933326087

This is a reply to turtonm who last posted in my "George Washington was a believer" thread in the Separation of Church and State Forum before the thread was cancelled.

turtonm said:

"Wavoka, the Paiute messiah, was alleged to have flown in a horse over the assembled Indian chiefs who led the Ghost Dance rebellion."

"Despite proved ineffectiveness over and over again, many Africans continued to believe in magic water that would stop bullets, in revolts spread across regions and years."

"In short, there is no reason to believe that the apostles' beliefs were anything other than genuine, and that Jesus, even if he existed in anything like the gospel stories, was anything other than a human like me. There isn't any contradiction in those two lines."

My Reply:

What I don't understand is why you believe the Apostles existed, but speak of Jesus in terms of "if he existed at all." The same types of evidence that would be cited to show the Apostles existed are cited to show Christ existed. Let me explain...

Manuscripts from the 1st-3rd centures supposedly written by people who claimed to have known the Apostles, or known someone who knew them, etc. are cited to show their existence.

These very accounts say that the Apostles knew Christ, speak of his mom, etc. If you don't question the authors of these documents when they say they knew the Apostles, etc. why do you question what they say about the Apostles? A liar is a liar.

By the time the Apostles were martyred the gospel accounts had been written, or at the very least were in verbal form, spoken amongst Christians, and being drafted. There is no record that the Apostles disputed anyone's belief that they knew Christ. John wrote that Christ had "come in the flesh" (1 John 4:2). James claimed to be Jesus' brother. Paul spoke of Jesus being killed, rising again, etc.

I guess my point is this. You say there is no reason to believe the Apostles were not sincere... but the facts seem to show they sincerely believed and taught that Jesus Christ had lived with them, taught them, and that they had seen him ressurected.

So then, I guess you believe the Apostles were sincerely mistaken in believing and teaching that they had known Christ? I guess you also believe they were sincerely mistaken in thinking they had witnessed someone coming back from the dead? Or were the early Church Fathers simply mistaken in believing the Apostles had told them that Christ existed and they had walked with him?


turtonm said:

"Paul's references to Jesus have been extensively discussed in numerous threads in BC&A. Earl D is quite right. The silences are not merely limited to a lack of knowledge about Jesus' life as we know it from the 50 or so gospels, it also contains none of Jesus' words; whenever Paul makes a theological point, he leans on the OT. That to me is even more damning. It is clear that in Paul's time Jesus' sayings had not yet been invented."

My Reply:
Paul does refer to Jesus' sayings. He refers to Christ's teaching on adultery. Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:

"To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer...."

Obviously Paul is refering to what Christ taught as recorded in Mark 10:9-12. Christ said, "Let man not separate what God has joined," When the disciples asked for an explaination he said, "if a women divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." So Christ taught (said) that separation should not happen... but if it does, separation made complete by remarriage is the sin of adultery.

Paul says that "the Lord" (Jesus) taught (said) essentially that a wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. That is exactly the concept Christ teaches in Mark. Then Paul continues and gives instructions for if a Christian was already married to an unbeliever when he/she was converted essentially saying, "I say this, Jesus didn't teach on the subject this specifically." Sure enough, such instructions aren't found in the sayings of Jesus (the gospels).

So clearly Paul had knowledge of what Jesus had said and hadn't said concerning specific theological teachings. Your contention that "it is clear that in Paul's time Jesus' sayings had not yet been invented" can't be true. Rather, it is clear that Paul was aware of Jesus' teachings to the extent that he knew exactly how far Jesus had delved into the Christian principles surrounding divorce... and at what point Jesus had left that topic.


Wouldn't it be safe to assume the reason Paul doesn't mention Jesus' birthplace and other details of his life and teachings that the Gospels bring us is because Paul already knew that that the sayings of Jesus were written and circulated among the Christians (or at least being taught orally). Paul already knew that the Gospel accounts were available to his students, and so Paul moved on to more specific instructions on the Christian life... instuctions the Lord didn't go into in his brief ministry.

Paul taught about baptisms, the Lord's supper, etc. He wrote about specific temptations and problems for the areas he was writing to (the Corinthian sexual imorality problems, the Thessalonian gosip/laziness problems, etc). Paul simply didn't reinvent the wheel with what Christ had already taught. Paul's goal (and the other authors of NT Scriptures) wasn't to reinvent the wheel, but rather to prove to Jews from their OT that Jesus was the Christ, and to give detailed instructions to new Greek believers.

What say you?

Ion

I am interjecting with my opinion in this follow-up of a previous debate.
Witnessing these, are religiously being attributed to Apostles.
The 'Apostles' are people unknown to history who didn't write dated manuscripts contemporary with the 'Jesus' figure, corroborating each other in detail, like dated papyrus Greek manuscripts from the same era are:
the "Apostles''s witnessing" is made of later, inconsistent claims.
Those 'teachings'were part of the general culture floating in the air at that time in Canaan, and are now religiously attributed to one 'Jesus'.

Vorkosigan

933:

I am not saying Jesus did not exist. I am saying that the Jesus we have, and no doubt the Apostles we have, are later inventions. In other words, there was a preacher, who had followers, but the stories we have are basically later inventions, sayings in common circulation attributed to Jesus, and so on.

933 says:

• Paul does refer to Jesus' sayings. He refers to Christ's teaching on adultery. Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:
  
  "To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer...."
  
  Obviously Paul is refering to what Christ taught as recorded in Mark 10:9-12. Christ said, "Let man not separate what God has joined," When the disciples asked for an explaination he said, "if a women divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." So Christ taught (said) that separation should not happen... but if it does, separation made complete by remarriage is the sin of adultery.

Obviously, as you have missed here, Paul does not know of Jesus' teaching on the issue, because Paul clearly DISALLOWS divorce while Jesus ALLOWS divorce in certain circumstances (adultery). In any case, Paul does not cite the words of Jesus directly, he merely puts forth a definition. And one even more brutal and immoral than the one Jesus laid down.

I am glad you brought this here. You'll be getting skilled help in a moment, if I am not mistaken.

Paul simply didn't reinvent the wheel with what Christ had already taught.

Really? How do you interpret 1 Cor 7:15? Does Paul give permission for divorce in case of one's spouse is an unbeliever, or does this merely imply separation without divorce? And what was Jesus' teaching on this issue?

Michael

933326087

1 Cor. 7:15 clearly teaches that a Christian who's unbelieving spouse leaves him is not bound in that situation. Not bound to what? Not bound to having to chain physically kidnap the spouse and chain her to himself? No, of course not. The Christian isn't bound to the marriage. Obviously that means something... and the only thing I can see it meaning is that he is free to remarry.

To my knowledge Paul doesn't approach the topic of adultery as it relates to divorce in any of his letters. But that doesn't mean he wasn't aware of Christ did approach it. Separation and divorce have many sub-topics one can delve into (spousal physical abuse, spousal emotional abuse, spousal child abuse, etc.). It is silly to think every aspect of divorce would be addressed whenever any aspect of it was. There were times Christ spoke of divorced people and the fact that they shouldn't remarry when he didn't mention the adultery exception. There were times Christ did delve into the adultery exception. Paul simply doesn't delve into that in the letters we have from him.

On one thing you are clearly wrong. You say Paul disallows divorce, but Paul himself writes:

"To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife."

Paul isn't saying divorce isn't allowed. He is saying "mustn't happen" in the sense of strongly discouraging it. If the case were otherwise, then he would say, "But if she does, she must get back together with him." But Paul doesn't say that. He acknowledges there are exceptions in which the two people may remain separate... he simply doesn't mention the adultery exception to remarriage.

Similarly, Christ says in Mat. 19, "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate", but mentions a couple lines down that "anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." Just because Christ didn't mention the exception when he said "let man not separate" doesn't mean the exception doesn't exist. Other times Christ spoke of divorce he didn't mention the exception all together (Luke 16) but, again, that doesn't mean it didn't exist. He simply didn't go to that level of detail.

Paul essentially repeats what the Lord taught in Mark 10 (and to the level of detail there), commenting the parts Jesus approached with "the Lord says, not I" and commenting the more detailed parts with "I say, not the Lord". This shows Paul knew the sayings recorded in Mark while Paul was writing his letters. Again, Paul wrote to Gentiles and Jews to give details and specific instructions about the Christian lifestyle in a pagan culture and to prove from the OT that Jesus was the Christ... all while making efficient use of his papyrus by not reinventing the wheel. If we can say anything about the Pauline letters, we can say they were efficient and effectual.