Paul of Tarsus: "The New Testament: A Student's Introduction" by Stephen L. Harris

I'd agree with some learned people that Paul's writings were elaborated in the sense that some of the so-called letters of Paul are fakes, and of course, there were plenty of tall tales told about him in, e.g. "The Acts of Paul and Silas". But it becomes very hard to explain why Christians wrote fake letters of Paul, and why they told tall tales about him if he hadn't existed and done some pretty impressive things to begin with (impressive to the early Christians, that is). People who defend this are not familiar with the history of Christianity outside the Roman Empire. When we, Portuguese, came as the first Europeans to Malabar Coast (present day Kerala State) in India, they found an ancient community of Christians who had had nothing to do with Rome or Roman Catholicism. So some people’s theory that the quick wider geographical spread of Christianity was from Rome alone, defies historical testimony which shows otherwise. The Portuguese were the first European explorers of the East. The Portuguese came to Malabar Coast (present day Kerala) in 1500. The ancient Christian community there were under the Patriarch of Babylon and claimed to be evangelized by Apostle Thomas. Thus they had been Christians from the Apostolic era, at the same time Apostle Paul was preaching in Rome and elsewhere.

Put it another way, if we say that Jesus was invented by Paul, but then Paul was invented by Ignatius of Antioch, we are likely to end up saying that Ignatius of Antioch was invented by Athanasius. ROTFL!

Why is Paul accorded such respect by the Christian Church? This can be explained, I think, by the version of Christianity that ultimately emerged triumphant from the petri-dish of different opinions that constituted the Church in the pre-Constantinian era. As I argue elsewhere, the key figure is probably Marcion, a theologian who wanted to bin the entire Old Testament as the work of an inferior deity, and who enshrined Paul as the authentic interpreter of Christian truth. This so alarmed other Christian leaders that - to simplify a complicated story - it prompted them to canonise what is now the Christian Bible - keeping the Old Testament, but also doing as Marcion had done, and enshrining Paul's letters as the key guide to Christian doctrine.

What about the historicity of Paul? No serious scholars of whom I aware doubt this. At least seven of the biblical epistles are universally accepted as having been written by him - and it is also pretty universally accepted that the oldest of them can be dated to within twenty years of the crucifixion. This, by the standards of ancient historiography, is pretty remarkable - the foundational texts of most religions are much, much later than the events they purport to describe. The Pentateuch, for instance, was written hundreds of years after the supposed events of the Exodus; the earliest surviving life of Muhammad almost two centuries after his death; even the Gospels whole decades after the life of Jesus. But with Paul's letters, you are within touching distance of Jesus. Have a look at 1 Corinthians 15.1-9 - this seems to me irrefutable evidence that already, by the time Paul wrote his letter, there was a settled Christian tradition about the resurrection. Which is not, of course, to say that the resurrection actually took place. Whether it did or not is a matter of faith, not of history. But what seems to me very important to bear in mind is that St Paul, even though he is in the Bible, is no less a product of the world of the 1st century AD Roman empire than, say, Caligula or Nero - and the context of history, I think, does indeed provide a way of understanding what it was about him that was so startling and so revolutionary.

You have this guy, Paul, who goes around persuading people to join this new movement, Christianity. After he has set up a Christian church in a town, he keeps in touch by sending letters. So, these churches only exist because some people in the town liked what he had to say, the message that inspired them to become Christians was the message that Paul preached. So of course the preserve his letters, which thus became the first Christian scriptures - authoritative written statements about the Christian message. From their perspective, if Paul had Christianity wrong, what would be the point in being a Christian?

Of course, we know that there were people in the Church who did think that Paul had got things wrong, and they looked to the church in Jerusalem for leadership. However, Jerusalem was destroyed and, over time, the version of Christianity associated with churches that accepted the authority of Paul's letters became the dominant one. Indeed, there was so much reverence for Paul's letters that, as Harris notes, some people created fake letters of Paul. Since many people were persuaded by these fakes, they were included in the New Testament.

One reason it is easy to idealize Jesus is that we have no documents written by him. So whenever anyone encounters something said by Jesus that they don't like, they can always say "Well, how do we know he said that? It sounds like the sort of thing someone would have made up." This is why studying the historical Jesus is hard work, and often reveals more about the scholar, book reviewer, or book blogger than it does about Jesus. On the other hand, knowledge of the context in which Jesus lived means that the scholars do have more grounds to go on than "I like that, so Jesus said it." They can ask whether it is plausible that a 1st Century Jew would have said such words and, if so, what he would have meant.

With Paul though, it is different. There are conservatives who insist that all the letters in the New Testament ascribed to Paul were written by him. But most scholars can agree which letters were definitely written by Paul, which were definitely not by him, and that leaves a few in dispute. Any good introduction to the New Testament - e.g. Stephen L. Harris "The New Testament: A Student's Introduction" will give you a guide as to which is which. So, the chances are that one reason why our picture of Paul is more attractive than our picture of Jesus is simply that it is we’ve got a thing for snake-oil priests (warts and all). We have Jesus as remembered by his followers, but Paul in his own words, FAKES AND ALL. Paul was a salesman, selling his religion that had almost nothing to do with the life of Jesus and his teachings. It was cobbled together from a range of Gnostic, Greek and pagan faiths, and his goal was to make it as Un-Jewish as possible. Hence his so-called inclusiveness. Did I need to say more? ROTFL!

The God of Righteousness: "A Short History of the World" by H.G. Wells

The Giordano Bruno case is interesting. He was Dominican friar. A minor authority in a minor branch of the Holy Roman Empire Church (or whatever they called it then), so no significant threat to the Pope. Until he started shooting his mouth off, claiming he understood the ways of God better than the top man, whose authority rested entirely on being the closest man to God on earth. Then he would have to be taken out, mercilessly, I would have thought.

Galileo's dad had been the keeper of the sacred music which, in those days, would have put him on the Pope's right hand. A similar kind of relationship as a tribal Witch Doctor might have with the Chief. So it's not hard to imagine that, when the Witch Doctor's son converted to Bruno's branch of the Holy Roman Religion, the Pope would be in a bit of a fix. How easy would it be for him to burn the Witch Doctor's son at the stake?

So it would be fair to say that Galileo wasn't so much one of the first guys to invent a new religion that threatened to kick the old one out. But one of the last guys in a much vilified, fringe branch of the old religion, that had infiltrated so far into the inner-circle it was about to go mainstream.

Seen in that context, Galileo was less of an original thinker and more of a young chancer, in the right time and place. He chanced that, amongst all the other heretics that had preceded him, he was the only one the Pope wouldn't dare crucify. If he took that chance, he would have his day in court and his place in the history books. History books written by the only people who could write, the scribes of the Holy Roman Empire Church. Who would most likely record that many of the ideas Galileo had gathered from the underground movement he had hung out with, belonged to him.

If the Pope had got the Bruno's branch of the Holy Roman Religion before Galileo, as the Emperor Constantine had got Christianity more than a millennium before (paving the way for re-branding the Roman Empire as the Holy Roman Empire), then Galileo would have been more likely to be charged with plagiarism or copyright theft than heresy.

So, all in all, it's fair to say that science was born from Christianity and has been largely nurtured by it ever since.

H.G. Wells took it even further in “A Short History of the World,” where he argues that the development of science was only made possible by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christ stood against all authorities, from the Roman Empire to the Jewish Church. At the beginnings of the European Intellectual Revival in the 11th century, it was Christ's teaching of a direct relation between the conscience of the individual and the god of righteousness (not ordinary righteousness, but pure righteousness as a fundamental ideal) that gave an individual "the courage to form his own judgement upon prince or prelate or creed:

"As early as the eleventh century philosophical discussion had begun again in Europe, and there were great and growing universities at Paris, Oxford, Bologna and other centres. There, medieval 'schoolmen' took up again and thrashed out a series of questions upon the value and meaning of words that were a necessary preliminary to clear thinking in the scientific age that was to follow.

[...]

And the stir in men's minds was by no means confined now to the independent and the well-educated. The mind of the common man was awake in the world as it never had been before in all the experience of mankind. In spite of priest and persecution, Christianity seems to have carried a mental ferment wherever its teachings reached.”

In" H. G. Wells. A Short History of the World, p.231)

Filling a black space is not bad in itself, provided there is a way to test the assumptions. (In the case of our possible lions, looking down from higher ground may reveal the truth. The expanding base of tested theory provides the elevation to see further, and so some of the lions can be either seen or shown to be something else. The problem is, we still have a horizon, albeit an expanded one, and there may be more lions out there also.)

The religious problem results from creating fixed forms in the black spaces. Imagining is one thing, creating mythic tales is fine, but making of imagination a fixed a priori first cause, and then insisting that the universe conform to it is a vexing problem. Religion needs to learn from science to hold its views tentatively, to allow the narratives and beliefs to morph as human understanding and scientific evidence reveal further into the mystery. God must always be beyond comprehension, or as the German theologian Meister Eckhart ascribed to Augustine: "If I had a God I could understand, I would no longer consider him God." We need to refrain from saying what God is, and continue exploring the mystery, appreciating the complexity, beauty, and awe which we experience in reflecting upon the universe in which we exist.

That's the problem with pouring scorn on Christianity and driving it out of town. Science was born from it and nurtured by it. Throw out the bathwater of Christianity and we risk throwing out the baby of Science toot.

Abrahamic Zeitgeist: "Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and his Kabbalistic Fellowship" by Lawrence Fine

It is interesting a singularity in (or coalescent with) space, is employed in humanity's attempts to characterize the fundamental nature of existence. The only thing that changes over the course of recorded history is the vocabulary, which reflects the prevailing zeitgeist.

Just this morning I was reading Lawrence Fine's book "Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos" (subtitled "Isaac Luria and his Kabbalistic Fellowship") and the very same imagery popped up. This is 16th century (CE) stuff yet it speaks of the singularity from which all was created. Ein-Sof, which is referred to below, may be thought of as an ineffable singularity.

Fine's translation of Luria: "When [Ein-Sof] determined to create its world and to issue forth the world of emanated entities...Ein-Sof...withdrew itself from its centermost point, at the center of its light, and this light retreated from the center to the sides, and thus there remained a free space, an empty vacuum."

Fine goes on to comment, "The perimeter of the empty space left by the act...was circular in shape, and equidistant from the centermost point..."

A simple projection of what is presumed to be the Abrahamic zeitgeist? In Samten Gyaltsen Karmay's book "The Great Perfection", a work examining the subtleties of a school of Tibetan Buddhism referred to as rDzogs chen, Karmay provides a translation of a roughly 1,300 year-old foundational text of the entire system, a text subtitled "the Central point of Space" (IOL 594, for those who wish to examine the text more closely).

The document is an epistemology that asserts mind itself, self-awareness, is the progenitor of the metaphor of the inchoate singularity. Part of Karmay's translation reads as follows:

How much does a deep non-imagination

Appear as an object of the intellect?

The experience of the profound non-imagination

Is of experience, not imagination.

...

However profound the words one utters,

One cannot express the point.

The difference between the presumption of the desert religions regarding the relationship of the primordial singularity to space and that of particular schools of Buddhism (as well as other non-Buddhist groups) is profound. The former group, a faith-based group, asserts the singularity abides in space, while the latter group, a group that proscribes the act of faith, asserts the singularity is coalescent with space.

An invariant singularity, one that abides in space, functions as the foundation of simple arithmetic and logic. As such it forms the basis of whatever fundamental structure is projected upon the primordially inchoate sphere. A faith-based structure, its laws are forever undermined by its inherent lack of verity.

A coalescent singularity is, by its very nature, ineffable; subject to interpretation. There are not an innumerable number of universes in this characterization, only one whose definition is unbounded.

The Omega Point: "The Physics Of Christianity" by Frank J. Tipler

When I studied engineering at college level a fundamental rule was "don't extrapolate a curve beyond the last data point". We now have proposals for a multiverse of multiverses ranging from the quantum to the cosmological. When I see some data that supports the existence of any of them, I will start to take them seriously. Until then, it looks as if physicists have reinvented the Deus-ex-Machina. And most leading physicists do accept the Many-Worlds Interpretation as true. The political scientist L. David Raub conducted a poll of 72 leading quantum cosmologists and other quantum field theorists regarding their view on the truth of the Many-Worlds Interpretation. The possible answers were: (1) "Yes, I think the MWI is true"; (2) "No, I don't accept the MWI"; (3) "Maybe it's true, but I'm not yet convinced"; and (4) "I have no opinion one way or the other." If I remember correctly (I may be mistaken in the percentages), the results of the poll were: 58% said yes; 18% said no; 13% said maybe; and 11% said no opinion. In the "yes" category were Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, and Murray Gell-Mann, while the "no" answers included Roger Penrose…Something wrong in this picture?

Some have suggested that the universe's current acceleration of its expansion obviates the universe collapsing (and therefore obviates the Omega Point). But as Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner point out in "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999), there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse. There's a very good reason for that, because that is dependent on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe's collapse. As required by the Standard Model, the net baryon number was created in the early universe by baryogenesis via electroweak quantum tunneling. This necessarily forces the Higgs field to be in a vacuum state that is not its absolute vacuum, which is the cause of the positive cosmological constant. But if the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by the inverse of baryogenesis, again via electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model, as baryon number minus lepton number [B - L] is conserved), then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant and thereby forcing the universe to collapse. Moreover, this process would provide the ideal form of energy resource and rocket propulsion during the colonization phase of the universe.

Nor does this represent the destruction of the universe for the superintelligent societies near the final singularity, as their experiential time will be of infinite duration due to the universe's computational speed diverging toward infinity, i.e., a supertask of computation is completed before the end of proper time. And so for the societies near the Omega Point, their experienced time never ends.

Or... all particle phenomena are nothing more than wave phenomena, and it is the waves that 'actually exist';-)

My question is: Is it safe to say we're close to alone in this Universe as we haven't encountered any other A.I. leading to a singularity from another life form? I mean, from everything I know about the singularity, which is just through readings and videos, it seems that the singularity will eventually end up being a Universal event, where the knowledge is so vast that it affects the Universe itself? So either Nick Bostrom's take on the Fermi Paradox is true, and or maybe the A.I. singularity has happened and his simulation argument is true. It can be argued we're either close to unique in this Universe, or a universal singularity has happened, and the reason we're not affected by it right now, is because we're not part of the original universe in which it took place Or universes. A singularity may happen in this Universe, giving rise to another simulated Universe were another singularity will occur. Hmm…

Personally, I'm going to stick with Leslie Ballentine's healthy conservatism together with an Isham's book-motivated scepticism about the microscopic 'reality' and 'existence' of any classical concepts unless and until there is some concrete evidence to favour many-worlds or something like it. Wow, Tipler’s all over the place, full of logical leaps and astounding conclusions. Too much of the Space Nutter "the species is doomed" nonsense. Evolution is still happening, there won't be anything remotely resembling us in a million years, never mind a billion. Just shows that past a certain age, the human brain is just Swiss Cheese...Let the old mumble to themselves, let's read some real physics book please!

Stephen Hawking, Good Luck, 1942 - 2018

"Whereas the rest of the animals were looking downwards at the ground,  he gave humans a raised face and ordered them to look toward the skies and lift up their erect head to the stars."

In "Metamorphoses" by Ovid

When Dr. Hawking's body started to fail him he said that one of the things he was challenged with was being unable to work out his formulas on a blackboard. He had to do them in his head instead.'fancy graphics and technology'? He was a physicist and mathematician. He had his brain. Very few of us can conceive of what that would be like.

I am humbled when I think of what this incredible human being achieved in his brief moment in time. He did not let the adversity of his infirmity detract from an incredible mind. He used his static position to explore the universe and bring the infinity of potential scientific knowledge to us mere mortals. He leaves an amazing legacy for the scientists of the future. And he showed that whatever comes our way, we all have something amazing to offer. As much as I beginning to admire Dr. Neil De Grasse Tyson (Saw Stephen Hawking on " Star Talk " with Neil Degrasse Tyson couple of weeks ago, the professor was very sharp and very informative), Dr. Hawking was one of the modern epitomes of the Theoretical Physicist (the other one is Roger Penrose). Hawking definitely believed his disability helped him mentally picture abstract ideas. How incredible to live to the age he did and what an extraordinary life. His cameo performances in the "Big Bang Theory" showed his sense of humour and took him to a younger generation of whom my daughters and son were one of them. Talking about multi-dimensional universes took the theory into possibilities rather than the pseudo-science it had always been dismissed as such. He was a definition of genius yet in his own universe he was a pupil looking curiously at the great design of the universe till the end of his last breath. It was curiosity to find reason behind a marvel that prompted him to go deep in sea of knowledge. All of his body was still as statue except upper important organ of human body that as his brain which gave us new dimensions, views and secrets of the universe, nature and stars!!!! But what makes Hawking a magician is a rare quality of him to dive in this universe which he has explored with the masses!!! He is solely responsible figure in modern times to bring science and especially cosmology to us! During the 80's people would buy and put "The Brief History of Time" in the home library without understanding; just to show-off that they did read Hawking! He was such genius who has made special space for science in the houses. Along with this, how can we forget to discuss his work which is a classic in itself? Even the name of his PhD thesis shows his mastery over a difficult questions of his time which is "the properties of expanding universe". Later on there was not a subject on cosmology that was left behind by Hawking like birth and death of black holes, possibilities beyond black holes, on the death and origin of our universe! Like millions of minds Hawking was also responsible to increase my interest in science through his famous discovery channel documentaries on questions of the universe titled as "Into the universe with Stephen Hawking". Today that man has died. And I am happy with this life who had given him and us such beautiful brain to shape us.

Everyone has the capability to find something in life that's worth living for. That doesn't mean people who don't are somehow weaker, or that they are failing, just that they have unfortunately been unable to find that thing. I my view, love is the thing that makes life always worth living, and I don't believe at all it was Hawking's exceptional mind that made life worth living. I think it was his exceptional love for science and the fact that he was still able to live for this love that meant his life continued to be one that is worthwhile. Love is not something that is inaccessible to those of us who are normal or not exceptional, love is something anyone can find in a myriad of different ways, but at the same time it can of course be nigh on impossible to see through the said despair. So unfortunately, not everyone finds a reason to live, but I still believe it means anyone can.

A personal note for what's worth. Hawking was one of the persons that made me believe there's God, as impossible as it may seem coming from an atheist Theoretical Physicist. He made me believe there's no way atheism stands up to any kind of scrutiny. Relativity demonstrates how space and time are observation dependent. Quantum mechanics demonstrates how our universe (a concrete noun) is built by abstract nouns. Abstract nouns are ideas and ideas don't "exist" without some thinker that is thinking of them. Every particle in the standard model, regardless of whether they are virtual or real particles are abstract nouns. This can be demonstrated by the double slit experiments. These particles are statements of probability until the observer changes their state of probability into a state of actuality. This implies that if we could eliminate all observers there won't be an actual universe. Obviously we cannot demonstrate that but atheism is based on the philosophical monism of materialism. Materialism cannot stand without local realism, non-local realism or naive realism being tenable. The violation of Bell's inequality renders local realism untenable and we, no doubt, know the rest. Religious believers have the satisfaction of thinking that their consciousness will be around to see themselves proven correct. Atheists believe that Stephen Hawking's consciousness is in the same place it was before he was conceived. Non-existence. That belief holds nothing to fear. There were nearly 14 billion years before he popped into existence, made the world a better place and increased our understanding of the universe. To each his or her own. 

It's amazing how a death of someone you don't know and have never met can still hit you. The guy was amazing in so many different ways. He understood things in a way most of us never will. Where many people would have given up on life battling those illnesses, Hawking continued on and adapted to continue learning and finding out new things. And among all this he still had the time and kindness to contribute to things like "The Big Bang Theory" on a few occasions where we've seen some fantastic humour from him.

How long until he is again "among" us...?

1. 9 years to track down and debate all of the greatest minds from the dawn of time;
2. 9 months of first hand studies on black holes, stellar phenomena, dark matter, worm holes, time travel, parallel dimensions, and the sub-subatomic intricacies of the multiverse;
3. 1 month cataloging alien civilizations that may try to wipe out humanity and sabotaging their efforts;
4. 1 month to locate the supreme AI in our galaxy, subdue it, make it his pet and name it Ezrium, and reconfigure it to prevent an Earth based AI from destroying all of the carbon units; 
5. 10 days to write his new book "The Mysteries of Other Side. I was wrong, so what?"; 
6. 10 days to debug the human genome, upgrade it and design a new corporeal biological domicile for his return;
7. 9 days to rest, relax, reflect and drink copious amounts of space beer on the sun drenched beaches of New Paleokastritsa which orbits the distant star Tau Ceti; 
8. 90 hours to study ancient Vedic knowledge, improve it, break the law of death and return to the land of the living.

I'd say RIP but I think he’ll not be resting but questioning and challenging. Good luck over in spacetime.

NB: In 2016 I had the fortune to be able to get my hands on his Reith Lectures. What a frigging book!