy just the two chapters of Price’s worth-reading translation. Fresh translations, as Price himself points out, help us to read all too familiar passages afresh. I have highlighted in yellow the problematic passage discussed earlier, which agrees with Ken Olson’s explanation.

1 ¹Paul, an apostle, not sent from any human authority, neither by human beings, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, the one who has raised him from the dead, ²and with me, all the brothers,^a to the congregations of Galatia:	a. “Brothers” denotes itinerant missionaries.
³May you enjoy the favor and the protection of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴the one who has given himself for the sake of our sins, so he might rescue us out of the present evil age in accordance with the will of our God and Father, ⁵to whom all worship is due throughout ages multiplied by ages. Amen.
⁶I am astonished that already this soon you are detaching yourselves from the one who called you by the favor of Christ, embracing a different message of salvation, ⁷which in fact is not another, only that there are some bothering you and intent on perverting the news of Christ. ⁸As for that, even if we or some angel from heaven should proclaim to you some message of salvation besides the one we proclaimed to you, let him be excommunicated! ⁹Let me just repeat that for emphasis. If anyone proclaims a message of salvation beside the one you first welcomed, let him be excommunicated!^b	b. This anticipates the claim that the Mosaic Torah was the gift of angels, not of God (cf. 3:19-20 below); thus a Judaizing gospel must be the creation of angels, too.
¹⁰Is that blunt enough for you? Am I ingratiating myself with my audience now or am I calling down God? Or am I mincing words to flatter men? For if I were still concerned to meet the expectations of mere mortals, I would have chosen some other task than being a slave of Christ. ¹¹For I am letting you know, brothers, that the news preached by me is not human in origin, ¹²for it was not from human beings that I received it, nor was I instructed in it;^c on the contrary, it was revealed by Jesus Christ.^d ¹³You are acquainted with my actions while I belonged to Judaism,^e how I went to insane lengths persecuting God’s community and laid it waste, ¹⁴and progressed in Jewish religion beyond many contemporaries in my race, being many times over a zealot for my ancestral traditions.^f	c. What lies in the background here is Paul’s instruction by Ananias of Damascus, as in Acts 9:17-19.
	d. The same claim is borrowed for Peter in Matt. 16:16-18.
	e. As Bruno Bauer and J. C. O’Neill point out, the use of this term is anachronistic, presupposing two distinct religions, which was not yet clear in Paul’s day. The word was used in the first century, but only to offset Judaism from paganism. It had not yet come to be used vis-a-vis Christianity. O’Neill brackets verses 13-14 as an interpolation, veering off the train of argument.
	f. Note the seeming equation of Jewish zeal with the persecution of Christians.
¹⁵And yet, when God, who had watched over me since my umbilical cord was cut, ¹⁶thought it choice irony to reveal his Son to me,^g and called me by his favor in order for me to proclaim him among the nations, I paused not to consult with flesh and blood, ¹⁷neither did I go up at once to Jerusalem to the apostles previous to me.^h No, I took off for Arabia and went back to Damascus.ⁱ ¹⁸It was only after three years that I went up to Jerusalem to consult with Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.^j¹⁹But I did not so much as see any of the other apostles except for James, the Lord’s brother.^k ²⁰Now in this recounting, I swear before God: I am not lying!^l ²¹From there I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²²And still I remained known only by reputation to the congregations in Christ of Judea.^m²³They only heard rumors: “The one who persecuted us now preaches the very religionⁿ he was then intent on destroying!”^o²⁴And they worshipped God on account of my case.	g. Here we find the influence of Euripides’ Bacchae, where Dionysus hypnotically compels the conversion of his persecutor, Pentheus, as part of a death trap. See also the irony-laden words of Christ in Acts 9:16.
	h. Again, contra Acts 9:26-27.
	i. The writer presupposes the narrative of Acts since Damascus has not been mentioned previously, as it is in Acts 9.
	j. He remembers the exact duration fourteen years later? This sounds like a narrator simply positing plausible times and seasons for the sake of a story.
	k. *In Tertullian’s treatise, Against Marcion,* he does not mention this first visit, implying the text of Galatians did not yet mention it either.** If it had, Tertullian surely would have made hay of it: it would have clearly implied Paul’s subordination to the Jerusalem authorities, a point Tertullian would have used against Marcion. He didn’t, though, implying that he didn’t have it to use. Thus, it is a later insertion designed to abet the notion that Paul did go to Jerusalem to submit himself to the twelve as soon as he was able. “Again” was added to 2:1 at the same time by way of harmonization. Tertullian mentions the visit of 2:1-10 apparently as the visit, not as a second visit.
	l. Obviously, this is a rebuttal to another account, widely known, in which Paul was a delegate of mortal agencies and had at once submitted himself to the previous apostles. Either the writer is responding to Acts 9 or that was the common version, which our writer seeks to overthrow, rewriting history in the interests of later sectarian strife.
	m. Contrary to Acts 9:28-30.
	n. The term here literally reads “the faith,” generally considered to be post-Pauline usage.
	o. This is a crucial admission that the whole notion of Paul as a persecutor is the product of popular rumor. In all probability it is a distortion of the Ebionite claim that Paul, as an anti-Torah Christian, had opposed the true Christian religion—theirs. In a later time, when few remembered the sectarian divisions of an earlier generation, this version was misunderstood as if Paul, a non-Christian, had physically persecuted believers in Christianity per se.
2 ¹Then, after an interval of fourteen years, I went up to Jerusalem again with Bar-Nabas, taking along Titus, too. ²And I went up, summoned by a revelation.^p And I laid out before them the news as I proclaim it among the nations, in private session with those of great repute, for fear I might have been running off course.^q ³But my companion Titus, a Greek, was not compelled to be circumcised. He was willing to go along with it voluntarily as a concession. 4But on account of the pseudo-brothers who had sneaked into the session^r in order to spy on our freedom from the Torah that we gentiles have in Christ, thinking they would enslave us, ⁵we yielded to them in submission but for an hour in order to preserve the news for you.^s ⁶But as for those esteemed to be something great^t—what they were then makes no difference to me now; God is impressed by no man’s clout—those of repute added no proviso to me. ⁷On the contrary! Once they saw how I had been entrusted by God with the news for the uncircumcised, just as Peter was for the circumcised, ⁸the one energizing Peter for an apostolate to the circumcised energizing me also, but to the nations, ⁹and acknowledging the favor shown me by God, James and Cephas and John, the ones reputed to be Pillars,^u offered to me and to Bar-Nabas the good right hand of partnership, dividing the territory: we would henceforth go to the nations, they to the circumcised,^v ¹⁰except that we should not forget the Poor,^w the very thing I was eager to do in any case!	p. Note that he is not making an appearance in Jerusalem at the behest of any human authority, contra Acts 15:2.
	q. Here we find a retrojection into imagined apostolic times of Marcion’s own visit to Rome to join the church there and voluntarily disclose his doctrine. Obviously at the time, he took seriously the reputation of the Roman Church for authority, disdaining it only after they had rejected his doctrine. In the same way, Muhammad very often in the Koran retells the stories of Israelite prophets, including Moses, Abraham, and Noah, in terms modeled quite closely upon himself and his conflicts.
	r. He thus seeks to hide the fact that this Torah faction was part of the core group of Pillars, “those of repute. ” He implies that no one knew them at that time for what they turned out to be: Judaizing hardliners.
	s. The reference is to the token circumcision of Titus, another version of which is told in Acts 16:3, where Timothy has been substituted for Titus.
	t. Not coincidentally, in Acts 8:9 we find pretty much the same disdainful phrase characterizing Simon Magus. In Acts we are reading the other side of the same argument.
	u. This is cosmic terminology denoting the Atlas-like function of upholding the vault of heaven, perhaps signaling a channel of communication with heaven, much like Jacob’s ladder, the axis mundi. Accordingly, James the Just is said to have served as high priest for the Jerusalem Church. After his death, it was possible for Jerusalem to fall because it no longer retained the protection of his presence. The exalted office of the Pillars would thus have been analogous to the later Jewish legend of the Fifty Righteous, whose presence on earth guaranteed God’s protection no matter how sinful everyone else became (Gen. 18:24-26).
	v. As William O. Walker Jr. points out, vv. 7-9 must be an interpolation since they rudely interrupt the sequence of 6 and 10, where the original means the Pillars imposed no condition upon Paul and Barnabas except for the relief collection. Note that the interpolator slips and calls Cephas “Peter,” his more familiar name.
	w. The Jerusalem Ebionim, in other words, for whom Paul is constantly raising money in his churches. This is a fictive version of Marcion’s own initial gift of a large sum to the Roman Church, which they refunded after deeming him a heretic. Its refusal is echoed in Acts 8:18-24; 21:20-26; 24:17-18; Rom. 15:16, 30. This proviso, representing tribute money to be paid the Jerusalem Church as the price of recognition of Paulinism, obviously should follow verse 6.
¹¹But when Cephas arrived in Antioch, I stood up to him publicly because he was blatantly out of line.^x ¹²For before a certain party arrived from James,^y he used to dine with the gentiles,^z but when this one arrived, he stood down, segregating himself, fearing the circumcision faction. ¹³And the rest of the Jews played hypocrite along with him so that even Bar-Nabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴But as soon as I noticed they were not walking the straight path of the news, I said to Cephas in front of everyone: “If you, being a Jew, nonetheless live like a gentile,^a where do you get off forcing the gentiles to Judaize?^b ¹⁵Physically, we are Jews, not sinners from the nations, ¹⁶and since we know that a person is not accepted as righteous by virtue of deeds of Torah, but by belief in Christ Jesus—even we believed in Christ Jesus in order that we might be counted righteous by token of belief in Christ and not by deeds of Torah because no human being will ever be counted righteous by deeds of Torah. ¹⁷But if, in the very effort to be counted righteous through Christ, we were found to be sinners no better than the gentiles, does that make Christ a facilitator of sin? Never! ¹⁸But if I start to rebuild the very things I demolished, this is what makes me a transgressor. ¹⁹For it was by means of the Torah that I died relative to the Torah, escaping its grasp so I might live relative to God. ²⁰I have been crucified alongside Christ. I live no more, but Christ now inhabits my body; as a result, what I now undergo in the flesh I endure by the belief in the Son of God loving me and giving himself up on my behalf. ²¹I for one do not presume to turn my nose up at the mercy of God: for if it is really through the Torah that salvation comes, then Christ’s death is moot!”^c	x. This was apparently because Peter signaled” he was promoting a different gospel that would involve Judaizing the gentiles (v. 14), thus incurring the curse of anathema (1:8-9).
	y. This party consisted of delegates sent to check on the implementation of the Jerusalem decree dealing with basic kosher laws (cf. Acts 15:30-32).
	z. Acts 10
	a. Peter behaves like a gentile by eating non-kosher food, something implied here but made clearer in Acts 10:12-15; 11:3. See Frank R. McGuire, “Galatians as a Reply to Acts,” Journal of Higher Criticism 9 (Fall 2002), 161-72.
	b. Against his better judgment, Peter decided to acquiesce to James by imposing the stipulations of the Jerusalem decree (Acts 15). The decree remains hidden here but nonetheless lurks in the background, as McGuire points out.
	c. This impromptu speech corresponds very closely to that ascribed to Peter in Acts 15:7-11, but with a pinch of Romans added. Which apostle is credited with it turns on which one was the pioneer evangelist to the gentiles, an honor Acts gives Peter, while the epistles give it to Paul. German critics of the Tubingen school say Acts adapted the speech from Galatians, whereas Dutch critics claim Galatians adapted it from Acts.

As I remarked in the earlier post, or at least tried to suggest, that last passage (vv 11-21) does not come across as a realistic account of what Paul would have said in the circumstances. It is an artifice, a sermon, and as Price notes, it is built from other texts. It is not Paul — or at least it seems to me to be the work of a scribe crafting a letter through the character of Paul. A few years ago I posted how another section in these opening chapters appears to be intertextually crafted from Jeremiah: Sowing Doubt That an Emotional Paul Authored Galatians. Of course, we might think that Paul was so immersed in the scriptures that he could not help but express himself in scriptural language — in the same way I used the prologue to Luke’s gospel to open this post. But that would not explain the apparent link with Acts, as noted by Price:

⁷After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. ⁸God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. ⁹He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. ¹⁰Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? ¹¹No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

As for Galatians being a rebuttal to the character of Paul as portrayed in Acts, that could potentially make Galatians very much a latecomer. If we accept the arguments of Joseph Tyson (and I am one who has been persuaded by them up to now) Luke-Acts were not completed (taking the canonical form familiar to us) until the 120s CE. Justin writing a little later tells us that Marcion was still active in his day but I cannot think that Justin had ever heard of the book of Acts. The Gospel of Luke was in many respects an answer to Marcionism. Should we think Acts was attempting to refute Galatians and other writings of Paul rather than the author of Galatians taking issue with Acts? That’s something that I would need to take some time to study before reaching a conclusion, if I can at all. Hopefully in the meantime I will encounter publications that have tackled that question.

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Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “You referred to my quote: “History is the same. The historian looks at all the evidence that exists now and…” Nov 19, 23:04
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “I certainly do take your feedback “calmly” and without any thought that you are being in the slightest polemical or…” Nov 19, 22:48
Petr Jancar on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “I have no intention to somehow argue here, I just try to give my feedback in case it could have…” Nov 19, 21:24
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability: “Maybe it’s a fun theoretical idea, but in the real world it is nonsense, isn’t it.” Nov 19, 18:51
Thomas Worthington on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability: “I don’t think Carrier understands what Gödel proved. Unless there is some other Gödel theorem besides the one everyone normally…” Nov 19, 12:31
Thomas Worthington on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability: “There is always a philosophical gap to slide uncertainty in. That is the gap of Parmenides, Alice in Wonderland, or…” Nov 19, 12:29
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “You are being absurd, Giuseppe. Of course I have knowledge of “the concept of a historical Jesus”. You have refused…” Nov 19, 07:36
Giuseppe on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “Hence your answer is that the Samaritan false prophet is not the historical Jesus. If so, then you betray a…” Nov 19, 05:59
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “Hi Petr. Yes, Carrier does say history is the same as science in principle and method and that the only…” Nov 19, 03:43

Original area of dissemination	Older female deity	Younger partner deity
Eleusis	Demeter	Persephone
Mesopotamia	Ishtar	Tammuz
Ugarit	Anath	Baal
Phoenicia	Cybele	Attis
Phrygia	Cybele	Attis
Egypt	Isis	Osiris

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Stylometry

Galatians

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Conclusion:

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A Digression on Leopold von Ranke and Positivist History

Back to the Question: Evidence for Pre-Constantinian Christianity

Dating ancient texts

Real versus Theoretical Knowledge?

Conclusion

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Some argue….

Other scholars argue that . . . .

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3. Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles.

LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

4. Paul is dead to the law.

5. God revealed his son to Paul.

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Paul’s Letter to the Galatians

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