Resurrecting the thread "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity"

[rightcoaster]

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.

[Minimalist]

There are so many holes in the paul story that I doubt that he was any less mythological than "jesus" himself.

The earliest xtian writers which we can be certain were not later forgeries never heard of him. They did hear of Marcion who was "paul's" patron, though.

[xpastor]

I haven't read the book and probably never will.

I'd have to see individual arguments to know if he has any case against the received view of the majority of modern critical scholars.

I very much doubt that Jesus was a Pharisee. The passages denouncing the Pharisees seem authentic.

Most view Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet associated with John the Baptist and possibly the Essenes.

He may well have been an illiterate Galilean peasant (but certainly with a flair for rhetoric) in which case the texts showing him reading in the synagogue were invented.

I don't think he ever claimed to be the messiah or the apocalyptic judge known as the Son of Man. He was just foretelling the imminent arrival of God's judgment.

Paul does claim to have been a Pharisee in Philippians, one of the epistles considered to be authentic. So again, what's the evidence against Paul's training as a Pharisee? That the positions in his letters contradicted Pharisaic doctrines? Big deal. I was once an ultra-devout Christian and am now a raging atheist.

Right after claiming to have been a Pharisee, Paul says that he has thrown it away and considers it like garbage for the sake of "the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ."

I've mentioned recently in other threads a theory of uber-liberal Christian, Bishop John Spong. He believes that Paul was suppressing homosexual desires. Thus his best efforts to follow the law brought him no peace from his inner conflicts.

[rightcoaster]

I haven't read the book and probably never will.

I'd have to see individual arguments to know if he has any case against the received view of the majority of modern critical scholars.

I very much doubt that Jesus was a Pharisee. The passages denouncing the Pharisees seem authentic.

...

Worth a read. Maccoby is a talmud scholar, and understands the rabbinic/Pharisaic method of argument. He shows that Paul flunks that test. Other examples include Paul's exclusive use of the Greek Septuagint, and that he did not appear to know biblical Hebrew, both of which would not have been hallmarks of a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel. Maccoby also points out that Pharisee Gamaliel defended the apostles in their trial, impossible if the Jesus followers and Pharisees were enemies.
Whole bunch of other stuff, not least of which is that per Maccoby the High Priests of the time were Sadducees, and were in opposition to Pharisees. Saul would not have worked as an enforcer for the Sadducean HP if he had been a Pharisee. Etc. Maccoby seems good in his wheelhouse, but perhaps not otherwise; and so are we all.

[xpastor]

Worth a read. Maccoby is a talmud scholar, and understands the rabbinic/Pharisaic method of argument. He shows that Paul flunks that test. Other examples include Paul's exclusive use of the Greek Septuagint, and that he did not appear to know biblical Hebrew, both of which would not have been hallmarks of a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel. Maccoby also points out that Pharisee Gamaliel defended the apostles in their trial, impossible if the Jesus followers and Pharisees were enemies.
Whole bunch of other stuff, not least of which is that per Maccoby the High Priests of the time were Sadducees, and were in opposition to Pharisees. Saul would not have worked as an enforcer for the Sadducean HP if he had been a Pharisee. Etc. Maccoby seems good in his wheelhouse, but perhaps not otherwise; and so are we all.

The story of Gamaliel speaking up for the Christians is in Acts, not written by Paul, and so is the claim that Paul was trained by Gamaliel. The author of Acts is far from accurate, and although Paul is the hero of his narrative, he says many things about Paul which are contrary to Paul's own assertions in the authentic letters. I think the author of Acts was much given to what I call "lying for Jesus."

As for Paul's claim to have been a Pharisee, possibly he too was lying for Jesus, or at least boasting for Jesus. Maybe it meant something like, "When I was a kid in Tarsus, I had a tutor who had some training as a Pharisee."

[rightcoaster]

Maccoby also points out that Pharisee Gamaliel defended the apostles in their trial, impossible if the Jesus followers and Pharisees were enemies.

The story of Gamaliel speaking up for the Christians is in Acts, not written by Paul, and so is the claim that Paul was trained by Gamaliel. The author of Acts is far from accurate ... I think the author of Acts was much given to what I call "lying for Jesus."

As for Paul's claim to have been a Pharisee, possibly he too was lying for Jesus...

As the NT evolved, the language became increasingly anti-Pharisee, anti-Jew. Maccoby says (and I suppose it makes sense) that the Sadducees were Roman collaborators, or at least benefited from not rocking the Roman boat, the Pharisees represented the anti-Roman sentiment; thus to curry favor with Rome the propaganda shifted all aspects of the evolving story, including the rewriting of history, to anti-Pharisee, whitewash Sadducee. It would be counter to this tendency for a pro-Pharisee insertion to have been made later.

But to the Jewish communities and the Gentiles outside of Judea, where the Temple-centric Sadducean philosophy and influence was subject to the inverse-square law at best, and where synagogues and Pharisaic approaches were the norm, it would be far better marketing to sound like a (Pharisaic) Jew to the Jews, and essential for the Gentile targets.