Jesus of Nazareth: Historical or Mythical?

[Tiggs]

It took around 400 years for the majority of historians to concede that William Tell's historicity was incorrect - and he was a 14th century figure.

During that period, historians who declared otherwise were widely derided. Joseph Kopp - a historian who believed Tell was myth - was burnt in effigy by Swiss Nationalists.

Strangely enough, when you're in disagreement with the mainstream - even when you're right - they treat you like you're not.

As I'm sure I've said several times before: there's not enough evidence for me to be more than agnostic on Christ's historicity. I'm sorry if that frustrates you - but I'm not going to concede to Christ's historical existence, until better evidence for such turns up - and I'm certainly not going to do so, because someone thinks that it's a good tactic to win a debate against a Christian.

[+Paranoid Android]

Strangely enough, when you're in disagreement with the mainstream - even when you're right - they treat you like you're not.

Young Earth Creationists are saying the exact same thing about evolutionary biologists!

As I'm sure I've said several times before: there's not enough evidence for me to be more than agnostic on Christ's historicity. I'm sorry if that frustrates you

It doesn't frustrate me, I've really stopped caring. I thought I'd post one last thing and ride off into the sunset. What DOES frustrate me, is the inability of the "Jesus probably never existed" crowd (and the more hardcore, "Jesus never existed" crowd) to clearly state "yes, my views are the minority, I understand and accept that, I gladly accept that this is the vast minority". Not only is this not happening, I'm actually getting people telling me that I am holding "cognitive dissonance" because I adhere to the scholarly majority in this regard. As if holding to the academic consensus is intellectually dishonest, stupid, or otherwise an untenable position to hold.

If there's something that I can be said to be frustrated about, it's that.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Paranoid Android

[eight bits]

PA

What DOES frustrate me, is the inability of the "Jesus probably never existed" crowd (and the more hardcore, "Jesus never existed" crowd) to clearly state "yes, my views are the minority, I understand and accept that, I gladly accept that this is the vast minority".

How many times do I have to post that the majority of the human race (Christians and Muslims) professes the existence of a real Jesus before I get credit for acknowledging that my view is the minority's?

As if holding to the academic consensus is intellectually dishonest, stupid, or otherwise an untenable position to hold.

Nope. It's honest, shrewd (especially if you were an academic looking for work or a grant, or perhaps someone who thinks that you'll receive a good afterlife if you believe in Jesus), and completely tenable. I'm 60-40 in favor of the fellow myself, and I'm going to hell either way.

That your conclusion agrees with the current consensus is nice to know, but uniformative about how the evidence supports your conclusion in your view. Speaking of frustration.

[Tiggs]

Young Earth Creationists are saying the exact same thing about evolutionary biologists!

Sure - except the difference is that they're railing against independently verifiable science, whereas I'm calling into question an opinion held by a group of people who's view of someone's historicity has been previously known to change in it's entirety.

It doesn't frustrate me, I've really stopped caring. I thought I'd post one last thing and ride off into the sunset. What DOES frustrate me, is the inability of the "Jesus probably never existed" crowd (and the more hardcore, "Jesus never existed" crowd) to clearly state "yes, my views are the minority, I understand and accept that, I gladly accept that this is the vast minority". Not only is this not happening, I'm actually getting people telling me that I am holding "cognitive dissonance" because I adhere to the scholarly majority in this regard. As if holding to the academic consensus is intellectually dishonest, stupid, or otherwise an untenable position to hold.

If there's something that I can be said to be frustrated about, it's that.

I'm usually in the minority, on pretty much any subject.

As far as I'm concerned, you're entirely welcome to accept the majority academic consensus of Historians, but just be mindful that at times in the past, the majority consensus of Historians has entirely 180'd in regard to various other people's historicity - and notably so on those who have Hero-like attributes.

As such - there is value in discussing the evidence for their positions. Trying to shut down the discussion by attempting an argument to authority misses the point of why the discussion even exists in the first place.

A thread entitled "Do the majority of Historians believe that Jesus existed?" wouldn't be a particularly long one.

[Jeanne dArc]

Jeanne

I am mindful that even with modern tools, geneaology is a tricky business. Prominent families have obscure branches (*); families whose name is "close" shed no tears if their family is confused with an august family; the genuine august family has retainers who adopt the naming preferences of their lords and ladies; and some of the retainers include "wrong side of the bed" but physically genuine blood kin.

You get Jung-Goethe situations where the actual facts of the matter are unknown, but the family seems sincere in its belief that Goethe had a love child who was Carl Jung's ancestor. That counts, because belief shapes behavior. "Philemon," too, is an unusual name. Carl Jung named his imaginary friend for a minor character in Goethe's Faust, because to Carl's mind, Goethe was in his family.

Finally, there are simple fakes. "Hi, I'm cousin Saul from the Tarsus branch of our great, far-flung family." We have a Tarsus branch? Meh, could be, and the tent really does need some patching. Set a place for him at the table.

So, there are lots of roles for a Herodian-leaning, and even somewhat Herodian-accepted Paul to play, without his being much of an actual power-wielder.

As to "losing" a chief source, I don't think Acts is such a great source to begin with. As to its dependence on Paul's letters, obviously I don't know. However, we once again encounter the recurring "consensus problem."

Consensus in this field is visibly agenda-driven. Scholars who specialize in the field notice how little evidence there is about the church in the first Christian century. They can't do anything about that, but what they can do is exaggerate the independence of their few information streams. A Luke who has some source for the content of Paul's letters that isn't dependent on Paul's letters fits this agenda perfectly.

From the existence of Jesus himself, down through the multiple imaginary sources for the Gospels, and onto the idea that an author who spins the letters hadn't read them, the consensus of the scholarly field is what is necessary for the field to exist at all as scholarship. This is a Darwinian imperative. Conclusory pronouncements aren't good evidence, agenda-driven pronouncements less so, and an agenda whose alternatives are suicidal even less.

----

(*) In an earlier post, we met the Spauldings, a huge American family whose geneaology is a landmark in the field. And yet, if Daniel Gates had a sister in rural Vermont two hundred years ago, and she did marry Reuben Spaulding, and she was pregnant when widowed, then there could easily be at least one currently undocumented Spaulding. If that Spaulding survived to adulthood, then there could be an undocumented branch of the Spauldings. And that is just one "loose end," one that we encountered in a quirky way. The very size of the family ensures that loose ends will be numerous, and that we may never encounter more than a handful of them, much less resolve any of them.

Fair enough. I think Occam's razor can at least suggest that Paul and Saulus are identical; but of course barring newly discovered data, there's no way to conclusively prove it. I'm obviously convinced beyond very much doubt. But yeah, I don't put a whole lot of stock in Acts either; how much of it is close to truth and how much is utter nonsense is sometimes hard to determine, which isn't good for a source text. Speaking of which: I don't give quite so much stock to the "tent-maker" thing for Paul. It's only mentioned once, fleetingly, in Acts, and whether he did it or not is debatable; it's also debatable as to whether it'd be a primary occupation or a skill known by other means, etc.

It is interesting actually, because while I think Paul himself is attested by Josephus in the Herod family tree, there could be argued to be an "obscure branch" which Paul himself mentions: Junia and Andronicus. It seems insinuated in their brief mention that they are brother and sister, and Paul calls them his "kin": they lived in Rome according to him (which wasn't uncommon among Herodians), and were also apparently Christian apostles (converted long before Paul himself), but how exactly they're related to him is quite unclear. Are they his distant cousins, perhaps related to one of the other very under-documented members of the family, such as Paul's mother, or his Chalcian cousins? Paul's own pedigree seems fairly secure to me: but if I were to speak of obscure or dubious branches of the family, possibly adopted via a Goethe-Jung-esque game of imagination, there are others that we know far less about who'd fill that slot much better than Paul.

I suppose we largely agree on the matter of consensus, not much to say there, haha

[Jeanne dArc]

As far as I'm concerned, this should be the way of things - concede that Jesus lived, and then go and argue about the details!

But why on earth would I concede that?

[Jeanne dArc]

Young Earth Creationists are saying the exact same thing about evolutionary biologists!

And the biologists have the science to blast the YECs out of the water; the Jesus historicists seem to be extremely scarce on ammunition, that their primary proverbial cannon ball is simply their own superior numbers.

It doesn't frustrate me, I've really stopped caring. I thought I'd post one last thing and ride off into the sunset. What DOES frustrate me, is the inability of the "Jesus probably never existed" crowd (and the more hardcore, "Jesus never existed" crowd) to clearly state "yes, my views are the minority, I understand and accept that, I gladly accept that this is the vast minority". Not only is this not happening, I'm actually getting people telling me that I am holding "cognitive dissonance" because I adhere to the scholarly majority in this regard. As if holding to the academic consensus is intellectually dishonest, stupid, or otherwise an untenable position to hold.

If there's something that I can be said to be frustrated about, it's that.

[Jeanne dArc]

What DOES frustrate me, is the inability of the "Jesus probably never existed" crowd (and the more hardcore, "Jesus never existed" crowd) to clearly state "yes, my views are the minority, I understand and accept that, I gladly accept that this is the vast minority". Not only is this not happening, I'm actually getting people telling me that I am holding "cognitive dissonance" because I adhere to the scholarly majority in this regard. As if holding to the academic consensus is intellectually dishonest, stupid, or otherwise an untenable position to hold.

If there's something that I can be said to be frustrated about, it's that.

I've conceded that point more than once in this thread. But where you find that to be a significant point in this discussion, many of the rest of us do not.

[Jeanne dArc]

I also remembered a point we forgot about the Luke-Paul letters-or-no-letters thing: if indeed Luke had Paul's letters at his disposal, why does he deviate from them on a number of points? Not to say that he couldn't have, obviously, but what would be the motive to contradict Paul's own words if he had them?

[+Paranoid Android]

Sure - except the difference is that they're railing against independently verifiable science, whereas I'm calling into question an opinion held by a group of people who's view of someone's historicity has been previously known to change in it's entirety.

And the biologists have the science to blast the YECs out of the water; the Jesus historicists seem to be extremely scarce on ammunition, that their primary proverbial cannon ball is simply their own superior numbers.

I guess it depends on what evidence you accept, right? I've shared a number of times the sources historians use to arrive at their conclusion that Jesus is indeed an historical character. You guys find those sources to be questionable and unconvincing (the majority of historians don't). An evolutionary biologist can point to science as much as they like, the Creationist will find their sources questionable and unconvincing and use their own interpretation of science to push forward their view (the majority of scientists will disagree with their interpretation, but that's that, I guess).

[+Paranoid Android]

I've conceded that point more than once in this thread. But where you find that to be a significant point in this discussion, many of the rest of us do not.

You also accused me of cognitive dissonance because I find the Saulus of Josephus to have inadequate support to be Paul the Apostle. It may be the same person, I'm not discounting it entirely. But whereas you say that without further evidence you have to assume they are the same, I say that without further evidence we have to assume they are different. Despite this being how many historians also see the matter, somehow this translates to "PA has cognitive dissonance". And that, I did not appreciate. Cognitive dissonance seems to be the catchphrase going around these days to easily dismiss the point of view of someone on an internet forum. Oh, you're religious, you believe in a God of love who brings judgement - must be some crazy cognitive dissonance happening there. Bwahahahaha..... *exit stage left* Edited September 28, 2015 by Paranoid Android

[Jeanne dArc]

You also accused me of cognitive dissonance because I find the Saulus of Josephus to have inadequate support to be Paul the Apostle. It may be the same person, I'm not discounting it entirely. But whereas you say that without further evidence you have to assume they are the same, I say that without further evidence we have to assume they are different. Despite this being how many historians also see the matter, somehow this translates to "PA has cognitive dissonance". And that, I did not appreciate. Cognitive dissonance seems to be the catchphrase going around these days to easily dismiss the point of view of someone on an internet forum. Oh, you're religious, you believe in a God of love who brings judgement - must be some crazy cognitive dissonance happening there. Bwahahahaha..... *exit stage left*

I never "accused" you of having cognitive dissonance; I said that cognitive dissonance would be understandable. In any case, I'm still waiting to see these "many historians" who agree with you on the Paul-Saulus matter.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Jeanne dArc

[Jeanne dArc]

I guess it depends on what evidence you accept, right? I've shared a number of times the sources historians use to arrive at their conclusion that Jesus is indeed an historical character. You guys find those sources to be questionable and unconvincing (the majority of historians don't). An evolutionary biologist can point to science as much as they like, the Creationist will find their sources questionable and unconvincing and use their own interpretation of science to push forward their view (the majority of scientists will disagree with their interpretation, but that's that, I guess).

Which sources are these, specifically? It's not that I find Josephus or Tacitus especially "questionable", it's the interpretations and extrapolations thereof that don't quite add up to me. Though of course I do find the "Testimonium" questionable: as do the vast majority of scholars.

[+Paranoid Android]

I never "accused" you of having cognitive dissonance; I said that cognitive dissonance would be understandable.

Hair-splitting to the extreme. It was obvious what you were intending to imply!

In any case, I'm still waiting to see these "many historians" who agree with you on the Paul-Saulus matter.

I am no historian, I am basing my comments on the facts that I Googled (yes, the University of Google is not always the greatest of scholarly institutions) Josephus and the Apostle Paul, and virtually the entire first page of answers was from sites noting that Josephus has nothing to say about Paul whatsoever. Considering that Robert Eisenmen seems to be the primary guy championing the Paul = Saulus argument (I have nothing against Paul = Herodian, it's the Paul = Saulus idea that I am railing against) is it not a fair leap in logic to say that the majority of the remaining scholars do not hold that Paul = Saulus?

As said, I'm not entirely against the idea, I just think that until more evidence presents itself we have to work with the assumption that they are not the same person (you are on the opposite side, and think that we should assume they are the same until further evidence presents).

Which sources are these, specifically? It's not that I find Josephus or Tacitus especially "questionable", it's the interpretations and extrapolations thereof that don't quite add up to me. Though of course I do find the "Testimonium" questionable: as do the vast majority of scholars.

I noted them down many pages ago (Mara bar Serapion, Thallus, Q, the Talmud, Paul, Celsus, etc etc etc). You posted a refutation to each one of those sources. You find them insufficient. Many many historians do not see them as insufficient at all, and I tend to agree with them.

And we've been over the Testimonium. I agree that it is forged. The question is, is it entirely forged from scratch, or was there a reference to Jesus that was simply amended to be more "Christianised"? The vast majority of scholars isn't so vast when you go into the details of how deep the forgery went.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Paranoid Android

[Tiggs]

I guess it depends on what evidence you accept, right? I've shared a number of times the sources historians use to arrive at their conclusion that Jesus is indeed an historical character. You guys find those sources to be questionable and unconvincing (the majority of historians don't). An evolutionary biologist can point to science as much as they like, the Creationist will find their sources questionable and unconvincing and use their own interpretation of science to push forward their view (the majority of scientists will disagree with their interpretation, but that's that, I guess).

Again. One of those two things is independently physically verifiable.

The other is a consensus opinion on a subject where consensus opinions have been known to change in their entirety.

Some food for thought from Phillip Davies in 2012, Professor at the University of Sheffield, England (now retired):

The new collection of essays "Is This Not the Carpenter" represents something of the agenda I have had in mind: surely the rather fragile historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth should be tested to see what weight it can bear, or even to work out what kind of historical research might be appropriate. Such a normal exercise should hardly generate controversy in most fields of ancient history, but of course New Testament studies is not a normal case and the highly emotive and dismissive language of, say, Bart Ehrman’s response to Thompson’s The Mythic Past shows (if it needed to be shown), not that the matter is beyond dispute, but that the whole idea of raising this question needs to be attacked, ad hominem, as something outrageous. This is precisely the tactic anti-minimalists tried twenty years ago: their targets were ‘amateurs’, ‘incompetent’, and could be ignored. The ‘amateurs’ are now all retired professors, while virtually everyone else in the field has become minimalist (if in most cases grudgingly and tacitly). So, as the saying goes, déjà vu all over again.

I don’t think, however, that in another 20 years there will be a consensus that Jesus did not exist, or even possibly didn’t exist, but a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability.

[+Paranoid Android]

PA

How many times do I have to post that the majority of the human race (Christians and Muslims) professes the existence of a real Jesus before I get credit for acknowledging that my view is the minority's?

The majority of the human race are not scholars who have trained for years and even decades in the specific field of study that is New Testament scholarship (and wider, Ancient Near Eastern scholarship). If it's a choice between listening to someone who has studied for decades in that particular field, and someone who is an anonymous person on an internet forum, I know which I'm going to take 99% of the time. And when I deviate from that, I accept it and embrace it.

Nope. It's honest, shrewd (especially if you were an academic looking for work or a grant, or perhaps someone who thinks that you'll receive a good afterlife if you believe in Jesus), and completely tenable. I'm 60-40 in favor of the fellow myself, and I'm going to hell either way.

That your conclusion agrees with the current consensus is nice to know, but uniformative about how the evidence supports your conclusion in your view. Speaking of frustration.

As I said above, I shared the evidence at the beginning of the thread (Thallus/Paul/Q/et al), that you guys don't want to accept that as valid evidence is the crux of this disagreement between us.

[Frank Merton]

Such a normal exercise should hardly generate controversy in most fields of ancient history, but of course New Testament studies is not a normal case and the highly emotive and dismissive language of, say, Bart Ehrman’s response to Thompson’s The Mythic Past shows (if it needed to be shown), not that the matter is beyond dispute, but that the whole idea of raising this question needs to be attacked, ad hominem, as something outrageous. This is precisely the tactic anti-minimalists tried twenty years ago: their targets were ‘amateurs’, ‘incompetent’, and could be ignored. The ‘amateurs’ are now all retired professors, while virtually everyone else in the field has become minimalist (if in most cases grudgingly and tacitly). So, as the saying goes, déjà vu all over again.

As has happened several times in the history of science.

It puts me in mind of the reaction of conservatives to the suggestion that marijuana be decriminalized -- that they are somehow evil and that such a thing should not even be considered.

I have to say the whole thing (Jesus as a myth) becomes patently obvious once one stands back and looks at it outside the preconceived notions we have from the West's Christian history.

[Jeanne dArc]

Hair-splitting to the extreme. It was obvious what you were intending to imply!

If you say so, haha

I am no historian, I am basing my comments on the facts that I Googled (yes, the University of Google is not always the greatest of scholarly institutions) Josephus and the Apostle Paul, and virtually the entire first page of answers was from sites noting that Josephus has nothing to say about Paul whatsoever. Considering that Robert Eisenmen seems to be the primary guy championing the Paul = Saulus argument (I have nothing against Paul = Herodian, it's the Paul = Saulus idea that I am railing against) is it not a fair leap in logic to say that the majority of the remaining scholars do not hold that Paul = Saulus?

No, I don't think that's particularly fair. Either way, as I've already explained, few scholars give a damn about Paul in the first place; why would you expect a huge amount of scholarship (let alone on scholarship focused on an aspect which doesn't even come into play in the majority of historians' work on Paul)?

As said, I'm not entirely against the idea, I just think that until more evidence presents itself we have to work with the assumption that they are not the same person (you are on the opposite side, and think that we should assume they are the same until further evidence presents).

Well yeah, because as the evidence stands, I made a case showing similarities between the two that suggest they are indeed the same person. You have yet to produce a contrary case.

I noted them down many pages ago (Mara bar Serapion, Thallus, Q, the Talmud, Paul, Celsus, etc etc etc). You posted a refutation to each one of those sources. You find them insufficient. Many many historians do not see them as insufficient at all, and I tend to agree with them.

I have never heard a single reputable historian cite Serapion or Thallus as evidence of Jesus. Q is hypothetical, ergo not evidence in itself, and neither the Talmud or Celsus are useful here. As you say, I already refuted these: the vast majority of scholars have done the same. The only three that are really useful to the historicity case are Paul, Josephus, and Tacitus; and we've discussed those to hell and back, haha

And we've been over the Testimonium. I agree that it is forged. The question is, is it entirely forged from scratch, or was there a reference to Jesus that was simply amended to be more "Christianised"? The vast majority of scholars isn't so vast when you go into the details of how deep the forgery went.

Correct. There is no consensus on how much of it was forged. Though given Ehrman himself stated that the only reason many cling to there having been even a mention is because of the assumption that the Jesus in Book XX must be Jesus of Nazareth; a rather shaky contingency to me, and I'm far from the only one who thinks so.

[eight bits]

Jeanne

if indeed Luke had Paul's letters at his disposal, why does he deviate from them on a number of points?

Why, if Matthew is following Mark, does he deviate from his source on a number of points, even in pericopes where he is following along point-for-point?

For example, why do Matthew's soldiers cover Jesus with a scarlet cloak (27:28), when Mark says it was something purple (15:17)?

I think the answer there is literary choice. I wouldn't rule out that Luke had an agenda (for example, that Paul was a team player) as well as literary preferences.

PA

I've shared a number of times the sources historians use to arrive at their conclusion that Jesus is indeed an historical character.

And then, people discuss the sources, that is, the evidence. Nobody ignores the historians' view, but discussion doesn't mean wholesale adoption of somebody else's thought.

There's that old joke: "Joe says he has five years of experience, but it's really one year of experience five times." Well, you say Jesus Studies has a myriad of learned endorsements, but it looks to me a lot like one endorsement a myriad of times.

You guys find those sources to be questionable and unconvincing (the majority of historians don't). An evolutionary biologist can point to science as much as they like, the Creationist will find their sources questionable and unconvincing and use their own interpretation of science to push forward their view (the majority of scientists will disagree with their interpretation, but that's that, I guess).

But the salient difference, as has already been pointed out, is that there is a mountain of biological and geological evidence, and more evidence arrives literally every day, all of it without exception favoring one hypothesis rather than the alternative.

It is irrelevant and superfluous to add that professionals notice that this ample evidence is lopsided. The conclusion follows the evidence and the confidence in it follows the volume and one-sidedness of the evidence. Our old friend Copa was a perfect example of that - always talking about the evidence, never "I have two earned doctorates in the field, so stow it."

In contrast to a billions year-old process still occurring before our very eyes, Jesus' life, if it happened at all, was a one-off event two thousand years ago, leaving a fixed, small and heavily censored and reworked body of writings from anybody who could possibly have had any relevant personal knowledge, or even had met somebody who had.

Much of that compact corpus actually does report events which explicitly happen in outer space. The question is whether any of it happened on Earth. Good question.

[Jeanne dArc]

Jeanne

Why, if Matthew is following Mark, does he deviate from his source on a number of points, even in pericopes where he is following along point-for-point?

For example, why do Matthew's soldiers cover Jesus with a scarlet cloak (27:28), when Mark says it was something purple (15:17)?

I think the answer there is literary choice. I wouldn't rule out that Luke had an agenda (for example, that Paul was a team player) as well as literary preferences.

Indeed. I suppose more what I mean is: what precisely could Luke's agenda have been, in that case? Unlike Matthew (who had doctrinal differences from Mark), Luke paints Paul as a sort of superhero: if he had the words of such an illustrious figure before him, what would prompt him to deviate from the source? Could it be that he was pandering to somebody who liked Paul quite a lot in theory, but perhaps wouldn't have agreed with everything in the letters (Theophilus?)? Or could he have had only one or two letters, or perhaps a letter we don't have: or an early version of a letter or letters which deviate from our extant copies? Interesting stuff.

[eight bits]

Jeanne

what would prompt him to deviate from the source?

Paul is a problematic superhero. Jesus was supposed to come back during Paul's lifetime, and didn't show. No matter how you slice it, Luke needs to be selective about his source. The stuff where Jesus is coming back immediately needs to be lost.

On the other hand, without Paul, all you've got is a Jewish sect, which by rights ought to be run by the students of the James Gang, and how is that supposed to work for Gentiles? Luke covers his bets. Before we settle down to read about the new and improved adventures of Paul, we are told that Peter, too, had been visited with visionary instruction about a shining Gentile future for his movement.

Actually, Luke was covering his bets from volume 1, chapter 1. Mary's chat with Gabriel is vague about the marriage counseling, but it bigger than hell has an archangel testifying that Jesus is The One. Mary's later reaction in her Magnificat is florid, but crystal clear on one point: there will be future ages (1:48).

In Paul, there were to be no future ages, and that Jesus is The One is Bible-based and tightly bound to his rosy estimate of when the job will be finished, all of a piece. So Paul is reimagined. Now he's a team player with heavy miracle-worker credentials, never shown in the same room as a book, never shown visiting the Third Heaven or ever losing track of his body, never shown writing a letter.

I am an adherent of the "volume 3" theory. I think that there was supposed to be more, in which Peter, too, would find his big Gentile audience with named Gentile students and, of course, Paul's stirring and successful defense of himself before the Emperor's court. If so, and if it had been written, there would be more to say about Luke's agenda.

As it is, I think the two volumes in hand reveal enough of the agenda to quiet surprise that Luke didn't follow the letters to the letter. So to speak.

[Jeanne dArc]

Jeanne

Paul is a problematic superhero. Jesus was supposed to come back during Paul's lifetime, and didn't show. No matter how you slice it, Luke needs to be selective about his source. The stuff where Jesus is coming back immediately needs to be lost.

On the other hand, without Paul, all you've got is a Jewish sect, which by rights ought to be run by the students of the James Gang, and how is that supposed to work for Gentiles? Luke covers his bets. Before we settle down to read about the new and improved adventures of Paul, we are told that Peter, too, had been visited with visionary instruction about a shining Gentile future for his movement.

Actually, Luke was covering his bets from volume 1, chapter 1. Mary's chat with Gabriel is vague about the marriage counseling, but it bigger than hell has an archangel testifying that Jesus is The One. Mary's later reaction in her Magnificat is florid, but crystal clear on one point: there will be future ages (1:48).

In Paul, there were to be no future ages, and that Jesus is The One is Bible-based and tightly bound to his rosy estimate of when the job will be finished, all of a piece. So Paul is reimagined. Now he's a team player with heavy miracle-worker credentials, never shown in the same room as a book, never shown visiting the Third Heaven or ever losing track of his body, never shown writing a letter.

I am an adherent of the "volume 3" theory. I think that there was supposed to be more, in which Peter, too, would find his big Gentile audience with named Gentile students and, of course, Paul's stirring and successful defense of himself before the Emperor's court. If so, and if it had been written, there would be more to say about Luke's agenda.

As it is, I think the two volumes in hand reveal enough of the agenda to quiet surprise that Luke didn't follow the letters to the letter. So to speak.

We largely agree, yet again