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Originally Posted by Petergdi
Quote:
Originally Posted by spin
What I referred to was a semantics issue. We have a text which apparently uses a term ambivalently. How can any reader know what the word means in any given use without sufficient contextual clues? You can try to assume that the reader didn't need them, but that's not reasonable.
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But there is nothing unreasonable in the idea that the original readers might have the tools to sort it out more easily than you can. I can't think of a case where I don't think I know which is meant, even though some commentators do seem bewildered. It is possible that I may be sometimes wrong, but the original audience is unlikely to be confused. |
They apparently had the same texts. Nothing is particularly obscure in the passages, just to what the
κυριος reference belongs. It seems to me that you are needlessly obfuscating here. Look at the example I gave. What in the text do you find might suggest to the reader what the reference is -- if you assume that Paul can use the non-titular
κυριος for two distinct references??
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petergdi
But if they aren't linguistic clues, but background knowledge cues then your case is very weak.
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As I said, you have the text. And you have the Hebrew bible as a contextualizer. Do you suppose the ancient reader is better prepared in either Pauline theology or biblical knowledge than you?
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Originally Posted by Petergdi
If you know that Jesus's brother James is the big man in the Jerusalem church, then "the Lord's brother" is not confusing at all.
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This is merely retrojection. If Paul was going to mention that James was Jesus's brother, why not say it? -- you know "James, the brother of Jesus"? Paul has no problem whatsoever in mentioning Jesus, though later writers were more reverential. As is, "the lord's brother" is an opaque reference that you only think you understand because of all the apologetic reading that has occurred since its writing. Remember the Hebrew name Ahijah, "brother of the lord"? This may be an indication of some religious commitment.
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Originally Posted by Petergdi
If you know that Jesus made rulings on how his followers should live, then having "no command of the Lord" about whether virgins should marry is obviously a reference to Jesus.
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Nice try, but commands are usually from god. Hmm, how do we resolve this??
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Originally Posted by Petergdi
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Originally Posted by spin
One would expect not that such clues were invisible to us, but visible though arcane to us.
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They are invisible to you... |
(And of course to you as well, as you aren't able to deal with the issue either.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petergdi
...because of your rules of interpretation. While I concede the possibility that the background knowledge available to me might be significantly different from the background knowledge of the original recipients of Paul's letters, the idea that they had no background knowledge is absurd.
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Be good and leave the straw men in the cupboard.
Here's a challenge to you: find one non-titular use of
κυριος for Jesus in either Romans or 2 Cor. (The only one possible in Galatians is through tendentious interpretation of "the brother of the lord".)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petergdi
Quote:
Originally Posted by spin
I don't think so either, but for a more transparent reason. The ambivalence in the term is a later imposition, when the non-titular κυριος is regularly used, but that is not the case by the time Mark was completed, as the non-titular use isn't found in Mark. And I don't remember such use in Matt either. We have to wait until Lk 7:13 for the first gospel use of κυριος for Jesus. This also suggests the non-titular use is post-Pauline.
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It is interesting that third person use of "Lord" by itself to refer to Jesus is absent from Matthew and Mark, but present in Luke and John. I hadn't actually noticed that before. Second person use of "Lord" for Jesus is common enough in the first two gospels, but not third person use. (I do not count Mark 11:3 and Matthew 21:3 as exceptions.) |
(Right. It isn't some tricky language use by the Jesus figure. It refers to the plan of god.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petergdi
The Clementine Recognitions and Homilies do use "Lord" in this way, while they are late, they do not appear to have the kind of christology that you seem to think lies behind this use.
I don't buy the idea that the absence of third person use of "Lord" by itself for Jesus in Matthew and Mark indicates that such use postdated those gospels, but it does seem to be an interesting fact, and I thank you for pointing it out.
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It's obviously not synoptic, for no synoptic material uses it. We have to wait for the unique materials in Luke. There is no sign of the non-titular use elsewhere until the time of the Lucan special material.
So, we have indications that
- it should be anachronous in Paul;
- it would be linguistically confusing; and (to add a further idea)
- it is never used in the principal discourse of any Pauline passage, only in secondary material.
Look at how awkward 1 Cor 7:14 is, plainly not part of the principal discourse. Or the anomalous 1 Cor 2:8b ("the lord of glory"). Or it's use in the last supper rehearsal in 1 Cor 11:23-27 which I've argued elsewhere is a plain interpolation changing the natural of Paul's lordly feast to something very different.
Hmmm, all in 1 Cor. Beside those few examples can see any more guaranteed uses of the non-titular
κυριος for Jesus??
spin
12-22-2009, 11:51 PM
