SCORE 5/5

My thanks to Cambridge for providing me with a review copy of this book.

Two Short Background Videos On The Book

SUMMARY

The modern use of the Pauline letters to establish historical information about Paul or Jesus (like the James the brother of the lord passage or the seed of David passage used contra Jesus mythicism) with issues such as authenticity of the letters was not the original way the letters were interpreted. They were understood as authoritative and scripture like.  Whether their writer was pseudonymous or didn’t exist or if they were genuine correspondence were not issues.

“Later in the enlightenment period questions of the authenticity of Pauline authorship came into view.  The Enlightenment scholar de Wette’s concerns differed radically from the older readers… While scholars such as Evanson and de Wette represent a shift in the understanding of the Pauline letters from authoritative teachings to that of historically relevant documents, Ferdinand Christian Baur – described as “the most important NT scholar of his time” and as one of “the most resolute advocates of the development of historical-critical research in the nineteenth century”– significantly advanced and seemingly entrenched the understanding of Pauline letters as historically reliable. (43)”

Baur’s circular reasoning brings the result that he “posits a great rift between Judaism and Christianity from reading the Hauptbriefe, and then relies on those same letters to confirm his historical reconstruction.” (46)  For Bauer, the differences between what he saw as the four authentic letters of Paul and Acts was the epistles were reliable and Acts wasn’t, which is the perspective still today except with seven authentic letters.

Later commenters who looked at the letters often authenticated them through the general lens of a rift between Judaism and Christianity.  Scholars have also appealed to what they saw as Paul’s style, “scholars assessed Pauline style subjectively, according to what they thought it was and according to their particular preferences…  Whether or not statements were sincere is, of course, a matter of authorial intent, something that is unknown to later readers. Moreover, similarities of style and language across letters do not provide evidence of the Apostle Paul as author (52).” Another criteria appealed to is later citations by authors like Clement, though this does not point to authenticity.  A final questionable lens is deeming a letter authentic when confirmed by Acts, “Thus, Hilgenfeld assessed Thessalonians and Philippians historically reliable due to confirmation of Paul’s journeys into those regions as found in Acts (53).” Parallel with this research was the quest to determine if the letters of Paul were genuine correspondence and not literary, employing such techniques of comparing Paul’s letters to other known ancient letters, though the result was Paul’s letters did not conform to those other letters, for example Philemon – e.g., “While ancient Greco-Roman letters evince standard opening and closing formulae– as Exler’s findings confirmed none of the extant Pauline letters conform to that standard (69).”

Livesey further contends against a historical Paul:

“there is no evidence of the historical Paul. That the historical Paul was active in the mid-first century is likewise a characterization found largely in Acts and Pauline letters. Similarly, there is a distinct lack of archaeological evidence of ancient Pauline communities. The chapter argues that internal references to communities in home settings within well-known regions are best assessed rhetorically rather than historically. With the letters read together as a collection, distantly spaced regions function effectively to signify the far-reaching spread of the message into prominent areas. The lack of extant evidence for and references to Pauline letters as unities, as one would expect in the case of genuine correspondence, casts doubt on their status as genuine correspondence. In addition, sightings of Pauline letters in later sources indicate a mid-second century date of the collection. These combined arguments add to the thesis that the letters were from the start pseudonymous and fictional.”

The Pauline communities are likely interesting fiction correspondence partners to provide the reader with a lively context for experiencing the letter.  The earliest collection of Paul’s letters is Marcion in the mid second century, which is odd: “While scholars have offered various collection theories to account for how the letters– addressed to communities widely dispersed among regions of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor– managed to be found together as a collection, many strain the realm of historical likelihood (74).”  It is odd our earliest sources are collections of Paul’s letters and not individual letters given the great distance between the supposed destinations of the letters. The historicity too of Paul is in question because Acts is historically unreliable and the fact that the declared writer of a letter is Paul does not imply he actually was the writer: We have, for instance, the pseudonymous letters of Plato.

Paul’s autobiographical claims need not be authentic due to how such statements functioned in ancient letters, “The major interest of most ancient biographers and autobiographers was not historical reality but human potentiality and idealization. (George Lyons).”  The voice of the author doesn’t necessarily point back to the author, but “Epistolary discourse entails the construction of a self based on an assumption of what might interest the intended addressee, not on some unchanging vision of one’s ‘true’ self. (Patricia Rosenmeyer).”

There is reason to think Paul is Fictional.  The argument here is Acts precedes the letters, and so “his absence from contemporaneous Hebraic, Greek, and Roman sources is nonetheless telling. The Roman name “Paulus,” from which the name “Paul” likely derives is also largely unattested as a cognomen (a nickname) in the ancient world. As a nomen gentilicium (family name), it belongs to noble patrician families inside Italy.  From the way in which we come to know Paul in canonical sources, there is reason to believe that he, like other characters named in Acts, is fictional (83).”  Fictive letters as a genre suppose the pseudonymous writer is known, like the pseudonymous letters of Plato, and where do we know the character of Paul from?  Acts.

There are extensive parallels between the letters and Acts, which suggests borrowing, but the antagonism between Paul and Judaism in the letters suggests a later Christian writer, and pseudonymous letter collections usually followed on what was already thought about an ancient character.  The Paul of Acts adhered to Judaism and its beliefs: “the topics Pauline letters address, namely, negative assessments of Jewish law and circumcision, appear for the first time only in the second century (91).”  This gives us a new sense of dating the letters of Paul.

2 Cor 11:32-33 and Acts  18:1-18 have traditionally been used to establish Paul at particular places and times in history, but Livesey argues they are literary fiction: “By contrast, when understood as literary fiction rather than history, references to known historical figures function effectively for narrative effect, adding a sense of importance and verisimilitude. (99).”  We see something similar with apologists who argue a gospel story is real because it includes real people and places, and hence ignore the possibility of historical fiction.

With the overall content of Paul’s letters “the topics adopted in Pauline letters make better sense in a social setting in which the Jerusalem Temple is no longer standing, in a post-Bar Kokhba era. (101).”  Also, Paul’s churches as taking place in homes likewise reflects a literary device: “That “Christian” disciples gather in homes for safety and rituals, and that special knowledge and insight takes place in homes suggests that the author of Acts was likewise exploiting positive associations related to the home for persuasive purposes, and to advance the narrative. (106).”

The places listed in the letters also occur in Acts as regions Paul traveled to, suggesting intertextuality.  The places were well known and far apart, suggesting a literary device indicating the far reach of the message. Though the letters were supposedly sent far and wise, we have no letter transmitted to us individually, but only in collections.  We have early attestations to the Pauline letters such as 1 Clement, the Ignatian letters, The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, and 2 Peter, but recent research has reimagined these sources to be in the mid second century: “A mid-second century date of these early witnesses allows for the assessment that the collected Pauline letters themselves emerge only later, with Marcion’s 144 CE Apostolikon (128).”

The writer of the Pauline epistles leaves clues to their fictional letter genre, such as Paul claiming to be able to argue as a Jew to win the Jews, and as a pagan to win the pagans (1 Corinthians 9:20-22; of course staying within the spectrum of Paul’s gospel such as with no circumcision requirements1 Corinthians 1:12). This will be key when we come to see the polysemy of the cross,

“Fictional or literary letters– our interest here– grew in popularity from approximately 100 BCE to 250 CE , a period marked by the presence of sophists, rhetors, and professional teachers. Fictional letters and the rise in freestanding pseudonymous letters collections appear to be “the product of sophistic schools.” C. Costa comments that fictional letters were “extremely popular” in the Greco-Roman world. Their popularity is attributed to early educational methods, as rhetors and their students practiced rhetorical exercises using the letter form. Michael Trapp comments that “the composition of stylish and/or contentful ‘fictitious’ letters was felt both as a stimulating challenge to a writer’s abilities and as a source of educated pleasure to the knowledgeable reader.” Patricia Rosenmeyer reviews in detail the late-second and early-third centuries  collected fictional letters of Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus. The letters of these collections sketch short emotive scenes, invent scenarios, and provide “brief glimpses into the lives of (mostly) ordinary people dealing with momentary crises.” Philostratus, for instance, indicates that he can argue two sides of an issue, one of the hallmarks of the sophistic enterprise (138).”

We will see the brilliant ambiguity of salvation in the epistles gives way to the multiple paths saving the soldiers at the cross for different reasons in the gospels.

Livesey notes the fictional letter format is common to Seneca and Paul’s authors, and is an ideal teaching tool, which is why it’s being employed:

“the letter genre is in many ways an ideal medium for the advancement of disciplinary teachings by an authoritative instructor. The benefits of adopting the letter genre for persuasive teachings include its friendly and trustworthy domain, its appeal to external readers naturally drawn to incidents seemingly meant for others, and that it easily permits and even anticipates the promotion of self. It likewise highlights the versatility of the genre, its historic use in philosophical teachings, and its easy accommodation to a wide range of subgenres, including biography, autobiography, dialog, and narrative. Similarity in the use of epistolary features across the two collections contributes to the book’s thesis that Pauline authors, like Seneca’s (Moral Epistles to Lucilius), exploited the genre for teachings to secondary readers (Ch 3 Summary).”

The historical analogy of the authors of Paul’s literary fiction epistles with Seneca’s is a powerful argument provided by Livesey and so nudges us to update our historical probabilities in favor of her thesis.  Rather than oral discussions, Seneca wants his letters to inform not only current readers but later philosophical communities.  The context of friendship in letters provides a context from which to narrow focus on something more important than friendship:

“letter components– addressee, letter content, and addressor– … show ways in which Seneca and the authors of Pauline letters exploit many of the known characteristics of the genre for the advancement of their teachings. I indicate how these authors fashion, deploy, and maintain sender–recipient engagement, construct plausible and engaging situational scenarios, and strategically employ the discourse of self for the promotion of their teachings (144).”

“Like Seneca who with enargeia brings Lucilius to life (Ep. 49.1), the Pauline author of Philippians likewise deploys the same rhetorical technique, reifying the community with a vivid image of the Apostle and the Philippians holding each other in their hearts (Phil 1.7). (155)”  There is also literary cohesion between the communities by referring to members as brothers and the body of Christ, and the re-emergence of characters across long divides such as Timothy, Barnabas and Titus: “These instances of intertextuality, found by way of reference to a collection, instantiate a network of communities (157).” The occasional nature of the letters seemingly crafted to address specific needs and issues of the communities actually “appear instead to be cleverly crafted hooks and springboards for theological teachings. (158).”  Romans, though, is highly impersonal and thus represents poor use of a fictive letter for teaching.  The letters are not by Paul but are him incarnate, reflecting especially Plato’s use of the term Parousia.  And as for the communities, for instance “Like Seneca’s treatment of Lucilius in Letter 32, the “Galatian community” is instantiated as an exemplum of improper behavior (182)… That Pauline letters are primarily occasional in content– an underlying assumption that signals genuine correspondence– is a mistaken notion, a desiratum, that is not borne out by evidence of the letters (183). … Rosenmeyer notes that the inscribed sender functions as a hero character: “The epistolary genre implies a focus on the inner life of the ‘hero,’ and the reader is then invited to identify with the ego of the letter (184).” 

The Apostle suffers in imitating Christ just as the community is to suffer imitating the Apostle: “As mentioned, the discourse of self attracts external readers, who are drawn to the sender as a hero figure. In Pauline letters, the hero figure’s status is augmented, to make him more attractive to receptive readers (192).”  Given his fame and ability, Seneca speaks self-deprecatingly as a teaching exemplar, and “It merits mention that the majority (if not all) of Seneca’s teachings of Stoic philosophy and all Pauline theological teachings are conducted through letters. (196).”

Livesey notes it is in the wake of the Bar Kokhba revolt that the issues Paul addresses and the takes he has on them make the most sense:

“The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) had tremendous social and political consequences for Jews and Romans…During this period, writer-intellectuals immigrated to Rome, established schools, and produced various religious writings, some of which directly reflected on the consequences of the recent Jewish revolt. Marcion’s Evangelion, considered by some as the first gospel, stems from this social-political context. At this same time, political and religious discourse attests to the reassessment of the Jewish rite of circumcision. The devaluation and non-necessity of circumcision for gentiles found within Pauline letters parallels discussions in writings of the post-Bar Kokhba period. Marcion is known in sources for having a singular interest in the Apostle Paul. He is also credited with the earliest known collection of ten Pauline letters (the Apostolikon). These combined factors contribute to the sense in which Marcion’s second-century Roman school is the likely location of the origination of Pauline letters.”

Livesey zeroes in on the context for the Pauline letters most likely being mid second century. “Van Manen had thought the Pauline letters were the product of a Pauline school following the 70CE revolt, but Livesey argues Paul’s letters with such themes as necessity of Jewish law and practices  reflect the later Bar Kokhba revolt period.  There is no evidence of a school focusing on Marcion prior to the last revolt, and “Christian” teachers and schools emerge in Rome around the mid-second century CE, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, and as a consequence of it (200).”  A climate of animosity to the Jewish scriptures and circumcision flourished after 100 CE:  “Comparably dismissive and/or derogatory assessments of circumcision and Jewish law do not surface in texts dated prior to the end of the first century. Discussions of the rite of circumcision dated at or after the Bar Kokhba revolt parallel those found in Pauline letters. (202-203).”

Galatians vehemently argues against a group who wants to adopt Jewish Law, especially circumcision: “According to the arguments in Galatians, justification/righteousness comes from faith/trust (ἐκ πίστεως), construed as hierarchically superior and positively, and not from works of law (ἐξ ἔργων νóμου; Gal 2:15-16), assessed consistently negatively. The assessment of Jewish law found in Galatians finds no parallels in primary sources dated up through Josephus. (100 CE)” Circumcision is overwhelmingly seen as favorable in the Hebrew Bible and central to the covenant between man and God.  Things change significantly in Christian writings post Bar Kokhba where circumcision is debased such as with Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho: “Among these writings, Justin’s assessment is the most incendiary. According to him, circumcision is a sign (σημεῖον) of suffering and alienation, whose purpose was to separate Israelites from other nations. The reference to the land becoming desolate and cities ruined by fire unproblematically pertains to the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Justin is clearly aware of the revolt, as he alludes to it here and elsewhere. Moreover, according to Justin, Jews suffer justly. It was “predicated by Scripture” and took place “by divine providence…. In Barnabas and the Dialogue a metaphorical circumcision of the heart is assessed as superior to a literal circumcision of the flesh (219) ”  The authors of Paul argue against circumcision and devalues Abrahams circumcision, indicating circumcision to be a form of slavery: “The devaluation of circumcision found in the later writings resonates in a Bar-Kokhba context, in which Jews sorely suffered the loss of their lives, their temple, and their territory; when many were sold into captivity; and, importantly, when Roman legislation prohibited the practice of circumcision. (223).”  Having later writers put this on Paul’s lips echoes Mark putting the destruction of the temple on Jesus’ lips.

It seems during the Antonine period circumcision would be a liability.  Christian schools emerged in Rome post revolt and Paul’s letters and the gospels likely had their origination there.  The Christian schools were understood as philosophical schools.  Justin’s work employs the strategy of friendly exchange noted earlier.  Livesey thinks Paul’s letters come from the school of Marcion.  The Bar Kokhba revolt played a significant role in Marcion’s relocation to Rome.  Marcion published a gospel similar to Luke and 10 letters of Paul as our first New Testament.  “Marcion’s Evangelion, while very similar to the Gospel of Luke, lacks the latter’s birth narrative and begins only at canonical Luke 3:1, “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, when Pilate was governing Judaea. (243)”  Luke is generally seen as the basis for Marcion’s gospel.  But there is no evidence of earlier gospels and so Vinzent points to post revolt Rome:  “oldest firm witnesses for the first Christian writings we can attain surface during the time after that war [Bar Kokhba]– Marcion’s collection of Paul’s letters, his Gospel, and with it those gospels ‘that have been ascribed to Apostles and disciples of Apostles,’ hence Matthew and John, Mark and Luke.”(245).  Marcion did not receive earlier gospels but created the first one.  There is no evidence for a Pauline Collection prior to Marcion’s in 144, “If, as argued, Marcion created a gospel, anew literary genre, he– with the help of those in his school– could certainly have crafted and overseen the composition of mock letters in the name of the Apostle Paul, deploying a known and popular literary genre (248).”

APPLICATION

Paul

Part of the difficulty in assessing Livesey’s book is it is a paradigm shift.  This is not unlike what is going on with Prof Hugo Mendez of the University of North Caroline Chapel Hill, whereas most Johannine scholars are trying to derive history from the gospel of John and the three Johannine epistles, Mendez is arguing John and the epistles are forged to try to convince the reader they are the product of the beloved disciple. 

Perhaps the best way is to pick an angle and dive in and see how explanatory the new paradigm is.  Let’s try that. What if the New Testament writings were not primarily based on oral sources, but are literary as Robyn Faith Walsh also directs us …

As we noted above with Philostratus, one of the examples of the kind of literature we seem to be dealing with is authors conveying their skill at arguing both sides of an argument like a sophist.  Paul, from the birthplace of the stoic enlightenment, makes the same claim, changing his arguments to persuade both Jews and Pagans (1 Corinthians 9:20-22).  We can unpack this relating to Paul (perhaps a fictional figure), in terms of his supposed teacher Gamaliel.

Gamaliel was named as a member of the Sanhedrin in the fifth chapter of Acts and the teacher of Paul the Apostle in Acts 22:3.  Gamaliel encouraged his fellow Pharisees to show leniency to the apostles of Jesus in Acts 5:34.  This characterization seems at odds with Saul/Paul as an arch persecutor of Christians, but maybe something deeper is going on here.

In the broad and rich biblical tradition of literal and figurative Polysemy and Homonymy, showing the skill and creativity of the writers, we have one of the few literary pieces known to come from Gamaliel given that the Hillelian school of thought is presented collectively.

Gamaliel’s fish analogy, preserved in Jewish tradition (specifically in Avot de-Rabbi Natan), categorizes students as follows:

Ritually impure fish: One who memorizes but lacks understanding, from poor parents.

Ritually pure fish: One who learns and understands, from rich parents.

Fish from the Jordan River: One who learns but can’t respond effectively.

Fish from the Mediterranean Sea: One who learns and can respond adeptly.

So, if this is applied to Paul as teacher, there are going to be different messages to reach different kinds of students.  Let’s consider

Paul’s understanding of the core of the faith is supposedly clear and well known, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures 4 and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures (1 Cor 15:3-6).”  But as soon as we try to focus in on the creed/poetry here, meaning starts to shift and change. 

Does dying for our sins mean substitutionary atonement as some think?  Clearly, we understand the ancient idea of sacrifice appeasing the wrath of a god.  We see similar logic in 4 Maccabees.  Still, how does it serve justice for an innocent child in Africa to be punished for the crimes of a murderer in Chicago?  On the other hand, maybe the statement reflects the biblical Adamic notion of eyes being opened that Acts also relates to Paul’s conversion and so “Christ died for our sins,” not to pay our sin debt, but the world wrongly turning on God’s agapetos Jesus causes our inconspicuous sins to become conspicuous so that we fully see them and have a transformation of mind (metanoia).  Christ died for our sins: for our sin debt to be paid, or for our inconspicuous sins to be made conspicuous? On the other hand, Christ died for our sins could mean Christ died because of our sins (we killed him), like we say I can’t sleep “for” the heat.  Or does Paul intend all of these? We know Paul wanted to cast the widest net possible making conversion as easy as possible within the confines of his gospel: “because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).”

And what about “According to the scriptures?”  Does it mean scripture prophesied Christ’s death.  Or does it mean Christ’s death agrees with what we find in scripture.  Or does it mean the NT writers were allegorizing scripture like Matthew invented his Jesus infancy narrative to recapitulate the story of Moses.  Cleary, modern critical scholars may allow that Mark crafted his crucifixion narrative out of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, and yet still hold on to the historicity of the crucifixion.  But Livesey’s thesis allows us to push the argument even further.  To begin with, the cross serves a highly rhetorical function in the New Testament:

“Crucified with Christ” 

Reference: Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

Meaning: Paul uses this to describe a believer’s identification with Christ’s death, signifying the end of the old self-centered life and the beginning of a new life empowered by Christ.

“Crucify the Flesh” 

Reference: Galatians 5:24 – “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” 

Meaning: This refers to putting to death sinful desires and the selfish nature, likening it to the decisive act of crucifixion, as a result of belonging to Christ.

“Pick Up Your Cross and Follow Me” 

Reference: Matthew 16:24 (also Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23) – “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” 

Meaning: Jesus calls for self-denial and willingness to endure suffering or sacrifice, using the cross as a symbol of the cost of discipleship and following His example.

“The World Has Been Crucified to Me” 

Reference: Galatians 6:14 – “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” 

Meaning: Paul describes a mutual separation—through the cross, worldly values and pursuits are “dead” to him, and he is “dead” to their influence, emphasizing a transformed allegiance.

“Enemies of the Cross” 

Reference: Philippians 3:18-19 – “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” 

Meaning: Here, the cross represents the sacrificial life Christ modeled. Living in opposition to its values (e.g., indulgence instead of self-denial) makes one an “enemy” of its transformative power.

“Bearing the Cross” 

Reference: Implied in Luke 14:27 – “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” 

Meaning: Similar to “take up your cross,” this emphasizes enduring hardship or persecution as part of discipleship, with the cross as a metaphor for personal sacrifice.

Moreover, normally, typology as an outgrowth of form criticism suggests we would bracket the historicity of events that have a literary origin.  But this is exactly what Paul does with the crucifixion.  In Galatians 3:13, Paul refers to the Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy 21:22-23, stating that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—.  Again, when we try to narrow in on the meaning it shifts and changes.  Does it mean Christ took on our sins in substitutionary atonement?  But Daniel Street and others note Paul says “curse” not “accursed.”  So, what it could mean is people see the person hung on the tree to be like one cursed.  Clearly, Deuteronomy didn’t mean God cursed someone simply by virtue of them being hung on a tree.  If the letters are mid second century and Paul never existed, Livesey’s book encourages us to think beyond a literal crucifixion to an allegorizing of Psalms, Second Isaiah, and Deuteronomy. 

As I said, contemporary biblical typology theory (e.g., mimesis, haggadic midrash) says we should bracket the historicity of the literary units that allude to prior sources such as when Jesus crucifixion is created out of Psalms, 2^nd Isaiah and Deuteronomy.  Isn’t it interesting Paul presents himself as the one predicted in scripture who would bring the message of God to the pagans at the end of the age (e.g., Isaiah 42:6 or 49:6 about a servant bringing light to the nations), in fact making himself typological if Livesey is right and he never existed.  And this would well situate Paul in Acts:  “Nearly all the many characters in Acts 13:6-12– including Paul– are historically unverifiable. The sole exception, Sergius Paulus, known to Galen as prefect or governor of the City of Rome and trained in Aristotelian philosophy, appears to function as Paul’s namesake. (133).”

The Apostle is made to remark that the law (νóμος) was added because of transgressions (τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν προσετέθη; With the coming of Christ, the Jewish law has fulfilled its purpose.  The law was meant to have “sin become sinful beyond measure (Romans 7:13).”  So, for example, the law could be interpreted as the polysemy word of the law bent to the will of the Jewish elite, while ignoring the spirit of the law.  It is well known Mark uses satire to make a point.  Society was seen as dystopian so we have the culpability of the Jewish elite contravening many Jewish customs and laws to create the trial of Jesus, yet with loophole after loophole emerging to give surface credibility to the trial though they knew it was not God’s will for them to kill Jesus – and so they tricked the Romans into doing it.  Analogously Jesus’ temple tantrum story is absurd as the temple was huge and had guards to prevent just such a disturbance.  The temple incident is just a way of connecting Jesus to the death by Rome as an enemy of the state because the Jewish leaders weren’t allowed to kill him.

Paul, who “taught nothing among us but Christ and him crucified,” made a major qualification that should leap out at the reader and said if Christ is not raised your faith is in vain and you are still in your sin (1 Cor 15:17).  But how could that be if the cross paid the sin debt in full?  Paul means something else here, which makes sense because nowhere in the Old Testament does it speak of inherited sin.  Paul obviously means Christ in you/the mind of Christ etc. being welcomed as a holy possession to help you battle Satan’s temptations (Christ being the resistor of Satan par excellence), but then Paul doesn’t have in mind sin as sin-debt paid in full by substitutionary atonement.

Just as Luke-Acts show the parallel deaths of “Jesus-Forgiving Stephen,” and “soldier at the cross (“this man was innocent”)-Paul’s conversion” as seeing the condemned innocent, each Gospel also has internal parallel lives connecting the life of Jesus to figures using Hebrew Scripture Haggadic Midrash and mimesis of Greek poetry.  See Price HERE.  This is part of the reason to hear Plutarch’s Parallel Lives here, but I will talk more of that below. So, if Paul’s conversion is invented in Acts and prior to the account in the epistles, here is a possible model (Price on Paul’s conversion):

4. Paul’s Conversion (9:1-21)

As the great Tübingen critics already saw, the story of Paul’s visionary encounter with the risen Jesus not only has no real basis in the Pauline epistles but has been derived by Luke more or less directly from 2 Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus. In it one Benjaminite named Simon (3:4) tells Apollonius of Tarsus, governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia (3:5), that the Jerusalem Temple houses unimaginable wealth that the Seleucid king might want to appropriate for himself. Once the king learns of this, he sends his agent Heliodorus to confiscate the loot. The prospect of such a violation of the Temple causes universal wailing and praying among the Jews. But Heliodorus is miraculously turned back when a shining warrior angel appears on horseback. The stallion’s hooves knock Heliodorus to the ground, where two more angels lash him with whips (25-26). He is blinded and is unable to help himself, carried to safety on a stretcher. Pious Jews pray for his recovery, lest the people be held responsible for his condition. The angels reappear to Heliodorus, in answer to these prayers, and they announce God’s grace to him: Heliodorus will live and must henceforth proclaim the majesty of the true God. Heliodorus offers sacrifice to his Saviour (3:35) and departs again for Syria, where he reports all this to the king. In Acts the plunder of the Temple has become the persecution of the church by Saul (also called Paulus, an abbreviated form of Apollonius), a Benjaminite from Tarsus. Heliodorus’ appointed journey to Jerusalem from Syria has become Saul’s journey from Jerusalem to Syria. Saul is stopped in his tracks by a heavenly visitant, goes blind and must be taken into the city, where the prayers of his former enemies avail to raise him up. Just as Heliodorus offers sacrifice, Saul undergoes baptism. Then he is told henceforth to proclaim the risen Christ, which he does.

Luke has again added details from Euripides. In The Bacchae, in a sequence Luke has elsewhere rewritten into the story of Paul in Philippi (Portefaix, pp. 170), Dionysus has appeared in Thebes as an apparently mortal missionary for his own sect. He runs afoul of his cousin, King Pentheus who wants the licentious cult (as he views it) to be driven out of the country. He arrests and threatens Dionysus, only to find him freed from prison by an earthquake. Dionysus determines revenge against the proud and foolish king by magically compelling Pentheus to undergo conversion to faith in him (“Though hostile formerly, he now declares a truce and goes with us. You see what you could not when you were blind,” 922-924) and sending Pentheus, in woman’s guise, to spy upon the Maenads, his female revelers. He does so, is discovered, and is torn limb from limb by the women, led by his own mother. As the hapless Pentheus leaves, unwittingly, to meet his doom, Dionysus comments, “Punish this man. But first distract his wits; bewilder him with madness… After those threats with which he was so fierce, I want him made the laughingstock of Thebes” (850-851, 854-855). “He shall come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate god, most terrible, and yet most gentle, to mankind” (859-861). Pentheus must be made an example, as must poor Saul, despite himself. His conversion is a punishment, meting out to the persecutor his own medicine. Do we not detect a hint of ironic malice in Christ’s words to Ananias about Saul? “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16).

The purpose of the law wasn’t to teach you right from wrong but to open your eyes by making sin sinful beyond measure to circumcise the fleshly from your heart.  God wanted a contrite heart, not animal offerings (psalm 50:8; Hosea 6:6; psalm 51:16; etc). 

So, with Gamaliel, Paul not a student in the regular sense, since Gamaliel taught tolerance of Christians while Saul/Paul converted him, but rather as masters of polysemy.  Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures meaning a spectrum from substitutionary atonement to Moral/Religious influence death like Socrates.  In this way Paul boasted he would say anything to win converts, being a Jew to the Jews and a gentile to the gentiles. 

Mark

Narrative misdirection is an ancient literary technique where the writer leads the reader along to think one event is the climax, whereas what is really going on is to be found elsewhere.  For example, in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex Oedipus’s discovery that he is the murderer of Laius (around lines 1180–1200) feels like the peak, as the prophecy seems fulfilled.  The deeper point emerges in the aftermath—his self-blinding and exile (lines 1400–1500). The play’s focus isn’t just the revelation but Oedipus’s acceptance of his fate and his transformation from king to outcast. Sophocles misdirects by letting the audience think the mystery’s solution is the end, while the real weight lies in the human cost and self-awareness that follow.  For example, Mark satirizes Paul’s claim about the importance of the resurrection, briefly mentioning it with no resurrection appearances – since the soldier at the cross is saved before the resurrection.

This technique is also utilized in the bible.  For example, in the Old Testament Jonah’s survival in the fish’s belly (Jonah 2) feels like the story’s peak, resolving the crisis of his disobedience.  The real climax is in Jonah 4, where God confronts Jonah’s anger over Nineveh’s repentance. The book ends abruptly with God’s question about compassion (v. 11), leaving the focus on Jonah’s failure to grasp divine mercy (recall Matthew’s allusion to the sign of Jonah), not his miraculous rescue.  In the New Testament with The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32): The younger son’s return and the father’s celebration (v. 24) seem to resolve the story with reconciliation.  The true focus is the older son’s resentment (v. 25–32) and the father’s plea for unity. The parable ends without resolving the older son’s response, pointing to God’s inclusive love and human reluctance to accept it.

Mark says Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many.  This is sometimes thought of as referring to substitutionary atonement.  But who is the captor?  Is it God and his wrath?  Is it Satan?  The issue is God ransoming man from man’s captivity of Satan’s influence. God historically frees his people time and again from bondage, not God holding man hostage since psalm 49:7 notes it can’t be to God: “Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life; there is no price one can give to God for it.” Sin was an evil entity to Paul.

John the Baptist, who Jesus called the greatest among men and whose humiliating death anticipates Jesus’s more humiliating death and contradicts Josephus, anticipates Jesus’ own ignoble death as a criminal because God’s especially beloved agapetos was given a more tortuous but analogous death to the arch enemy of the Jews Haman.  God gave his most beloved and righteous man and the world turned on him in the worst possible way.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah is a strong example of this. He was called by God to speak truth to Judah’s corrupt leaders and people, warning them of impending judgment. Despite his righteousness and fidelity to God’s message, he faced relentless hostility—mocked, beaten, imprisoned, and nearly killed (Jeremiah 20:7-10, 26:8-11, 38:6). The ruling class and populace turned on him for his uncompromising stance, much like John the Baptist’s fate for condemning Herod’s sins.  God is depicted as warning the people of Judah through Jeremiah about impending judgment if they did not repent from idolatry, injustice, and disobedience. When they failed to heed these warnings, the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BCE—resulting in the destruction of the Temple and the exile of many Jews to Babylon—is presented as divine punishment (Jeremiah 25:8-11, 52:12-30). The text explicitly links this catastrophe to their refusal to listen to Jeremiah and other prophets (Jeremiah 7:24-26, 44:4-6).  If you can imagine a crime so horrendous that the temple cult would be rendered of no effect in its wake, it would be the world turning on God’s beloved favorite Jesus.

In ancient Greek literature, Socrates parallels this pattern. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates describes himself as a gadfly sent to awaken Athens to moral truth. His relentless questioning of the city’s elites and exposure of their ignorance led to his trial and execution in 399 BCE. The ruling class, feeling threatened, orchestrated his death, similar to the dynamics against Jesus and John.

Each case shows a righteous figure—divinely inspired or philosophically driven—rejected and persecuted by a world unwilling to face its own flaws. If there was a sin the world shouldn’t be forgiven for, it’s what they did to Jesus, which invalidates the temple cult. 

With the Lord’s Supper, Mark has taken a story from Paul where Jesus was alone on the night he was delivered over by God and turned it into a collective meal showing he all along knew he was to die. And, Mark expanded it into a narrative of Jesus repeatedly emphasizing that he would die and be raised, but the disciples didn’t get it and so got violent at the arrest.  Mark’s Jesus comes to see he didn’t need to be brutally tortured and die in order for God’s plan of salvation to be realized (Gethsemane; Hebrews 5:7 “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”)  Jesus thought he didn’t need to fully die to fulfill God’s plan, but to “fully” show the horror the world had laid on God’s beloved, we see Jesus being condemned to death causing remorse in Judas, for instance.

The highly sophisticated literary technique of Mark contrasted with a “less educated” syntax seems to have been intentionally written in a lower Greek, a commonplace style like Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer to pay homage and be consistent with the common Greek which Mark’s OT scriptures were written in.  The Koine Greek of the Septuagint was a commonplace, everyday form of Greek, not a high literary style. It was the vernacular language of the Hellenistic world, used widely for communication, trade, and administration. While the Septuagint’s translators aimed to convey the Hebrew Scriptures accurately, their Greek reflects a practical, accessible style with some Semitic influences, rather than the polished, classical Greek of literary elites like Plato or Sophocles.

The Gospels’ idea of a crucified figuring facilitating a change of mind and belief so obviously comes from Plutarch’s Parallel lives and the account of the crucified Cleomenes III that it seems impossible to date Mark in the first century: In Mark the soldier sees Jesus as a paradigmatic soldier following order despite terror (the cry of dereliction).  In Luke, the soldier notes his culpability in executing an innocent man.  In Matthew, the soldier is terrified at God’s might.  In John, the soldier dispels swoon interpretations by showing Jesus was really dead.  Mark satirizes Paul in that the resurrection is almost an afterthought with no resurrection appearances like Paul has – the resurrection being more important than the cross for Paul.  It seems unlikely Mark is pre-Plutarch as the moral/religious influence cross of the synoptics must be mimesis from the end of Plutarch’s life of Cleomenes and in fact the gospels reflect much of Plutarch’s innovation of form: Focus on Character and Moral Example; Anecdotal and Vivid Storytelling; Non-Strict Chronology; Didactic Purpose; and in the case of Luke/Acts parallel structure (the death of Jesus parallels the forgiving death of Stephen):

And a few days afterwards those who were keeping watch upon the body of Cleomenes where it hung, saw a serpent of great size coiling itself about the head and hiding away the face so that no ravening bird of prey could light upon it. 2 In consequence of this, the king was seized with superstitious fear, and thus gave the women occasion for various rites of purification, since they felt that a man had been taken off who was of a superior nature and beloved of the gods. And the Alexandrians actually worshipped him, coming frequently to the spot and addressing Cleomenes as a hero and a child of the gods (Plutarch, Parallel life of Cleomenes, 39:1-2).

Plutarch seems to be a key figure, such as Mark’s Jesus saying there is an exoteric parable approach for the masses and an esoteric truth for the inner circle (Mark 4:11-12). Carrier comments:

Near the end of the first century, around the same time the Gospels were being written, the Greek scholar Plutarch honored Clea, a priestess of the mysteries of Isis, with a treatise about her religion entitled On Isis and Osiris. In this he explains why her cult had adopted a certain belief about the life and resurrection of Osiris, in the “true” account reserved for those who, like her, were initiated into its secrets. He said the real truth was that Osiris was never really a historical person whose activity took place on Earth, as public accounts portrayed him to be. Osiris was, rather, a celestial  being, whose trials and sufferings took place in outer space just below the moon, where death and turmoil reign. Thence Osiris descends every year, becomes incarnate by assuming a mortal body of flesh, and is killed by Set (in Greek, Typhon, the Egyptian analog to Satan). Then he is resurrected—literally undergoing, Plutarch says, an anabiôsis, a “return to life,” and a palingenesia, a “regeneration” (the same word used of the resurrection in Matthew 19:28). From there Osiris ascends back to heaven in glory. That means there were public stories that portrayed the death and resurrection of Osiris as taking place on Earth, in human history; these also imagined him descending to rule the underworld. But, Plutarch explains, those stories disguised the true teachings reserved for those of sufficient rank. “You must not think,” he says, “that any of these tales actually happened.” No, we “must not treat legend as if it were history at all.” Gods like Osiris were never really “generals, admirals, or kings, who lived in very ancient times” only to become gods after death; to the contrary, they were always celestial deities in some form, whether living as gods far above, or as demigods invisibly “in the space about us,” carrying “the prayers and petitions of men” up from Earth into outer space, and transporting divine “oracles and gifts” back from those same stellar reaches to the earth below. Accordingly, Plutarch reminds Clea, “the holy and sacred Osiris” does not rule “beneath the earth” as the ignorant public thinks, but “is far removed from the earth, uncontaminated and unpolluted and pure from all matter that is subject to destruction and death.” As Plutarch further explains in that same treatise, “that part of the world” subject to “destruction is contained underneath the orb of the moon,” whereas all the real “relations and forms and effluxes of the god abide in the heavens and in the stars” above. That’s how Osiris can become incarnate, die, and rise back from the dead every year. This wasn’t happening down here in Earth history; it was happening in the distant skies above. So those public myths were all a disguise. Osiris did not rule the dead from the underworld, but from the celestial realms above; and to maintain that reign he dies and rises cosmically every year, not once upon a time on Earth. Which means he was never really a historical pharaoh. And Egyptian records are continuous enough that we can confirm there indeed never was a historical Osiris. So we know the “gospels” of his deeds on Earth were mythical. Only his cosmic death and resurrection were “real” to his priesthood. Just as Plutarch said. Carrier, Richard. Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ (p. 31-32). Pitchstone Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The death of Socrates according to Plato is like the impaled just man in the Republic whose death is preferable to an unjust life because it makes society’s inconspicuous sinful nature conspicuous and hence is the catalyst to transform society.  Socrates’ last words in the Phaedo are to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the poison.  On the one hand this is thankfulness for release from the prison (sema) of the body (soma), and on the other hand it is a moral influence death.  And it worked.  Civilized society no longer executes someone for being a gadfly.

This is also reflective of interpretations of Mark’s use of Isaiah 53.  For substitutionary atonement theorist it means substitution.  But there are many other readings that fit the moral influence model.  One is the nations of the world coming to see how poorly they treated Israel.  Many Jewish interpretations of Isaiah 53 support this view. The “suffering servant” as Israel could symbolize the nations of the world recognizing their mistreatment of the Jewish people, who endured suffering and persecution. In this reading, the servant’s vindication (Isaiah 53:10-12) reflects a future where the nations acknowledge Israel’s role and God’s covenant, seeing their past hostility as unjust. Verses like 53:5 (“he was wounded for our transgressions”) are often understood as Israel bearing the consequences of others’ sins, with the nations later awakening to this truth. This aligns with traditional Jewish exegesis, such as Rashi’s, emphasizing Israel’s collective suffering and eventual redemption.

The whole sacrificial system is being rethought in recent literature.  Certain Jewish scholarship has the idea that the horrific death of the scapegoat reflects getting people to consider the effects of their sin, animal sacrifice being otherwise done humanely.  Moreover as I note in my first Robyn Walsh essay, recent scholars like Andrew Rillera and Gary Anderson note the sacrificial system wasn’t substitutionary at all.

So, died for our sin debt to be paid for, or died for our sins to become conspicuous so our eyes will be opened and can repent – the world turned on God’s agapetos and gave him an analogous but worse death than the arch enemy of the Jews Haman: Jesus being God’s word/law incarnate/personified as a wonder working sinless, novel and authoritative interpreter of the law (e.g., you have heard it said, but I say …) who uses that law to refute the devil and those under the devil’s influence (eg., the devil entered Judas).

Ehrman navigates these issues calling Luke the Maverick gospel where Luke-Acts is unique in having a non-atonement repentance model, whereas Mark and Matthew are substitutionary atonement. See Ehrman here:

Breaking the law was meant to open people’s eyes, like the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened by breaking god’s one law at the time, like later the world broke the body of Jesus, the law incarnate and blinded Paul having his eyes opened to Jesus after the forgiving death of Stephen. 

The problem for Ehrman is we also see this non-atonement model in the gospel of Mark, where Jesus starts off the ministry with a call to repentance and the story of the rich young man who he told to follow the law and give everything to the poor to be saved.  Ehrman ad hoc invents sources, where literary invention and freedom of an author make more sense: as though Mark couldn’t have seen the call for repentance and the story of salvation of the rich young man at the beginning of his gospel contradicted what Ehrman wrongly sees as Mark’s substitutionary cross/resurrection bias!  And as I said this moral influence death resurfaces in the conversions of the soldiers at the cross – who is also the key to unlocking John’s gospel because there Christ’s death is shown by the soldier piercing Jesus not to be a swoon death.  The quick death of Jesus, like the hurried baking of the unleavened bread to escape Egypt is a way Jesus thanks to God escaped the prolonged brutality of the cross, and so in this way the Gethsemane prayer was answered.

Livesey thus invites us to a literary approach to the gospels and Paul’s letters, which clears rich new pathways,

For further related analysis, see my Blogging Index On The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus Here!