NOGO

Before we look at the verses which you point to let me place them in a certain "Pauline" context.


Paul claims to speak the word of God.

One cannot be clearer; Paul says that he has the mind of Christ. He knows the things of God because he has the Spirit of God. Notice that Paul does not care to talk about the archetype of somebody having the spirit of God namely Jesus of Nazareth. These statements also do not leave much room for apostolic tradition.

So when Christians receive the Holy Spirit they become a mouthpiece for Jesus/God.


1Co 7:10-11,
But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband

Here Paul has “commandments� from the Lord. But is this Jesus of Nazareth? Very unlikely! Surely Paul is talking about inspired messages from the Spirit of God, which dwells in him.
He first says "I give instructions" then he corrects himself.
Surely if text or other apostles are going around saying the same thing and attributing them to Jesus of Nazareth how can Paul say "I give instructions".
Paul is merely reminding people that what he says comes from Jesus, not the historical Jesus but Jesus in the present through inspiration routes.

In the context of other statements Paul makes one can only retain the “inspired� commandments and not some quote from Jesus of Nazareth. The verse below leaves no doubt as to what Paul means.

1 Corinthians 14:37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.

There is no sense here of historical corroboration. If Paul were quoting the HJ he would not rely on prophets to corroborate what Jesus said he would have to go to the source, that is, the people who had known the HJ.

2 Corinthians 13:3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to youward is not weak, but is mighty in you.

Paul defends himself against people who doubt that Jesus speaks in him, Once again Paul is not claiming to pass on a message, which was delivered to humans 30 to 40 years ago by Jesus of Nazareth. Paul claims Jesus speaks through him in the present.

1Co 11:23-25
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;

This sounds to me that Paul claims to have received directly from the Lord something which he is passing on. Paul never met Jesus so how can he possibly say "I have received from the Lord". Paul claims direct inspiration from Jesus and not through Jesus' disciples which he does not even mention in what follows the above quote.

This comes from Hebrew scriptures.

As an indication of what Paul does with scriptures here is another example

Compare Isaiah 45:23 to Phil 2:10-11
Same thoughts but the subject is different.
One is Yahweh and the other is Jesus.
Direct borrowing with substitution of Jesus for Yahweh.
This is the kind of thing Paul claims to be God/Jesus speaking through him.


1Th 4:15-17,
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,

As an introduction Paul is simply remind people that what he says comes from God. Since Paul never mentions anything coming from the HJ but mentions several places that he gets information through inspiration routes and that he also gets much of his inspiration from Hebrew scriptures then one cannot possible attribute this to the HJ.

In conclusion
Paul never, never even hints of getting something from the HJ.

NOGO

Basically what you are saying is that in the passage concerning the Lord's Supper Paul says that Jesus broke bread and since bread is on earth then Jesus was on earth.

Ok I have picked my example.
You, yourself, do not believe that Jesus ever inaugurated the Eucharist.
It is placed in an earthly context either because Jesus was a man as you claim or because people do not know better. What do you explect them to say something which is actually divine and heavenly.

Jesus died and was buried.
Strictly speaking if Jesus is God then he cannot die.
So Jesus must be a man, right?

I cannot fault you on this logic. I just do not believe that this logic would stop Paul from saying what he says.

If Paul were a modern scientist I would accept your logic.
Since he was not I need more than the obvious to convince me.
Granted, I could be wrong.

Perhaps for Paul Jesus was not a man, yet he is saying that Jesus died and was buried, was born of a woman and was under the law, etc.

Why does he use these very terrestial words.
Perhaps because Paul is concerned with scriptures and that the Christ needed to be all of those things according to scriptures. Therefore they are.

Those were the contraints Paul had on his belief system.
He must have rationalized them somehow.
Logic was not Paul's concern.
And then again I could be wrong.

Zeichman

More importantly, Paul distinguishes between "sayings of the Lord" and divine revelation.


The only one of those which I think could even be argued has the connotations you believe is the middle one, in which you dropped the quotes which indicate it is a reference to Isaiah 40:13. If he believed the implications of this to be what you say, surely he would have stated so much more clearly, as this seems like an important issue.

You fail to indicate that early CHristian prophets regarded their religious experiences as equal to previous revelation from Christ, or even argue that it's the same thing.

WHAT?! "Not I, BUT THE LORD"
He only says that because you're dropping the context which negates what you just said.
He certainly didn't do this regarding certain issues, such as the controversies with the Pillars, which seems to me to be an important silence, if he regarded his will as equivalent to that of the risen Christ.

He doesn't rely on prophet, in fact, he is saying the exact opposite. Christ commanded that they remain skeptical of prophets, for the sake of the unity of the church. (but all things should be one decently and in order, v. 40).
Paul makes no such claim here. He totally sidesteps the issue.
Scholars have long said that "reception from the Lord" was inclusive of oral tradition (Norton Critical Edition of "the Writings of St. Paul" is the only one which comes to mind, unfortunately), not exclusive. That said, I agree with your assesment that it cannot be traced back to the/an HJ.


Nice try. Give me a verse.
This PRE-Pauline Hymn (Which Mack, Doherty among most other critical scholars recognize as such) is no such thing. Nowhere does he claim it is a "saying of the lord" nor "revelation." Why should it have been a suprise that early Christians believed Jesus fulfilled prophecies, whether historical or not?

This is, at best, speculation. You give no reason to believe that Paul regarded this saying as you claim he did, aside from your presupposition which there was no HJ. What WOULD you have preferred Paul said to make it more clear that he was quoting an HJ when he does?

Vorkosigan

You'll have to let Doherty handle this, as Earl's history of early Christianity appears to be totally wrong to me. ED's interpretation highlights yet another historical apologetic function of Q: if there is a Q, mythicists are forced to concoct a multi-stream history of early Christianity that looks unwieldly. On the other hand, with a Big Bang Jesus theory, Q is possible. Since there probably wasn't a historical Jesus, there probably is no Q.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Quite the opposite. It is axiomatic that this kind of insistence on the exist of eyewitness testimony represents a text attempt to legitimate itself, a sure signal that it is not a witness. If the author really was a disciple he would not need to claim to be a witness -- he would relay authentic stories, instead of tales he has borrowed from Mark.

Does this claim imply that its opposite is true: that where a text does not claim to be a witness, it does not have a claim to truth? Obviously not.

Vorkosigan

Obviously, if it ratifies the false history of early Christianity that served the early orthodox Church, then that completely explains why Luke went to so much trouble. The writer of Luke was a polished writer totally familiar with the conventions of Greek fiction, which he drew on extensively. One of those conventions was the presentation of fiction as history, in both the sense that the story was true, and in the mimicking of historical convention. In other words, what looks to you like "getting the history right" looks to me like "following the conventions faithfully."

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

The silence need not be read in terms of affirmation or denial. It may also be read as a knowledge or ignorance -- the community did not affirm an HJ either because everyone took it for granted, or because nobody knew anything about him. The answer is the latter.

One could flop-flip this. Why out of all the possible choices, does the Nicene Creed affirm the historicity of Jesus? Not -- "I believe in serving the poor as Jesus said" or "I believe in a celibate Jesus" or "I believe in healing the blind as Jesus did" or "I believe in the saving power of Jesus death" but instead, it lists a series of historical events and asks the believer to affirm that they are true. The answer leaps to the tongue, it begs to be let out: because even at that late date there was a widespread belief that Jesus never came to earth.

Vorkosigan

TedM

Absolutely. That is the most troublesome part of the myth theory IMO. Paul never says that Jesus descended to the firmament, and did all these things in the firmament where the demons were believed to reside (in addition to earth). Not even in passing. IOW Paul's silence about where these things took place exceeds his silence about specific historical happenings on earth. Why?

And that is your right, of course.

Or perhaps because Mary was insignificant to Paul in comparison to the point he was making--that the Son of God came. However, he didn't just come down as a God, he was born of a woman, so that we who are ALSO born under woman can become sons of God through faith. And he came as a Jew--under the law--so that by his death the law the Jews were under could be repealed. If these things happened in the sky, Paul certainly doesn't give any clue for them--or try to explain where the woman was in the sky, or how she could have been Jewish.


While I don't agree with all of Paul's logic, his account of Jesus' doings not clearly contradictory with that of the gospels . I agree with metacrock that if myth had developed without a human source to keep things in check, we would probably have contradictory versions of the story in even some of the major areas--the approximate time of his life, the claim he was a teacher, a miracle worker, he died by crucifixion, had a mother named Mary, names of core disciples (Peter, John, Mary Mag, James, Philip), from Galilee, died in Jerusalem during passover.

Where's the alternative version? There isn't one. The one Doherty claims Paul had is not contradictory to the above points and is not supported by anything Paul says. It is speculation only based on a subjective opinion about silences under the false assumption that Paul's gospel 'should have been' the same as that of Jesus, which even I could demonstrate fairly easily.

ted

Vorkosigan

There WAS a human source, the Gospel of Mark, which established the narrative....once that was written, the rest was history. So to speak.

Also, metacrock conveniently ignores the extracanonical gospels.

hjalti

Vorkosigan, could you give some examples? Some greek fictions that are presented as historical.