Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in
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Dave Oldridge wrote:

Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in
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Dave Oldridge wrote:

Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in
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Dave Oldridge wrote:

Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in
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Dave Oldridge wrote:

GCzebatol@msn.com (Gregwrld) wrote in
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Dave Oldridge <doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote in
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Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in
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Dave Oldridge wrote:

===>"Heretics", "apostates", "phonies" are ALSO
"Christians" if they at least claim to worship the
"Lord" of Saul/Paul of Tarsus. -- L.

Heretics may well be Christian heretics. But apostates
have abandoned the faith and phonies
are...well...phonies.

I get the impression that Paul was at least a little bit
nuts and that he and his followers defined Christ's
message to their own liking.

Paul's thinking was more Hellenic than Pharisaic, that's for
sure. But I'm wondering if that isn't a major part of the
whole

controversy

that we're not seeing too clearly at this point in time.

===>Nothing "Pharisaic" there.
Philo, etc. were clearly precursors to Paulinism, but it took
the man from Tarsus, acquainted, at least, with the mystery
religions, to develop a full-fledged mystery cult
incorporating the

Jewish

tradition of atonement and a Jewish character reportedly
having

been

chosen by "God" and innocently executed, into the framework
of a dying-rising incarnate savior god. -- L.

I dunno....I see signs of this entire theme even in the
gospels. It's less explicit there, but it still IS there. And
you know what, I think that's on purpose. Divine purpose.

===>The writers of the Gospels were already Pauline Christians.
They simply created various pseudo-biographies for the man
already deified by Saul/Paul, using fragmentary information,
reinterpreted LXX material, and a good dose of imaginative,
creative writing. It seems the author/final redactor of the much
later Johannine Gospel did his own Philo-style Platonic
speculation not found in the earlier books. -- L.

I disagree. That's a nice pat THEORY, but I think there is pretty
good evidence that the earliest gospels began to appear within
living memory of the crucifixion.

===>"Evidence"?
Can you be more explicit? -- L.

Yes...fragments dating from around the time of Paul's martyrdom. No
whole manuscripts' though.

===>Interesting comment, since to the best of my knowledge,
the oldest extant fragments are P52 and P90, both containing just
words attributed to JOHN, and both dated to the mid to late
SECOND CENTURY C.E. Only WORDS, not even a single
chapter or verse!
Are you aware of anything older?

Yes...there is at least one fragment of text from Matthew in a scroll
from around 64AD....I forget the number now. As you say, though, it's
just a few words, not even a sentence.

But bear in mind that 12 years later, much of
the JEWISH culture of the area was utterly crushed.

===>True, that may be one reason why nothing is
available from there. But, once again, to the best of my
knowledge, there were not many "Christians" there,
the religion having been developed and spread among
the Gentiles of Korinth, Ephesos, Thessalonika, Rome, etc,
and the Gospel literature was produced by those converts.
The ones in Judaea were just messianist Jewish rebels
("Zealots for the Law"), gathered around James, the
brother of Jesus, referred to as "The Poor" (Hebrew EBIONIM).

And Nero seems to have blamed the fire on the new sect (possibly to
cover his own arson job...it's pretty well known that he wanted the
real estate for a project of his own).

===>That would make no difference re. the development of Paulinism.

Except he set up a more or less Empire-wide witch hunt for them.

The issue is treated quite objectively by the Roman Catholic Paul
Johnson in his A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, from which I could cite, but
which is most likely found in your library as well. If so, please
check out p. 40-44.

There is still this whole debate going on about Matthew, or more
specifically about whatever document Matthew and Mark are cribbed from.
If it really IS as early as the mid first century, then it puts a
different light on things.

--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667

A false witness is worse than no witness at all.