Loading...I’ve mentioned several non-canonical letters forged in Paul’s name connected with the views of the second-century heretic Marcion. There are other letters out there that also (falsely) claim to be written by Paul but that were not forged in order to support or attack a particular heretical view in Paul’s name. That is almost certainly the case with a set of letters that were accepted as authentically Paul’s (though never accepted as canonical) for many centuries, down until relatively modern times: Paul’s correspondence with the great philosopher (and personal tutor and advisor to the emperor Nero). Here’s what I say about these letters in my book Forged (HarperOne, 2011).
(If you want a more thorough analysis of these, and all the Pauline forgeries I’m mentioning in these posts, I get gratifyingly down in the weeds at good length in my academic book, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics)
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The Letters of Paul and Seneca
A completely different agenda is found in a much later forgery of Pauline letters that was destined to become quite influential on later Christian thinking about Paul. By the end of the second century, many Christians – not just Marcion! – considered Paul to be the most important figure in the religion after Jesus. Paul was understood as the great apostle, the great spokesperson, the great theologian of the church. His writings were widely read and his thought was deeply appreciated. But over the years Christians wondered:
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Hello!
(1) Modern preachers/interpretators say that the 12 tribes of Israel and 12 thrones is a methaphor for the ruling in heaven of saved christians worldwide and that because of the apostles’ cultural context and ideas of theirs, they *wrongly* thought that the kingdom was on earth (political ruling). They support this idea by citing Mark 10:38-40. What do these verses mean? And what do the 12 tribes of Israel reffer to in NT?
(2) Jesus promised all the *12* apostles (including Judas Iscariot) their own thrones to rule from at the coming of the Son of Man. How could Jesus promise such bliss to Judas and at the same time foretell that Judas (into which Satan emerged) would betray him and also say it was better for Juda’s fate that he wouldn’t have been born. What do you think?
1. Yes, they have to say this because they don’t think Jesus could literally be predicting a kingdom actually coming to earth, even though Jews at his time expected *that* and had zero idea that peole would die and go to heaven. (See my book Heaven and Hell) 2. These two sayings come from different sources. The task of the historical scholar of Jesus is figuring out which sayings actually go back to him and which ones were put on his lips later. That requires rigorous historical criteria and some sustained analysis.
What would have motivated the author to go to the trouble of producing 14 fake letters? Just to elevate the status of Paul in the eyes of other Christians or of the Roman authorities or both? Or could there have been a financial incentive?
There would not have been any financial incentive: letters like this weren’t sold for money. I have a long discussion of why they were forged in my book Forgery and Counterforgery, showing scholarsly arguments for various positoins. The most interesting aspect of the letters in many ways is precisely how uninteresting they are. Banal, as a rule. So why write them? I agree (strongly) with the scholars who maintain that they were forged precisely simply to show that the greatest philosopher of the first century thought highly of Paul and praised him, in order to help elevate his status at a time when Christianity was vying to take over trhe Roman world.
Hi Bart
What do you think? Can we know for sure that historical jesus was often with sinners or was it made to somehow fit the puzzels in or make him seem better or was it just his thing?
I think he was intent on the sinners. Many of his later followers wanted nothing to do with that.
Why do you think Jesus bothered picking the 12 disciples that he picked when most of them went on to do nothing that we know of. Why is Paul more important than the disciples? Why didn’t Jesus pick people who could write so that they could tell all about him firsthand?
I don’t think Jesus expected a new religion to begin, let alone one based on his death and resurrection, since I don’t think he expected to be crucified. He picked twelve of his followers and my guess is that none of his followers was literate. All of this may seem odd and takes a lot of time to explain. You might take a look at my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium to see what kinds of evidence scholars look at to figure out what Jesus actually did.