Robert M. Price - Holy Fable Volume Three : The Epistles and the Apocalypse Undistorted by Faith

______________________________________ Mindvendor

Cover art by Qarol Price adapted from The Beast with Two Horns Like a Lamb from The Apocalypse woodcut series by Albrecht Drer, c. 149697. Public domain.

Copyright 2018 Robert M. PriceAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9991537-1-0

Holy Fable Volume I: The Old Testament Undistorted by Faith
Holy Fable Volume II: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith
Holy Fable Volume III: The Epistles and the Apocalypse Undistorted by Faith

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Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity
Inerrant the Wind: The Evangelical Crisis of Biblical Authority Deconstructing Jesus: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?The Widow Traditions in Luke-Acts: A Feminist-Critical ScrutinyThe Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger than FictionThe Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind
The Pre-Nicene New Testament: 54 Formative Texts
Jesus Is Dead
Atheism and Faitheism
Evolving out of Eden: Christian Responses to Evolution (with Edwin Suominen)
The Reason-Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth for?Moses and Minimalism: Form Criticism versus Fiction in the Pentateuch
The Christ Myth Theory and Its Problems
The Case Against The Case for Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel
The Tommentary: Interpreting the Gospel of Thomas
The Needletoe Letters: A Parody of The Screwtape Letters Top Secret: The Truth Behind Todays Pop Mysticisms
The Politically Correct Bible
Jesus Christ Superstar: The Making of a Modern GospelBiblical Buddhism: Tales and Sermons of Saint IodasaphBart Ehrman Interpreted: How One Radical New Testament Scholar Understands Another
Latter-day Scripture: Studies in the Book of Mormon
The Sage of Aquarius: A Centennial Study of The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical PaulNight of the Living Savior
Blaming Jesus for Jehovah: Rethinking the Righteousness ofChristianity
The Human Bible New Testament
Secret Scrolls: Revelations from the Lost Gospel Novels Killing History: Jesus in the No-Spin Zone
The Historical Bejeezus: What a Long, Strange Quest its BeenPreaching Deconstruction

For B. Keith Brewer,colleague in the Higher CriticismvIntroduction9
14 The Epistle to the Romans 13 15 The First Epistle to the Corinthians37
16 The Second Epistle to the Corinthians 70 17 The Epistle to the Galatians85
18 The Epistle to the Ephesians99 19 The Epistle to the Philippians 114
20 The Epistle to the Colossians125 21 The First Epistle to the Thessalonians 134
22 The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 146
23 The Letter to Philemon151 24 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus155
25 The Epistle to the Hebrews 169 26 James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Jude, 3 John , 2 186 John, 1 John
27 The Book of Revelation 214
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Texts, like all sets of data, can look altogether different when readthrough different interpretive paradigms. It reminds me of theKabbalistic belief that, when the Kingdom of God dawns, the text ofthe Torah, while eternal and unchanging, will nonetheless read verydifferently because a hitherto invisible letter will become visible,changing everything. (That is because there will then be no sin andtherefore no need for the many Thou shalt nots.) Or think of thedifference it makes when one casts off the worn-out garment ofbiblical inerrantism with its obscuring web of harmonizations andtheologically controlled interpretations. The text becomes, in KarlBarths words, the strange new world of the Bible. In that momentof Satori it makes sense, though not the sense you had previously beentold it makes. I recall how, one evening while attending CampusCrusade for Christs mega-rally Explo 72 in Dallas, it occurred to meto ask our youth director, a Bible Institute student, if there might beanother way to construe the Bible and biblical thought other than the way we fundamentalists put it together. His answer, not surprisingly, was No. If you were going to read the Bible, ours was the only wayto read it. Of course, now, some forty-five years later, I know that isnot so.

Different interpretive communities, as Stanley Fish callsthem, utilize different paradigms, so very different, in fact, thatmeaningful dialogue between them is often impossible. Tertullian warned his readers never to engage in debates with heretics overscripture because one can only understand the text rightly by reading

HOLY FABLEVOLUME III

it in accord with official apostolic tradition. But what factorsdetermine which interpretive community one belongs to? Maybe justthe luck of the draw: the church you were raised in, your parentsinstruction, the beliefs of the sect you joined because you found itsmembers were friendly and promised you an exciting life of faith. Who knows?

But it is not merely a matter of competing religiosities. The same diversity of paradigms and perspectives prevails among learnedscholars in all fields including biblical studies. At any Society of Biblical Literature convention you will find a whole zoo full of exotic creatures. There are adepts in Structuralism, Narratology,Deconstruction, Social Science criticism, Womens Studies, Jungian analysis, Postcolonialism, etc. But it is not the Babel-din you mightimagine. The common understanding is that of collegiality, of beingworkers in different corners of one vast vineyard, or of each being one of the blind men trying to get an idea of the shape of an unseenelephant by grasping the tail, an ear, a tusk, the trunk, a leg, or theside. Maybe by comparing notes all of you can get a better idea of thewhole.

In my books I have operated within the paradigm of the Dutch Radical Critics, taking much inspiration from W.C. vanManen, but making my own individual judgments. My approach hasbeen to explain the New Testament writings from the standpoint thatthere was no historical Jesus, a view I once thought bizarre and wholly implausible but eventually came to find quite compelling (though ofcourse unprovable). You have seen some of that in the previous volume of Holy Fable, though I have not hesitated to note when someother perspective makes good sense of the text. Another cardinal conclusion (not, please note, a presupposition) of the Dutch Radical position is that none of the thirteen epistles traditionally assigned toPaul are genuine. Though unthinkable to most, the idea should not seem unreasonable in view of the facts that, first, all critical scholarsalready consider about half of the Pauline Corpus to be spurious anyway and, second, that most also dismiss both ostensibly Petrine letters as pseudepigraphic, consigned to the same bin with the Gospel of Peter, the Letter of Peter to Philip, the Letter of Peter to James, theApocalypse of Peter, the Nag Hammadi Revelation of Peter, and thePreachings of Peter. If all of Peter turns out to be spurious, why notPaul, as long as there are good arguments?

Nonetheless, in this volume of Holy Fable I am adopting theperspective of mainstream New Testament scholars and treatingRomans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1Thessalonians, and Philemon as, in the main, authentically Pauline. If you have read my books