Ben C Smith

[Setting aside your extra comment about the incarnation for a moment....] On virtually every page. Every time he calls Jesus the messiah. And especially in verses like 1 Corinthians 1.23 when he admits that the messiah being crucified is something not easily understood by either Jews or gentiles.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I don't think it is legitimate to set aside the differentiation between the Risen Christ and the Incarnated Son. Arguably every one of those references can refer only to the former. This brings us back to the Philippians 2 hymn and the question of what name was bestowed upon the Son subsequent to the resurrection.

Though Paul never really states it clearly, it seems fairly strongly implied by virtually everything he says about his beliefs that it was the act of becoming a sacrifice which qualified the Son to also be considered the Messiah.

Steven Carr

1st century Messianic expectations were wrong, were they not?

And Targum Yonathan is never quoted by any NT writer, I believe.

Lógos Sokratikós

And a wild suggestion it is indeed. The only sourcebook on early Christianity is the NT, and it is noted there many interactions among the early leaders, even what has been called the first Council. The narration is totally realistic if you read (really, really read it) and more than 90% of experts agrees with this (each with their own reasons). Those that suggest it's pure fancy, well, shouldn't be talking about "Pauline" in the first place since, if you don't trust the text... there was no Paul! And how can they talk about a non-Jewish Pauline Christianity with the deep knowledge of Judaism the author has? Are they going to tell us they can "peel off" the strata seen in the text? That would be the only way. The demonstration that any such strata exist would be a sight to be seen!

Lógos Sokratikós

Fascinating. Whimsical and fascinating.
The ending -us is latin, not Greek, at a time where vowels were shifting from Classical Latin to proto-Neolatin, like in pira > pera; unda > onda; turno > torno. The changing of Greek "XPICTOC" to street latin "CHRESTVS" or even [CHRESTO(S)] would be no challenge to any romance linguist. Now that is definitely putting the cart before the horse!

---
EDITED TO ADD:
Take, for example, French chrétien, from Latin christianus. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian have cristiano, but that is a learnt word (another example of this would be the English series dish, disk, disc and discus, all from Latin discus).

Ben C Smith

Before we continue down this road, how would you answer the question? Why did Paul regard Jesus as the long hoped for Jewish messiah?

Ben.

Lógos Sokratikós

I don't get it. Messiah does not mean incarnate. Please explain.

Ben C Smith

Why are you asking me? I am not the one who brought up the incarnation. Amaleq13 is the one you need to ask.

Ben.

No Robots

This was a Marcionite church. The Marcionites actively suppressed the Jewish component of Christianity. It is most most likely therefore that Christos was deliberately changed by them to Chrestos. Here is Mead on the subject:

In early times there seems to have been much confusion between the two titles. Christos is the Greek for the Hebrew Messiah, Anointed, and was the title used by those who believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. This was denied, not only by the Marcionites, but also by many of their Gnostic predecessors and successors. The title Chrestos was used of one perfected, the holy one, the saint.

Beyond Marcionite obfuscation, there was genuine confusion over Chrestus vs Christus, as the Catholic Encyclopedia attests:

Greeks and Romans understood little or nothing about the import of the word anointed; to them it did not convey any sacred conception. Hence they substituted Chrestus, or "excellent", for Christus or "anointed", and Chrestians instead of "Christians."

On a side note, it seems that the Theosophists make hay out of the Chrestus/Christos confusion.

jakejonesiv

Well, maybe the Marcionites made a change and maybe they didn't. That is the point of discussion. It is significant that the earliest church inscription (ca. 318 CE) is "Chrestos". Did you have something earlier that reads "Christos?"
Hi No Robots,

Thank you! Unlike TheOpenMind you understand the question.

You wrote: Greeks and Romans understood little or nothing ... Hence they substituted ... Chrestians instead of "Christians."

But isn't this also true of Codex Sinaiticus? Wouldn't the scribe of Sinaticus understand the import of the word "anointed"?
Codex Sinaiticus has "Chrestian". Codex Vaticanus has "Chreistian". There was confusion indeed, but was it the changing of Christain to Chrestian or vice versa?

That is why I asked the question about the Nomina Sarca. I just check GThomas. It uses the Nomina Sarca too.

What I am looking for is proof to differentiate "Iesous Chrestos" from "Iesous Christos", particularly in the Pauline epistles. There are many on IIDB that excell at ancient texts and the analysis of them. If the original Pauline texts had Chrestos instead of Christos, we have an answer for why the Pauline writers thought Jesus was the messiah. They didn't.

Let's prove it one way or the other.

Jake Jones IV