Comments on: Did Paul Write Philemon? https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509 Announcing appearances, publications, and analysis of questions historical, philosophical, and political by author, philosopher, and historian Richard Carrier. Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:33:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38431 Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:31:36 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38431 In reply to Epica Dude.

Excellent. Thank you for the notice. I’ll amend the article to include that.

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By: Epica Dude https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38427 Tue, 16 Jul 2024 01:44:03 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38427 Jsyk, Hansen now has the book published (https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Prison-Cell-Authenticity-Reconsidered/dp/1666784990/ref=sr_1_1?crid=JMSCYQL31456&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.j-NHfUjo8i4xZZP_Z9ikcA.jJwNe3sqXXbueB_nPfsQjxqglfZsaaZEdS1oLi-L8gI&dib_tag=se&keywords=hansen+empty+prison+cell&qid=1721094123&s=books&sprefix=hansen+empty+prison+cell%2Cstripbooks%2C233&sr=1-1) and also has an article published in Revista Biblica apparently too (https://www.revistabiblica.com/ojs/index.php/RB/article/view/390)

Also looking at the book, it appears that Hanson does actually argue that the apostle Luke may not have existed, but was a literary figure who was concocted in the second century CE. Looks like she was already anticipating this possibility.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38378 Mon, 08 Jul 2024 15:16:51 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38378 In reply to Richard Stokes.

Eventually, yes.

But in the meantime you can already explore what might be wrong with their arguments by reading my rebuttals to those arguments in the last half of chapter six in On the Historicity of Jesus (because I am psychic and anticipated their arguments ten years in advance).

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By: Richard Stokes https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38370 Sat, 06 Jul 2024 13:22:18 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38370 Will you be responding to the recent presentation by Christine Hansen and Kamil Gregor on MythVision where they discuss Mythicism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv4bh0qVYgc&t=887s

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38313 Fri, 28 Jun 2024 14:20:22 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38313 In reply to Scott McKellar.

Correct.

This isn’t a major question, of course, since even if Paul knew a Luke, that Luke still wasn’t a doctor and didn’t write Luke-Acts (see How We Know Acts Is a Fake History). But it is also true that if Philemon is forged, we lose any evidence Paul ever even knew anyone named Luke.

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By: Scott McKellar https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38312 Fri, 28 Jun 2024 13:46:36 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38312 If Philemon is a forgery, then the question arises: did Luke exist, as a historical person?

The New Testament mentions Luke in only three epistles: Colossians, 2 Timothy, and Philemon. The first two are widely believed to be forgeries. If Philemon can’t be trusted either, then we got nothin’, unless there’s some attestation that I don’t know about.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38273 Mon, 24 Jun 2024 17:46:46 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38273 In reply to Sinouhe.

Yes. It is so different from Paul’s stylometrics (idioms, vocabulary, grammatical tendencies) that it cannot be by him. It is far closer to Ephesians (in fact they might be different versions of the same letter, possibly even composed by the same person).

These letters are not, however, as divergent stylometrically as the Pastorals, which are even further away from Pauline style on every metric. The latter are closer in style to Luke-Acts, which (among other data) suggests they date to the second century. The deutero-Paulines (Col. & Eph.) are likely earlier, perhaps dating to the late first century (it has been noted that they might not have existed yet when Mark wrote: in Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles I propose Mark knew Colossians, but it could be the other way around, because there is only one overlap between Mark and Col.).

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By: Sinouhe https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38263 Sun, 23 Jun 2024 17:39:02 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38263 From a mythicist point of view, Colossians seems interesting. The debate on its authenticity is open, it seems to me. Is it really a forgery?

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38222 Thu, 20 Jun 2024 14:19:37 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38222 In reply to Bob Martin.

It’s probably “true” insofar as Paul did something against the church. But we don’t actually know what that was. He was certainly an “opponent” in some sense. But in what sense?

Acts is fiction (it has Paul attending a stoning in Jerusalem and being given assignments from Jerusalem to hunt Christians abroad, but for no clear purpose and under no identified law, and Paul himself confirms he was never in Jerusalem at that time).

And Paul never says. He doesn’t say, for example, if he actually was arresting Christians (and if so, for what crime, or under whose authority), or just harassing them (heckling congregations, openly debating missionaries, or stirring crowds to vigilante action with rabble-rousing public speeches or something). His own language can describe either scenario.

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By: Bob Martin https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/28509#comment-38210 Wed, 19 Jun 2024 20:24:29 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=28509#comment-38210 In reply to Richard Carrier.

Paul came up in your 3 hr dismantling of Bart Ehrman and it got me to wondering how reliable Paul’s Christian persecution is.

Is it true or just an early version of “I used to be an atheist and then I found Jesus” in order to get free meals?

Tha

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