The Christ Myth Theory

[Swammerdami]

I'm sure there is much that's "wonderful" in those overly-long quotes from Carrier, @dbz
I didn't read a word. In the unlikely event that there really are 4 or 5 useful points that can be summarized BRIEFLY, please feel free to try.

 

[Swammerdami]

Is this the thread where we ask mythicists questions in hopes to better understand their hypothesis? Here's a topic that befuddles me; I hope mythicists can explain this. Please respond IN YOUR OWN WORDS using two or three responsive paragraphs. Citations are not necessary but if given should be relevant with any quoted excerpt kept brief.

It is well known that NT books like Acts, Galatians and Corinthians portray a vicious rivalry between Paul (and his conversion of Gentiles) and the Jerusalem church led by Peter and James. Historians use multiple clues to place the described rivalry into approximately the years 40-60 AD.

But some mythicists believe that much or most of these accounts were fictions constructed in the 2nd century. In that case, what was the character of the alleged rivalry?

* Was it a partly fictionalized version of a real rivalry from many decades earlier?
* Was it a real rivalry that played out in the 2nd century AD?
* Or was it completely fictional?
* Did the author of Galatians coordinate the fiction with the author of Acts?
* Some mythicists place Jesus at lest a century BEFORE historians do. Did the rivalry occur during the 1st or 2nd century BC?

As you can see, I'm flailing here! Can someone help place these apparent contradictions in perspective? Again, I'm hoping members of IIDB will express their own conclusions in their own words. I am NOT interested in Richard Carrier's alleged opinions.

 

[dbz]

Since the late-nineteenth century, scholars have all but concluded that the Apostle Paul authored six authentic community letters (

1. Romans,
2. 1_Corinthians,
3. 2_Corinthians,
4. Galatians,
5. Philippians, and
6. 1_Thessalonian )

and one individual letter to Philemon.

In this book, by contrast, Nina E. Livesey argues that this long-held interpretation has been inadequately substantiated and theorized. In her groundbreaking study, Livesey reassesses the authentic perspective and, based on her research, reclassifies the letters as pseudonymous and letters-in-form-only.

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-- https://assets.cambridge.org/97810094/87054/frontmatter/9781009487054_frontmatter.pdf

Tag: "Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context"​

• Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question
• Paul’s Letters in Literary-Philosophical Context
• The Fiction of Paul and the Church Communities
• Paul’s Letters and Accounting for Paul’s Name
• Challenging the Authenticity of Paul’s Letters
• Nina Livesey’s The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context
• New Book Questioning Authenticity of Paul’s Letters

 

[dbz]

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--Mowczko (14 February 2014) "Believing Wives and Female Co-workers of the Apostles". Marg Mowczko. 14 February 2014.

 

[dbz]

Among of the titles and images found in Revelation, the appellation of 'morning star' and the identity of the pregnant woman in Revelation 12 remain vexing. A proposed solution to the source of this 'morning star' title is a pesher between two commonly cited texts, Num 24,17 and Ps 110,3, which suggest that a king is begotten by God by means of the womb of dawn. If one were to combine Num 24,17 with Ps 110,3, then one would have a star born from the dawn — a morning star. The imagery of God’s son born from the womb of dawn would then explain the vision of Revelation 12, with the heavenly, solar woman. Interpreting her as a product of Psalm 110 makes the remainder of the vision a more coherent reading of both her story as well as John’s use of Scripture.

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-- https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3293721&journal_code=BIB&download=yes

 

[dbz]

• ἑωσφόρος/ἙΩΣΦΌΡΟΣ

The transliteration of ἙΩΣΦΌΡΟΣ to English is "Eosphoros".

• Eosphoros is the herald (i.e. a person that announces, proclaims, or precedes something else) of Eos. And is one of her sons.

The literal "Phoros" of Eos, the goddess of dawn! Cf. photon and elemental phosPhorus.

• The latin Lucifer and his mother (Aurora) were likely worshiped by pagan cults. All records of which are lost and likely burnt, so they would not represent a challenge to the worship of Jesus and his mother (Mary).

Aelius Aristides ~150AD in Orat. 27 348 gives ἙΩΣΦΌΡΟΣ the son of Eos as the "morning star". Thus prior 2nd century notice of the 2 sons of Eos as being one planet did not alter Eosfóros as the title of "morning star" data.perseus.org/texts/urn:ct...

 

[Swammerdami]

Is this the thread where we ask mythicists questions in hopes to better understand their hypothesis? Here's a topic that befuddles me; I hope mythicists can explain this. Please respond IN YOUR OWN WORDS using two or three responsive paragraphs. Citations are not necessary but if given should be relevant with any quoted excerpt kept brief.

It is well known that NT books like Acts, Galatians and Corinthians portray a vicious rivalry between Paul (and his conversion of Gentiles) and the Jerusalem church led by Peter and James. Historians use multiple clues to place the described rivalry into approximately the years 40-60 AD.

But some mythicists believe that much or most of these accounts were fictions constructed in the 2nd century. In that case, what was the character of the alleged rivalry?

* Was it a partly fictionalized version of a real rivalry from many decades earlier?
* Was it a real rivalry that played out in the 2nd century AD?
* Or was it completely fictional?
* Did the author of Galatians coordinate the fiction with the author of Acts?
* Some mythicists place Jesus at lest a century BEFORE historians do. Did the rivalry occur during the 1st or 2nd century BC?

As you can see, I'm flailing here! Can someone help place these apparent contradictions in perspective? Again, I'm hoping members of IIDB will express their own conclusions in their own words. I am NOT interested in Richard Carrier's alleged opinions.

It's been over two days. Are there NO scholars in the thread who can address this question?

 

[dbz]

[16:54] [Music] [Panorama of ancient sculpture and building presented]

This is style you know. This is Greek culture as a style and it's a very important thing. The story of the Bible everybody wanted to be Greek and of course the Jews in these cities wanted to join in that too. There were Jews living in these cities hundreds of years before this library was born who were already only speaking Greek who were thinking in Greek ways they changed their name to Greek names. Simon was a very popular name was a sort of adaption of the old Hebrew Shimon and of course you'd expect the great Hebrew holy text, our Old Testament, to be translated into this new language for this new sort of Jewish person.

There's a lovely legend about it the story is that in Alexandria in Egypt in the second century before Christ seventy two scholars were engaged to translate the holy scriptures they were put on a sand Bank in the sea outside the city in little Hut's. And they all sat down and they wrote out the holy Hebrew Scriptures and by the grace of God each one of their translations was the same as the other. The translation's called the Septuagint so the 72 of these scribes six for each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

So now lots of Jewish people only read their sacred books in Greek. The great numbers of them disapproved of the translation. They suddenly realized their heroes; Abraham, Isaac, and all those other founding fathers—according to the lights and virtues of Hellenism—had been rather funny people. Cheats, sheep stealers, robbers, liars, thieves, butchers of guests .. it looked bad. Suddenly the Jewish cult had been exposed to what was really the desire the dream of everybody and it didn't look too good. It's a desire to join this wondrous new culture and all his riches and at the same time there's a sort of tension that you don't want to lose your Jewishness. [Music] [18:53]

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"TESTAMENT with John Romer. Part 3 - Mightier Than The Sword". YouTube.

[47:10] The Gnostics [i.e. Chrestians NOT proto-orthodox Christians] were dying in that amphitheater as bravely as members of his own congregation . . . Irenaeus believed that true Christianity, was his Christianity (pseudo-orthodox Christianity)—he thought that the Gnostics were holy anarchists. He wanted to show the world an organized and universal Church, not a secret sect. [47:51]

---

"TESTAMENT with John Romer. Part 4 - Gospel Truth?". YouTube.

Irenaeus is the only author of the second century who gives any detailed account of the early Christian diversity. So, to me it seems reasonable that anyone trying to figure out the early development of Christianity should start by at least seeing what Irenaeus has to say and then trying to sort out what may be reliable in his account from what is not.

Irenaeus clearly puts the Simonians Simon, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, and Cerdo earlier than Marcion. And he clearly has Cerdo going to Rome before Marcion. And he clearly says that Cerdo taught “that the one proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Against Heresies 1,27,1). And the “Against All Heresies” of Pseudo-Tertullian mentions the Pauline letters in connection with Cerdo before even considering Marcion. And by all accounts Marcion only claimed to remove what Judaizers had inserted in the letters.

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--Roger Parvus 2025-01-24 per Godfrey, Neil (24 January 2025). "Paul's Letters as Second Century Writings -- The Relevance of the Circumcision Question". Vridar.

No text in the entire world ever says Christ - although plenty of them say Chrest. I'll point you to the larger "concise Philip":

4. XS
6. XRηSTIANOS
8. XRS
15. XS XS
20. XRS XRS XS
21. XS
48. XS XS
51. XS XS XRS XS
53. XRηSTIANOS
59. XS
63. XRηSTIANOS
72. XRηSTIANOS XRS
75. XS XS
80. XS
86. XRS
90. XS
101. XRISTIANOS XS
103. XRηSTIANOS
108. XRISTIANOS
124. XS

That's what the text says, literally, objectively, verifiably

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Christus/Chrestus in the Original Texts - Page 4 - Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

"Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament: the order of books according to Jesus Chri st" Amazon Kindle Edition
[...]
Sample first chapter and Table of Contents

I'd like to build up a database of primary source material and interpretation of it on the subject. The subject is that of these words, their associated abbreviations (if they are abbreviations), and related words in early Christian / Chrestian texts:

• Χρηστος
• Χριστος
• Χρειστος

---

--"The X-Files: Chrēstos / Christos / Χρειστος - Academic Discussion - Biblical Criticism & History Forum". earlywritings.com.

 

[dbz]

“I will argue that this new hypothesis is also capable of explaining the negative correlation between intelligence and belief, as well as at least part of the decline of religious belief and the growth of atheism over the same historical period.”

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–Cheyne, James Allan. “Atheism rising: the connection between intelligence, science, and the decline of belief.” Skeptic [Altadena, CA], vol. 15, no. 2, summer 2009, pp. 33+.

The correlation between intelligence and religion is actually weak. It has too many outliers to be a relevant observation. In fact, it has too many strong outliers. So I think it’s just an incidental artifact of access to information being lower among slightly more lower IQ persons than higher IQ persons. So what is being measured are lazy followers, not thought leaders, i.e. Christian apologists don’t have low IQs, they tend to have high IQs, as with most delusional intellectual participants (as opposed to quiet sideliners), because intelligence makes it easier to rationalize a false belief.

Second, intelligence (IQ) is not the same thing as rationality (RQ), and that’s not the same thing as knowledge (KQ), and that’s not the same thing as wisdom (WQ).

IQ only measures problem-solving capacity; it does not measure rationality (solving problems with the particular goal of reliably purging false beliefs). Rationality is only a learned skill, and even when learned, has to actually be consistently applied (so even people with the skill can fail at it if they choose not to use it in a particular subject, like religion—as will happen when they are delusional or have a specific grift to pull). I do suspect the correlation between low RQ and religion will be steeper than for IQ; but it will still have outliers, because the delusional and the grifters can have and apply the skill on a mere test of it, while dropping it when testing the false beliefs they are emotionally committed to.

Likewise, knowledge means simply a database of information. A low IQ or RQ person can be extremely erudite. But a lot of error results from ignorance rather than failures of reason, i.e., simply not knowing things. And increasing knowledge does have an effect (as it will cause more and more people to apply IQ and RQ to escaping false beliefs), which we see in the effect college has on religious belief. Again, not a perfect correlation, but more substantive than for IQ. Combine high RQ with high KQ and the correlation will be even steeper. This is where IQ becomes an artifact. IQ makes it easier to boost KQ; and therefore, conversely, low IQ persons will tend more often to suffer low KQ and RQ, but not in perfect correlation. IQ itself is thus irrelevant; it never directly contributes to religious belief status. It only affects the signals of RQ and KQ which are the actual things affecting religious belief status.

Finally, knowledge, rationality, and intelligence are not wisdom. Wisdom (WQ) is when you have applied those three things enough to have correctly figured out how the world actually works, how people actually work, how you yourself actually work. Measuring this requires knowing what it is, which is precisely the point of disagreement between the religious and the nonreligious. So it simply becomes tautological that high WQ people will be atheists (and in particular some variety of secular humanist). And the religious will insist it’s the other way around. Which requires us to roll up our sleeves and demonstrate which by an analysis of which side is being reliably rational and informed, and which not. Which will dictate which side is chasing WQ.

There is also the matter of EQ (emotional intelligence), though that has less to do with belief formation and more to do with the ability to read and work with others, and to evaluate and aid yourself with emotions. So I doubt it has any correlation with religion (except possibly on the liberal/conservative spectrum, i.e. I expect more high EQ people in liberal than in conservative religions and sects, and I expect the outliers, the high EQ conservatives, to be thought leaders, i.e. manipulators and profit rakers, more often than chance predicts).

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-- https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/32663#comment-40005

1) So why are they bad at reasoning in the first place? Are there no analytic /analytic personality types in Christianity?
2) Is there a brain development difference that enhances something instead of reason? Not being condescending here, and I don’t mean just intelligence.

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--Rusty on January 25, 2025

Note everything is manifest physically in the brain. So “we see it in the brain” is meaningless (it tells us nothing about how the brain got that way).

So I think you mean, “Is it genetic?”

I am not aware of any evidence that it is. The evidence tends to indicate it is environmental (a function of what environment you grow up in, i.e. how and where you were raised and what happened to you in childhood, or the happenstance gradient of your subsequent life path, i.e. whether you get “captured” by a delusional social group). Because people shift position a lot based on those factors, which means genes cannot be much in control of the outcome.

There can be, however, second order genetic factors.

For example, “ambiguity intolerance” seems to be substantially genetic (albeit not perfectly; ambiguity tolerance or intolerance can, to an extent, change with habituation and learning, so is partially environmental). And “ambiguity intolerance” is a cognitive bias that tends to funnel people into conservative ideologies, which tend to be religious. But that’s a lot of steps of causation, and each step lacks a perfect correlation (there are atheist conservatives; there are nonconservative ambiguity intolerators; the liberal religious can have high ambiguity tolerance; etc.).

So I think it really comes down to (a) parenting and (b) primary schooling. When those lack strong influences toward critical thinking and rationality (not just the skills being taught, but being valorized, prioritized, and encouraged), people will “drift” on whatever cultural wind emotionally catches them. Which depends in part on which winds are even available (e.g. if you suppress or vilify or otherwise socially punish nonbelief, more people will become religious for lack of gradients to choose). This is why America remains so much more conservatively religious than Europe: it is a happenstance of the social system we built. It is a machine for generating delusional people and the grifters who profit on them.

P.S.

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Note that twin studies suggest there is no genetic determinant of religiosity. Environmental factors have near perfect correlation instead.

Even studies finding weak correlations (where twins raised differently are “slightly” more likely to follow similar religious paths) don’t align cross-culturally (the percentage of twins who are religious varies by culture), indicating that if any genetic factors exist, they are second order, and thus environment matters far more (it provides the available gradients and encouragements).

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-- https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/32663#comment-40006

...don't pin your hopes on the fraudster Richard Carrier.

The problem is that delusionality and irrationality are a natural tendency of human beings, so becoming obsessed with angrily defending a false belief is something humans are just prone to. Critical thinking is unnatural; it goes against our innate intuitions, and is literally scary. That’s why so few do it, at all, much less commit to it as a core life value.

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--Comment #39494 [NOW FORMATTED] per "Matt Kovacs Demonstrates What's Wrong with Atheists Clinging to the Historicity of Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs. 12 November 2024

1. Carrier, Richard C. (2023). On the historicity of Jesus: why we might have reason for doubt. Vol. "One" (Revised ed.). Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 9781914490248.
2. Forthcoming second Vol.: Carrier, Richard C. (2025). On the historicity of Jesus: why we might have reason for doubt. Vol. "Two". Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
   • Chapter 7 : “The Mistaken Invention of Docetism"
   • Chapter 8 : “Why Romans 1:3 Cannot Demonstrate a Historical Jesus”
   • Chapter 9 : “Why Galatians 4:4 Cannot Demonstrate a Historical Jesus”
   • Chapter 10 : “All Baptized Christians Were the Brothers of the Lord"

Romans​

• Empirical Logic and Romans 1:3. On why my hypothesis of “minimal mythicism” predicts the entire contents of Romans 1:3 and therefore the phrase “came from the sperm of David” cannot even in principle be offered as evidence for the historicity of Jesus, expanding on Historicity, Ch. 11.9.
• What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? Delves further, outlining the possible meanings of this passage, which go beyond merely the cosmological.
• The Cosmic Seed of David. Explains in more detail what the cosmological thesis is and why it makes sense in context, becoming a chapter in Jesus from Outer Space.

Galatians​

• Galatians 1:19, Ancient Grammar, and How to Evaluate Expert Testimony. On why “Brother of the Lord” in Galatians cannot be decisively read as meaning a biological brother; in the process outlining the correct methodology needed to resolve such questions, expanding on Historicity, Chapter 11.10 (where also is treated 1 Cor. 9:5).
• Yes, Galatians 4 Is Allegorical. Some critics keep treating Galatians 4:4 (where Jesus is said to have “come from a woman”) out of context, despite my warning in Historicity, Chapter 11.9, that it must be read in context. Here I fully demonstrate why its context (the argument of Paul beginning in Galatians 3 and spanning to the end of Galatians 4) determines Paul’s intended meaning.

Galatians 4:29​

This verse says, “But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.” Someone recently suggested this means that the women people are born to in Galatians 4 can’t be allegorical as Paul says they are (in Gal. 4:24; see OHJ, pp. 577-82), because being “born according to the flesh” means being born to (the allegorical) Hagar, as Paul says, so if that’s what Paul meant when he said Jesus was also born of the same mother, then Paul would be saying that Jesus is now persecuting the children of the celestial mother (the allegorical Sarah), and surely that can’t be. Paul wouldn’t have said that. Therefore, he can’t have meant that about Jesus.

But this is confused. Paul says Jesus was only born of the ‘flesh woman’ (Hagar, the world of flesh) to die. But when Paul wrote Galatians, Jesus was long dead; he had already become born of the heavenly woman (Sarah). Just as we wish to do. That’s Paul’s entire argument in Galatians 4. When Paul says the one born of flesh “then” (meaning Ishmael in the Old Testament story, the disinherited son of Abraham, and thus not an heir to the kingdom of God) was a persecutor then, “just as now,” he cannot be referring to Jesus. Because Jesus is no longer flesh. Jesus was reborn of the celestial woman, just as Paul says we will be (and in the meantime can now be, by “promise,” through our “inner man”: see The Empty Tomb, pp. 139-40).

In talking about persecutors, Paul is referring to anyone who clings to this world, who remains born to the flesh rather than to the spirit. And he means just what he says in the next line, Galatians 5:1: that anyone who remains in their heart a son of the flesh remains in bondage to the old law and will be tormented by it and doomed to sin and to persecuting others (see Romans 8 for a full explication of his metaphysics on this). Therefore we should become (as one can through baptism) a reborn son of the celestial mother, so that we can be free and saved. In short, the system Paul is talking about allegorically is not which literal woman you were born to, but which world you are submitting to, and what the consequences are of that. Jesus, exceptionally, submitted briefly to the world of flesh so he could defeat it (again, as Philippians 2 explains). And having defeated it, he escaped it (he got to be reborn to the celestial mother: 1 Corinthians 15:35-54). Thus demonstrating we can do the same. Thus we should emulate Jesus in this.

Thus in the allegory Paul is building (and explicitly says he is using), Jesus is not a persecutor like Ishmael “because they were born to the same mother, the same world.” Rather, they are alike for that reason only in that they both submitted to the world of flesh and its burdens and temptations. But unlike Ishmael (and all others today who are enslaved to the world of flesh), Jesus resisted that temptation and overcame it, and thus got to be reborn—as a son of Sarah, like we will be, if we do the same. And as Jesus is thus a son of Sarah now, when Paul speaks of those born to Hagar now, he certainly wouldn’t be including Jesus in that remark. Because when he wrote that, Jesus was no longer born to Hagar. He was born to Sarah.

There is nothing in this that makes Jesus historical. To the contrary, this verifies that Paul is not talking about a literal human mother here at all. And therefore there is nothing in Galatians 4 that supports historicity. In just the same way, Paul calling Jesus a “man” (anthrôpos) affords no evidence of historicity, either. Nor references to his mortal body, when he was briefly given one, being made out of Davidic semen and thus Jewish (OHJ, pp. 575-77). That’s all consistent with the Doherty Thesis, that this incarnation, which was required by scripture, took place in the sky. Which is why the only way Paul says anyone knew it had ever happened, was by hidden messages in scripture and divine revelation (e.g. Romans 16:25-26).

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--Carrier, Richard (20 March 2017). "Desperately Searching the Epistles for Anything That Attests a Historical Jesus". Richard Carrier Blogs.

 

[dbz]

[W]e need to rely on expert testimony, it still has a documented proneness to be wrong (and even more so in communities that trust it uncritically) and thus has to be subject to independent checks. Arrogance, overconfidence, error all remain problems. One of the ways to confirm an expert is unreliable is to find many instances in which fact-claims they make, which they should not be wrong about (things easy to ascertain that are directly in their field), are demonstrably false.

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--Carrier, Richard (26 December 2021). "Galatians 1:19, Ancient Grammar, and How to Evaluate Expert Testimony". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[T]hat there were probably some Jews before Christianity who already expected a dying messiah. As I pointed out last time, my conclusion on that now has the support of over twenty published studies, and thus has passed the approval of a dozen experts and dozens of peer reviewers. Davis is thus not arguing with me. He is arguing with dozens of his expert peers. Does he have any countermanding studies to cite? No. The field’s literature pretty unanimously supports me now, not him.

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--Carrier, Richard (10 August 2023). "And Then Kipp Davis Fails to Heed My Advice and Digs a Hole for Himself". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[H]ad Hurtado been a professional historian who cares about the truth, rather than an apologist who only cares about what people believe, even if it’s false:


Carrier: Philo identifies this Logos as an archangel.


Hurtado: Hmm. I was sure he doesn’t. That he only thought of it as an idea. What evidence does Carrier have to the contrary? I need to check that.


Hurtado: [Checks the cited section of my book, reads the evidence; checks the evidence, confirms it’s correct.]


Hurtado: Huh. Well shoot. I guess I was wrong. Philo does identify that Logos as an archangel.


Hurtado: [Publishes a statement that I was right about that and actually did the research to confirm it.]


Instead? Hurtado lies about my not knowing this subject, not doing the research, and being unqualified to do it, and asserts with confidence that Philo never called the Logos an archangel.

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--Carrier, Richard (9 December 2017). "The Difference Between a Historian and an Apologist". Richard Carrier Blogs.

 

[dbz]

For the ordinary lay person who does not have the background to draw upon to enable a confident “vetting” the arguments of a consensus . . . the three-part conditions set out by Avazier Tucker were a good rule of thumb for when to justify appeal to a consensus.
[...]
Tucker’s three point proposition is explaining exactly why what is regarded as a consensus in biblical studies is not a justifiable or trustworthy consensus.
[...]
the issues of Thomas Thompson and Thomas Brodie certainly illustrated the failure of Tucker’s points 1 (coercion)
and
3 (coercion but also alert to the public about the heterogeneous character of the opposition to the consensus) in the field of biblical studies
[...]
I must point to a work by Michael Alter published in the SHERM journal, Dataset Analysis of English Texts Written on the Topic of Jesus’ Resurrection: A Statistical Critique of Minimal Facts Apologetics —This article’s abstract:

This article collects and examines data relating to the authors of English-language texts written and published during the past 500 years on the subject of Jesus’ resurrection and then compares this data to Gary R. Habermas’ 2005 and 2012 publication on the subject. To date, there has been no such inquiry. This present article identifies 735 texts spanning five centuries (from approximately 1500 to 2020). The data reveals 680 Pro-Resurrection books by 601 authors (204 by ministers, 146 by priests, 249 by people associated with seminaries, 70 by laypersons, and 22 by women). This article also reveals that a remarkably high proportion of the English-language books written about Jesus’ resurrection were by members of the clergy or people linked to seminaries, which means any so-called scholarly consensus on the subject of Jesus’ resurrection is wildly inflated due to a biased sample of authors who have a professional and personal interest in the subject matter. Pro-Resurrection authors outnumber Contra-Resurrection authors by a factor of about twelve-to-one. In contrast, the 55 Contra-Resurrection books, representing 7.48% of the total 735 books, were by 42 authors (28 having no relevant degrees at the time of publication). The 42 contra authors represent only 6.99% of all authors writing on the subject.

The article is available at the link above. The book referred to with the complete study is A Thematic Access-Oriented Bibliography of Jesus’s Resurrection. I don’t know how Michael had the stamina to undertake such a study, but again, it’s good to have things like this done and available.

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--Godfrey, Neil (8 January 2025). "Justifiable Appeal to Consensus; Take 2". Vridar.

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--Godfrey, Neil (7 January 2025). "How to Recognize a Trustworthy Consensus". Vridar.

Some problems demand an immediate response. However, other questions — e.g.: Did Jesus exist as a historical figure? Did Josiah suppress the original Israelite pantheon, which included a mother goddess? Did the Jews of the Second Temple period ever conceive of a dying, suffering, sacrificial messiah? — do not.

A Vridar reader, Gary, commented recently:

Majority expert opinion matters! BIG time! Advanced, industrial societies can only function if the population trusts consensus expert opinion! When the experts are distrusted and everyone becomes his own expert, society falls into disarray.

To which I would respond, “Well, sometimes.” Vaccinations are critically important. The science is settled. Combatting global warming is important. Again, the science is settled. Outside the hard sciences, things are rarely so definite. Scientific consensus arises from evidence and testing. Tentative conclusions drive further research.

Even in the “softer” sciences, real-world problems typically guide research. But that isn’t the case in biblical studies, unless you think the supernatural is real. I am extremely interested in what scholars call “The Son of Man Problem” and “The Synoptic Problem.” However, these are not issues that threaten our existence. We have all the time in the world to examine the evidence. We can decide not to decide, and admit that, at least for the moment, no solution fully satisfies us.

I love history, but similar problems abound here as well. We would like to solve these mysteries, but we can still sleep soundly if we don’t know the answers. I like to read works by authors who push the boundaries, those who ask, “What if everything you know is wrong?” But in the end I’m swayed by hard evidence, not seductive conjecture in which all the pieces “fit perfectly.”

Note that biblical studies experts often pass themselves off as historians, hiding the fact that they have master’s or doctoral degrees in theology. They may neglect to mention that their PhDs are in divinity. Does it matter? Perhaps, especially if the bulk of their training centered on the ministry. For reasons that escape me, historians can never learn enough Greek or read enough scripture to understand the New Testament, but NT scholars can take up history as a hobby and call themselves historians or skim a couple of books by Halbwachs and present themselves as memory experts.

For most of my adult life, I did agree with the general consensus of mainstream biblical scholars. It seemed safe and rational. In fact, in some cases, I still do. Where I part with them now, after many years of self-study, is the confidence in their results. Unfortunately, as Neil and I have pointed out many times here, biblical scholarship harbors a disturbingly large number of scholars who don’t know what they pretend to know. Within their ranks they tolerate dabblers and practitioners of questionable competence. Scholarly review would appear to be little more than a rubber stamp.

Finally, I would point out the regrettable fact that the so-called consensus on specific matters within NT and OT studies often rests on unwarranted faith in a tiny number of trusted experts. Nobody has the time to learn everything, which is why we need experts. It’s why we hire professionals — doctors, lawyers, plumbers, and electricians. And that’s also why professions create organizations to maintain standards and to protect their overall reputation.

Biblical scholarship, by contrast, has continually demonstrated its inability to address fundamental errors in scholarship, while tolerating apologetics masquerading as honest, conservative scholarship. It’s disheartening, but what can we do? My advice is to read everything, but verify what you’re reading, and take every claim with a grain of salt. For example, I now make it a habit to look up every footnote to make sure it wasn’t quote-mined. Yes, it takes longer, but we’re in no hurry. There are no ticking time bombs here.

---

--Widowfield, Tim (3 January 2019). "Scholarly Consensus: Some Questions Are More Important Than Others". Vridar.

• https://vridar.org/tag/scholarly-consensus/

 

[dbz]

Since the late-nineteenth century, scholars have all but concluded that the Apostle Paul authored six authentic community letters (

1. Romans,
2. 1_Corinthians,
3. 2_Corinthians,
4. Galatians,
5. Philippians, and
6. 1_Thessalonian )

and one individual letter to Philemon.

---

-- https://assets.cambridge.org/97810094/87054/frontmatter/9781009487054_frontmatter.pdf

Irenaeus seems aware of the entire Pauline corpus, save only Philemon, a trait also shared with Clement of Alexandria. Thus, we can see that Philemon’s authenticity was already being called into question during ancient times. However, the vast majority of Christians came to assert its authenticity, so Philemon became standard in various canon New Testaments. Unfortunately, the arguments that challengers posed in ancient times are now lost, and it is not until the burgeoning modern era that detailed arguments arose.

(p. 5)

---

--Hansen, Chris M. (2024). "The Empty Prison Cell: The Authenticity of Philemon Reconsidered". Wipf and Stock Publishers.

[In] On the Historicity of Jesus:

There is a plausible case to be made that Philemon is a forgery, based in part on the fact that it looks a lot like a letter written by Pliny the Younger almost a century later (Letters 9.21 . . . a case for forgery remains, even if not a conclusive one). However that may be, Philemon contains no data relevant to the historicity of Jesus, so it can be disregarded anyway.

OHJ, p. 262, n. 13

Part of the problem is that Philemon is so short and so off-topic compared to the other letters that it can’t be confidently evaluated with any stylometric method. We simply can’t tell whether it adheres to Pauline syntactical, literary, or ideological style.

---

--Carrier, Richard (13 June 2024). "Did Paul Write Philemon?". Richard Carrier Blogs.

 

[dbz]

• All belief in Jesus stemmed from writings and there was never a real organic body of Jesus worshipers.

Christianity comes from nowhere, with no one to refute various wild interpretations. So all of this seems to indicate that the writings came first and the writings were then open to interpretation and there was never anyone from any real communities who really worshiped Jesus prior to the publication of writings about him.

[18:14 ] The canonical Paul is a later reworking of an older version of Paul.

• Notice I didn't say the original version that is attested by Marcion in his [Apostolikon meaning "collection of apostles"].

I also don't accept any of the dating of the gospels to be in the first century. Rather I think that—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John [and canonical Paul]—all were creations after the publication of Marcion's New Testament.

• The first New Testament ever! [was Created/Assembled by Marcion and published after 140 CE].

• Maybe even after Justin.

---

--Jack Bull (3 December 2024). "Did Jesus Exist? Jacob Berman and Dr. Jack Bull Versus Dr. Aaron Adair and Neil Godfrey". YouTube. History Valley.

We learn much more from Josephus—than we learn from the Marcionite edition—about the first century.

---

--"The New Testament Was Fabricated, Marcion was First! | Dr. David Trobisch". YouTube. History Valley. 17 November 2024.

By reexamining the relationship between Paul and the Gospel writers, one can hypothesize a novel perspective on the formation of the New Testament.

Robyn Faith Walsh challenges the traditional narrative of early Christianity and challenges scholars to consider alternative explanations for the origins of the Gospels.

Walsh argues that the Gospel writers may have drawn significantly from Paul's letters, rather than relying solely on oral traditions or other sources.

Key points:

• **Central Role of Paul** Traditional scholarship often positions Paul as a pivotal figure in early Christianity, leading a diverse and expansive movement. Walsh questions this portrayal, suggesting that Paul's influence may have been overstated.
• **Gospel Writers and Paul's Influence** Walsh proposes that the Gospel writers may have utilized Paul's letters as a source for information about Jesus. This challenges the common assumption that the Gospels were primarily based on oral traditions or eyewitness accounts.
• **The Last Supper Narrative** The similarities between Paul's account of the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 and the Gospel accounts hint at a potential connection. Walsh suggests that the Gospel writers may have incorporated elements from Paul's narrative into their own accounts.
• **A Simplified Approach** Walsh advocates for a more straightforward interpretation of early Christian literature's origins, focusing on available written sources rather than complex theories of oral transmission and community development. She argues that by overcomplicating the process, scholars often overlook the simplest and most likely explanation.

Willi Braun & Andie Alexander discuss the importance of critical approaches in the study of religion. www.religiousstudiesproject.com?powerpress_p...

I suggest we should ask ourselves what strategies second century inventors of Christianity might have had in mind when compiling the letters of Paul with certain bioi of Jesus into canon.

---

--Response essay by Robyn Faith Walsh “A Jesus Before Paul?” www.religiousstudiesproject.com/response/a-j...

---

 

[Swammerdami]

The similarities between Fundamentalist Carrierists and Fundamentalist Christians really are uncanny! "Birds of a feather should flock together!"

Ask them where dinosaur fossils come from, or why pseudo-Paul and pseudo-Luke invented a fictional rivalry, and they can only recite from their memorized scripture, relevant or not. Ask them how they know the Earth is flat, or how James could be the son of Damneus and they don't seem to even understand the question. All they can do is recite random rants from their Messiah or even just list the names of his books!

 

[dbz]

Chrissy Hansen 2024-12-06 says:
I hold that not only is the debate on Jesus’ historicity irrelevant, that the whole of Jesus as a persona at the origins of Christianity (mythical or historical) is completely irrelevant… so the whole of the Quest for the Historical Jesus is, in and of itself, a waste of time. Essentially, I’m advocating that we dissolve the entire subfield, or at the very least relegate it to only studying the reception history of Jesus (e.g., how Jesus was perceived in sources, rather than trying to reconstruct an historical individual/mythical deity).

It is my position that the entire debate is wrongly hinged on the assumption that Jesus’ historicity is important for understanding Christian origins, which I think is just completely invalidated by a more critical sociological approach to Christian origins, and also is irrelevant to how we deal with our extant sources (gospels and what not). I’m essentially taking the Soviet approach. After the Christ-Myth debate in the Soviet Union more or less settled at the end of the 1960s, scholars like Livzits just dismissed the importance of Jesus (regardless of whether he lived or not) altogether as being irrelevant for critical evaluations of Christian origins.

I'm not persuaded by the Marcion Priority argument and find Dennis MacDonald persuasive on the idea that Marcion abridged Luke:

• I think Paul's idea that the Jews killed Jesus is attested to in Mark's reception history of Paul.

Pauline expert Benjamin White disagrees with the idea that "The Jews Killed Jesus" passage is inauthentic and does not find reason to dismiss it as an interpolation.

["Re: Richard Carrier: Paul the Uncertain" time=1737712239]

---

["Leucius Charinus" time=1737683994]

---

Who is going to rerun Carrier's Bayesian historicity matrix consciously and explicitly when Paul is not assumed to be historical. Carrier doesn't look like he is going to reverse his assessment of the historicity or Paul.

In Carrier's analysis, each datum was assumed conditionally independent of every other, so it's easy to "divide out" every place he multiplied likelihood ratios based on something he read in Paul. What further updating would be needed would depend on what relationship, if any, received Paul would have to do with Jesus's historicity based on whatever Carrier's new beliefs about those letters would be.

If Carrier were unwilling to do the updating . . . then the new analyst would probably do best to start over, thanking Carrier (and Doherty) for doing all that spade work.

 

[dbz]

---

--Godfrey, Neil (30 January 2025). "Paul's Letters as Products of Marcion's School". Vridar.

 

[dbz]

[It’s important] to be able to model ordinary, everyday historical reasoning with a Bayesian framework first, so you get right what it is that Bayesian models are actually doing mathematically: they are simply describing correct reasoning. So if you can figure out how to translate such reasoning into Bayesian terms (for example: A Test of Bayesian History: Efraim Wallach on Old Testament Studies), you’ll actually get it, and end up with a functional rather than a broken tool.

---

--Carrier (18 October 2021). "How to Correctly Employ Bayesian Probabilities to Describe Historical Reasoning (Jesus Edition)". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[W]e both think historical reasoning is fundamentally Bayesian. As some might know, the subtitle of my book is Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, and though the study of Jesus is its principle example, the overall thesis is that all history is Bayesian and all historians should learn Bayes’ Theorem and how to apply it to their own thinking to improve their reasoning, research, and argumentation.

Tucker makes the same argument. His approach is deeper and more philosophical, more about making the point that historical reasoning is already Bayesian, and that this explains everything from consensus to disagreement in the historical community.
[...]
Tucker says in his central chapter (ch. 3, “The Theory of Scientific Historiography”), “I argue that the interpretation of Bayesianism that I present here is the best explanation of the actual practices of historians” and that “Bayesian formulae can even predict in most cases the professional practices of historians” (p. 134), and he gives good brief explanations of prior probability and likelihood (what I call consequent probability) in the context of historical thinking, and uses real-world examples to illustrate his point. His chapters 1 and 2 cover the background of the philosophy and epistemology of history, and remaining chapters apply the results of chapter three to address three major debates in that field: explaining disagreement among historians (ch. 4), resolving questions of causal explanation in history (ch. 5), and exploring the limits of historical knowledge and method (ch.6).

---

--Carrier, Richard (24 June 2013). "A Well-Deserved Nod to Aviezer Tucker". Richard Carrier Blogs.

Conclusion
Tucker’s review is uniformly informative. In fact it’s a valuable adjunct to Proving History, and advances the cause of getting historians to see the importance of “com[ing] to terms with the extensive Bayesian literature” and “what it means for historiography.”
[...]
Tucker says nothing that contravenes anything argued in Proving History or On the Historicity of Jesus. Everything he says actually in fact verifies them. In all he voiced only one genuine criticism, which is that I could have added a section assisting historians with cases where multiple independent testimonies actually do exist (and even how to identify them). And with that I agree.

---

--Carrier, Richard (3 February 2016). "Tucker's Review of Proving History in the Journal History & Theory". Richard Carrier Blogs.

---

--"Dr. Richard Carrier's lecture in Bangor, Maine: The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus". @time:00:12:00 YouTube. TheKnowledgeNexus. 11 May 2024.

1. Carrier, Richard C. (2023). On the historicity of Jesus: why we might have reason for doubt. Vol. "One" (Revised ed.). Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 9781914490248.
2. Forthcoming second Vol.: Carrier, Richard C. (2025). On the historicity of Jesus: why we might have reason for doubt. Vol. "Two". Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
   • Chapter 7 : “The Mistaken Invention of Docetism"
   • Chapter 8 : “Why Romans 1:3 Cannot Demonstrate a Historical Jesus”
   • Chapter 9 : “Why Galatians 4:4 Cannot Demonstrate a Historical Jesus”
   • Chapter 10 : “All Baptized Christians Were the Brothers of the Lord"

 

[dbz]

Re: κυριος revisited
[spin time=1735320752]

---

Over the years here I have argued that there are two basic uses of the Greek kurios in Paul's letters, 1) as a theonym, referring to the Hebrew god, ie ο κυριος (without qualification) refers to God, and 2) as a title, eg my lord or the lord Jesus. The two exceptions I know about are in fragments that some scholars have argued are interpolations, 1 Cor 6:14 and 1 Cor 11:23-25.(*) This view for some reason has garnered no support or interest whatsoever here. Yet for me we face another example of evolution of Christian thought, for we find examples of the theonymic kurios used for Jesus for example in Lk and Jn.

I have recently been looking at evidence from the Septuagint to understand the usage of κυριος as Paul would have received from his cultural-religious context.

Here's a table of Hebrew terms as they relate to κυριος ("... ->" indicates a second use of the term above):

Hebrew	LXX	English
ADONAI	ο κυριος μου	my lord
... ->	(ο) κυριος	Lord
YAHWEH	(ο) κυριος	Lord
ELOHYM	θεος	God
... ->	(ο) κυριος	Lord
EL	ο κυριος	Lord

Septuagint translators discerned when ADONAI referred to God and used (ο) κυριος and when it referred to a person, which then was translated as ο κυριος μου, ie "my lord" or "my master". ELOHYM was generally translated as θεος (god), though sometimes as (ο) κυριος. EL at least in the first 36 chapters of Job became ο κυριος.

The name of the Hebrew God in Greek was mainly κυριος, though this noun did frequently receive an article. The title of a person such as a king or a patriarch was ο κυριος μου and it seemed sufficient for the translators to simply as the possessive adjective, sometimes, my, your, our, or his to make clear the reference. This is how we end up with the LXX psalm 110:1 as used in Mt 22:44 containing "the Lord says to my lord..." (ειπεν ο κυριος τω κυριω μου. From our understanding of what the translators did throughout the Septuagint, we know that the first term, ο κυριος, is a reference for God and the second, τω κυριω μου, refers to David and by implication in the new testament to Jesus. This is the theonym versus the title.

Another good example of this is 1 Sam 24:6 that talks of "my lord, the anointed of the Lord" (τω κυριω μου τω χριστω κυριω), which may seem a bit of a mind bender for us, but is quite coherent and understandable to ancient readers given the methodology of the translators. Gen 24:27's "my lord Abraham" is structurally the same as "my lord Jesus", ie both are simple titles.

Paul, who was zealous for the traditions of his ancestors, would have inherited this language usage from his predecessors. We must expect him to use the theonym for God and the title for Jesus.

As an example of Paul using the theonym, when he quotes the Septuagint in 1 Cor 14:21 he adds "says the Lord", so clearly Paul shows he actively uses the theonym (and not just cites it from the LXX). In 1 Cor 12:3 we see the phrase "Jesus is lord", ie Jesus bears the title. In 1 Cor 8:6 we read of one god, the father,... and one lord, Jesus Christ, "lord" qualified by "one" indicates the title.

The verse itself (1 Cor 8:6) is a strong contradition to Larry Hurtado's notion that Paul held a "binitarian" belief, ie that Jesus was of the same status as God, "for there is one god, the father". This is the Hebrew shema the fundamental Jewish belief. It is also a statement that excludes Jesus in the "godhead".

We have to wait till Jesus assumes the theonym, which once assumed inexorably leads to the trinity. But to be clear, Paul's savior was not in his writings God.

---

(*) A good list of hypothesized interpolations in Paul's work can be found in "Interpolations in the Pauline Letters", Wm O. Walker, Jr, in The Pauline Canon, ed Stanley E. Porter, Brill 2004, pp.191-194.

[Peter Kirby time=1738522868]

---

spin's interpretation of "the Lord" in Paul as never referring to Jesus would lead to a reinterpretation of three of Paul's references (1 Cor 7 and 1 Thess 4 also). It also requires (and implies) an interpolation at 1 Cor 11 and a reading of Galatians where James is not the brother of Jesus.

The only question is whether spin's interpretation is correct.

 

[dbz]

Marcion's Apostolikon and Evangelikon were his complete canonical Christian scripture and the original Christian Gospel. They are no longer extant, existing only in fragments and as quotations within the writings of those who opposed him.

• Apostolikon: This was Marcion's collection of ten Pauline epistles (letters). It included Galatians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and what is believed to be Philippians (sometimes referred to as "Laodiceans"). He likely was the author or curated the original collection.
• Evangelikon: This was Marcion's version of the Gospel, which scholars believe the Gospel of Luke was derived from, but significantly altered. Like the Apostolikon, it was sourced and curated by Marcion. Marcion's Gospel was authored without any perceived Jewish influences or connections to the Old Testament.

Scholars holding the viewpoint that the earliest gospel was used and/or written by Marcion:

• Dr. Jack Bull
• David Trobisch
• Nina Livesey
• Markus Vinzent
• Matthias Klinghardt
• Georges Ory
• Paul Louis Couchoud

M>>> Matthew Britt
J>>> Jaaron Wingo
GE>>> Godless Engineer

36:51
M>>>We think that the Marcionite branch or some Proto Marcionite branch is more or less the origin for the Christian beliefs and they believed that Jesus was more or less a demigod like Jaaron was saying. His first appearance is actually in Luke 4 (what we call Luke 4 now) at least where he descends into Capernium. He went down into Capernium is how it's translated now. But in the original version, Marcion's version, he literally descends from the sky. We have multiple attestations to this.

---

"Meeting the Authors of Christ Before Jesus". @time:00:36:51 per 2:18:26. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 31 August 2024.

 

[dbz]

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 1

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 2: The Letters of Paul

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 3: Three Deutero-Paulines

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 4: Excursus on Marcion, Valentinians, and the Pauline Letters

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 5: The Transformation of Simon/Paul in Galatians

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 6: Traces of Helen in the Pauline Letters

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 7: The Source of Simon/Paul’s Gospel

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 8: The Source of Simon/Paul’s Gospel (continued)

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 9: The Source of Simon/Paul’s Gospel (conclusion)

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 10: A Different Perspective on the Corinthian Controversy

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 11: A Different Perspective on the Corinthian Controversy

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 12: A Different Perspective on the Corinthian Controversy (conclusion)

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 13: Simon/Paul and the Law of Moses

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 14: Simon/Paul and the Law of Moses (continued)

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 15: Simon/Paul and the Law of Moses (continued)

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 16: Mark as Allegory

A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 17: Mark and Proto-Mark

---

--Godfrey, Neil (24 January 2014). "Roger Parvus: A Simonian Origin for Christianity". Vridar.

Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 1

Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 2

Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 3

Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 4 / Conclusion – Historical Jesus?

---

--Parvus, Roger (3 March 2019) to (7 March 2019). "Revising the Series 'A Simonian Origin for Christianity' ". Vridar.

Acts, in my opinion, is a proto-orthodox work. And if so, its reason for connecting Paul’s name to Sergius Paulus may not be for purely informational purposes. That is to say, this may be its way of dismissing the claims of heretical competitors who attach a different significance to his name.

The likelihood that the story of Roman governor’s conversion is true is roughly zero. Even Acts doesn’t appear to take it too seriously. “It is absolutely astonishing that such a coup should be handled in so blasé a fashion. There would be nothing like it for centuries. … Rather than exploit this marvelous opportunity, they” (Paul and Barnabas) “turn their backs upon it and sail away.” (“The Mystery of Acts”, by Richard Pervo, p.126).

So then why did the proto-orthodox author of Acts bring it up at all? Maybe in order to conveniently ignore competing claims regarding Paul’s name.

---

--Roger Parvus says:
2025-02-04 20:21:38 GMT+0000 at 20:21

I think that in Acts we see the creation of the proto-orthodox version of Paul, but I think its author was aware of another version of him and didn’t approve of it. This comes out, for example, when Acts has James in Jerusalem tell Paul that many Jews have heard that that he is “teaching all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to abandon Moses” (Acts 21:21). James then directs Paul to take part in some Jewish observance so that “in this way everyone will know that there is nothing to the reports that they have been given about you but that you yourself live in observance of the law” (Acts 21:24). What are these reports? If Acts is fabricating this for none other than artistic reasons and if Acts marks the absolute beginning of the Paul figure, then this would be the first slender thread from which hangs all the subsequent widespread adoption of Paul as a favorite by the so-called heretics. But there is another possibility. Maybe the author of Acts in his own day, say CE 150, knows of such “reports” about Paul, and this is his way of assuring his readers that “there is nothing to the reports”.

Although I can’t prove it, I think this second alternative is more likely given the text battles that occurred in early Christianity (as related, for example, by Ehrman’s “Forgery and Counterforgery in Early Christianity”). I think Acts did not escape the fray and that one of the reasons it was written was to defend the proto-orthodox position. As I see it, the proto-orthodox wanted to keep and use the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) in the new religion they were forming. To do that they decided to keep their Jesus and Paul with both feet firmly planted in Judaism.

---

--Roger Parvus says:
2025-02-05 19:51:29 GMT+0000 at 19:51

This comment continues on from where the previous one left off and addresses the question of whether we can know more precisely whose version of Paul the proto-orthodox author of Acts was apparently dismissing. I think we can make a pretty good guess. For Acts is presented as part of a package. By way of its prologue it presents itself as a continuation of gLuke, and some commentators even prefer to refer to the package as Luke-Acts. And we also know there is some kind of contested relationship between Luke and the Gospel published by Marcion. And that the so-called Gospel of Marcion was also part of some kind of package deal which, together with a number of Pauline letters, is often referred to as Gospel and Apostle. A good case can be made that the Gospel published by Marcion was actually earlier than gLuke and that the proto-orthodox modified and added to it to produce gLuke.
So, my thinking is that just as gLuke appears to have been a response to Marcion’s Gospel, it would make sense that the other part of the package, Acts of the Apostles, was a response to Marcion’s Apostle. In other words, that Luke-Acts was the initial proto-orthodox response to Marcion’s Gospel and Apostle. (I say “initial response” because ultimately the proto-orthodox did sanitize the Pauline letters too.) And that would mean that Acts was later the Apostle, and so did not create the Paul figure.

I’ll close this by again making clear that I have no problem naming Marcion as a publisher of a Gospel and Apostle. But I think his source for those writings was the Simonian Cerdo:

“To this is added one Cerdo… The Gospel of Luke alone, and that not entire, does he receive. Of the apostle Paul he takes neither all the epistles, nor in their integrity… After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus….” (Pseudo-Tertullian, “Against All Heresies”, 6).

I think it was in the circle of Cerdo that not only the Pauline letters were put together (from largely Simonian materials), but likewise the Gospel that Marcion published. At Rome Cerdo “taught in secret” says Eusebius, (“Ecclesiastical History,” 4,11) but what he taught, I suspect, is what Marcion subsequently published openly. I have explained elsewhere, in another comment and in my Simonian series of posts, why a Simonian is a better candidate for author of the Paulines than Marcion. To my mind the same goes for the misnamed Gospel of Marcion. Thus, for example, that gospel’s large central section which has Jesus operating in Samaria fits better with a Simonian provenance, for both Simon and his successor Menander were said to be from Samaria. And similarly, of course, in regard to that section’s parables of the Good Samaritan and the grateful Samaritan leper.

---

--Roger Parvus says:
2025-02-06 07:15:34 GMT+0000 at 07:15