Corpus-Paul

["Eric Zuesse" <cettel AT shoreham.net>]

Re: Steve Black's:

> >No one I read
> >  reconstruct[s] the
> >>  beginnings of Christianity on the basis of assumptions about Christian
> >  history.
>
> I wonder how Crossan, or Theissen or Funk or Mack (and the list could
> go on and on) would respond to being told that they are
> reconstructing the beginnings of Xnty on the basis of assumptions
> about Xn history.
>
> This is an example where I think you risk undermining your whole
> proposal because you over state your case and get caught up in your
> own rhetoric.

Your notes borders on being ad hominem, but I'll stick to the important
issue you do raise; I'll present just one example:

Page 15 of Crossan's THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY says that Paul should not be
used as a source on its subject because he entered Christianity after
Christianity had already been born. Thus, Crossan bases his "history" on the
four Gospelists and on other sources who were so extremely fraudulent that
they claimed or were believed to have participated in Christianity earlier
than Paul did. Even Crossan says that the Gospelists wrote later than Paul,
but he doesn't use that information in his reconstruction of the birth of
Christianity.

Go figure.

And Crossan is typical.

Scholarship on Christian origins is not just about religion, it is religious
itself, not scientific itself. My purpose is to introduce science into the
field.