CADRE Comments

In an earlier post , I responded to the arguments of an online skeptic -- Quixie -- that 1 Clement showed awareness of none of Paul’s letters. He has since conceded that his analysis was greatly flawed and that the author of 1 Clement at least knew 1 Corinthians. Indeed, his “analysis” of 1 Clement can be fairly described as a massive failure of analysis because he simply ignored several of 1 Clement’s chapters. Nevertheless, Quixie appears to still claim that Ignatius lacked any knowledge of Paul’s letters except possibly a few allusions to the “opening” of 1 Corinthians. As an initial matter, Quixie does not explain why Ignatius’ awareness of at least part of one of Paul’s letters is insufficient to sink the “Dutch Radical” ideas with which he is enamored. If Ignatius is clearly dependent on the “opening” of 1 Corinthians -- whether by allusion or quotation -- does that not mean that Paul is a historical figure and at least one or more of his letters took a prominent place in...

In the previous post I began my critical review of Hermann Detering's Falsified Paul, in which he argues for the inauthenticity of the entire NT Pauline corpus. He begins the book with an examination of our sources for the historical Paul, the letters written in his name and the book of Acts, trying to argue that they are both highly suspect. Instead we have so far found his reasons for skepticism themselves highly suspect. In this post we will continue to examine his reasons for rejecting the book of Acts as historically reliable, even though the burden of proof has shifted in light of the fact that he has not given good reason to doubt that the author of Acts was a companion of Paul (see the previous post). Detering begins with Paul's claim in Acts that he received his religious training from Rabbi Gamaliel I, one of the most respected Jewish scholars of the 1st half of the 1st Century CE. He notes that "The Jewish-rabbinic tinge that one notices in many passages in the...

Just over a year ago I started a series to critique the Dutch Radical (DR) interpretation of the Pauline corpus. In the first post I laid out a brief summary of the arguments of that school, which I won't reproduce here. In the second I looked at Albert Schweitzer's critique of DR from over a century ago, written when DR scholars were still very much the focus of scholarly attention. Even though Schweitzer praised them for their spirit of honest investigation he still found their arguments less than convincing. In the meantime I have not been idle, and in fact have been expanding my knowledge of Pauline scholarship in order to deal with DR as thoroughly as possible. Now, at the prompting of a skeptical blogger who was wondering where the rest of my critique was, I'm continuing the series. In this post I'd like to start looking at the most sophisticated contemporary DR interpretation, put forward by Hermann Detering in his book, Falsified Paul: Early Christianity in T...

In response to a post by my colleague JD, a commenter -- Quixie -- rejected the notion that 1 Clement -- even if authentic -- betrays knowledge of Paul’s letters. On his website , he seems to concede some familiarity with Pauline thought as expressed in chapters 12 and 13 of 1 Corinthians but insists that the author had not read any of Paul’s letters. I think Clement is demonstrably reliant on 1 and 2 Corinthians as well as Romans and Galatians. In this post, however, I will examine Clement's reliance on 1 Corinthians. In particular, I will focus on Clement's explicit reference to Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church. Quixie’s analysis is conclusory so it is unclear what if any standards he applied in evaluating potential references to Paul’s letters. He also fails to cite any of the leading studies of this issue, instead conducting his own review based on a translation and notations by William Wake, who died in 1737. In any event, judging by his conclusions,...