2026-01-17

The Gospel of John Shaped by Greek-Judean Philosophy and the God Dionysus

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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john philo dionysus.001 1024x453
Many have written about the influences of Philo and the god Dionysus on the Gospel of John, but for extensive detail and placing it in the broader context it is hard to surpass Julius Grill.

Anyone interested in the Gospel of John and its

  • strong themes of the god Dionysus on Jesus
  • indebtedness to Philo’s discussion of the Logos/Word
  • closely related Persian, Buddhist and Hindu concepts
  • very different Jesus from that of the synoptic gospels
  • and analysis of why the gospel was written

will find something of note in the two volumes on the Fourth Evangelist by Julius Grill — now “translated” from the German. I was alerted to Grill’s study by Robert Vipper who wrote:

A number of studies in Gospel criticism (particularly noteworthy is the work of Grill: Untersuchungen ϋber die Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums [=Studies on the Origin of the Fourth Gospel], 1908 and 1924) established the fact of the late origin of these works and their dependence on religious-philosophical currents in the literature of the 2nd century. (Vipper, 120 – translation, my bolding)

But a warning! I said that I “translated” Grill’s study. It might almost be better to say that I have “transcribed” it from the German. My initial motivation was to have a copy for my personal use only. I did not expect to make it public at the time. In a strenuous effort to avoid the AI translator from creative whims when translating, I set the parameters so strict that the result reads more like a word-for-word transposition from German to English. This can make it a tiring read. But for what it’s worth, here it is for anyone interested enough to make the effort.

The English language files are available at  Julius GRILL – Origin of the Gospel of John Translated (see the right margin for this and other translation links).

  • Vipper, Robert Iu. Rim i rannee khristianstvo
    [Rome and Early Christianity]. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1954.

2026-01-15

Comment on Gabriele Boccaccini’s Discussion about Nina Livesey and Paul’s Letters

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Boccaccini 243x300
Gabriele Boccaccini

Here I am making a few responses to Professor Gabriele Boccaccini’s discussion that I translated — see the previouso post. (Note: I did not make the transcription — that was supplied by the homesite of the video, and it was machine generated. I used AI to assist in translating it.)

The first point of note was the following:

7:15
 Nina Livesey is a colleague from Rome. Her book, however, needs to be clarified somewhat, because it does not actually claim outright that Paul did not exist. She presents a fairly nuanced version of this issue.

Yes indeed.

Boccaccini, as did Livesey herself, explained to audiences what has gone before in the scholarship. It’s a bit like knowing one’s history. To be ignorant of history is to remain forever a child, someone said. To contribute meaningfully to a discussion it is important to take a little time to listen to what has been said before one chimes in with new ideas. . . .

8:46
 When one wants to assess the seriousness of certain arguments, one must place them within a line of discussion. Scholarly hypotheses do not arise because one of us wakes up one morning and suddenly produces some radical novelty.

Another point worth keeping in mind . . .

28:04
 What I would also like to clarify is that there was never a single, unified Christianity that later fractured. Such a monolithic religion never existed

Yet it seems to me that many scholars have written forgetting this point. This arises from the assumption that the gospels are the product of an oral tradition that began with historical events, and that passed on those historical events, and that gospel authors were keen to pick up those traditions and with pious intent (and exaggerations) record them for posterity. Paul’s letters, it is assumed, were related in some way to the group behind that oral tradition. That is all assumption. It is based on another assumption — that the gospels represent sincere attempts to portray a historical figure.

Readers impatient to get to the nitty gritty of Boccaccini’s discussion of Livesey’s thesis, begin here . . . .

34:01
 This brings us, at least in part, to the substance of Nina Livesey’s book.

Boccaccini’s difficulties with dating Paul’s letters to the second century are set out in this slide:

slide5aHere I think Boccaccini has missed a key point. Livesey is asking us to consider the scenario where the letters did not exist singly prior to their inclusion in a corpus. No. The letters were written from the beginning to be part of a corpus. That answers B’s first criticism above.

On the second point, I wonder if B is assuming that the present state of the letters is the same as their original state. I think there is much evidence for rival theological groups tampering and altering the letters after they were presented by Marcion. So I think that answers B’s second difficulty.

The third point (Hellenistic origin should be better understood as “Greek/gentile origin” to avoid confusion with “the Hellenistic period”) is pointing to what is known as the “new perspective” on Paul. Further on in the discussion B explains his point when he introduces the last slide (1:41:54) in his presentation: he argues that some “recent” scholarship argues for the “Jewishness” of Paul and that such a view of Paul is best explained as a first century phenomenon. B argues that the NP on Paul is a good explanation for how the “Jesus movement” developed, how it shifted from Jewishness to something more open. My response is that the singular “Jesus movement” is an assumption: see 28:04 above, the same point B himself made.

Two responses: 1. the New Perspective on Paul (that he was more Jewish in his thinking than generally realized) is a hypothesis, and interpretation, and not a fact. It is open to revision or even being discarded; 2. If the NP proves to be valid, it may mean little more in the end than that Marcionism needs to be understood with more nuance. NP is a hypothesis and not a fact that must be weighed in assessing a date for the letters.

B in the following is continuing with his assumption that the letters existed singly prior to being found in a corpus:

38:13
 Why is Paul transmitted as a corpus? Obviously, transmitting an author as a corpus has the function of homogenizing the author’s thought.

and again,

1:12:59
 Paul cannot be transmitted as a single, isolated letter; Paul must always be seen as a corpus. The function of the corpus is always to homogenize. .

Letters were known to be published as a corpus. Pliny the Younger’s letters were published as such. So were Seneca’s as Livesey, I think, points out. I am not sure that there is any reason to think that the original corpus contained contradictions that needing “homogenizing”.

39:51
Thus, if Marcion and later the Church Fathers attribute a corpus of writings to a particular author, this means that the author was already famous.

40:06
. . . knowledge of Paul must predate the moment when the corpus itself is formed—pushing us back to the beginning of the second century or even earlier.

Literature has had a history of being attributed to hitherto unknown or at least relatively unknown persons who thereby take on a new persona and become famous. See my comment at https://vridar.org/2026/01/12/nina-livesey-and-the-authenticity-of-pauls-letters-a-critical-response/#comment-358607. Robert Vipper wrote in his work on the origin of the Christian literature:

How this book came into the hands of Marcion, whence the legend of the apostle Paul and the very name Paul arose—these questions will hardly ever be resolved. Even for the contemporaries of the publication of the “Epistles” this was a difficult riddle; 25-30 years after their appearance the author of the “Acts of the Apostles” could advance on the question of the personality and activity of the apostle Paul only hypotheses, conjectures, combinations. Judging by how highly Marcion valued the collection of letters of the apostle Paul, one may suppose that he believed both in the real existence of the apostle himself and in the work accomplished by him. But another supposition is also possible: Marcion, a native of Pontic Sinope, may have had memories of a remarkable Asia Minor organizer and preacher named Paul, into whose mouth the compiler of the “Epistles” (whether Marcion himself or someone else from his school) placed his own thoughts, his own system of doctrine, in the same way that Plato set forth the entire rich content of his philosophy—the proof of the immortality of the soul, the hymn to universal Eros, the teaching of the best state—through the person of a single, in his eyes incomparable, holy, divine teacher, Socrates. (p. 186 translation)

Back to B:

57:50
. . . What seems most paradoxical to me is that some of these texts, which do not fit naturally into the second century, reproduce concepts and ideas that run counter to the very purpose of forming the corpus—ideas that go against Marcionite theology . . .

. . .

1:24:01
 At least some of the material in these letters gives good, well-founded reasons for thinking it comes from the first century,

1:24:07
 because it reflects that kind of debate and discussion.

I think this is somewhat circular. Is it on the basis of other NT documents whose dates are also questionable that it is believed particular topics were of interest in the first century? We know from Justin Martyr, for example, that the question of circumcision was indeed a hot topic in the middle of the second century. Paul’s letters are topical for this time. See also Hermann Detering’s works for more examples.

2:08:09
Finally, regarding Acts: it is unlikely to be a simple anti-Marcionite reaction.

2:12:00
 Acts presents a very Jewish Paul—something difficult for a second-century author aligned with later church positions.

2:13:09
 No one invents something that causes embarrassment.

On the contrary, if I recollect correctly, a good number of scholars have pointed to Acts being a catholiczing work, a narrative that aimed to “homogenize” different Christian sects or groupings, into one faith. That’s not a “simple anti-Marcionite reaction”; it is a constructive and judicious reaction. A Marcionite figure was embraced, but he had some changes in his clothes. No-one invents embarrassments for oneself, but readers can often misjudge what was written and prematurely dismiss it as if the writer was him/herself in knots.

2026-01-12

Nina Livesey and the Authenticity of Paul’s Letters: A Critical Response

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Here is an English translation of the transcript of Professor Boccaccini discussing the main idea of Nina Livesey’s book, The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. [I took the machine-generated transcript from the Ora Sapere! site for translation.]

I have included images and translations of Boccaccini’s slides in his presentation. —

Watch on the Youtube site for comments and links to related videos, including others programs in the Ora Sapere! series.

Translated transcript

0:00
 [Music] Today I am able to understand it and to admit that order can arise from chance, and that the first step is to bring the human being back to the center.

0:15
 Not predestined, but imperfect products of events and of chemical infatuations.

0:24
 The needles hidden in a straw man are found more easily if you burn him with a torch; the burst of flame washes over my face, and you teach me light, hope, and also reason, which is made of science—and I can no longer live without it.

0:41
 [Music]

0:49
 [Applause] [Music]

0:56
 [Applause] [Music] When I have a mystical crisis at fifty-five,
I hope you come to arrest me. I will have a mystical crisis at fifty-five; I hope you come to arrest me. I will have a mystical crisis at fifty-five, from this moment on.

1:47
 And here we are. So—[Music]

1:53
 A few months ago a book was published, a book by the academic Nina Livesey and this book, let’s say, put forward a thesis that caused quite a stir:

2:12
 the idea that Paul—indeed, the author of the Pauline letters according to traditional attribution—might actually be a non-historical figure.

2:25
 When the book came out, I avoided doing a live broadcast immediately after finishing it, because, given the topic and the nature of the proposal, I decided to look for an expert—with a capital “E”—to deal with the issue.

2:44
 And finally the moment has come when we have that expert with a capital “E.” So I would like to welcome Professor Gabriele Boccaccini, author of numerous books and a leading expert on Second Temple Judaism, and, I’m told, also a specialist on Paul—so perfectly suited to the question we need to explore today.

3:07
 So, hello everyone. I am your Faber Lumière. Welcome to Al Lume della Ragione Show, the weekly appointment every Sunday at four o’clock, where we seek the truth starting from the evidence, to bring clarity to a sea of confusion.

3:28
 Episode 247. As usual, if you find the video interesting, remember to leave a like, share it, let me know in the comments, or join us on the server linked in the description and via the icon at the top right: gruppovismo3.0.eu, the site where you can find all my content and that of the rest of the group.

3:45
 I apologize for the long introduction. Professor, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself—who you are, what you do?

3:59
 First of all, I greet everyone who is connected, and those who will connect in the future by watching this video. I thank you for the invitation and for the opportunity to talk a little about the status quaestionis, as we say in technical terms—that is, what scholars are discussing, including Nina Livesey, and what the issues are that are currently under scholarly debate.

4:33
 I am essentially a specialist in Second Temple Judaism and in Christian origins, including Paul, because I approach him from the standpoint of ancient Jewish tradition.

4:45
 For me, Christianity is one of the apocalyptic and messianic movements that arose within Second Temple Judaism. So I treat early Christianity in the same way that I treat the Dead Sea Scrolls, the works of Philo of Alexandria, or the works of Josephus—as one of the many manifestations of a Jewish world that was extremely diverse and very different from what we usually imagine.

5:12
 That is because we know Judaism mainly through the rabbinic reform, which comes later. I study Christian origins from this perspective.

5:24
 On this occasion, I was asked to clarify, at least a little, what the terms of the question are. I have also prepared a few small slides to give you an idea of how to situate this discussion within a debate that certainly did not begin today—a debate that has been going on for centuries.

5:52
 So I prepared a few short slides. Before we move on to them, however, I must confess—very culpably—that I forgot to offer a greeting and acknowledgement to Dr. Cuscito, whom I must thank for putting us in contact and who also sends his greetings. I’ve also made videos with him; he is always a very important presence.

6:18
 Okay. The second issue, before getting into the substance of the matter, is to clarify who “Lizzi” is. In these kinds of discussions, it is often difficult to keep track of the scholarly weight of the various positions.

6:46
 There are people who arrive at a hypothesis such as “Paul never even existed” in a completely arbitrary way—by guessing blindly, in the depths of ignorance, so to speak.

7:05
 As far as I know, this is not the case with Lizzi. Could you give your view on the level of scholarly credibility we are dealing with here?

7:15
 Nina Livesey is a colleague from Rome. Her book, however, needs to be clarified somewhat, because it does not actually claim outright that Paul did not exist. She presents a fairly nuanced version of this issue.

7:29
 It is a discussion of the Pauline letters, especially the Pauline corpus, and therefore also of the attribution of authorship.

7:51
 These are issues that need to be situated within a broader scholarly discussion. And the point you raise is very important, because many times theses are advanced in a rather amateurish way.

8:11
 Someone writes a text, and only later do we discover that they lack any academic background or scholarly credentials. That is not the case here.

8:25
 We are dealing with serious problems, and therefore with a debate that exists within the academic world and must be understood in its seriousness.

8:46
 When one wants to assess the seriousness of certain arguments, one must place them within a line of discussion. Scholarly hypotheses do not arise because one of us wakes up one morning and suddenly produces some radical novelty.

9:06
 That may be how things appear in the press, but it is not how scholarship actually works. There are questions, debates, and sustained investigations, and one must go back to the roots.

9:23
 That is why I am happy to come here and explain how the work of Livesey came into being—it did not spring up like a mushroom out of nowhere. These issues have been under discussion for at least two centuries.

9:44
 Each scholar adds a small new tile to the structure that makes up this long conversation, which continues within the scholarly community, welcoming different voices and contributions.

9:56
 So we are not talking about a conspiracy theory; we are talking about a serious hypothesis that deserves discussion. Let us deal with serious matters and talk about how these problems arose.

10:15
 As I said, if you show the first slide, we arrive at the historical-critical research you mentioned.

slide1a10:23
 We must understand that historical research essentially emerged at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. We have to go back a bit and study, because it arose in a religious context and was therefore influenced by the religious paradigms of the time.

10:50
 In the first slide, we see that two elements inherited from religious tradition had long been treated almost as dogmas—not in a religious sense, but in an interpretive one—and they became the starting point for scholarly reflection.

11:16
 First: Paul’s letters form a corpus, that is, a coherent collection of works by a refined first-century theologian, the historical Paul, marking Christianity’s emancipation from Judaism.

11:42
 The unifying feature of the corpus was its anti-Jewish element: Paul was understood as the theologian who separated Christianity from Judaism. This was taken for granted by everyone, Jewish and Christian alike.

11:57
 The second point was that the letters of Paul formed a single unit: the thirteen letters attributed to Paul (originally fourteen, since Hebrews was included until the sixth century, before that attribution was abandoned).

12:20
 These thirteen letters were all considered to be written by Paul himself, and that Paul was identified with the Paul described in the Acts of the Apostles.

12:34
These were the two “dogmas,” the two fixed points of early scholarship.

12:46
 If you move to the second slide, you can see—and feel free to interrupt me with questions at any moment to keep the discussion lively.

slide2a13:00
 I am not giving a full lecture; I am using just a few slides to establish some fixed points.

13:06
 The second point is that in the nineteenth century historical research began to emancipate itself from religious tradition, gaining autonomy and no longer being strictly controlled by religious institutions or churches.

13:30
It began to question some certainties—not so much the theological homogeneity of the Pauline letters, but rather the question of authorship. Continue reading “Nina Livesey and the Authenticity of Paul’s Letters: A Critical Response”