Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Introduction I’ll begin this post by acknowledging my debt to Earl Doherty. It was he who convinced me that the gospel Paul believed and preached was derived only from scripture and visions/revelations, and that it did not include a Son of God who lived a human life on earth. Doherty’s demonstration of those points in … Continue reading “A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 7: The Source of Simon/Paul’s Gospel”
The eight chapter of ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ is “Born under the Law: Intertextuality and the Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus in Paul’s Epistles” by Thomas S. Verenna. He takes those passages commonly used to support the claim that Paul’s Jesus was indeed an historical person — his crucifixion, being … Continue reading “Was Paul’s Jesus an Historical Figure? — ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ ch. 8”
Chapter 7 of ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ presents what I understand are the arguments of mainstream New Testament scholarship that Paul’s epistles testify to the existence of an historical Jesus. Its author, Mogens Müller (MM), is responsible for what has been praised as the best work to date on the expression “Son of Man”. … Continue reading “Paul: Oldest Witness to the Historical Jesus — ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’”
When starting this post I had hoped it would complete my discussion of Robert M. Price’s chapter, “Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?” in ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’. This was meant to address Price’s reasons for thinking that the gospel narratives of Jesus — or any stories … Continue reading “Early Christ Myth Theorists on Paul’s and the Gospels’ Jesus: ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ ch. 6 continued.”
Lost in translation One of the nice things about learning Greek (and I count myself as a beginner, a perpetual student of the language) is discovering controversial translations that you’d never know about otherwise. One example you probably already know about is whether Paul meant “betrayed” or “delivered over” in 1 Corinthians 11:23. Only by … Continue reading “Last or Least: Was Paul the Last Witness or an Aborted Fetus?”
* Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 10 Listening to the Sounds of Silence . COVERED IN THIS POST: Silence: Why did no-one until modern times deny the existence of Jesus? – Does anyone on the early Christian scene deny the existence of the Gospel Jesus? – Ignatius’ letters the … Continue reading “10. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Listening to the Sounds of Silence”
This post continues Couchoud’s account of the nature of the Christ found in the Book of Revelation and how he epitomizes the “false Christ” that Paul denounced his apostolic rivals for promoting. Couchoud has been tracing the rise of Christianity from the Enochian community in “pre-Christian” times and the evolution of the Christ idea in … Continue reading “The Christ of John’s Revelation — Nemesis of Paul’s crucified Christ (Couchoud continued)”
I continue here the series covering Paul Louis Couchoud’s argument for the creation of the canonical New Testament literature from the 1939 English translation of his The Creation of Christ: An Outline of the Beginnings of Christianity. The series is archived here — scroll to the bottom for the first posts where the overall purpose … Continue reading “Paul’s Letter to the Romans – the creation of the canonical edition according to Couchoud”
From the moment his followers believed that Jesus was the Messiah foretold by the Prophets, the transformation of his life into myth began, and proceeded apace. (p. 108 of Jesus by Charles Guignebert, trans by S.H. Hooke) It is refreshing to read some sound logical sense by a historical Jesus scholar in the swelling tide … Continue reading “Critically evaluating Paul’s claims about Jesus”
Géza Vermes is not a mythicist. He believes in the historical reality of Jesus to be found beneath the Gospels. But in the context of any mythicist debate what he writes in The Changing Faces of Jesus about the “myth” of Christ Jesus in Paul’s writings is noteworthy. It shouldn’t be. What he writes is … Continue reading “Paul’s “Mystical-Mythical” Christ the real — or rival? — foundation of Christianity”
I have attempted to distill the key points from Earl Doherty’s recent comments to sum up his case for maintaining the assigning of Paul’s letters to the first century. I will post my own thoughts on these in a later post. I have not included here details of some previous discussion in which Doherty responds … Continue reading “Reasons to assign Paul’s letters to the first century (distilled from Doherty)”
Not long ago I skimmed through an online discussion over whether or not Paul learned about the gospel of Jesus from other apostles like Peter and James, or whether he relied entirely on direct revelation from the spiritual Lord. One side pointed to the letter to the Galatians where Paul said that he was not … Continue reading “Did Paul receive the gospel the same way the other apostles did?”
In a recent post I discussed the ways Reason (or Logos) for the Stoic philosophers had a similar role or function to Christ (also a Logos) in Paul’s letters. For both the Stoic philosopher and the Pauline Christian, the moment of conversion, when a person became “a new creation”, “in Reason or in Christ” and … Continue reading “What did Jesus Christ mean to Paul and his readers?”
No. This is another common charge against arguments that Jesus was mythical, and it likewise seems to be circulated among those who show little evidence of having read much in the way of mythicist publications. (I am responding here to remarks made in a comment to McGrath’s post, Why I find mythicism disturbing, since the … Continue reading “Do mythicists rely on arguments from silence and too many assumptions?”