The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context
Reassessing Apostolic Authorship
This year is starting to be a turning point in Pauline Corpus studies. First David Trobisch publicly shared his doubts about the authenticity of Paul’s letters. And now Nina E. Livesey has published a book in CUP that explicitly considers Paul’s letters to be a literary format with a fictional narrative to convey ethical and theological teachings. Although this supports my hypothesis that Josephus was coincidentally the founding father of Christianity, there is something incredibly sad about the sacred being created by the vulgar profane. Business as usual.
Prof Livesey’s thesis is certainly provocative, especially in light of Robyn Faith Walsh’s recent work. However her new book costs over 100 bucks american! [Insert Mercenary Academic Publishing Rant] I’m just not interested enough in Paul at this point to make the effort to seek it out worth it. In the meantime…
Finally. The administrator of the forum on the blog of a Harper One book writer summed up a book from CUP in one sentence, which he had not read. And at the same time, he quickly judged the author of the book.
It reminds me of the times when Gerd mocked Hermann and Bart ridiculed Bob. In public.
My black heart loves such actions, because they remind me of my equally predatory and vile activity in the content business.
I will say once again that I am sorry that the truth about Paweł will be equally mundane.
Facts don’t care about our feelings.
I recommend the book. You can buy it on Amazon, borrow it, or download it from libgen. Interestingly, it was published on libgen earlier than in electronic form on amazon and cup.. Someone in cup is a supporter of universal access to knowledge. Guerilla Open Access..
Nina presents in an excellent way the comprehensive research on the problem of authenticity to date. Thanks to her, I learned that there were biblical scholars who very realistically reconstructed Marcion’s problem, but did not break through with their proposals.
The book is discussed on vridar.org.
When the subject of the historicity of Paul comes up I am always at the ready with ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Richard Carrier defending the historicity of Paul against his fellow mythicists! If you understand Carrier’s views you know he needs for Paul to be historical otherwise his entire argument against the historicity of Jesus falls flat.
Personally all I ask if for mythicists to be consistent. Critical historians use the same methods and assumptions with Paul as they do with any other ancient figure. If you question the historicity of Paul then you’re in the same situation as any other ancient figure about whom we know from their letters and the legends that arose about them.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Nina has no chance of convincing her colleagues because she relies solely on the interpretation of a very well-written text. But at the same time, she reveals that there are no methods to determine whether the letters are authentic correspondence or invented rhetoric. The hero of the letters, Paul, knows as much about Jesus as is contained in Josephus’ Antiquities and gives special significance to James. The only person associated with Jesus mentioned in Antiquities. All the authors of Paul’s letters do not go beyond this scope of information. It serves only to indicate that Paul is referring to the same person. The authors of Paul’s letters ridicule his competition in the persons of James and Cephas.
??? Josephus mentioned a sect and people who still believe in Jesus. The fact that Paul created two opposing environments to win against his despised opponents does not contribute anything to the historical Jesus. Invented heroes. Some were credited with literary works written later by ghostwriters. The fact that it was more important to humiliate them in the eyes of the recipients of the letters than to present something new about the earthly Jesus says a lot. The adoption by the evangelists of the historical person of John the Baptist also has no basis in Josephus.
Book Description
This study argues that the seven letters of Paul, widely assumed as authentic, should be reclassified as pseudonymous.
About the Author
Nina E. Livesey is Professor of Religious Studies, Emerita at the University of Oklahoma. She is author of Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (2010) and Galatians and the Rhetoric of Crisis (2016).
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