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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Dutch Radicals and such
  • Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 13:20:13 -0400

Loren,

>>[We explain the advent of Dutch Radical movement] In the same way we
explain other groups of radical critics (ever immerse yourself in Homer
scholarship, for instance?) who, for some reason, haven't been able to live
life. If you want to align yourself with the movement whose many members
denied the existence of Jesus and the authenticity of even the most secure
letters of Paul, be my guest. But considering everything that has passed for
acceptable theology in this world, Christ-atonement taken in conjunction
with Abraham-faith is a no-brainer -- or it should be,
regardless of how undigestable you or the Dutch Radicals find it.<<

The radicals are mentioned only because they originally asked good
questions. I do not agree with those who would relegate the entire Pauline
corpus to the realm of pseudepigrapha, nor do I think the author of Mark
copied from Homer, or that the NT is entirely the product of Tertullian who
was reacting against Marcion.

"No-brainer" is, how should I say this, apt. It should not be a no brainer,
because then we are not "thinking" about the subject but "feeling" it
instead. I was brought up a good Episcopalian, and had a period where I
immersed myself in evangelically oriented bible study. In those days I
believed the Bible was inspired and wanted its contents to be a unity.
However, from the moment I read Paul I knew it did not exhibit a unity of
thought. To rationalize the matter I assumed, like you, that the original
audience had known something that we do not, but as hard as I tried I was
unable to get a handle on what that knowledge could have been.

When I started investigating Paul, it was supposed to be an experiment: Find
the conclusions to arguments Paul started, as it wasn't readily apparent to
me where arguments started and where they ended. There were so many
digressions, often seeming to contradict the points that had been just
previously presented, it was hard to see the forest for the trees. The
hardest part of the endeavor was determining what absolutely needed to be
there to make his points, and what did not. When the process started, I was
convinced that the Christ theology was central to the arguments. However, it
soon became painfully apparent that it was not. As I ever so slooooowly
worked things out, I was forced to shed a good many of the assumptions I
started with about Paul and his theology, assumptions that at the time
seemed to be "no-brainers" to me!

>>It's fun and healthy to laugh at ourselves. But laugh a bit harder. :)<<

Ouch!

>>But you're blind to the natural social-psychological processes which drove
Paul's own development. It's unfathomable to you that his thought could have
evolved and changed on some points over the course of years; you stand in
awe of the fact that he may have said different things, adopted different
rhetorical strategies, according to context and audience; these, despite the
fact that they're inherent to the human psyche. There's seldom anything like
the purity of systematic thought you want to locate in Paul, because it just
isn't real. When critics try to explicate it -- or when novelists try to
dramatize it -- it becomes a downward spiral into reductionism.<<

My degree was in psychology. Although it did not make me an expert, it does
help me recognize those cases where psychological explanations appear
forced. In my opinion, if the Pauline letters are largely genuine and
unredacted, the person(s) who wrote them would have had to have suffered
from some sort of dissociative mental handicap that would have rendered him
incapable of traveling widely (assuming he was not of a wealthy family) and
founding complex faith communities. To make the Paul of the epistles
"rational" requires much more mental effort than I think you realize.

>>you're not exactly in solid company by jettisoning from the letters
everything relating to Paul's basic convictions about Christ.<<

Luckily, that is NOT what I did. The Abrahamic-faith arguments are almost
entirely complete and self contained and Christ theology is never ever key
to making those points. The Christ theology is presented almost exclusively
as digressions in Abrahamic-faith arguments, and these often make points
opposed to the thrust of the Abrahamic-faith arguments. Once I realized
that, the hypothesis of interpolation seemed to best explain the evidence.
Incidentally, my hypothesis is almost the exact opposite of that proposed by
Allard Pierson and S. A. Nabor, who are usually considered founders of the
Dutch Radical movement.

>>Now, Dave, when are you going to publish your theory (or make it
accessible on the web)? You've been working on this for a while.<<

Yes it has been awhile. Seven years ago I started a job that demanded a lot
of my time and attention. Then five years ago I landed a plum job that had
laid even greater demands on my free time, especially when new management
came in three years ago. To meet the increasing demands, I was forced to
start eating away at my family time as well. Luckily(?), that employer has
recently giving 850 of us notice that we will be job-less effective 6/28/03.
Maybe it is a good thing, because it will let me find a job in another field
that will let me have my personal life back. The trick is finding one that
pays anything close to what I was making up until now. As soon as a new job
is secured, I'll be investing time into the project again.

Fun, fun ...

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA






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