Didymus

What do you, Rick Sumner, think happened?

You have neatly (and accurately) skewered the words of others, but you've equivocated regarding your own position. So far, at least in this thread, you haven't put your own views on the subject to the test of public scrutiny.

So... how do you think Paul learned the teachings he attributes to "the Lord"?

Didymus

Amaleq13

Mythicism does not deny a founder. It just denies that it was a living Jesus. In the context of a Mythical Jesus, the founder(s) of Christianity would be understood as either the initial apostles who first experienced an appearance of the risen Christ or Paul who took what they started into a new enough direction that he should be considered the founder.

Clivedurdle

Is the problem that OK Paul might use rhetoric, but he also thought he was talking the truth? Maybe if he writes "received from the Lord" - that is what he meant - not as some hand waving to boost his personal status.

Paul definitely uses extreme statements and goes from the sublime to bitter hatred in a couple of verses, but Paul is wysiwyg!

So how did he recieve it? A vision?

Isn't this the simplest solution?

Doug Shaver

The context to which I referred was the whole thread, which is not just about whether Jesus of Nazareth shared a Passover supper with his disciples on the night before he was executed.

By my observation, it is in fact a common historicist argument that Paul, in the passage under immediate discussion, was affirming the actual occurrence of that supper and therefore by logical implication the actual existence of Jesus of Nazareth. That argument does not presume that the supper actually took place. It presumes only that Paul believed it did and that he therefore believed that Jesus Christ had recently lived in this world. If he did believe that, then it must have been because some people had told him about Jesus. The fact that he never says, outright and explicitly, that anybody (except the lord) ever told him anything about Jesus therefore is a pretty significant datum.

Clivedurdle

Ephesians 3 v 5

he has revealed it by the Holy Spirit to his apostles and prophets. (Living BiBle Paraprase)

Rick Sumner

Had you candidly asked, rather than attempted to flame me into it, I'd have probably answered. Since you didn't, we'll leave it to the imagination for now.

If we're in agreement that my criticisms are accurate, then I've accomplished what I intended to. I was offering a response to someone else's argument, not formulating my own.

I certainly have not. I've stated that I don't think it's historical, and I don't think Clivedurdle has provided a necessary reading of the text. Those are the only positions I've stated. There is nothing equivocal about them.

As above. It's not necessary to formulate your own position when you're responding to the position of someone else.

The Lord's Supper isn't really a teaching, per se. More of a ritual. This type of conflating is more of the problem I mentioned above regarding comparing the gospel to the Lord's Supper. Paul means different things at different times. For an example that will maintain my commitment above not to address the Lord's Supper, let's look at two ways Paul speaks of receiving things from the Lord--he speaks both of prophecies of the gospel, and the gospel itself, as having come from the Lord. But he can't have received them both the same way--the realization of the gospel doesn't occur in scripture. (it doesn't occur in a vision either--there is no room between Paul's careful exegesis and prooftexting, and the gospel that led him to, for a vision. The "revelation" was his own new understanding, which he attributes to God--as any Jew would--who called him to understand this before he was born (Gal.1.15). The only sustainable "vision" or "dream" of Jesus in the entirety of the Pauline Corpus is the one he explicitly tells us he had).

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

Rhetoric refers to how you phrase what you say, not whether or not it's true.

Maybe. Nobody said this wasn't a possibility. What was said is it's not a necessary reading. More specifically, what was said is that you added the word "directly."

In 1Cor.9.19-24 Paul explicitly tells the reader that this is a false sentiment. I am aware of precisely zero exegetes who would agree with you.

Not at all. Paul doesn't claim to have received anything in a "vision." Even when he speaks of his "vision" of Jesus (Gal.1), he does not state that he received his gospel in such a vision, or at that time. If he had experienced such a reception, that would have been the time to say so.

You seem to be getting confused. Nobody is saying that it's not possible that he received it through some revelatory experience, or that that's not a valid reading. Once again, what's being said is that it's not a necessary reading. You still haven't addressed any of the arguments for a contrary reading.

But even beyond that, you stated that Paul claimed to receive it "DIRECTLY FROM THE LORD"[sic]. That was false. You can dress that up all you like. It still won't be a true statement--Paul does not say that.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Clivedurdle

I think you are being very confusing and it might help if you were clear about what you think!

If it is possible he did recieve it as a vision is it therefore not a necessary reading? I undertand vision and directly from the lord to be different ways of saying the same thing - directly from an imaginary friend?

We have two other possibilities

Rhetoric
Via unknown third parties.

Are there other possibilities?

I discount in his own head because he wrote from the Lord. The reality is in his own head though - brains do thinking.

Why pick on directly? Are you saying another apostle had the vision and then told Paul?

Rick Sumner

Are all possible readings necessary readings? A necessary reading means to the exclusion of all others. Without the word "directly" actually appearing in the text it is not necessary that Paul meant "directly."

These were not presented as different possibilities, they were different aspects of one possibility. I can only refer back to my previous posts, I don't know how to make it any clearer.

Because without "directly," there is no need for any vision, revelation or other experience. "Directly" implies that Paul explicitly states that there was some sort of mystic/revelatory experience behind it. He does not say that.

And no, I'm not saying anybody had any sort of vision. I think visions are an ad hoc, frequently used for an explanation, but very seldom supported by the text.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Didymus

Clivedurdle is right. You need to be clear about what you think. You are only telling us what didn't take place, not what did, and what Paul didn't necessarily mean, not what you think he did mean. More examples:

"I'm not saying anybody had any sort of vision."

"Without the word 'directly' actually appearing in the text it is not necessary that Paul meant 'directly.'"

"Nobody is saying that it's not possible that he received it through some revelatory experience, or that that's not a valid reading."

See what I mean? So... What do you mean by "the realization of the gospel"? And where/when/how do you think that realization takes place? (If indeed, it does.)

Didymus