I was just trying to say that, even though Paul quotes a source for which he is our only access (i.e., the creed in 1 Cor. 15), it still functions as another independent source. Paul, and the creed, are two independent sources. To argue otherwise is as ridiculous as saying that since Paul quoted a 3rd century poet, they cannot be considered independent sources.
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Evidence for Jesus' Resurrection
- Thread starter kobayashi
- Start date
I was just trying to say that, even though Paul quotes a source for which he is our only access (i.e., the creed in 1 Cor. 15), it still functions as another independent source. Paul, and the creed, are two independent sources. To argue otherwise is as ridiculous as saying that since Paul quoted a 3rd century poet, they cannot be considered independent sources.
McBell
Admiral Obvious
No, it doesn't, and no, they don't. If you find another source for the same claim, then that is an independent source. Until then, you only have one.
If you have another source for Aratus, then that would be an independent source. Paul quoting Aratus is not two sources.
A light bulb just went on in my head. Kobayashi, is this how you see it?
- Paul is one source.
- James is one source.
- therefore, Paul giving his own account and re-telling James' is two sources.
Is that a fair assessment?
- Paul is one source.
- James is one source.
- therefore, Paul giving his own account and re-telling James' is two sources.
Is that a fair assessment?
It would be circular reason if there was good reason to believe that Paul invented the creed himself. However this is not the case. There are indications in the passage that this is a creed. For example, Paul says, "For what I received I passed unto you..." which is the language used to denote a formal tradition. This is what the scholars are saying, and I don't see any reason to doubt it.
Now, if we have good reason to believe that Paul is quoting an earlier source (in this case, the creed), we must treat them not as one source (Paul) but as two independent sources which both attest to the same idea - namely, that the disciples claimed to have seen the risen Jesus.
No one is saying that most scholars believe in the resurrection. I was referring to the fact that most scholars acknowledge that 1 Cor. 15 contains a creed that can be dated to within five years of Jesus' death. That makes it an independent source. Paul and the creed are multiple, independent sources of the disciples claims to have seen the risen Jesus.
I'm not following your logic here.
Yes it was a typo.
The argument is not that one source reports multiple events. The argument is rather than one source quotes from another source, both sources attest to the same fact, and thus there is multiple, independent attestation of the disciples claims to have seen the risen Jesus.
And do you think that "creed" necessarily implies "truth"?
You can argue that 1 Corinthians is one source that hints at (or even strongly implies) the existence of another source if you want, but 1 Corinthians is still only one source itself.
And if you disagree, keep in mind that there are at least ten thousand people who agree with me.
And apparently, this statement above counts as 10,001 independent sources, so I imagine it's a pretty compelling argument.
If you had the creed directly, or from some source other than Paul, I'd agree... but you don't.
Just that the fact that Paul cites James doesn't mean that it would be impossible for someone else to cite James as well... but since you haven't received the claim that James witnessed the resurrected Christ from anyone other than Paul, it's more or less a moot point.
It's not? I thought the whole point of this argument was that Paul and James both experienced the risen Christ separately, implying something about how they probably weren't hallucinating.
Arrgh. Okay. Again, slower:
- this creed might be one source in its own right... if you had it directly, but you don't.
- Paul himself might be another source in its own right... if you had him directly, but you don't.
- all you have is 1 Corinthians, which is one source.
- however many sources 1 Corinthians relies on, it's one source itself.
- however many source 1 Corinthians points to, it's one source itself.
To have the creed directly would be odd since it is an oral tradition.
Why would it be better if it was from "some source other than Paul"? Do you mean, so that we'd have it in two sources? I don't see why that's necessary if we can be almost certain that it is a creed that Paul got from an earlier source (which, by the way, I never said was James).
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That has never been my argument.
How about this: Most NT scholars believe that Matthew and Luke drew from an earlier source, which they call "Q". There is no evidence outside of Matthew and Luke for its existence, and as far as I know no other ancient source quotes from Q. And yet, the majority of scholars (as opposed to the minority who still believe that Matthew was the first gospel to be written) have no problem talking about Q as a source independent of the four gospels, offering information about Jesus that predates at least Matthew, Luke, and John.
So out of curiosity, do you disagree with them about Q?
But an oral tradition that was apparently recorded in written form by at least one author. A second author deciding to write it down isn't exactly implausible.
I didn't say "better". My point was just that two sources are more than one. Judgements about the quality of those sources aside, two is a larger number than one.
The passage mentions James' experience, plus that of Peter, the rest of the Twelve, and the five hundred. That's all I was getting at.
I never said anything about the quality of what Paul wrote. All I'm trying to say is that when you rely on multiple accounts all coming from Paul, you rely on Paul as well. If you've got an argument for why we should consider Paul's word as impeachable all by itself, great: fire away. However, all I was trying to say at the beginning of this tangent was that your analogy was incorrect: you don't have multiple people each coming forward independently to say that something happened, you have one person coming forward saying that what happened to him happened to other people as well.
Q was likely a source for the Gospels. Q is not a source (not directly, at least) for modern Biblical scholars. This is what I touched on before: one source may very well hint at some other source, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily have that other source directly.
Scholars can only talk about what Q did and did not contain by analyzing the Synoptic Gospels (i.e. independent sources). Can they make educated guesses about what parts of each came from Q? Sure. Can they make judgements about the weight or value that should be placed on each part based their assessment of whether it came from Q? Of course (carefully
). Do they actually have Q as a source itself? No. They have a version of Q that they can deduce from (IOW is dependent on) Matthew, Mark and Luke. They do not have Q as an independent source.
Quiddity
UndertheInfluenceofGiants
I would expect a UU to know about Jesuits...Isn't that how you define "Jesuit"?
I think I understand what you're saying so let me see if I can clarify.
All of this is true. However, if we know with reasonable certainty that 1 Cor. 15:3-8 is an early creed, we don't really need for a second author to quote it before we can draw reasonable conclusions from the creed itself.
This is what I have been getting at with the creed: The fact that we only know about it through Paul does not mean Paul invented it. We have very good reason for believing that it is early oral tradition, and I cannot emphasize enough that even skeptical scholars admit this. The fact that we only know about it through Paul does not mean that it can't be treated as an independent source, since all evidence indicates that it is independent, and very early. If you say that this is an unreliable way to form historical conclusions then I would challenge you to find a historian who disagrees.
All of this is true. However, if we know with reasonable certainty that 1 Cor. 15:3-8 is an early creed, we don't really need for a second author to quote it before we can draw reasonable conclusions from the creed itself.
I don't see any good reason to doubt Paul's testimony. He knew the disciples personally (Galatians 1:18-2:14), so he is a good (and early) source for what they were claiming. His authority as an apostle and his relationship to the disciples is attested by the church fathers (I'll find citations if you want), and never unfavorably.
I think this is where our biggest confusion lies. I am certainly not arguing that we have direct access to Q. The Q source is totally hypothetical and depends completely on the theory (which most scholars accept, Christian or not) that Mark was written first. If Mark was written first, then there was another independent source which Matthew and Luke both drew from. Although we may not have direct access to this source, it is nevertheless an 'independent source' that we know about, and about which we can (carefully) form reasonable conclusions.
This is what I have been getting at with the creed: The fact that we only know about it through Paul does not mean Paul invented it. We have very good reason for believing that it is early oral tradition, and I cannot emphasize enough that even skeptical scholars admit this. The fact that we only know about it through Paul does not mean that it can't be treated as an independent source, since all evidence indicates that it is independent, and very early. If you say that this is an unreliable way to form historical conclusions then I would challenge you to find a historian who disagrees.
Of course not. All I'm saying is that one source does not equal two sources, even if that source mentions something else. This doesn't say anything about the quality or nature of that single source. It could be great; it could be rubbish... you need to look at the source itself to decide. But I don't think the fact that Paul cites something that we don't have any other source for necessarily lends any extra credibility to the passage.
If you say so. But in citing Paul alone, you still rely on him and his character. Hypothetically, if evidence were found tomorrow that impeached his credibility, information that comes to us from Paul alone would be held in doubt in a way that information that comes from him but is also supported by other sources would not be.
I think this may be an issue of semantics. I agree that Q would be an independent source if you had it, but you don't. You can piece together bits of what Q probably said by looking at the Synoptic Gospels, but in doing so, your picture of Q is literally dependent on those other texts. Whatever you know of Q, it's definitely not an independent source... to you.
In my mind, the term "source" (in the way we're using it) only really has meaning in support or defense of some claim or argument. If you can't draw from a particular thing, then it's not a source for you, and therefore not a source at all in any real sense, regardless of how it would help your case if you did have it, and regardless of how much other people in the sources you do have talk about it.
You've got Mark, Matthew and Luke, as well as an idea of Q that depends on them. In this situation, Q is not an independent source:
- whatever version you have of Q is not independent - it depends on the Gospels.
- while there may be an independent version of Q floating around out there, it's not a source for you, because you can't draw from it directly.
Maybe an analogy will help get my point across:
Claiming that Q (or that creed in 1 Cor 15) is a source in its own right is kinda like padding the reference list of your report by citing the one book you actually read, plus all the books in that book's reference list even though you didn't read them for yourself. In academic circles, this sort of thing is frowned upon.
This doesn't mean that Q or that creed don't exist in their own right or even that the sources you have strongly point toward their existence and characteristics any more than it means you can't go to the library and read the books in your one real source's reference list if you wanted to... but it does mean that you don't have them independently.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
Actually, I believe scholars have said that Mark was most likely the gospel and Matthew drew from him. You can see clearly how the biblical Yeshua is elevated more and more from gospel to gospel. You can see clearly how more information is added that doesn't appear to be in Mark's earlier gospel. Even so. All of the gospels are considered a source because they have distinct events that another may not contain. The flip side is...just because you have a source or multiple sources it doesn't mean either is correct.
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Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
But why should we even take Paul's word for anything? Isn't it widely agreed upon the man never met Yeshua but rather "heard" his voice on the road? Wasn't there a disciple or disciples upset with Paul?
The standard theory in NT scholarship is that Mark was the first gospel written, and that Matthew and Luke drew from Mark and from another source that scholars refer to as "Q".
Of course you're right - just because two or more sources make the same claim, doesn't mean the claim is true. But in historical investigation, one of the principles that helps to determine the likelihood of an event is that of "multiple, independent attestation." Let's say that Mark and Matthew both refer to a specific event in Jesus' life. If it's clear that Matthew is simply copying what Mark wrote, then Matthew in this case is not an independent source. However, if it is evident that Matthew got his information for this event from a source other than Mark, then Matthew and Mark would be considered multiple, independent sources.
So you can see how Mark and "Q" would be considered multiple independent sources reporting on the life of Jesus.
Historical investigation also benefits from eyewitness testimony, early testimony, and the principle of embarrassment (it's more likely to be true if the author had no motive to invent the story and every reason to omit it). The fact that women are reported as the first witnesses of the risen Jesus in all four gospels is highly unlikely to have been invented by a first-century writer, since, in a first-century mindset, this would cast doubt on the credibility of the whole story, because the testimony of women was considered to be untrustworthy.
I will respond to your other post about Paul when I get the chance but I just ran out of time.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
True. Since the supposed "Q" document we don't have this is a non-issue.
But again...You don't know. What we do know is that Mar is the earliest and all the others after it appear to have gather from Mark, well in the case of Mark and Luke. John is all together different in the way we stretched his version to appeal to a different crowd. All of them after Mark wrote for their community putting in and taking out what they needed to.
Again, the supposed "Q" document is a non-issue.
I agree to a point here. The Jesus story is not a new one. Other cultures had very similar concepts back then. It was probably easy to adopt a lot of these other religious traditions and have them co-mingle with the teachings of an average everyday rebel (Yeshua). The writings of men is most likely what deified him. Study Mark, Matthew, Luke and John and about time you get to John Yeshua has gone from what appears to be a typical messenger to a god/man.
Doesn't dismiss a possible fact that is was simply just copy and paste by the other authors. Remember, they all could even agree as to who came to the tomb, what they brought or if they bought anything, how many women, who was outside the tomb, who was inside the tomb, was it a man, was it a angel...etc.....
If you presented your evidence for a risen christ in a court of law you would be dismissed for lack of evidence...you know....circumstantial evidence at best.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
It's not so much that they are lengthy posts. It's the fact that you don't address the real issues in them.
That's a very poor analogy. It's missing key factors like the horrible situation the Jews found themselves. Many Jews wanted desperately to believe in something that would make them feel better about their plight. Also, the supposed hallucinations are completely different. As incredible as it is, it's still more credible to believe what the apostles believed than to believe that an alien wants you to steal motor oil.
You forget that there have been many cult leaders even in the last 50 years who got people to believe in them as some sort of savior. Jim Jones and David Koresh are great examples. People want to believe in something like that. The problem is these days it's easier to see how ridiculous these cult leaders are, and much less chance of them leaving a legacy of something other than ridicule.
It actually doesn't even mean that. You'd be amazed at how much we can influence each other.
First, as hopefully I've shown, your claim that in your example we have to assume it wasn't a hallucination is false.
Second, even if it is outside of their minds, the best and most believable explanation is still not, in your analogy, that aliens told those people to do what they did, and in Jesus's case, that the story in the Bible is completely accurate. The best and most believable explanations are that something else caused those people to mistake something and believe something that wasn't there or didn't actually happen.