Mythicists have their own problems with Paul’s epistles. Perhaps you are aware of the Problem of Paul that mythicists like to point to, including:
Paul does not mention the life narrative of Jesus;
Paul uses what seem to be direct quotes of Jesus without attributing them to Jesus;
Paul does not use examples of Jesus’s life narrative or use his quotes when it would bolster his arguments;
Paul did not meet Jesus, despite being in Jerusalem and raised at the knee of Gamaliel.
However, once one looks through the lens of mythicism (saying a Jesus did not exist), Paul presents a whole new series of problems:
Who is the Christ Jesus?
When, where, and how did the storyline of the gospel of Christ Jesus come to exist (suffering, death, on a cross, exaltation)?
When is “the fulfillment of time” that Christ Jesus arrived in?
Just how allegorical is Paul, on a regular basis (he calls the rock that sprouted water in the wilderness “Christ”)?
Who are these people:
Peter, James, Cephas, John?
Where does the idea come from that a crucified Christ Jesus was the basis for becoming an Israelite, rather than following the Law?
Are their problems of Paul that I am overlooking?
It is among mythicists that the greatest differences regarding Paul’s letters occur. The dispute between Detering and Carrier over the dating and authenticity of the letters was heated because of Carrier’s temperament and his manner of questioning his adversary’s knowledge and experience. Such an ugly habit of using ad hominem arguments. And when it turned out that Detering had obtained his doctorate on Paul’s letters, Carrier felt embarrassed.
In his construction, Carrier wants authentic letters dating from 40-60 CE and believes that they are authentic evidence of 1st century Christianity.
This is an absolute novelty among mythicists, because throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, successive generations of mythicists claimed that the letters were unauthentic and that they had been made public around 139 CE.
In turn, the mainstream claims that the letters were written in the years 40-60 CE, after which their fate was unknown for 40 years until the publication of the Paline Corpus around 100 CE. The year 100 CE was defined by G. Zuntz based on the dating of 1 Clem and the letters of Ignatius.
The letters do not attribute the biography of a specific man to Jesus and do not locate him in time and space, despite Paul’s alleged contacts with the Pillars.
“The letters do not attribute the biography of a specific man to Jesus and do not locate him in time and space, despite Paul’s alleged contacts with the Pillars.”
I definitely don’t see a good reason to doubt the timetable for Paul’s letters or the timetable for the gospels being written. The ranges given seem pretty well worked out based on what can be gleaned from the writings themselves.
I’ve heard of the Radical Dutch camp, but haven’t read much on it. I’ve been away from the blog for a couple of years, and in that time I read a book by Chrissy Hansen about mythicist stances over the last few centuries, but have not read any of their source materials. Certainly the level of work that has gone into establishing the dates of the letters and/or the gospels anchors them pretty securely, unless there is some major flaw in their methods that I am unaware of.
As far as Paul being fixed in time, wouldn’t the escape from Damascus under Aretas be a good clue, since Aretas’ hold on the city was temporary?
The problem is that religious works are not reliable in terms of dating and authenticity. Mythicists classify ALL of Paul’s letters as works written by ghost writers, then edited and published in a collection called the Pauline Corpus. Only such letters were available from the 100 CE or from mid-2nd century CE.
This is as legitimate an approach as acknowledging authenticity and dating based on content.
Simply put, the narrative may reflect a historical or invented tradition, and there is no way to distinguish which answer is true.
It is difficult to imagine a reason for the Pauline corpus besides a real Paul writing to spread his message.
Even a pseudo-Paul, such as the author of the pastorals (Timothys and Titus) and Ephesians, et al, mandates a real Paul, otherwise why pretend to be “Paul.” Without a real Paul there is not authority figure by which to create fake letters.
Being a Bart Ehrman fan, of course I am aware of the practice of writing in other people’s names. These names, however, have to be established. There are all sorts of other faked manuscripts from the time period, using the names of famous greek historians to legitimize their own writings. There is even one called Psuedo-Philo who attempts to use Philo’s fame to spread his own messsage.
None of these Pseudos work without a real author as a basis.
This is part of the problem I have with Brodie’s assessment that Paul is fiction. Brodie’s elimination of Paul is understandable, because of Brodie’s understanding of Acts being nothing more than rehashed OT. This hardly makes much difference if you hold that Acts is a much later document. However, essential to Brodie is also his claim that proto-Luke-Acts predates the gospels we have today. Thus eliminating the proto-Luke-Acts version of events for Paul eliminates a very early version of documentation of Paul.
However, Brodie also discounts Galatians as contrived, and that is a bridge too far for me. Eliminating ‘Galatians Paul’ as fictional leaves a Peter, Cephas, James and John being mentioned with no context. The readers are supposed to know who these people are. Galatians is the clearest repudiation of Acts as even accidentally (as in even a broke clock is right twice a day) historical. The argument that Galatians is too convenient for the resulting church history would work no matter what early documents had affected church history.
I remain open to the possibility that Paul is fictional. I just do not see any evidence for that conclusion, and I think there is ample evidence for his existence and some evidence for dating him in the middle of the first century CE (even without a crucifixion in 30-36 CE). Ironically, the traditional Problem of Paul, as outlined by Ehrman needs a historical Jesus for the reader to be puzzled about Paul’s lack of knowledge about said Jesus.
None of these Pseudos work without a real author as a basis.
Really? Why not?
The letters appeared around 100 CE in the form of an anthology called the Pauline Corpus. No one had, no one has and no one will have access to the letters from the time of their alleged original circulation (40-60CE) – neither Bart, nor Marcion, nor Clement or Ignatius. In the first anthology, there were 7 letters considered authentic and 3 fake.
These 7 may be original testimony to a historical tradition or they may be an invented content product creating an invented tradition. It doesn’t matter whether the tradition is real or invented. What matters is whether the tradition has been successful. Then it is worth linking to the success of Paul’s authority, regardless of whether it is historical or invented. The inspiration does not have to be a historically true story. Inspiration can come from a made-up story. This is perfectly visible in the example of synoptics copying among themselves invented stories modeled on earlier ones from the LXX.
The consensus acceptance of the authenticity of the letters has no better basis than the claim that they were created several decades later.
Well I did not come up with the concept of the Problem of Paul. I am pretty sure that comes directly from Ehrman, and as usual (I assume) its something he has brought down from the Ivory Towers for consumption by us plebes. If you force me to I will try to look it up, but I have given away most of my Ehrman books, even ones that I repurchased because I gave the first ones away, lol.
“Paul believed he was in personal contact with the resurrected Christ Jesus, exalted to heaven, to the right-hand of God and soon to come again to effect the defeat of all evil empires and powers with the inauguration of the eternal Kingdom of God on earth. “
I completely agree, as a mythicist. As a former historicist, I was uneasy about some of these issues. It’s not impossible that (in a realm where Jesus actually existed) that Paul would behave in the way he did behave. However, to me, it seems a little farfetched that:
-a zealous Pharisee who is persecuting the ekklesia early on never met Jesus. That seems a contradiction in terms. A zealous pharisee is the very type of person that would have met Jesus, to ask him questions. Also, he would have gloated over the crucifixion. Hmm… I suppose I am mixing in gospel lore with Paul’s account. I am not sure if the gospel accounts of Pharisees trying to question Jesus are considered accurate or not.
-never mentions the teachings of Jesus, despite them coinciding with his own. He does quote the OT, however, many times. So why not quote Jesus directly, especially when making the same point? It is possible he wasn’t concerned with Jesus’s ethics…isn’t it? I suppose both could be true: Jesus did exist physically and Paul only cared about what he received in his visions.
-never mentions any of his miracles or parables. No transfiguration, no denial by Peter, no betrayal by Judas. Yet Paul makes use of Abraham’s story extensively when speaking of faith and fulfillment of the promise. Again, it could be because his letters were purpose driven. However, if they were purpose driven, why not use Jesus’ life story as an example? We just said Paul may not have cared to know of Jesus’ life story, but it sure would have added oomph to some of his arguments if he had. Surely a reader of his letters, even early on, might have tugged on his cape once or twice and told Paul that Jesus said the same thing. If we estimate that Paul wrote hundreds of these letters, it seems that Jesus stories would have seeped in there somewhere.
I am fine with explaining away these “Problem of Paul”s. However, they are awkward explanations none the less. the Problem of Paul is not a mythicist position. Its just a note by historicist that some things about Paul are rather awkward. Mythicists have adopted it though.
Thank you for engaging. If you do think of a reverse Problem of Paul, where Paul’s letters present a problem for mythicists let me know.
“The consensus acceptance of the authenticity of the letters has no better basis than the claim that they were created several decades later.”
I just don’t see how letters of Paul would have been faked later. Why fake letters that do not mention anything about Jesus’ earthly life except suffering on the cross, death, and exaltation? Fake letters mention Pilate and Mary, for example. It is an awkward argument that they could be fake. For what purpose?
Are you proposing a Paul existed, did not write letters, then later someone forged letters in Paul’s name to expound a theology that evolves over the course of the letters, as well as exposing a fragile ego? Its not impossible.
However, it seems to me much simpler that this brilliant (and yet still metaphysically naive) Judean did write these letters, merging a dying savior with the fact that those hung on a tree were considered cursed. It seems historically accurate that treasure trains did travel from the Judean quarters of wealthy Roman cities, as observed by Greek historians, toward Jerusalem. This giving to the saints in Jerusalem is mentioned in many of Paul’s letters.
Paul did not meet Jesus, despite being in Jerusalem and raised at the knee of Gamaliel
a zealous Pharisee who is persecuting the ekklesia early on never met Jesus. That seems a contradiction in terms. A zealous pharisee is the very type of person that would have met Jesus, to ask him questions.
Does Paul make these claims (specifically, that he was raised at the knee of Gamaliel and was in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was active)?
If you are resting this all on Acts, I don’t think it can carry the weight you are putting on it.
Ether way, there isn’t much reason to assume a Pharisee in Jerusalem would have met Jesus: How much time did Jesus actually spend in Jerusalem? Approximately how many Pharisees were there in Jerusalem at that time?
Why should he care much about his earthly existence prior to being exalted to the right hand of God?
The author invented Paul as an apostle who experienced a revelation because it was then the universally recognized and only form of communication with divinity. Combined with the exegesis of Scripture (LXX) and attractive narrative, Paul was to be a hero of Christianity – the Great Apostle.
The authors of the apocalypses thought just like Paul’s author. John of Pathmos, Hermas of Rome. Revelation seemed to be the closest contact with Jesus, with God, for this group of authors. “Revealed” authors wrote apocalypses and letters. Epistle of Barnaba, Epistle to the Hebrews, …
But the ideas of these authors were outdone by people who decided to write an imaginary earthly biography of Jesus, the memories of the apostles, which turned out to be much more attractive to the recipients than the apocalypses or letters. More effective in missionary activities.
That’s what people wanted to hear.
It is exactly the same as the need to believe in further Marian apparitions. A priest once told me how he explained to the faithful that it was not true, that it was made up, that it was someone’s imagination. Finally, he became impatient and said that the Virgin Mary was not a squirrel and did not run through trees. To which he heard “And how do you know that?”
The matter was ended by his superior parish priest with a rhetorical question: “Don’t you have something else to do?”
“More effective in missionary activities”
In @49 CE (??) Claudius expels Judeans from Rome, supposedly for mischief concerning a Chrestus.
the first Judean expulsion from Rome was prior to 100 BCE.
I don’t think there was any prior failure to win over converts to Judean practices. Or at least as god fearers.
I don’t buy into the dichotomy of closed-Judean cult versus open-Christian cult until after the 3 great wars between Judeanism and its Greco-Roman overlords. Certainly Cohen’s from the Maccabees to the Mishnah is a great book on the subject.
The gospels certainly seemed to gain traction right out of the gate, or else why upgrade Mark like Luke and Matthew did. In light of the devastation of the Judean War, the gospels promoted the idea that the Judeans were warned long ago that things could get ugly. they had the choice between life and death and they chose death. It is hard to tell whether the gospels would have helped the revelation based movement or hindered it, initially. It may have even been confusing to some literalists.
I don’t see any “they” controlling these things, but rather as you point out by comparing the need for Mary apparitions driving that situation.
I simply do not see any original driving force for the Pauline literature deriving from anything than a legitimate series of communications.
Perhaps it would be better to focus on faked communications to settle this point. Letters like the Letter of Aristeas or the Report of Pontius Pilate are good examples. (I can’t think of anything closer to the time period of the Pauline epistles. I don’t know what time period you would put the Pauline epistles in.) They are careful to praise the recipients of the letter, and careful in their digs against others. Paul’s letter do none of that. He rails on his opponents with a rather raw emotion not seen (to my knowledge) in faked correspondence.
So based on other examples of fake correspondence, its hard to imagine the authentic epistles as fake as well.
the need for Mary apparitions driving that situation
Exactly. The need for contact with the divine here on earth is stronger than all the stories about the afterlife, heaven, angels and gods, and revelations. Whoever delivers it to the mass market wins.
And that is why the gospels, offering invented stories about the earthly Jesus, won the competition for the most effective missionary tool. All that remains is to ask when they were created.
In Paul’s case it was similar – the invented Acts of Paul and Thecla or the entire correspondence with Seneca. 3 letters in the first Corpus are declared false, 6 letters in the NT are declared false. Epistle to the Hebrews, 3 Corinthians, Epistle to the Alexandrians,….
And these 7 epistles that must be true. Because they have a coherent theology and a similar linguistic and compositional layer. And that is why their narrative layer can be considered true.
You can, but at the same time it is equally true to say that it is not true. The choice is based solely on intuition. I wouldn’t overestimate this criterion.
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