(July 27, 2018 at 2:45 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Another point one needs to be clear on regarding the central question, if we're interested in Paul's specific contributions, accepted at face value, it must be understood that scholars hold a number of the traditionally attributed Pauline epistles to be of questionable authorship, if not outright forgeries. That raises an ancillary question of whether certain Pauline contributions are actually Paulline, and if, as may be the case, not, the question of whether those authors' contributions are likewise originators or mere hangers-on.
In addition to the questions raised by pseudo-Pauline writings is that of whether or not there existed other writings by other authors at the time which advanced the ideas which we in our hindsight are giving Paul credit for, but which may have had significant contributors from both within the Christian movement and without. In that case, some of the Pauline contributions are only Pauline in the sense that Paul's writings survived, and the others do not. It's impossible to say in hindsight just how much is original to Paul and Jesus simply because any evidence of such was simply not preserved. In addition, it behooves us to recognize that Paul's contributions would not have had any effect if not for later Christians following in Paul's footsteps, perhaps in many cases fleshing out what is merely hinted at, intentionally or not, in Paul's writings. There are whole libraries of thought devoted to the supposed intents and meaning of biblical authors which, in some cases, may simply be an artifact of the attempt to find such meaning in the original text, which, the original author was essentially not cognizant of and not intending such meanings at all.
Yes and no. Someone had to write those letters, even if not an actual Paul. Perhaps a Pauline community, similar to that at Qumran. Ultimately, without a lot of knowledge of the actual philosophical under currents of the time, it may be impossible to attribute anything specifically to Paul. I suspect, given other experience, that both Greco and Roman political and philosophical movements of the time were more advanced than the pro-Pauline camp makes readily known, essentially raising Paul up by pushing the contributions of those others down. Which, in addition to our vast ignorance of the age, is one reason I'm skeptical of these types of arguments such as those of Steve, Holland, and other authors.
I think the authenticity issue would be a concern (in the 6 Disputed Letters) if you are talking about doctrines that were contained only in these books. I am not aware of any. As it happens, I only quoted from the Undisputed Letters. Any argument that uses a premise that there are disputed letters only succeeds in concluding there are disputed letters. There really is no "bite" to the objection.
These ideas were not Paul's exactly. Really he taught how he inductively arrive at a worldview that best reflected the basics of the gospel message and the deity of Christ. He wrote the manual on living out the gospel message, the Christian life. So his contribution was to take the monotheism of Judaism, the consequences of the gospel message, philosophical discipline, and some his status in the church to create an enduring worldview that continues to have ripple effects today.
I'm not sure I know any examples where some big principle needed to be read into the letters at a later time (and therefore incorrectly attributed to Paul). If you have examples, I would be interested.
We know a lot about Roman society. We can infer quite a lot about the worldview of the average man. It is this that Paul's new worldview should be compared to. We are not talking about ivory tower musings. We are talking about the real adoption of a new, very different worldview that had far-reaching effects on everyday life of everyday people: value, hope, purpose, nature of reality, etc.
