Achilles' heel

Ed Tyler etyler@truman.edu
Wed, 09 Dec 1998 09:01:32 -0600 (00913237292, 3.0.5.32.19981209090132.009da690@pop.truman.edu) 

At 06:18 PM 12/8/98 -0800, Ray & Sandy Briggs wrote:

>Ed posted to Achilles:

>I have repeatedly demonstrated the irrelevance of the canonical Pauline

>epistles to the historical Jesus question.

>

>Ray:

>Other than saying they could be heavily redacted (no doubt the gospels

>are also), I must have missed your proof that they are irrelevant

>regarding the question if there was a historical Jesus. How is it

>possible that the earliest Christian documents we have (Paul's epistles)

>are irrelevant to that question?

>

>They might be irrelevant in helping to define who this person was

>because there is not much in them that would lead us to the conclusion

>there was such a person. If you start with the position there was a

>historical Jesus, then they are irrelevant. They are very relevant if

>you are examining that question however.


Ed

The redaction question is only tangental to the epistles' relevance.  It
bears uopn their relevance only insofar as the redaction seems so heavy in
some passages that the present readings cannot be said to reflect the
original with any accuracy.  Obviously, if these passages have been redacted

The reason that the canonical epistles are irrelevant to the historical
Jesus question is that they cannot be said to be representative of what the
followers of Jesus thought.  They are the products of the Pauline sub-cult
of the Christ cult that existed in Asia Minor, and no connection whatsoever
has been made to the communities of the followers of Jesus (who were not
"Christians")who lived in Galilee and Judea and preserved the material that
founds its way into the canonical gospels.

One does not start with the position that there was a historical Jesus; in
fact, it is apparent that the Christ Jesus of Paul is for all intents and
purposes mythical.  The pure mythicist position, however, neglects the fact
that while Paul (who by his own admission knew practically nothing of Jesus
acts and sayings) was writing his epistles, the followers of Jesus were
maintaining a tradition completely unrelated to Paul's ministry.  It is
this unrelated tradition that provides evidence of the historical Jesus.