Foundthelight,
Having read the suggested Thesis it is my opinion that none of the writers ever met or even heard of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man. Thus, that which is proffered by them hardly merits serious consideration.
A starting point for refuting their allegations lies in the fact that as early as AD 38, James, Peter and Thomas in Antioch, Asia Minor, founded the Church of Antioch. That church taught a doctrine that had a lot in common with the prevalent Gnostic teachings. The other stream of Christianity, called Pistic Christianity, taught that salvation could only be achieved by fate, and not by any other means. They were especially against the Gnostic claim that salvation could be achieved by knowledge alone.
In AD 64, Pistic Christianity began growing very fast: about the time Nero began throwing Christians to the lions in the arena. It was then that Roman courts offered Christians the opprotunity to denounce their religion and go free. The Pistics refused and thousands of them died for it.
Now the main factors separating Gnostics from orthodox Christians ( orthodox by today's delineations.) was the Pistic propagation that direct experience of God was impossible... if being the foundational mysticism of their beliefs. Their views of God and creation and ended with the person of the man, Jesus, now called Christ. They viewed the One (the whole God), which they called the "True God", as having a feminine part that was the Spirit. In accord, they also held that Jesus came from the "True God" and the Spirit to form the Trinity.
Those teaching are in direct contradiction of the Pauline Doctrine as set forth in the Epistle to the Romans. However, they do harmonize to a degree with the views presented in the Corinthian epistles. Based on this and a mountain of other evidence, it can be safely assumed that Paul was not the author of those epistles.
Having read the suggested Thesis it is my opinion that none of the writers ever met or even heard of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man. Thus, that which is proffered by them hardly merits serious consideration.
A starting point for refuting their allegations lies in the fact that as early as AD 38, James, Peter and Thomas in Antioch, Asia Minor, founded the Church of Antioch. That church taught a doctrine that had a lot in common with the prevalent Gnostic teachings. The other stream of Christianity, called Pistic Christianity, taught that salvation could only be achieved by fate, and not by any other means. They were especially against the Gnostic claim that salvation could be achieved by knowledge alone.
In AD 64, Pistic Christianity began growing very fast: about the time Nero began throwing Christians to the lions in the arena. It was then that Roman courts offered Christians the opprotunity to denounce their religion and go free. The Pistics refused and thousands of them died for it.
Now the main factors separating Gnostics from orthodox Christians ( orthodox by today's delineations.) was the Pistic propagation that direct experience of God was impossible... if being the foundational mysticism of their beliefs. Their views of God and creation and ended with the person of the man, Jesus, now called Christ. They viewed the One (the whole God), which they called the "True God", as having a feminine part that was the Spirit. In accord, they also held that Jesus came from the "True God" and the Spirit to form the Trinity.
Those teaching are in direct contradiction of the Pauline Doctrine as set forth in the Epistle to the Romans. However, they do harmonize to a degree with the views presented in the Corinthian epistles. Based on this and a mountain of other evidence, it can be safely assumed that Paul was not the author of those epistles.
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