Toto

My point still stands - Witherington is not an unbiased scholar. He may have some pertinent points on some issues, but his evaluation of the dating of Acts is a product of his ideological commitment.

And he did much more than contribute to a book on the James Ossuary. He exhibited a notable lack of skepticism.

Rick Sumner

The problem with this game is twofold. First of all, Paul's understanding of the Law is not necessarily what you imply it is. A wealth of recent literature on the subject exists. I can only suggest starting with The Paul Page. Perhaps most specifically with Dunn's landmark 1982 piece on the matter, The New Perspective on Paul.

More importantly, if we're going to move it to up the line, why stop at Paul? Surely Augustine and Luther have contributed more to our modern understanding of what "Christianity" is than Paul and his few letters.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spin

This last point may be true, but it's irrelevant, isn't it? Freud may have been responsible for psychology, but it's come a long way since then. However, we're interested in the first steps, not the later leaps and bounds.


spin

Rick Sumner

I suppose that depends. Is the first step to what we would recognize as Christianity, particularly in the presentation of the OP, really Paul's?

Put differently, if the understanding of the Law that became normative Christianity is actually the product of Augustine, and is in fact even antithetical to Paul, can we fairly call Paul it's founder?

I'm not sure which way I lean on that just yet. I'd probably call either position about halfway right, but I wouldn't be so quick to call one the "founder" of the movement described in the OP over and against the other.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spin

I guess I'm not sure what the OP's use of christianity entails.

Working on the notion of a religion whose central theological act is the salvific death of its religious focus, that seems to have been the gong that Paul first banged.

Psychiatrists no longer perform leucotomies and lobotomies, but they have their place in the history of psychology. Because a religion changes doesn't mean that it didn't exist before the change. Each generation probably has some effect on the religion they pass on, some more apparent than others.

I'm not committed to a Pauline birth of christianity (against prior messianic movements), but it seems functional. His converts didn't need anything more than what he offered. He claimed his gospel was not taught him by men but from revelation. He mightn't recognize today's manifestation, but that is probably to be expected.


spin

Rick Sumner

With apologies for the delay, I was busy helping my wife have a baby

The OPs concern is more directed at Paul's stance on the Law, which seems to indicate that he sees that as the defining, and Pauline, characteristic of the movement. The problem is that I'm not sure that Paul's stance on the Law is the same as Luther's, which is the one espoused by the OP.

Freud might be the father of psychology, I don't think anyone would call him the father of Prozac.

If some (Gager comes to mind as one extreme) are correct in their opinions of Paul, then Paul's about as far away from Augustinian/Lutheran "Christianity" as Freud is from Paxil. It gets so far removed that you can't really attribute the one to the other.

The point is that there's a better than passing argument to be made that "Christianity" is based on how Augustine (and, later and probably more importantly, Luther) read Paul, not on what Paul said or believed. And if that's the case, we really can't call Paul the founder of Christianity in the sense the OP means.

His converts might not have needed more than what he offered, the question is whether he offered what the OP suggests he did.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

aa5874

None of the Pauls ever claimed they were the founders of Christianity and they made that clear in their letters. The Pauls, Acts of the Apostles and Church writers all place the Pauline writers after Jesus believers in Judaea and the preaching of the gospel in Judaea by Peter.

There is just no support at all to claim that "Paul" is the founder of Christianity, both internally and externally.

Loomis

Your posts in this thread rawk. They are just what I needed. You’ve finally convinced me that "Paul" never existed. Your comment about, “then Paul was a fool” was what put me over the edge.

Thanks for making me think. :notworthy: