Did Paul EVER Exist? Scholar Says the Letters Are FICTION | Dr. Nina Livesey

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Myth Vision Podcast. I'm your host, Derek Lambert. When I say I have a special treat for you today, I mean it.

[00:00:09]This is going to be different from what you're probably used to hearing anywhere ever when it comes to New Testament scholarship. Today I'm joined by a professor who has dove, I think, to the deepest level you can when it comes to Pauline letters and understanding what is going on with these these epistles that we find in our New Testament. She's done quite a bit of history research going through the scholarship and thought through this this enigmatic character we call Paul that people are still arm wrestling over in the academic arena right now.

[00:00:46]And I have her name is Dr. Nenah E.

[00:00:50]Livzy and she has written a book. The book here is the letters of Paul in their Roman literary context. This is one of the most shocking reads I've read about the Apostle Paul and I hope you will get yourself a copy. I understand the academic books are pricey. I have no control over that. She has no control over that. But I encourage you if you do have a way of getting a copy, it is methodical and it is a new way to view how we should consider Paul's letters. That Dr. Livy is a professor of merida of religious studies at the U College of Professional and Continuing Studies trained in biblical studies with a specialization in Pauline letters. As we said at the beginning, Nah's interest can be broadly characterized as the investigation into various aspects of Christian emergence. Her first monograph and it goes, by the way, I'm getting this from the website. You've got to look her up. You've got to see her background. But I can tell you this. I saw an interview from her years ago. She believed that the Apostle Paul's letters were authentic. And now we have a different Nina. And she told me I can call her Nenah. So, welcome to Myth Vision. How are you?

[00:02:05]>> Thank you. so much, Derek, and I appreciate your your very kind introduction. And yes, you can call me Nina. I've asked my students to call me Nina, although they rarely do. In Oklahoma, we're still Professor Lindsay.

[00:02:19]So, I guess that that's kind of nice, too.

[00:02:21]>> I They might accidentally do that every once in a while.

[00:02:26]>> How did I change my mind? Is that what you're asking me now?

[00:02:30]>> I guess. How did I >> how did I come to um have another really very divergent view with regard to the Pauline letters, >> right? Everyone thinks they're authentic. Everyone that I know thinks these are real. There's seven, but everyone I know, just for context for the viewer, uh that is critical, that is more in a, you know, real critical scholarship says some of these letters in our Bibles aren't really written by that guy. So, they're willing to grant or concede inauthenticity to some degree, but there's seven golden letters. You better not touch them. How did you go from a believer to a >> Okay. Um, well, thank you for the question. So, it wasn't until 2018 uh that I began to question this so-called authentic perspective on the letters. And as you rightly noted, um seven of the letters in the New Testament that are attributed to Paul, we've long considered not authentic to Paul or Sudonmous. But those seven letters have held firm so-called seven authentic letters. Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Phileaman.

[00:03:56]Those are what you would call the golden letters, the golden seven authored by Paul and also um with the authentic perspective, their genuine correspondence or sent sent letters, actual letter that was sent out. and on the whole more or less historically reliable. A lot of work's been done on the letters and we know there's um many rhetorical moves within those letters. So it's not all historically reliable but on the whole we think of those as real letters authentic to Paul. So, as you well noted, all of my training and even scholarship up to that point, 2018, um assumed unquestionably the authentic perspective, and I had no strong reason to doubt it. But on a previous monograph which is Galatians and the rhetoric of crisis published in 2016 by Paulbridge Press. It was there that I delved deeply into the rhetoric, especially of Galatians, and I became acutely aware, you might say, of the depth and breadth of authoral strategies within that letter. I also learned a lot more about ancient rhetoric. I delved in into it uh pretty deeply and um I was really amazed to learn too um that rhetoric, ancient rhetoric was not um considered uh merely ornamentation uh that an ancient author attaches to statements to make them more emphatic or emotive or grandiose if you But instead they consisted of a compendium of techniques for various types of creation, literary creation. So wholehog creation you might say. Um so rhetorical training armed authors and epistolgraphers, letterw writers um with various tools necessary per for persuasive argumentation but also things like character and situational development. So for instance, ancient authors deployed a a well-known um rhetorical figure proa often um called speech and character which involved the invention of a speech and affixed to a character.

[00:06:52]That character could be a fictional character or a factual character. So that's a whole invention you might say of a character and that was very popular speech and character and we've long known about speech and character in the world of Pauline studies. Uh I later learned that a letter however can also be considered a form of speech and character and I'll just let the audience think about that. But I'm not going to go into details on it, but a letter could be a form of speech and character.

[00:07:27]So ideas are per percolating, you might say, uh, with that study, uh, this deep dive into rhetoric. Um, and so I came to the conclusion even then in 2016 that elements within Galatians that had long been considered or I considered on the whole more or less historically reliable, >> especially the autobiographical statements in Galatians one, the situation at Antioch um with Peter, the showdown uh with Peter, you might say, or even the realia of the opponents were not necessarily so. Okay. Um this could all also have been part of uh rhetorical um recreations you might say and these were things percolating.

[00:08:26]Um these episodes as I said could easily be authoral constructions.

[00:08:33]Significantly that study placed me in the shoes so to speak of the author uh which meant that I was led to consider largely consider author things like authoral purpose. Why say this? Why say it this way? Um, and also the author's social location. What kind of an author would be saying these kinds of things? And what about his training?

[00:09:02]Wouldn't that author need to be trained in order to be able to say these things in a strategic way? Again, all these things are going through my mind. But then in 2018 um I did some more work on ancient rhetoric again with Galatians again uh largely f focusing on that autobiographical passage in Galatians 1. Um and I gradually then started to doubt whether uh what we're seeing there is the apostle Paul.

[00:09:39]The thought went through my mind is what I will say. Um, and then also what about those other six letters?

[00:09:48]So, were the letters staged as being in the name of the Apostle Paul? Remember I talked a little bit about a letter being a form of speech and character. So, there is already that happening in the ancient world. But I didn't put all those pieces together even then before I started writing the book and doing the research for the book. But also something else happened and I was in conversation with a classicist colleague and um she actually pulled me aside at a meeting and she mentioned to me that it's not so easy in the realm of classics.

[00:10:32]um to say with confidence who the author is of a particular work.

[00:10:39]So, um that made me or put another seed in my thinking, you might say, um that perhaps or even more than perhaps Pauline scholars were overconfident in their determination that the Apostle Paul wrote those letters. You know, if it's really difficult, how can we be so sure? as you said, it's the gold standard. We're just absolutely sure the Apostle Paul did that. But um how is it that we know that? Um so with all those thoughts in my mind, I thought I better do some research on this. And um so I set out to assess how authenticity came about for those seven letters.

[00:11:40]>> Wow.

[00:11:41]So much there. What I love about this opening, we'll get to the next question in just a second. What I love about this opening is I got to learn. See, it's like I watched the movie, your book, right? I read the book already. So the people who haven't read your book are at a unfortunate position to hear and know like all that we're getting into. But I'll say this. I arrogantly, okay, a while back, a couple years ago actually, kind of jabbed at this commenter who questioned Paul's letters, like the seven. I just had Steve Mason on, and I thought, you are a crazy conspiracy person online. Like da da da. Now, maybe they are for all we know, but I I I had this confidence that we're listening to half a phone conversation in Paul's letters. They're authentic. You just grant it. And it's always felt that way. So, to overturn the filling that we get, right, I'm using the word filling um is very difficult because you went through that uh I want to almost say decon conversion of the seven authentic letters. Like you literally had to go through this same holy moly rhetorical stuff and I felt that way when I read Stanley Sters's book when I went rereading Romans something happened to me. I was like hold on all the commentaries I've ever read on this like they're reading here's this authentic guy who's just speaking these like theological things and he's like no no no it's like a philosophical like like the inner man struggle kind of like go look at Plutarch and I'm like whoa. and then media being quoted in in Romans 7 and all this and I'm like, what am I reading? I don't even know what I'm reading anymore with Paul, right? So, anyway, enough about me. I just want to make the point that I have been guilty of just outright dismissing these kind of ideas. And here we are today after reading your book going, I had no idea how complicated it really is. So our first question that I think really needs to be spelled out is you approached this differently as you described in the opening here than any of the prior people who doubted some of those seven even which are some of the Dutch radicals. Um can you take us through the history of the scholarship which was a powerful point early on in your book on Paul's letters and how we came to view them as historical letters. Dutch radicals of course had like four depending on which guy. Um but they doubted some of the things we're not willing to doubt. Can you tell us the history of the scholarship of Paul?

[00:14:16]Why we think the seven and uh I don't know just kind of take it at your own pace in whatever direction you think is necessary for our audience to understand that.

[00:14:26]>> Yes. Well, thank you for your question.

[00:14:28]>> Thank you. And it's interesting that you mention Stanley Sters and I would like to say that he over last 20 years has had a large influence on me. He's done a lot of work especially on speech and character and I've long been um influenced positively influenced by his work. Um and in other ways he's influenced this current study but I won't go into that. But um shout out to Stan Sters for sure. Um I can go I can't do the whole history of the scholarship but I can briefly review things. I can hit the highlights. As you say the book um goes into a lot more depth. Um but I can um bring out uh some of the touch points you might say. M >> so for the history I turn both to early readers but also and largely to important moments and influential scholars of the modern period. And I focus there because the current authentic perspective on the seven letters um is itself modern. I I learned and it comes I think also from a t particular modern mode of thought how we think about those letters I think it it it's a modern notion to think about them as authentic and all of this I learned in the course of the research on the book so um some takeaways I'm going to highlight some important takeaways I found um that predetermined notions of Christian origins in particular um bring the authentic perspective to the four against the again the modern notion of the authentic perspective.

[00:16:30]Pauline letters become assessed as authentic as those predetermined notions are read back into the letters. So some examples um and I I do focus on FC Bower and Adolf Diceman.

[00:16:51]>> So in the first the prominent 19th century FC Bower he deemed uh four Pauline letters authentic and only four not seven four and thereby historically reliable. According to him, the four well reflect the emergence of Christianity, again, Christian origins in the first century. But his religious views and socopolitical situation in Germany at that time are determinative of his estimation of the authenticity of the letters. what he does is he reads um strategically 1 Corinthians 1 11-12 um which is a debate between um various figures there um you'll have to look up the passage I don't have it in front of me >> know what >> but so it's 1 Corinthians 1 11-12 and he sees that um dispute or debate among four figures as confirming two different religious perspectives.

[00:18:05]Uh, one, a universalistic lawfree one. You've probably heard that before. Represented by Paul, no law, Paul and without the law. And his non-Jewish group, that's one faction, you might say. And then a particular particularist, sorry about that. lawbound version of Christianity and that's represented by Peter and his group. So you now now have some opposition, Jewish Christian opposition, although that's a little anacronistic to talk about it like that.

[00:18:43]But that passage um pops for Bower, you might say, but it confirms his own religious understanding which is supersessionistic.

[00:18:55]Okay. Christianity over Judaism, you might say. So Bower was equally able to find evidence of that type of split um between from uh Judaism into Christianity, you might say. And for Bower, it was like that in second Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans. So this is how you get those four chief epistles or ha >> just for clarity for our viewer. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. Um, but I just want them to understand >> that debate, that tussle that we see between Peter and Paul and Galatians or First Corinthians. Uh, you even get a hint of it in Romans. I I think uh where but you're saying they're looking at that debate. Bower is looking at this and he's going, "Look, it's no more law, right? It's it's it's just superseded the Judeaic law." And because he has this theological baggage of what he has interpreted Christianity's Pauline letters to be about, he then approaches him and goes, "Okay, if I could find this in these letters, it's authentic."

[00:20:04]Kind of circular there. Um, >> right.

[00:20:08]>> So, you pull the rug out from that, we got a problem now. We got to try and figure out what is happening in these texts. But, okay. Sorry. Please continue. I just want the viewer.

[00:20:16]>> Yeah, that's ex That's exactly right.

[00:20:20]um it is circular. He reads his contemporary theology and the social political context which I'm not going into now but it is in the book. He reads that into the letters. So what you could say then um in analyzing what he's doing is he's historicizing his theology. M >> he's making that theology real, you might say. That's really how it was. Um but it it's um influenced by his own contemporary theology. So it's already very acronistic, right? It's a modern perspective that he's reading back in to the first century.

[00:21:06]Uh so there there's Bower and that grounds Bower grounds a lot of the authentic perspective because with him you have those four chief epistles. Um getting a little bit ahead of myself, but those four um you get the seven um built from the four. Got it.

[00:21:29]>> So you need those four four chief epistles. And if you look at Paul Line's scholarship, they are the ones that garner most of the scholarship, those chief epistles. They're still known, whether we acknowledge it or not, as chief epistles, even though we don't call them chief epistles so much anymore, but they are the primary um I guess you might say a lot of the theology is in those four letters or can be gleaned from those four letters. So what happens after Bower? I can continue a little bit with this history. Um chronologically speaking. Okay. So we were at the mid 1800s but at the end of the 1800s um they are are these folks as you've mentioned Derek these uh Dutch radical thinkers and they do play a role. Um they I can mention some of them. Bruno Bower, he's one of the lead Dutch radicals. Abraham Lman, Rudolph Steek, and Wilham von Madden Mannon, sorry.

[00:22:40]They go further than Bower, you might say. They do not hold to the chief epistles, those four authentic letters.

[00:22:51]They deny authenticity to the whole lot of the letter letters. All of them, all 13 or all 14 depending on uh whether or not you want to count Hebrews.

[00:23:03]>> Um they're all pseudapigrapha for the Dutch radicals.

[00:23:08]Um and their thoughts uh did play uh a role um as kind of background in my own thinking.

[00:23:18]um I read them and then came to my own um views about what's going on, but their views were uh I think still valid um even at the end of my research.

[00:23:34]Wow.

[00:23:34]>> So, um they um what they say and you'll see this repeated quite a bit in that scholarship that uh the letters um provide evidence of an advanced uh level of theological reflection on the part of Paul. And for them that means that the letters are derivative of the gospels and acts. uh I come to a similar conclusion at the end of my study but then that also a similar conclusion that I had come to it undermines that traditional dating that is affixed also to the authentic perspective where the Pauline letters those seven are considered the very earliest writings that we have right they come from the 50s in the traditional scholarship >> if I may just so I understood what you just said there other than the fact that the anchoring of course and I imagine we'll get a little bit into why people anchor these things when they do but when you said that they thought that these letters were derivative of the gospels that these are the Dutch radicals and you yourself also are sympathetic to this view is that correct me if I'm wrong I'm just rewarding it to maybe make it clear for our audience that they understand I think what I'm interpreting this to mean like even Christians today will go Paul has high christologology, right? They always talk about this as if that's a gotcha because the standard model is Paul's the earliest and then or the seven, right?

[00:25:12]They're willing to play in that sandbox with critical scholars, though they want to say all 14 are real or 13, however, depends on the Christian. Um, but it is very sophisticated theological thinking and it's what a decade or two after Jesus we're supposed to have like this extremely well theologically thought out thinker. Now some dispute that but you're suggesting that this seems to imply if I'm not correct me if I'm wrong or add or subtract or whatever that they might actually be derivative of an already existing gospel stories that we have in the New Testament. And these letters are derivative of that. They're they're highly sophisticated and and that plays a role. Or am I missing something here?

[00:25:58]>> Well, um I guess I wouldn't go too far on the on that word derivative. What I mean is deriving chronologically, >> right? Um, so I do think you need to have some of the um main narrative laid out before you can have theological reflection. So in there in that way you do have some conceptual notion of deriving.

[00:26:34]Um, but what was interesting about the Dutch radicals is that this Paul to have that higher level of reflection meant Paul came later. Maybe that is a clearer way of saying um what I'm trying to say here.

[00:26:54]Um Paul there there must have been some time for reflection.

[00:27:02]What could the crucifixion have meant?

[00:27:05]Right? Um because you do see reflection on the crucifixion with the letters of Paul, right? He applies it to himself in terms of suffering. Paul is a sufferer.

[00:27:18]Okay? And this these are things that the Dutch radicals were already observing when they looked at the letters, which made them think that the letters had to come later.

[00:27:31]Is that >> that? Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:27:34]>> Makes better sense.

[00:27:35]>> And I imagine there's a lot more, right, that they have to say about these problems. I've heard that it looks like like disputes that are going on. And that this is just from my um from a friend and scholar Dr. Robert M. Price that I've studied with for years back in the day. He said that it's like they call them patchwork quilts where there's disputes in the second century that that the Dutch radicals thought this looks like an argument that's happening later but they're like the different groups of thinkers of Christians and so we're assuming this is happening in the 50s but they thought no this seems to reflect Christian problems in the second century or something like that too but I I can't remember exactly the detail >> right so um it was interesting to read uh Dutch Radical Thought uh and and especially after I finished all the research to go back and see, yeah, okay, I can see why you're saying that after I had done all my own research. So, I found that worthwhile um to to look at all of that scholarship on the Dutch radicals. So another um major voice influencing the authentic perspective um was the 20 early 20th century scholar Adolf Diceman.

[00:28:56]Um he you might think of him as um episttolary scholar did a lot of work on the letters. Um, but he like Bower reads his own notions into the letters too to determine they're authentic. And in this case, he reads his romantic notions of Christian origins into Pauline letters.

[00:29:21]For him, unlike Bower, all the letters are authentic. All 13 of them. Um, he he excludes Hebrews. They're all but for Daismon the important point is they're real letters. They're genuine scent correspondence and that is the contribution I find that he makes to the authentic perspective.

[00:29:49]So in other words rather than on the historical reliability which you can affix to Bower for Daisy Nun it's the letter the genre he contributes to how we can how we think about the letter itself as being sent correspondence a real letter. So he grounds the letter in history. H >> he you can also um because of where he's placed in this chron brief chronological survey that I'm giving you here he comes after um the Dutch radical thought and you can consider him his views as a response to the Dutch radicals because he's veering very strongly to the other direction uh grounding everything in history where what were the Dutch radicals doing taking everything out of history right so you've got two opposing views here um but Daismon and because of the authentic perspective Disson ends up carrying the day Daisman and Bower so for Daismon Christianity originated in an ahistorical pristine you could call it a garden of Edenlike setting uh and he has a term for that primitive of Christianity or or Christristendom.

[00:31:17]Um, and it for him he envisioned it as a time when the spirit, you might think the Holy Spirit was alive and active and it was leading the earliest Christian community and those early Christians were themselves simple persons and uh barely literate themselves.

[00:31:41]Their writings according to him are also barely literate uh more like oral speech and it was spiritdirected.

[00:31:50]So um something very different as you're probably hearing now. Um and according to him the genuiness of the letters is evident in the style. So he reads those letters uh Pauline letters as being very simple and very honest and very spontaneous because after all they reflect that earliest period. Um so um the status of the letters as genuine and stylistically simple and spontaneous also relies on circular logic. Right.

[00:32:33]>> Right. He reads the letters through the lens of his predetermined understanding of Christian emergence.

[00:32:42]And for him, it's not it's partly his theology. Um because that that's got to be, you know, his theology was this simple pure period, as I said, Garden of Eden type uh beginnings to Christianity.

[00:32:59]And he's reading that, as I said, back into the letters. And what happens then is even as this scholarship says, "No, no, no. Those letters aren't simple.

[00:33:11]Your methodology is not correct. Um, you can't say it like this." And that came swift and uh forcefully against Diceman after he published his big work. Um but even with all of that um the notion that those letters are real letters sent correspondence that took hold and continues even though as I say in the book the bases of all of his uh reasoning was undermined in the scholarship. Mhm.

[00:33:51]>> So um to to conclude this brief history um I I came to the understanding that the conceptual basis of authenticity is rooted is rooted on the one hand with Bower on um in Christian triumphalist theology and on the other hand with Dyman in romanticism.

[00:34:18]>> Wow. Okay. That is a powerful lens that I think anyone who's looking at Paul's letters needs to know. It's like saying, um, hey, I have a product.

[00:34:29]I'm using analogy. I have a product here, um, that is supposed to help you cure this thing. Uh, and it's it's fantastic. And then you find out studies 20 years ago, it gave cancer to some patients and it had this and that. Like, you kind of need to know the fine print and the history behind something that you're accepting today. and you have no clue where they were or potential you know pitfalls that can be today. So in my mind the question I have just before we exit that question to the next one is >> is it your observation after researching Disman and others really I have a two-prong question and that is do you think even though scholars immediately want to criticize his kind of um spiritfilled observation his romantic view of of the origins that it's divinely it's got all the inspiration of like real divinity involved in making this happen which for me I like to level the playing field and go, okay, how did this cult of Attis, how did the cult of Appalonius, how did the cult of Jesus, how did the, you know, that's how I work. Um, but like do you think that that people today in Pauline scholarship are just taking for granted what was built by Bower and Desmond here just trying to kind of eliminate that romantic view of well this is the Garden of Eden origin of Christianity which we kind of get in the New Testament even.

[00:35:50]that kind of reflects these ideas. And then with that, you go into Dyesman a little more in your book. Well, weigh more in your book, but is it Dyman that did all the heavy lifting, and I'm using scare quotes here of trying to compare the Pauline letters with like all of these other letters that really did not help the case of him trying to say, "Oh, we found them and they look so similar to these other letters, but they're not actually like epistles a lot of times that he would compare them to." Is it Dyesman or who was the scholar that did that? But it really actually worked against that, >> right?

[00:36:28]>> You know what I'm talking about?

[00:36:30]>> Yes. Um it's a good question. Um I'll I'll try to answer it in two ways. Do I think um people are thinking about Bower and Diceman when um they're assuming this authentic perspective on seven letters? I I would say I doubt that. I think the field has simply assumed and moved on that the seven letters are authentic. And so with that little brief history, I'm kind of muddying the waters.

[00:37:08]You you this is the authentic perspective.

[00:37:12]And in this little patch of muddying, you might say, I'm giving you um what it's based on conceptually.

[00:37:24]So there's other muddying that I do as well. So that's answers one part. Yeah.

[00:37:29]So I don't think people are consciously thinking about Bower and Dice. I think they've moved on because they've accepted, right, these seven letters as being authentic. They're not questioning them at all. As I said, I'm I'm asking it to be rethought. I'm asking that the seven letters, authentic letters, be rethought. Um, and then your other question, uh, does Diceman do the heavy lifting of comparing uh letters to uh real letters?

[00:38:04]He does some of that uh to make his point that uh Pauline letters are indeed simple ordinary letters. Um he he actually does quite a bit of that work.

[00:38:20]Um but some of it is not very convincing.

[00:38:26]The primary work however was done after Daisman where scholars thought ah it's important to start looking at letters and start looking at um epistles themselves. Diceman gets that ball rolling and other scholars after Diceman do um more work and it's more sophisticated I think uh theoretically sophisticated those that follow Daisyman there's other people that do that work um and perhaps I'll get into that with some some of your other questions.

[00:39:05]>> Sure. Yeah, because that's that's a that's an important uh revelation if you will. Um, my next question is when I read Acts, I see companionship between Peter and Paul to some degree. If Paul and Peter have a pissing contest in Galatians, do you see this as a way these letters make Paul superior to Peter? If I may, just to kind of context for viewers, I have heard it said from Bart Airman and everybody, right? Uh the original earlier is here's Paul having a pissing contest with Peter and they're not friends. They're clearly not happy with each other and Paul's angry. You could tell he's not a fan of Peter and what Peter did to the Gentiles and and you know Galatia. Okay. Well, Acts paints a different picture according to him. And he would say that what Acts is doing later, notice the chronology change from what you're suggesting later, you know, they're fixing, they're patching up this rift that's in the early church, which Paul has. You're saying, let's turn the camera upside down and this. So help us with what you see going on in Acts and how we can re-evaluate with a different lens if the letters come after.

[00:40:28]>> Okay. Um I'll try to do my Yeah, I'll try to do my best. Well, when you look at Acts, you can see um just giving a big overview here. You can see that um Peter is more or less the main character at the beginning of Acts, right? And Paul then becomes a leading character in the second half of Acts. Uh and um they do seem to have slightly different theologies, you might say, be um between um Peter and and Paul.

[00:41:08]What I do see and what but where I focus really more is on the letters and in Galatians 2, you can um certainly see uh that Paul is subordinating Peter. Um he um publicly um rebukes him in front of people there in in Galatians 2. So, I can see where you would say that and I don't disagree with you. I don't spend a lot of time in the book going through that.

[00:41:44]>> But, um, I'll take this in a slightly different direction. Um, based on modern epistlary theory, episttolary theory, I indicate in the book that, um, so I see a connection then with a episttolary scholarship. Um, epistolographers of pseudonmous letter collections take a known figure uh into portrayals different from how they're otherwise known.

[00:42:19]Indeed, this appears to be a dominant characteristic in that type of letter pseudonmous letter collections.

[00:42:27]Uh that is to redirect the character.

[00:42:32]Thus, if Peter was seen as a central figure and more significant than Paul in some literature, as you're implying, >> uh the letter in the name of Paul, uh could serve itself, a letter as a type of correction, um and to revise the scenario. So I'm I'm moving your question more into the realm of the power of the letter if you will.

[00:43:01]>> Right. Um, in addition, I mention in especially chapter three of the book that a letter privileges, this is just uh reiterating what I've said, the voice of that inscribed letter sender figure.

[00:43:17]Here it's Paul again, right? Um, it's his show. And I'm saying his a lot of these uh ancient epistles, all that I've looked at are in the name of males.

[00:43:28]Right.

[00:43:29]>> Right. uh so because all the letters are attributed to Paul that are the apostle Paul there's by virtue of the letter genre a sense of his authority and the centrality of that figure coupled with that ancient readers came to expect that they knew that they wanted that according to the literature that I reviewed they're looking for that figure, the letter writer figure to be the no, the one in the no, the one uh who has the authority. So you might say then it's interesting that uh you have letters letters from the apostle Paul because in a letter he can organically organically be superior to another character. After all as I said it's his show. Um so you could see something like this and it seems normal too. um look Peter yada yada you know um but it's his show he can easily do that in a letter he or I'm saying it's not actually Paul but I'm using him at this point to explain what I'm saying um and finally um if this came up recently and I'll just mention it as an aside if you can trust um the recreated contents of Marcian's collection of Pauline letters. Uh there's 10 letters that Marcian um published in the middle of the second century and I'll probably get a little bit into that later on here. Um but if you can trust those recreations, I noticed that there's no definite explicitly mentioned co-enders and I found that interesting.

[00:45:36]So in the canonical letters you'll often see Apostle Paul and Timothy my brother something like that as the implied letter senders but in Marcian it's only the Apostle Paul. I found that interesting.

[00:45:53]>> Um so I think I'll leave it with that and I don't know if I've completely answered your question.

[00:46:00]>> No it's a great it's a great leap. Uh I think what we can do too for the viewer is paint a different picture right again we're trying our best with the evidence and and ways of looking at this literature which I think later we can get into where you actually show the kind of genre this the letters of Paul seem to reflect more than any of the other stuff that seems to be authentic.

[00:46:25]Um and there's like this cumulative case people have to try and consider and rethink through cuz a lot of the scholarship we're reading all they are is kind of hypothetical you know tools to try and assess this stuff and a lot of it is circular like you said. So when I read Acts I read I I read a I know that scholars get picky about the details of historical fiction or fiction of history or whatever. For me, it's very fictional and it's placed in a in a setting. Of course, it tries to put itself in a historical setting, but it's very fictional sounding from the very get-go. Guys are floating into the clouds. Um, there's just really fantastic material all throughout. And I know that a lot of people who are more more fundamentalist, they take offense to that and act like, well, that's your anti-supnatural bias. I would do it for Appalonius. I would do it for Eskeipius.

[00:47:18]I would do it for anybody else. I'm just saying I see it here. It's doing the same kinds of things you see it with the Hebrew Bible. Okay. Your book highlighted a scholar that I've read a while ago and even interviewed, Michael Kashinosh's work. He wrote a a letter or uh he wrote a article called Better Call Saul. And it rocked my world cuz he goes through the scholarship on why we what is what did the scholars think about Paul? Saul, the guy named Paul and he was called Saul. And then they were like, okay, his Jewish name is Saul, his Roman name is Paul. And like they had these like historicizing methods of explaining him in Acts, right, as this authentic person. And then Kashinosh just took his hot knife off the stove, grabbed the butter and just went just right through it and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me from the Septuagent?" Is practically a verb verbatim quote, a mimemetic connection to when King David, Jesus is a son of King David. He is inheriting, he's a seed of of David. Here he is crying to another Saul, right? Just fulfilling scripture and he's saying, "Why are you persecuting me?" And then he adds a little interesting layer to that about the Bakkeye that I love as well with the bright light and all that with Penthus and the tree and you name it that we won't get caught up in that, but it's a fantastic article. Blew my mind and it made me go, I can't read Acts the same way anymore. Then your book echoes that and says, "Here's this really popular name, this guy named Paul from a very powerful story in Acts, and that guy is now an authority in this movement, and they're writing letters using that authority's name from a story." And I'm like, "What just happened to my brain?"

[00:49:18]Sorry I rambled there. I'm just trying to give a little more detail for viewers to understand like >> kind of what happened while I was reading your book.

[00:49:27]>> Right. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that and that transformation from Saul or Slo is very central to that book to my book and I do know the article that you're referring to. Um, axe plays with names.

[00:49:48]Strategically plays with names. Um, so yeah, it's it was a very good point that you've made, Derek.

[00:49:56]>> Thank you so much. I'm just trying to compliment because this is truly a fun amazing book. Anyway, number three is >> Thank you.

[00:50:04]>> What I mean this this ties into Acts actually one example at least in Acts and then you get the in the letters of Paul. What makes scholarship think the seven are authentic and how do they anchor them? That's the key, right? Cuz we already know, we kind of touched on why they think they're authentic and like but there even today when they get rid of the romanticism and they don't accept the whole idea of like you know I must have this spiritual explanation to make sense of the origins. Um what do they anchor them to? What makes them say these seven are historical and they're in the mid-50s or 40s of the first century and why is this a problem?

[00:50:45]>> Okay.

[00:50:47]Well, thank you for this question.

[00:50:50]Um, so I looked into that and not exactly the way you've framed it up but very closely.

[00:50:56]um postbower um late 19th and early 20th century continental scholars uh largely from Germany um but also from France uh they started also um reinvestigating this question of authenticity and they start with this hop hop braa or the chief epistles of bower that's their starting point which I've mentioned uh Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians, they just um assume that they those are authentic. They buy into that.

[00:51:35]Okay, these scholars, these later than Bower scholars, and what they do is they gradually add three more letters which they believe well uh corroborate, you might say, uh the theology or the views, maybe better to say the views, but also the theology that uh they find and style that they find uh within those four letters.

[00:52:05]So that's how you get those additional uh three uh to bring it up to seven. Uh the criteria however that they use uh was not very rigorous at all and it doesn't it would not come up to modern standards um of analysis or investigation at all. Uh some of it is uh schol one of the scholars wanted to include Philippians because it had his favorite expression in there. So it certainly had to be a a Paul line a genuine Pauline letter. So this is the way in which more letters are grounded you might say into history through um an analysis of some more letters of Paul.

[00:52:52]And I'm going over this very briefly, >> of course, >> I go into more detail within the book.

[00:52:58]So, what I've just said is, >> yeah, thank you so much.

[00:53:02]>> I found this quote and um I'm going to go ahead and read it. Um it was influential to me and I think it'll give you an idea of what those scholars had in the back of their mind. uh they needed in a way to find more letters.

[00:53:19]And this is interestingly articulated by this British professor of divinity at Durham University um who writes, "Every um student of apologetic theology in England is aware how much stress has recently laid upon what is called the argument from the Pauline epistle.

[00:53:49]for the historical basis of the life of Jesus. This argument has been confined for the most part to those four epistles, the chief epistles, which are regarded as practically undisputed.

[00:54:06]But the course of modern criticism increasingly justifies us in adding to the number at least three others.

[00:54:16]First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Phileaman. And even at the time, the scholar is already waffling a little bit um to include Colossians in there as well. So that gives you an idea. There was, you might say, um, pressure from a theological basis again to make more have more Pauline authent authentic letters. Um, anyway, that that's why I thought I'd read that quote to give that idea, make that idea become more plain. In addition to grounding the letters, as I've just mentioned, other areas of investigation led me again and again to the conclusion that the authentic or historical perspective on the seven letters was what I'm calling forced. Um so for instance scholars looked at Pauline chronology and for this what was the order you know these are genuine letters real letters of Paul so scholars wanted to say which was the first letter that Paul wrote which was the second third fourth so there there is scholarship on pro Pauline chronology um but that is also circular. Um it assumes what the sequence is supposed to reveal. Okay, that that scholarship um I is uh dubious. You might say this Pauline chronology. Again, it's uh based on circular logic. Then I found other studies that look to locate Paul, of course, the author, uh, the assumed author, right? They want to find him historical.

[00:56:20]And to do this, they look at particular passages, often what they call autobiographical passages, and two that I write about more extensively in the book. um one is from Acts and one is from uh 2 Corinthians. So in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33, you see the Apostle Paul um is in Damascus and he's threatened by the governor of King Aratus or in Acts 18 12-17 Paul is seen in Corenth uh before Golio uh and he's defending himself against accusations bought brought by Jews. That's in Acts.

[00:57:11]But as I'd mentioned that that also has some theoretical um problems uh to rely on Pauline historicity based on those passages.

[00:57:24]It's method methodologically flawed because you cannot find another source that can confirm Paul or the Apostle Paul with those otherwise known figures.

[00:57:41]Right? There isn't any other um mention of that. M >> so it's um it's also and I mentioned in the book uh not difficult really to ascertain that those incidents add dramatic effect whether that be in Corinthians or in Acts to advance the theological goals. So in the in the one passage Paul escapes um by being let down in a basket through a window. It's quite dramatic, right? Um, and that scene, however, it occurs elsewhere in scripture. Um, so it's kind of, you can think of it as a set escape piece, you know. So, the historicity is um already crumbling, you might say, around somebody who necessarily drops down in a basket. You've got that with Rahab already in Joshua. Rahab is letting the spies down, isn't she? Uh, to escape. um in the book of Joshua. So you we've already seen that um basket motif. And in the second passage, Paul's defense against hostile ch uh Jews. That's a very dominant theme in Acts um where um you you see kind of the justification, you might even say, of the Jesus movement to Gentiles as the Jews are uh rejecting it. that goes all all the way through Acts. So Paul's appearance before Golio uh contributes it's very central to that theme. I'll also mention that to name a known figure a a distinctive figure adds a sense of their similitude to the writings. We know that we've known that for a long time. So this named dropping has a rhetorical and literary cache. You might say modern episttolary uh scholarship likewise contributes to the historicizing agenda of the seven letters. um Pauline letters and now I'm getting to uh those people who come after Daismon pick up from Daismon and carry his ideas forward. Um again a pistolary scholarship.

[01:00:12]So Pauline letters are said to be genuine send correspondence even as the evidence for that view says otherwise. Um the Pauline letters don't conform variously don't conform by their form their structure uh their length or their content to those um to other letters that you would think of are genuine letters in history like a um a son writing to his parent.

[01:00:47]Those are very simple letters and the Pauline letters are theological more complex uh even their very structure is different. So in the face of these u multiple instances of disconformity again within this episttolary zone you might say. Um, I found it interesting.

[01:01:10]The scholars were dismissive even though their findings did not yield what they set out to perform. But they went ahead and they still say uh the letters are genuine and they rationalize it now and say that Paul's pressing mission, you know, he's on a mission to convert the Gentiles that caused him to change the letter form. Uh I didn't find that very convincing. Um so this type of evaluation also makes Pauline letters a category to themselves.

[01:01:50]Um which is also not very convincing that you'd have a unique type of ancient letter.

[01:01:57]>> So this is great. Um in your book I get to this spot where you talk about Acts and you you point out how Acts doesn't get chronology right. Of course, Steve Mason's work with the idea of showing Josephus is, you know, if there's historicity uh influencing from a well-known historian, looks like Axe is lifting, which now you got to at least date Acts after 90 what 94 whenever he wrote um that writing. Um and then what's interesting is the chronology and the mistakes that Acts makes historically. So the question I have, right, cuz I just encourage people to read the book. I I love those moments where you're like, "Oh, yep. There's just these are just, you know, errors, mistakes that take place." And uh I find it interesting to watch apologetic videos. Some of the people that did a video response to you, right? They'll spend like two hours trying to defend like these little things that like Pervo already wrote about and it's like critical scholarships like moved forward and went, "Okay, we're why are we what are we trying to defend here? Why are we trying to protect this? It's pretty obvious." So in my question is the relationship of Paul's letters to Acts and just this in light of what you just answered about anchoring it scholars point out some will go Acts doesn't know like even Bart airman right which by the way he does this a lot he he just super dismissive of connections unless like he found a letter that said I am connecting this it's like very hard to convince someone like him for me I'm not as I'm not as like resistant to these things um is Would you say that the geographical movement of Paul within Acts inspires or influences the letter locations of the letters of Paul and where the travel of this character we want to call Paul in the letters goes.

[01:03:48]So, it's using Acts or these letters are using Acts as inspiration for saying, "Okay, here he is at Philippi or here he is headed to Corinth or here he is blah blah blah." Philippians talks about him wanting to go to Rome. Like, they're looking back to Acts and the geographic movement of this character in this story of Acts. Is that inspiring the letters in your view of where he's going?

[01:04:12]Because a lot a lot of scholars try to go, "Okay, look in the letter. He's he's writing to Rome. He never went there.

[01:04:19]Okay. And they work backwards to try and go now, how does this influence acts?

[01:04:24]You see what I mean?

[01:04:25]>> Right. And I do see that. I do see that um you might say um ideas for the community destinations do come from acts because there is um there are parallels for sure. Um, I think you can line up all of those letters with places of travel found in Acts. Um, so, you know, I asked myself, well, how how do we have um Corenth, you know, the Corinthians?

[01:05:04]Well, that does show up in Acts, right?

[01:05:07]Paul is in Corenth. So, I do see a relationship there, definitely.

[01:05:14]Um, so thank you for asking that. It might not line up exactly, but I don't know that it it needs to line up exactly.

[01:05:24]>> Right. The the letters are doing something different. We have a different um Apostle Paul. And I think that's the purpose of the letters is to um reccharacterize uh Paul and make him actually into or more into an authoritative figure as squarely as an apostle and take him into new directions but influenced by that character that we find in Acts going back to the Saul Paul um motif that you mentioned you know that that there we have the Paul character.

[01:06:08]>> Thank you. Thank you. You know what examples do you have that show the letters are fictive?

[01:06:17]>> Thank you for the question. Uh it's perhaps a harder question. Um I I uh go about this in two ways.

[01:06:28]one I show that as a collection which is our only and I'll use the word firm evidence of the letters um Pauline letters conform to a known and popular genre of letters called pseudonmous letter collection. I've already referred to that a little bit.

[01:06:51]the modern epistolary scholar Owen Hodkinson writes and you know I'm I'm learning about this as I'm going to um and and amazed really by what he has to say that this genre of letter is far the most frequent type of Greek letter from all periods um fictive pseudonmous letter collection okay the genre emerges is in the first or second century and it's often associated with a period called the second sophistic um and while fictive however they do not have a serious intent to deceive I won't go into that but um to focus so much on forced forgery I think is definitely not the way to go and it was never went through my mind at all when I was writing the book that these are forgeries. I I I didn't consider that at all. So, they're not seriously intended to deceive. It's just this is a way of getting ideas across through a letter.

[01:08:04]You could think of it as that. Um they were thus very popular. So I what in the book I say that Pauline letters do conform in strategic ways as as a Pauline letter collection which has some common characteristics. So I'm doing comparative work here now. Um what they are intended to do is to extend the characterization or the character portrayal of a known figure. the figure can be factual or fictive and take that character in new directions. And we've already mentioned just a few minutes ago uh that the letters take that character of Acts into new directions. So that and we've known that in scholarship for a long time, namely that the character in uh Paul in Acts is different from the Paul of the letters. So that's already well known. Um, another characteristic, um, and this is a little complicated.

[01:09:12]I'm not going to go into it, but I do in the book. Um, they refer to letterw writing activity. It seems like a minor point, but it's an interesting one. And what that is intended to do is satisfy readers. So, it's envisioning savvy readers who even though they know the letters are fictive, they want to have the sense that they're reading a real letter, an authentic letter. And so, the writers of the letter end up satisfying that urge on the part of the readers by talking about letterw writing activity. uh for instance um they would drop a line by the way I sent a letter to um Cornelius yesterday. Um and so those instances of realia you might say um are characteristic of this uh pseudonmous uh letter collection. And you do see if you look there are many instances of references to letters or letterw writing activity within the Pauline collection.

[01:10:25]Um so that conforms as well. And the other thing is there's no real logical chronology with these letters. It's just a group of letters and we don't have any other than these forced chronologies with the Pauline letters. And you also see instances where letters are added.

[01:10:48]Um, and with the Pauline collection, we've known or most scholars have known for a long time that the pastorals seem to come later, right? U regardless of how you want to negotiate that question of authenticity, the pastorals are thought to have come at a later time. So you see adding uh and the ability to add to the collections. Uh and the second thing that I do uh to show uh f the fictive nature and there's a long chapter three in the book uh where I compare it's all in chapter 3. I compare canonical Paul line letters to what we know for sure.

[01:11:36]Uh we have lots of certainty I might say. Um I don't know if you can say anything for sure. That's why I hesitated there. Uh that Senica's moral epistles epistles are fictive. So I compare then um Pauline letters to a known fictive collection of letters.

[01:12:00]Um and I I do that along three lines.

[01:12:06]What I'm trying to find out are the strategies.

[01:12:10]So I uh depend on I lean on you might say Senica to see to see what he does with his address Lucilious who we know is fictive. So how is Senica using Lucilius to his advantage to make it seem like a real letter? So you have engagement.

[01:12:36]Um so I look at that and then I can look back at the Pauline letters and I could see how the author there now I refer to that as an author of Pauline letters is having the apostle Paul engage uh with his com with communities right to make that more lively. I can do comparisons along uh that area uh in that realm and I do the same with situ situational setup. Um and I find in Senica he often will start and the letters are heavy. The stoic philosophy is all in these moral epistles. It's dry, it's heavy, it's uh, you know, heavy going, you might say, in reading. But in a letter, he can lighten it up and he can make it more interesting. And one of the ways that he does that is he uh sets it up.

[01:13:37]He sets up the heavy uh teaching with a light dialogue, light and breezy dialogue. like Lucilius, I saw you yesterday and I was thinking about you.

[01:13:51]You're often absent. And then he del Senica delves into the importance of being absent for the good of a stoic philosopher. Um but he has this um light and breezy um leadin, you might say. And I can see where the occasional discourse that you see in the Pauline letters also function similarly. So I'm doing that in um chapter 3 to bring out you might say a fictive nature of the letters. So I hope that answers it answers your question.

[01:14:34]>> Absolutely. I I think I emailed you a few examples before we we did this uh interview of people that >> seem to be fictive uh in the in the writings and um I wanted to just mention Appalonius Tayiana because this guy is pretty much contemporaneous to the rise of the gospel materials and uh Dr. Richard C. Miller who's a buddy of mine also likes to look at Appalonius as like an analog like someone heristically to look out with with Jesus. Uh and he says Appalonius famously vanished while in public trial standing in court before the emperor dimmission and instantly reappeared in Putili nearly 150 mi south. People speak of the eyewitnesses of Jesus. Anyway, it's a little bit off this topic, but like I guess what I'm getting at is a lot of this stuff, Damis, right, who wrote a lot of his materials down, plays into this letterw writing in Pho Stratus, if you will, supposedly wrote down on tablets. Um, but Pho Stratus is having these dialogues where Appalonius is communicating with his disciples and like it's not maybe the same as the Senica. That's probably the closest example, would you say, to >> the Paul the Pauline letters?

[01:15:49]>> Well, I focus on uh Senica because we know they're fictive letters and Senica is a um known very good writer. So, we can see strategies in Senica that we may not uh see so strongly in other letter writers. Um, Senica you might say is an expert expert letter writer. So what does an expert letter writer do with letters? Uh, that was my question going in. Um, I don't know that the um writers of the Pauline letters um were at the level of Senica. Um but they're still they you could still see that they are employing some of the same strategies and maybe more um unconsciously um one could say than Senica. I think Senica is cons consciously exploiting the genre. He knows the power of the literature >> um to to create certain effects.

[01:17:02]um perhaps less so with the Pauline epistolographers but they they were still trained trained writers I would say for sure you can't just do this without training >> exactly okay so how do we deal with the supposed evidence of Paul's letters getting mentioned by second Peter the letter of polycarp to the Philippians the Ignatian letters and first clement your book deals with this but like this is where some of these scholars try to anchor her early mentions of these letters early enough. I mean, late late 1st century, early second century, how do we deal with that evidence?

[01:17:41]>> Right. And I've Yeah, I've been asked that before. It's it's a great question and you're right to mention these writings because they seemingly then would discon um my part of my thesis is that the Pauline letters don't appear until the mid2 century when all of those witnesses that you just mentioned are conventionally dated to the early 2nd century to around 100.

[01:18:13]Right. Mhm.

[01:18:14]>> Um so and they have uh provide evidence of Pauline letters and in some cases they provide evidence what we think of as a collection of Pauline letters. In fact I think it's all from a collection.

[01:18:31]All all the evidence is from a collection because we don't have evidence of letters in unities. There's no manuscripts of just Romans or just Philippians. whatever evidence we have and from whenever time is collected letters. So you could say these witnesses then are making references to collection uh collected letters. So for that scholarship to work, the conventional scholarship to work, you'd need a collection of Pauline letters to just before that time right to 100. And that's what the scholarship has relied upon. Um there must have been a collection of Pauline letters at 100 because after all we have first clement, we have second Peter, we have the letter of polycarb to the Philippians. Um and they're dated early. But what's happened more recently is those witnesses that I've just mentioned some are now dated later. And that's just thanks to some recent scholarship that's now reconsidering. You know, a lot of these things are being reconsidered. Dating is being reconsidered. U perhaps that happens all the time, but it's certainly happening now. So, um, this allows, you might say, or it puts less stress, another way of saying it, on there having to be a collection of Pauline letters dated to 100 because now those witnesses are later. So if the witnesses are later, the collection can emerge later, right? So this is this is how I would respond. Um and I do uh land, if you will, on Marcian, um because that's the first firm evidence we have, uh even though it's secondary, uh evidence of a collection of letters and it dates to just before 115.

[01:20:34]um that dating is maybe not the firmst either, but I would say mid 2nd century.

[01:20:42]>> And and just for viewers, like honestly, we're going to blast through a few questions here, but you really should read the book. I mean, there's so much material in these sections that help you understand why scholars think Ignatius is early, why John B. Lightfoot, like there's all sorts of great stuff you cover. And again, we just don't have the time to get into the weeds. Plus, you got to get the book. I mean, come on.

[01:21:01]you wanted to like literally just read the book to you here. No. Uh uh we have a lot of uh material and it's impossible to cover it all. So let's move to the next one if that's okay with you Nina.

[01:21:11]Are you okay with that?

[01:21:12]>> Sure.

[01:21:13]>> If Paul's letters are second century invention, how do we understand his theology? This is a big it's this is like really powerful question I think needs to be at least considered and you've been thinking through Paul for many years. So I almost want your personal opinion, right? if you can uh giving me a little details of what you think is going on in these letters. But anyway, many current scholars argue that Paul was not breaking away from Judaism. Uh yet some see Paul's letters radically breaking from it. We got into Bower a little bit, you know, cessationism. But if we follow your observations, how do we understand this character Paul and his teachings in light of Jewish pagan ideas? Would the school of Marcian really craft these up and have a Paul within Judaism? Or is it more likely he would reflect some sort of Marcianike theology? That's assuming the audience knows what Marcianike theology is. But I guess does this rekindle or does this put a does this hinder or hurt the Paul within Judaism school that we see today right now?

[01:22:17]Because now like what are they doing?

[01:22:19]They're assuming authentic. They have this kind of theological. We we're reading Paul's letters. These are theological real audiences. He's dealing with Jews on the ground in the first century. If this is second century Christian production, how do we understand Paul's theology in light of your assessment? And it may be a bit subjective, but that's okay. I'm I'm curious to know how do you read Paul now?

[01:22:45]>> Yeah, it's a great question. as you said, a big question and I have kind of a short answer for you because I think this is something that needs to be rethought. It's likely another book, another couple of books. Um so um what what I have a short answer and you know I have been very sympathetic to the Paul within Judaism perspective um now that I'm rethinking the letters and wondering about um the origins of the letters and possibly relocating these letters. Well, I do relocate them and then associating them with Marcium at an early time that does cause one to rethink. So, your question is spoton really, but as I said, it's it's a big question and I think it's something that others are working on now. It's going to depend on the recreation of these Marcianite letters to really see well, what did Marcian really write on in these letters? You know, if Marcian's the writer, I say they're Marcian's school. What do those 10 letters look like? Who who is the Apostle Paul in those Marcian letters? What I will say that all the scholarship on Paul within Judaism is all based on the canonical letters. Um, so that's another thing that we could start to look at. Um, again, what's the difference between the canonical letters and the Marcianite letters? And does that change um the the Apostle Paul and um his view of Judaism?

[01:24:29]Um what we do know or what we think uh from the recreations that something like Romans 9 through11 which is uh kind of a strategic for Paul within Judaism.

[01:24:42]They're largely lacking in Marcian's uh Romans. Um and that's where you fe you see the apostle Paul agonizing right uh about the Jews uh the place of the Jews within uh God's new economy right um so there there is something there but then also scholars have said uh the Marcianite letters are kind of neutral really on that question of uh Judaism in that they retain ain a lot of references to Hebrew scriptures.

[01:25:20]>> So what is it exactly? Again um I think a lot more research needs to be done in this area. Um it's also difficult and another u prominent marian scholar has said it's very difficult to decip decipher a particular marcianite theology from either the gospel text that he publishes or the collection of 10 letters of Paul that he publishes.

[01:25:50]you can't really get that because all those texts look neutral, um, for lack of a better term. Um, other scholars have said that if you really want to get at Marcian's uh, theology, you need to see his antithesis or antithesis, which is a work that he wrote with oppositions, a list of oppositions, but that's gone. There's no copy of his antithesis. It was um tried to be I think Harnach tried to recreate those um but we don't have that.

[01:26:32]>> So were people supposed to be reading Paul um Moriceian's collection through the lens of those antithesis and then seeing a very kind of anti-Jewish you might say Paul.

[01:26:50]We don't know or what were those antitheses um the reason why um other orthodox Christian fathers you might say were so uh disturbed by Marcian so much thought that he's a heretic is it because of these antitheses that they had and they they read in some form or fashion that made him so antithetical to their own views of you know their one god and Marcian supposedly two gods right so again there's a lot there and >> um Marcianite scholars um stronger than me that's for sure um could probably answer that question a lot better >> I think that was brilliantly answered again to the viewer the the letters we have in our New Testament. In a nutshell, what I would take away is these are polished and touched up and at least good reason to doubt what you're reading in your New Testament is what was actually there from the outset in Paul's letter. So now you're reading theology added in. You're reading you're reading potential stuff that was not there in the original Pauline letters that seem to come from the school of Marcian. And of course, this is a complex layered debate that we're still up, you know, still up for grabs. Okay. Why should we doubt Paul's existence? When we look at other fictional letters, we find examples. As you pointed out, Cynica, this is a real person, right? Um, but in Cynica, you pointed out there's a fictional character, right? So, we can find examples of fake letters in the name of real famous people who did exist like Plato, Aristotle, etc. Are there examples of fictional people who wrote letters that we can point to as an example?

[01:28:51]>> It's interesting question. Um, going back to your previous point, um, you know, I theologies are ch are always different and uh change. So it doesn't invalidate the fact that one is looking at canonical letters doesn't really invalidate um a c certain uh theologies. I I kind of want to push back a little bit on that. Um and then it's just we could say there is more um malleability.

[01:29:38]There's uh less fix fixity with our texts. Um so I think that's really more the point.

[01:29:50]um the absolutism doesn't really hold so well. And I think that's what you're trying to point out, but it doesn't invalidate it. It's just um what are your assumptions?

[01:30:07]Um it it's good to know that there were other texts out there uh that might say something different. So that is perhaps what I'm adding rather than trying to disparage other views.

[01:30:23]>> Got it.

[01:30:24]>> Okay.

[01:30:25]>> Yes.

[01:30:26]>> So who who else um is fictional? Well, there are um some fictional characters within ancient novels.

[01:30:38]uh and those fictional characters, you've asked me what fictional persons wrote fictive letters. So the novels, ancient novels do provide evidence and those are embedded letters uh to be a little more technical. It's not a standalone letter. It's a it's a letter within a within another document within a novel. So Cherton's the characters there write letters uh to each other. Um and then there's also a Greek novel Achil Achilles uh Tacatius. Uh there are letters in that novel as well. Uh Herodotus's Ethiopian story, there are letters there. So there are ancient novels.

[01:31:28]So there it's less questionable like I was saying with these moral epistles less questionable that there are fictive letters in the novel fictive characters are seen to write letters. So that can in part answer you um there's also and I think this is important point because you have to ask well how do you get the idea of a letter to begin with? Why do we have so many letters in the New Testament? Um, is that completely new that you would write scriptures as letters? Well, it's not because you do have in the Hebrew Bible lots of letters. Again, they're uh embedded letters. So, um it it would give you know closer to home. I'm looking at uh biblical literature. So, Hebrew scriptures is another place one can think about. And then also one can I think now if my thesis is has any credibility um the book of revelation which itself is a is could be considered a letter it has a letter opening and a letter closing but beyond that and more important than that it has seven letters revelation and there's seven community letters and to answer your question. I think it's pretty easy to say that the sender in those letters who's envisioned as the son of man, okay, um he and that son of man figure in Revelation is seen to write to the angel. You probably know that it's Revelations 2 and three. Those two chapters are taken up by those seven letters. um angel of the church or the assembly ecclesia of um the individual angel of the indiv seven individual eklesia. So that is interesting too those uh you have letters in revelation. You might also think of the epistle of Barnabas depending on how you want to think about Barnabas. But um fictive fictive letter, fictive inscribed sender.

[01:33:47]>> It this uh just to attack on that. I was thinking about what you said about novels having letters in them. And Pervo uh in his commentary seemed to do he kind of allowed the genre of acts to be a mix of things. It wasn't just one thing, but he entertained novel, right, to some degree at least. And if that's the case, and we've been talking about Acts being influential these letters, I mean, why is it not a possible logical conclusion to kind of go, look, Acts is this novel-like historical fiction or fiction of history, whatever you want to call that. Um, and here are these letters that are inspired by the novel-like telling of the origin of of Christianity, the origin of the church and how it grew through the the Holy Spirit and and all that. So, here are our letters that kind of are going the direction we want them to in light of Acts, the novelike thing. So, I I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm jumping of course a bit here, but I'm just trying to see maybe there could be a correlation there. I don't know. Nina, I'm personally sympathetic to Jesus mythicism even though I get harsh criticism like staunchly from my friends who think there was a Jesus. Um though I tend to think there was a guy named Jesus. The gospels are based off of can we poss meaning I think there's probably a guy probably and I just lean there. I have no way to prove it. I'm I'm just I have good reasoning in my mind. I believe Jews were crucified all the time. Like this is my thinking, but I'm not going to lie. I really do not have high confidence in being overly confident where to go here, right? Can we possibly see your research leading one to doubt the historicity of Jesus?

[01:35:36]>> I can thank you for your question. I can see why you're asking that question. Um it after you read the book it it would come to mind. Um so it it may sound strange.

[01:35:53]I think I tend to agree with where you sit with that um with your own analysis.

[01:36:01]Um, I haven't really spent an adequate enough time researching that or even thinking about it to the degree that I probably should to be able to answer that super well. Um, but I can also see like you can there it could have been a real person.

[01:36:28]um and that um what we see in the gospels is based on uh a real individual but the the gospels take that individual on a in completely different directions.

[01:36:41]I can see that. So uh the short answer is I just don't know. Um I'm open to that. Um I would suggest though if people are interested to look at um the um scholarship on the historical Jesus which I think is is an interesting field and even pick up some of uh the new scholarship on historical Jesus. Um and also and related uh the uh the relationships between the gospels that I think is being rethought as well. Um, but that historical Jesus is really more gets to the answer and I would have to get into all of that scholarship again and and re rethink my ideas.

[01:37:30]>> Thank you so much. My final question and ladies and gentlemen, make sure you like the video, go in the description, get the book. I hear through the grapevine, the angel Gabriel told me that if you buy the book, you have eternal salvation. This is not a ploy. I'm not pranking you. This is dead serious, right? Of course. Duh. Get the book.

[01:37:49]Okay. What do you think it will take to get other scholars to see your research as the most likely or to just engage it like to really re-evaluate it along with you?

[01:38:03]>> Thank you. Um, I haven't thought a whole lot about that. I do hope, however, uh that scholars will take my argument seriously enough to at least engage uh and even not going along with everything that I say, but perhaps enough to rethink this assumption about the authentic perspective. Does it really hold? If people would just ask that, that I think would already uh set some balls in motion. You might say it's interesting. Uh once you see the letters as integral integral to the development of Christian scriptures, things for me really started to fall into place. They didn't get more complicated with more unanswered questions.

[01:39:02]I think they simplified the picture, at least for me, um to see how you could see references in those letters of um events that in that only take place, you might say, in the first time in the Gospels. But then we're saying the apostle Paul is already talking about those events in uh the mid50s as this individual character. It doesn't line up in my conceptual framework. Um the authentic perspective on the letters um it's it leaves conceptual problems. So, I think I would leave it at that. And I would love to see um more, if I'm right, I'd love to see um some more work on these interreationships between the letters and the gospels and acts. I think that would be really fruitful and we could really take us into another look at Christian beginnings, Christian emergence. It would be really cool.

[01:40:17]>> I agree with you. In fact, there are certain This is going to sound kind of funny, but I it's a different lens that they're viewing it at, but you're right.

[01:40:27]There are are conservative I'll call them conservative scholars um that are writing on esquetology and all this kind of stuff that I've ran across that will connect something in Matthew and and go into Pauline letters and like like they connect things. I don't typically see scholars in in in Pauline's studies connect right to to some of these gospels in the way that they think they're dialoguing or in some way in communication. And I think that uh you've got that like really conservative view, right, which has all the the romanticism and the spirit kind of thing. Then you got the critical view that's like, hey, they're in dialogue.

[01:41:05]There's something going on here. And I hope more scholars will pick up the torch. Even if they don't necessarily draw all the same conclusions, it'll be really cool to have like a new trend of scholarships come in scholarship come in and find things that maybe you haven't and complement what you've said and maybe even have differences, right? I mean, obviously, what scholar doesn't have a difference with another scholar?

[01:41:28]So, any final words from you, Nina? I really appreciate your time and the work you put into this book. It's a fantastic read. Anyone who's seriously wanting to learn about the Apostle Paul's letters, you got to get the book. Final words from you.

[01:41:42]>> I don't I don't have anything more to say really. Um, your questions were good. I appreciate your interest, too, and I appreciate that you're promoting my work. It's wonderful. It's wonderful to see this. So, I appreciate you.

[01:41:58]That's all I can say.

[01:41:59]>> Well, we appreciate here at Myth Vision.

[01:42:01]Ladies and gentlemen, again, all the links are in the description. Tell me and Nina what your thoughts are about these ideas in the comments section.

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