Doug Shaver

Paul? Humility?

You can't be serious.

Doug Shaver

As best I can figure, his interpretation rests on nothing more than the supposition that Paul meant just he wrote, more or less. I don't see what's so strange about that interpretation.

The conventional interpretation rests on a supposition that the Jesus about whom Paul was writing was the same Jesus about whom the gospel authors were writing. That interpretation may or may not be strange, but it does seem to lack a bit of parsimony compared with Earl's.

ApostateAbe

I am not saying that Paul was actually humble (he couldn't possibly have been), but he seemingly always used that language. I sat down, read Paul, that is what I noticed, and I cited the evidence, too.Well, maybe you would be willing to explain. I gave my explanation already, but I will elaborate. There are two periods of time separated by only one instant of time. That instant of time is "until Christ came." On the prior side, that was before Christ. On the after side, that is "now," the time of faith, and the time of Jesus’ coming to earth. Doherty somehow believes that the "time of faith" is "not the time of Jesus’ coming to earth and performing his acts of salvation," and that seems plainly contrary to what the passage actually says. If you agree with Doherty, then please explain. Thanks.

Solo

Just out of curiosity, Abe: when Paul says that "not I but the Lord" (ouk egw all'ho kyrios) charges the Corintians should do such-and-such, it is still Paul who physically writes or dictates the letter, right ? And when he says that God revealed his son in him (en emoi), he means to convey that he believes he has some discrete election and commission from God, one other people do not have, correct ? And one naturally that other "men" would not (by God) be allowed to question. Right ? And when he says "but we have the mind of Christ" (hemeis de noun Christou echomen) whom he calls 'Lord" against all religious custom, he would be perceived as arrogant, and deserving, if not a brick in the face, then at least good whopping, by most Jewish folks. Am I right ? Is that how you see his humility (to God and hoity-toity to men) ?

Jiri

ApostateAbe

Just out of curiosity, Abe: when Paul says that "not I but the Lord" (ouk egw all'ho kyrios) charges the Corintians should do such-and-such, it is still Paul who physically writes or dictates the letter, right ?

Yep. Paul, a scoundrel, doesn't want to explicitly seem like he is the one making the rules. He wanted to write like he was simply a messenger of the commands of Jesus. Jesus, in probability, really did give such a command, as seen in Mark 10.

And when he says that God revealed his son in him (en emoi), he means to convey that he believes he has some discrete election and commission from God, one other people do not have, correct ?

Yes, but Paul never seems to be exclusive with his role of apostleship or direct appointment from Jesus, preferring to use the word, "we," instead of, "I." And, he certainly did not want the authority of his ministry to be dependent on his rivals, the direct disciples of Jesus and their acolytes. It is an inherently arrogant thing to propose that you are commissioned by God to carry out His will, and perhaps that is why Paul always uses the most smarmy and humble language to say so.

And one naturally that other "men" would not (by God) be allowed to question. Right ?

Sorry, I don't know what passage you are referring to.

And when he says "but we have the mind of Christ" (hemeis de noun Christou echomen) whom he calls 'Lord" against all religious custom, he would be perceived as arrogant, and deserving, if not a brick in the face, then at least good whopping, by most Jewish folks. Am I right ?

I don't know quite enough about either the cultures of Greeks nor Jews, nor the best interpretation of that phrase, in order to best make such a judgment, which would have to rest on a few subtleties, though you could be right. I think it may be relevant that the target audience is Christians, not Jews, and Paul uses the word, "we" (ἡμεῖς), not "I," which means that Paul is claiming no authority over his audience.

Solo

This may be a little disingenuous: look e.g. at the interoperability of the "I" and the (royal) "we" in 2 Co 10:7-9. The same in Gal 1:8-9. There is no "Christ" party at Corinth or elsewhere; it's Paul's party and it's Paul's nomenclature.


Try Gal 5:10 (I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine; and he who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.) Not exactly an idea that describes a dedicated team player, wouldn't you say ?

Jiri

ApostateAbe

Maybe I still don't quite understand what you mean, and I either don't follow or don't see the relevance of the point about the interoperability of I and we in 2 Co 10:7-9, but Paul seems to equate his own position with that of Christ, which I take to be consistent with either interpretation of Romans 16:25. Here are those passages, and I will bold the relevant phrases.

2 Co 10:7-9
⁷Look at what is before your eyes. If you are confident that you belong to Christ, remind yourself of this, that just as you belong to Christ, so also do we. ⁸Now, even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. ⁹I do not want to seem as though I am trying to frighten you with my letters.

Gal 1:6-9
⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! ⁹As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!

Indeed. Humility seems to almost always fall by the wayside when fighting one's rivals, and there seems to be no way around that. You can either be humble and submit to their disagreeable policies, or you can stand your ground, fight back and shed the false pretenses of humility. Paul wanted to seem humble, but only for the purpose of gaining ground, not for losing it.

Solo

You claimed that Paul's use of "we" was not a claim of personal authority over his flock. I think that is a position difficult to sustain given the verses I gave you. Paul believed that the following he gathered validated him as an apostle. When he says "we" in the normative rulings and pronouncements, he clearly means "I and those who follow me". By the "interoperability" of "I" and "we" I simply meant he used the singular and plural interchangeably.


Best,
Jiri

ApostateAbe

To a limit, I agree. If you deconstruct what Paul is saying, then the underlying arrogance is more-or-less apparent. When he uses the word, "we," he really does mean, "I." I already fully acknowledge that Paul could not possibly be truly humble. I think the most relevant issue is the language of Paul that is explicitly on the surface. That pattern of language is what helps us decide what Paul intended for his readers with the phrase, "my gospel and proclamation of Jesus Christ." By using the word "we" in statements that would connote authority and "I" in statements that would express humility, Paul is following the pattern seen all throughout his letters. Try like I did and read through Paul. For example, the discussion is on a passage in 2 Corinthians 10. Here is the whole of that chapter. This is Paul when he is on the defensive!

2 Cor 10

I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I am away!— I ask that when I am present I need not show boldness by daring to oppose those who think we are acting according to human standards. Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. We are ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete.

Look at what is before your eyes. If you are confident that you belong to Christ, remind yourself of this, that just as you belong to Christ, so also do we. Now, even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem as though I am trying to frighten you with my letters. For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.’ Let such people understand that what we say by letter when absent, we will also do when present.

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another, and compare themselves with one another, they do not show good sense. We, however, will not boast beyond limits, but will keep within the field that God has assigned to us, to reach out even as far as you. For we were not overstepping our limits when we reached you; we were the first to come all the way to you with the good news of Christ. We do not boast beyond limits, that is, in the labours of others; but our hope is that, as your faith increases, our sphere of action among you may be greatly enlarged, so that we may proclaim the good news in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in someone else’s sphere of action. ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ For it is not those who commend themselves that are approved, but those whom the Lord commends.

EarlDoherty

Abe, your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. I have in no way backed off from my previous position. The ambiguity, if you had read me with any degree of care, applies to the phrase wording per se. “to kerygma Iesou Xristou” does indeed possess an ambiguity—otherwise we wouldn’t be here discussing what it means. Taken by itself it can be either an objective or possessive genitive. My contention, which I continue to hold and to which my posting was dedicated, is that when taken in context the phrase can only have an objective meaning, and I gave you arguments to support that. Ergo, no concessions, I’m afraid.

I’m afraid, too, that I have to question your contention of Pauline humility. Does 1 Cor. 11 sound humble to you? He admits he is no orator, but he possesses the “full truth”, “the truth of Christ is in me,” to such an unquestionable extent that any other apostles who “chance to put their vaunted apostleship on the same level as ours” are “sham-apostles, crooked in all their practices, masquerading as apostles of Christ.” He goes on to suggest they are agents of Satan who will meet the end their deeds deserve. In any case, I am not claiming that Paul could not declare himself to be humble, or bring himself to “boast” (12:1) when he is, poor him, only ‘forced’ to do so. The point is, you do not explain how no early epistle writer ever speaks in any clear way about a preaching Jesus. Scrambling around that glaring omission, as you’ve tried to do, does not eliminate it or its perplexity. You admit:

First of all, the mythicist explanation of 1 Cor. 11:23f is not “peculiar” to me, it has been advanced in one form or another for over a century. Also, that passage is not about Jesus preaching, in any sense that apostolic preachers like Paul could be said to be in succession with it, or following in its footsteps. It is a scene Paul recounts (and note that no mention is made of attending human disciples, or an identifiable time or place--please don't fall into the common trap of translating the "delivered up" as "betrayed" or "arrested" which is a Gospel imposition), and we have to analyze the nature of that scene. As for the two “words of the Lord” which historicists regularly (and desperately) appeal to, they are extremely slim pickings when one considers how much the early writers are silent on any of the great ethical teachings in the Gospels, or on words of Jesus pertaining to the great debates that were tearing apart the early church; and anyway, mainstream scholars have their own common interpretation of them, which is that they are messages Paul believes he has received directly from Christ in heaven, not through oral tradition about words spoken on earth. So this is no ad hoc explanation cooked up by mythicists. I myself have added analyses of those passages which indicates that this explanation is indeed the correct one. Romans 15:8 is “Christ has become a servant of the Jewish people.” Most translations render it in its proper present/perfect sense, indicating that Paul is not speaking of a ministry in the past, but of the spiritual Jesus’ activities in the world in the present time, through spiritual channels.

I mention these details which you brought up to show how you misrepresent the relationship between the mythicist theory and traditional historicism. Earlier in this (or another related) thread, you brought up the same tired old list of passages, maybe half a dozen or so in all, that are regularly produced as ‘proof’ or support for the historicist position. What you and others do not realize, let alone acknowledge, is that they are by any measure insufficient. The mythicist case rests on a vast number of observations about the early documentary record, all of which fit into a comprehensive and mutually-supporting interpretation that early Christianity as represented by such as Paul knew of no historical Jesus. It is a picture that equally fits into the picture of the non-Christian salvation religions of the day (there are some differences, of course, the Christ sect was not without its own particular features since it grew partly out of a Jewish milieu). Within that picture, there happen to be found a few references which could be interpreted in an historicist direction, and you’ve itemized them. But the point is, they are far from conclusive, because they can also be interpreted in a non-historicist direction.

Which side is being ad hoc? When you understand the mythicist case (and that, of course, requires that you actually study it), it becomes clear that if those handful of seemingly ambiguous passages can fit into mythicism, then there is nothing ad hoc about it. They become a supportive part of the larger picture. When you further see that the claims attached by historicists to those passages do so through questionable or even fallacious argumentation, it’s easy to recognize that the ad hoc fault lies on the historicist side. Your “brother of the Lord” is a good example. 99% of the use of the term “brother” in the epistles refers to Christ believers, not siblings, yet it is adamantly claimed that “brother of the Lord” has to mean sibling of Jesus. That may convince those who want to be convinced, but it certainly doesn’t cut it in the field of dispassionate argument. Those “words of the Lord” I just mentioned are rejected as words of Jesus on earth even by a substantial body of mainstream scholars. 1 Cor. 11:23 opens by saying that Paul got those words of Jesus “from the Lord himself,” which is a clear reference to personal revelation, not to oral tradition. The fact that people like you refuse to accept this does not lessen the force of Paul’s statement and the support it gives to a mythicist application. Romans 1:3 with its “of David’s seed” clearly follows verse 2 which identifies this information as being derived from the gospel of God about his Son as found in the prophets, which at the very least undermines any claim that this feature is being applied to a recent Jesus of Nazareth who should have had his own traditions about being a human descendant from David. You only have to scratch the surface of each one in your list of appeals to realize that there are compromising problems with every one of them when trying to apply them to an historical Jesus. (The only exception to that is 1 Thess. 2:15-16, and there again, mainstream critical scholarship cooperates by dismissing the passage as containing pretty clear signs of later interpolation.) Finally, those like you who quote that handful list of ‘supports’ for historicism fail to acknowledge that not a single one of them identifies itself with a recent Jesus on earth. What are the odds of that if they are allegedly references to such a recent man?

But the former is exactly what it implies. The writer of that passage (who may not be Paul himself) says that he brought his gospel to the Romans “according to the revelation of that divine secret kept in silence for long ages but now disclosed”—how?—“through prophetic scriptures…” (NEB). What Paul is preaching has been “revealed”, not merely ‘reflecting’ some other source. (That’s also what Paul says in Romans 1:2f, that the gospel of God’s Son was found in the prophets, including that he was “of David’s seed” and thus the option is open to regard Paul’s meaning as entailing something other than being a human descendant of David.) If this is what Paul is saying about himself in 16:25, then if the reference to Jesus in parallel to it refers to Jesus’ preaching, it must imply the same thing, that Jesus got his gospel from scripture. Your reluctance to admit that shows that you, too, regard such a meaning as nonsensical.

But I have gone out of my way, in everything I’ve written, and especially in my new book. All these things are demonstrated and argued extensively. That’s my point. How can you think to understand the mythicist case, let alone argue against it, if you won’t read the mythicists’ writings and engage with them, instead of relying on your vague (usually erroneous) and prejudiced attitudes toward them?

Actually, in my treatment of passages like this, I maintain that Paul ought to have regarded Jesus’ life as part of the “present time” and to include that life and its acts in his description of that time, something that is never done in any of the epistles (including even Galatians 4). In any case, your problem here is that you are relying on a translation of verse 24 which makes an unjustified historicist assumption (not all of them do). Again, if you had read my books, you would understand this. As I say in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man (p.198):

No necessary historicist meaning here, and many translators admit it. As you can see, this sort of analysis has to be based on careful reading of texts, on surveying the various opinions and translations about given passages, whether favorable or unfavorable to one’s own orientation. None of this, I suspect, do you do. What it also requires is an understanding of the Greek language, so that you can go to the original and try to decide things for yourself, and not be reliant on translations coming out of a milieu which is decidedly biased in favor of one interpretation.

Earl Doherty