Christian Texts and History • Re: Paul is a composite of Philo and Marcus Julius Agrippa

....And if there is no historical NT figure of Paul ..?

You can call the figure anything you like, but you'd have to explain why an ancient conspiracy

Since I'm not arguing for any conspiracy regarding the early origins of christianity, I don't have any conspiracy theories to explain.

Putting aside the deflection in your subordinate clause, your title says that there was no Paul to wander Anatolia and Greece to peddle Jesus. and make proselytes.

∙ invented the most primitive Jesus religion we have
∙ which reflects a cultural milieu with strong links to Qumran theological concepts,
∙ ostensibly disseminated by a fictional proselytizer whose work you suppose was written by conspirators after the Jewish War
∙ who knew nothing about the fall of Jerusalem (Mk for instance shows at least three hints of the fall)
∙ who knew nothing of the life of Jesus (except a few notions gleaned from Hebrew messianic tradition)
∙ who, as the letters display, was manipulative and had attitude issues,
∙ letters that appear to contain orthodox interpolations....

I think most religious conspiracy theories are shallow and are a waste of energy.

Indeed, I've no time for religious conspiracy theories myself.....

I do appreciate irony...

...but I was hoping for a response to the above dot points in relation to your theory. Instead I got this:

Methinks, spin, that while you may be the forum's visiting greek specialist/scholar, there is more to the NT story than the greek words, the vehicle, that brings that story to our door. Yep, the vehicle might need a visit to the garage now and again for oil change etc - but the engineers are up to the service job and so the vehicle continues to deliver it's cargo. Once the cargo is delivered, then spin, it's up to the receiver to unwrap the parcel and make of it's content what they can. A literary work, a work fundamentally of fiction - or a work of historical validity. The choice is ours to make, the choice is ours to run with, to attempt to understand - or to remain bound by an assumed historicity of the story. We either move or we stand still.

Nothing here that even vaguely touches my comments.

Yes, the story is a great read - on the surface - the greatest story ever told. It's a story that, in the realm of literature, has become 'immortal', its become a touchstone of western civilization. Yep, for all that, the story is not uncontested, it's content is argued over and over and over again.

See my previous comment.

“I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” (attributed to James Joyce regarding his Ulysses story)

As above.

So, spin, perhaps it's time to have another look at the delivered content of the NT rather than the vehicle that delivered the story.

"So" in this type of context usually indicates a logical consequence following. What actually follows seems to indicate that you've never read anything I've written, which I find hard to believe.

Anyway, thanks for the visit - been missing your sharp wit - which seems to have lost a bit of it's sparkle in recent years. I've often wondered - did you ever kiss the Blarney stone? I did once but sadly it did nothing for me. However, I do have the rebel spirit of my countrymen (born just a few miles from Blarney.....)

Did any of those frogs become princes?¹

I think you need to show signs that you've interacted with the texts and what it seems to say before you engage in alternative explanations of them. The random dot points I posted were in the hope that they might entice you to go deeper into the content of the letters. My interpretation of what I read in them may be wrong, but I would hope that you might see that there is a person oozing out of them that can't be a composite of whoever takes your fancy. I always advocate that you have to start with the text and not your presuppositions, not the post hoc interpretive frameworks placed on them, to listen before you speak.

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1. The theory that Paul is a composite of Philo and Marcus Julius Agrippa is one of those frogs.

Statistics: Posted by spin — Thu Jan 09, 2025 1:42 pm

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