Resurrecting the thread "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity"
March 17, 2014 at 12:43 pm
First posted 19th January 2014, 12:25 By Brakeman in thread : The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity
"I've been reading a good book that I wanted to recommend to all of you.
It's by Hyam MacCoby, a jewish religious studies author. The book is quite old and the reviews on different sites vary wildly. Of course the christians hate it and wikipedia currently downs it to but the critics only give general disdain and their accusations are quite unfounded. If one reads the book, they see that he makes few direct claims, he just points out hundreds of points of evidence that indicate that paul was not a jew, and certainly not a Pharisaic jew as he claimed. Furthermore he points out where the gospels evolved from a pro pharasee stance to an anti. It further explains that many of jesus' ideas and main sayings were from older Pharisee writings."
This thread did not get the attention it deserved, IMHO. Maccoby (sic, he was not a Scotsman) does a great job where his strength lies, and that is, as Brakeman pointed out, his analyses that showed Paul was not a Pharisee (which view is not widely held, but that Jesus was a Pharisee, a position that seems well acknowledged). I don't think it's as clear that Paul was not a Jew, since Hellenized/assimilated Jews could have had the same sort of formal and cultural education as Hellenized Gentiles.
Where Maccoby is weak he sort of acknowledges that by saying he will rely on Mark. That puts him in the camp of those who say Jesus actually claimed to be the messiah and king of Israel, for which there is not such good support, unless someone comes up with those missing "trials" transcripts. It also makes Maccoby (maybe quite willingly) part of the camp that has Jesus being a rebel against Rome. That does not stand scrutiny much more than that Paul was a Pharisee: it only flows from accepting Mark as "the gospel truth", and is well aside from Maccoby's main purpose.
The book is not terribly old (1980s), and that it was not well received is indicated by the total absence of laudatory comments on the dust jacket by other scholars of the field.
"I've been reading a good book that I wanted to recommend to all of you.
It's by Hyam MacCoby, a jewish religious studies author. The book is quite old and the reviews on different sites vary wildly. Of course the christians hate it and wikipedia currently downs it to but the critics only give general disdain and their accusations are quite unfounded. If one reads the book, they see that he makes few direct claims, he just points out hundreds of points of evidence that indicate that paul was not a jew, and certainly not a Pharisaic jew as he claimed. Furthermore he points out where the gospels evolved from a pro pharasee stance to an anti. It further explains that many of jesus' ideas and main sayings were from older Pharisee writings."
This thread did not get the attention it deserved, IMHO. Maccoby (sic, he was not a Scotsman) does a great job where his strength lies, and that is, as Brakeman pointed out, his analyses that showed Paul was not a Pharisee (which view is not widely held, but that Jesus was a Pharisee, a position that seems well acknowledged). I don't think it's as clear that Paul was not a Jew, since Hellenized/assimilated Jews could have had the same sort of formal and cultural education as Hellenized Gentiles.
Where Maccoby is weak he sort of acknowledges that by saying he will rely on Mark. That puts him in the camp of those who say Jesus actually claimed to be the messiah and king of Israel, for which there is not such good support, unless someone comes up with those missing "trials" transcripts. It also makes Maccoby (maybe quite willingly) part of the camp that has Jesus being a rebel against Rome. That does not stand scrutiny much more than that Paul was a Pharisee: it only flows from accepting Mark as "the gospel truth", and is well aside from Maccoby's main purpose.
The book is not terribly old (1980s), and that it was not well received is indicated by the total absence of laudatory comments on the dust jacket by other scholars of the field.
