Christian Texts and History • Re: 'The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship'

About the Introduction:

The pattern is the same: the differences between the true Plato and the "Platonic" letters, the differences between the Life of Apollonius and the "Apollonius" letters, the differences between the true Seneca and the "Seneca" friend of Paul, and finally the differences between the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the epistles, are basically the same:

• Differences in content;

• Absence of chronology;

• Anxiety of fiction.

About the latter, it is really surprising, quasi the equivalent of a Rank-Raglan scale for the legendary hero, as it is translated very much often in an obsession in specifying details relative to the letter-related activity and only that. Who has a minimal knowledge of the Pauline letters knows what I mean (for example, the greeting formula as a sign of the letter's genuineness).


Hence, in Bayesian terms, this Introduction works as the equivalent of the Rank scale in the Carrier's approach to the gospels. The doubt on the authenticity of Paul licet.

What more matters to me from the Introduction:


(my bold, p. 28)

The Pillar of the Christ Myth Theory continues to collapse. Sometimes I have the strange feeling that The Jesus Puzzle is a work of phantasy.

Statistics: Posted by Giuseppe — Sat Dec 21, 2024 6:57 am

---