gurugeorge

This could easily mean "we no longer look at The Anointed One - i.e. more like the concept of the Anointed One - as a human being - i.e. as a great king sanctioned by and linked to the Divine but not himself Divine - we now regard The Anointed One as a spiritual entity".

It's such an automatic habit of the mind when we see "Christ" to think of the benign blonde guy with outsretched hands, that it takes some effort to realise that Paul could just as easily be talking about the concept of The Anointed One itself, or rather his version of the myth (this new version, taken over from Cephas, etc.).

Not only that, but he's saying "we regard no-one" - i.e. this is a theological statement making the mystical link between human beings and this indwelling spiritual principle (albeit a spiritual principle that was especially embodied, in a mythical "historical" sense at some vague time in the recent past, and did its work).

Clivedurdle

Who says this? What is this distinction between myth and theology? If Gods do not exist, i e are mythological, theology, rules about the behaviours of the gods - are equivalent to rules of dungeons and dragons - subsets of certain types of myths that have evolved clearer rules.

Is not all the stuff in Hebrews about the great High Priest Melchizadek mythological or what exactly is your definition of myth that excludes that?

What are all the references by Paul to mysteries if that is not also mythological language?

Paul and Hebrews to me read as quite normal mythology. What is your definition of myth? This distinction of theology as separate when it is a subset of certain types of myths seems to be the problem.


I am reading a fasinating book called Mismatch (or via: amazon.co.uk) that discusses nature ve nurture and is in fact very rude about what it calls an artificial distinction. The real world is not nature over here and nurture over there but continuous interactions over time.

It feels as if similar assumptions about myth over here and theology over there are being made.

TedM

Paul mentions James briefly in Galations, and in the creed in 1 Cor 15. He mentions John only briefly in Galations. He mentions Cephas a few times in Galations, in the creed, and briefly 3 times elsewhere in 1 Cor. As important as the pillars were, Paul says very little of them in all of his writings. Note too that Hebrews doesn't mention them at all

Had Paul mentioned the pillars and Cephas a dozen times, I might expect him to talk about their connection with Christ at least once. With only a few mentions, there would be less of an expectation, would you not agree?

Another thing to consider is that what may seem natural for others (mentioning the recent earthly life of Jesus) may not have been natural for Paul. Paul acknowledged that the pillars were in a position of authority since he perceived a need for validation from them: "I laid before them the gospel which I preach..lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain (for 14 years)". Yet, people who associated with James (the Lord's brother and one of the pillars, according to Paul) were threatening Paul's mission. What did Paul have to gain by discussing the apostolic succession in such a context? So while Paul acknowledges the pillar's authority on some level, he DOWNPLAYS it in the letter and stresses his own special calling and authority directly from God in order to support his message.

Added to the theological differences of those associated with the pillars and Paul is Paul's conviction that he was specially called by God---as if born untimely, having formerly violently persecuted the early believers. What a hard sell! First, you persecute the early church, and then you upset them with a message that other nations ALSO were specially called by God, through the Jesus they claim to have been seen first! All the more reason perhaps for Paul to downplay any relationship they once may have had with Jesus. So, some very real psychological issues may have been at play along with the theological differences.

Paul had nothing to gain with the Galations and a LOT to lose by making great play of the historical connection Cephas and the pillars might have had to Jesus. He had a LOT to gain by stressing HIS gospel of salvation for all through the death and resurrection of a sinless Jesus. Jesus' earthly life--teachings and miracles and ministry with disciples--were not necessary at all for this message.

So, given the infrequency of mentions of Cephas and the pillars and their potential threat to Paul's unique gospel message among those he wrote his epistles to, is your expectation of him to 'make great play' of their connection to Jesus really justified?

ted

gstafleu

Given what precedes in 2 Cor 5, it looks to me as if the humanity referred to is the humanity of the believers, not of JC. The Messiah used to be seen, in the Jewish POV, as someone who would come and fix the Jews' human (physical, earthly) problems (oppression by bloody foreigners and such). Now, in Paul's new and shiny view, the Messiah has already come and what he fixes is not earthly but spiritual problems.

Gerar Stafleu

ynquirer

This is because your search has not been thorough enough. In p.49 of the pdf file you have provided us with one can read this:

It is by no means a covert insult. Your remark that Detering was the author of the theory looked like a candid quotation of a secondary source. My own remark was an outright critique leveled on that hypothetical source. Now, the misunderstanding is over - I hope. A conclusion is clear, though. Outlook is often misleading.

I can see Bauer’s purported connection of Paul with Simon Magus. Paul’s with Josephus’ Atomos seems to be solely based on the Latin word ‘Paulus’. Thus, Bauer thought that Josephus’ Atomos the Jew from Cyprus was in Italy called Paulus as meaning ‘Shorty’, and then the nickname was Hellenized into Paulos and so inserted into several Greek letters of unknown origin? Too cumbersome an explanation for so scanty evidence.

Some of the NT stuff is continuous with Biblical stuff in its tropes and mythemes? I’ve already said this in reference to Revelation, but this helps you very little. I’m afraid that the rationalist reason ought to be more specific. For instance, can you say what mythemes Thomson does find both in the Tanakh and in Paul and/or Hebrews?

Gawen

I hate to be so late in this...but...how is this historical? It says commandments WE GAVE YOU through the Lord. Not, THE LORD himself GAVE YOU commandments.

GakuseiDon

It isn't supposed to be historical, but about what Paul knew about Jesus vs silences.

If Paul was relying commandments through the Lord Jesus (I'm assuming this means that Jesus was the originator somehow?), what were they? Are they the contents of 1 Thes 4, or something that Paul doesn't mention because he is assuming that his audience already knows?

gurugeorge

Yes and the B Bauer quote referenced in that section is this:

He is the last, the unexpected, the conclusion, the dear nestling. Even his Latin name, Paul, expresses smallness, which stands in contrast to the majesty to which he is elevated by grace in the preceding passages of the letter.

What Detering is talking about is something different from that, and more radical (and different again from the idea that Simon Magus was a smokescreen for Paul in the Jewish Christian pseudo-Clementines, which is something even less radical scholars have also toyed with, and may be what you are thinking of as being Bauer's idea originally). What Detering is talking about is this far more radical idea:

There are a number of solutions for this problem. In my book Paulusbriefe ohne Paulus? I described in detail the Tübingen solution, which saw Simon as a characterization of Paul; and today the problem is usually solved in complicated, literary ways. However, there is still another, much simpler solution, which one can only maintain if one is prepared, first of all, to give up the authenticity of the letters, which is certainly the primary reason, in spite of its simplicity, it has not been considered until now: Why do we not understand the Pseudo-Clementines in a completely literal way? Why do we not take seriously the fact that for the writer of this Jewish, anti-Pauline literature Paul is in fact no one else than Simon?

This is Detering's own idea, so far as I can see.

There's more to the idea than that. Also, Detering is putting these ideas forward as a research programme, not a knock-down argument.

Anyway, this is all a side-track. I like the idea, and I think there's something to it, but it's not all that important to the main thrust of my picture of early Christianity.

Sorry, again, this is a sidetrack I'm not interested in at the moment.

ynquirer

Any idea on the Pseudo-Clementines looks like off topic, doesn't it?

I agree, Paul ex Simon Magus is a sidetrack.

A sidetrack? Not at all. You opened a thread to discuss the proposition, “There is no silence in Paul” and as soon as someone asks you what elements voice the mythical contents you purport such writings convey, you find no better way out than saying you’re not interested in the thread’s topic but only in “the main thrust of a picture of early Christianity”? It is reassuring, thanks.

gurugeorge

Whatever, so do you see now where you went wrong?

Well you were the one who wanted to delve into it, it was just a side-note in my outline - which you asked for.

What??? You're the one who asked me for my general outline. I gave a few sources of information to show where I got some of my ideas from. In the context of this thread, that should be sufficient. It actually makes very little difference to me whether the Christian ideas were totally new or owed a lot to biblical tropes or whatever, it's a side-track and not a topic I'm interested in at the moment. Whether Paul or the other early Christians owed a lot or a little to biblical sources, ideas, mythemes or tropes, what they are saying is evidently mythical, and if you look at it that way there's no "silence", there's loudness about a mythical entity. That's the point of this thread.

From a HJ point of view you can then go on to say "well it can still have some historical kernel even though it's basically mythical, it might be a man mythologised", that's reasonable. But it has to be argued for. The presence or absence of biblical styles or ideas bears little relevance to that argument because that's all on the mythical side, and doesn't bear much on the question of whether there was a real human being behind the myth.