aa5874

You are definitely missing my point. To simplify, it is my opinion that the author of Galations did not have any revelations from God. The author knew the source of his so-called revelations, and it was either from himself or other human beings. His revelations are from 'flesh and blood'.

And, the chronology of the whereabouts of Paul, according to Galations 1, is contradicted by the chronology in Acts 9

In Acts 9:19-31, after Paul recovers from his blindness he met with the disciples, 'flesh and blood, and then immediately preached Christ in the synagogues, yet in Galations 1:17-22, Paul went to Arabia and did not confer with 'flesh and blood'

Acts 9:19-20, "Then was Saul certain days with the disciples that were at Damascus,
And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the son of God.''

Galations 1:17,"neither went I up to Jeusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia and returned again to Damascus.


Either Acts 9 or Galations 1, or both are bogus.

gurugeorge

Exactly.

There's also the point that if any of the "twelve" were apostles in the traditional sense (as would be the interpretation one might take at first blush, given the gospel story), it's strange that "all the apostles" are mentioned at the end just before Paul.

Once again, what this shows to me is later confusion on the part of the proto-orthodox. "the twelve", "messengers", "the 500" seem to be jargon terms for Paul, but the first two terms don't seem to have the same meaning as they do for later proto-orthodoxy and we don't really know what "the 500" means at all.

Again, to put it in a way that should make this totally clear: if you had never heard anything about Christianity, and just came across that text, the notion that any of the people mentioned had previously known as a human being the entity that "appears" to them, would not automatically and naturally suggest itself from the text.

What you'd think is: "Ah yes, this sounds like the spread of some kind of religious fervour based on a revisionist concept of The Anointed One that first occurred to this Cephas fellow, who then convinced his coterie ("twelve") about it, then there was some sort of mass religious hysteria event ("500") but a lot of those who had "gotten it" subsequently "lost it"; then another person (James) decided that this Big Idea should be spread, and he in turn inspired some people to spread it as messengers ("apostles") of it, and then finally this fellow Paul cottoned on to the idea and appears to have turned it into a universal idea for all human beings."

If someone then pointed out that (on the contrary) the historical idea is what Paul had meant, by showing you independent evidence that there had been a human being known to those people who was later mythologised by them, then you could say, "Ah yes, I see what you mean. The text is a bit ambiguous, but I can see that it could have been meant that way. Funny way of putting it, but as you have shown me that there was this guy, then it looks like Paul is in fact talking about someone they knew, fair enough."

Ben C Smith

That seems to be true of the later and fuller pseudo-Clementine texts, but I am personally unclear on how much and what of the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies belongs to the so-called kerygma Petri.

Nevertheless, even so, surely you can see how you are shooting your own argument down. If Simon prefers visions, and Paul is Simon, then Paul prefers visions.

In the eyes of the author, sure. But in the eyes of a Simon or a Paul?

All you are doing here is registering your preference. You are saying nothing about Simon, Paul, or Peter, whether fictionally (as in the pseudo-Clementine literature) or historically (as in Galatians).

That it does. And it says, point blank, that both viewpoints existed. Just because the author and you prefer one viewpoint does not mean that the other viewpoint did not exist.

Ben.

Solo

Ted,
to have a meaningful discussion, you will need to make some critical distinctions. 2 Cor 5:21 says also that "God made him sin". IOW, God made him appear a sinner. Phil 2:6 uses the Greek word harpagmos which means "robbery"...Jesus did not think it a "robbery" to be equal to God. How did Paul know Jesus was thinking that and how does it relate to his being perceived a fool and a blasphemer by outsiders ? Rom 8:3 says "in the likeness of sinful flesh"....i.e. for those not endowed (by God) with special "insight", he would be a "sinner", period.

The distinction between the appearance of Jesus (in an earthly form) and his true nature as the "sub-eternal", unique, Son is what Paul is after. According to Paul, all of those whose nature is "spiritual" mirror the fate of Jesus. Of course, the unspoken premise of what Paul says was that Jesus did not "know" what Paul was given to know and reveal. God gave Paul the utterance to reveal Jesus as the Christ, not to Jesus, or his earthly following.

Jiri

gstafleu

We may have arrived, then, at an atomic point of disagreement, or at least of estimated likelihood. In your view Paul, even though he might have known, was too, well, let us say too "Pauline," to use such an excellent trump card. While I'll agree to the theoretical possibility I think it highly unlikely. Would his Paulineness really lead him to cut his nose to spite his face, given the stakes (lots of competition to be overcome, e.g.)?

Plus, as always, evidence has to be seen as a whole. So, given the three pillars of mysticism (Doherty's arguments, Price's arguments, plus general knowledge of mythopoiesis), this, in my view, remote possibility doesn't change much in the whole picture.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

It would not be a trump card in his hand. He would always be beholden to the Jerusalem pillars if he chose to make firsthand knowledge of the sayings and deeds of Jesus trump.

Exactly my point. Putting himself permanently under the Jerusalem pillars would be cutting his own nose.

I was unaware that Doherty and Price were into mysticism , but I reiterate that my argument here has only to do with Paul.

Ben.

gurugeorge

Both viewpoints existed at the time of that document , which is a fair bit later than Paul, and enough time had passed for the strongly historicised Jesus idea (in my MJ scenario) to have caught on, whether in the Jewish Christian (but, be it noted, post-Diaspora) version or the proto-orthodox version, and even in other versions of Christianity.

But surely, if the argument that "lineage" based on visionary experience can't possibly compare to proper lineage (granted historicity) appealed to people then, it would have appealed to people a hundred or so years before? The cultures aren't all that dissimilar. So it backs up my contention above that it would have been bizarre (in an HJ scenario) for people to have accepted Paul as an "apostle" if there had been real "apostles" around. You can get a bit of mileage out of him presenting a non-winkie-cutting religion based on his visions, and that being more attractive to some people despite his lack of lineage connection, but for serious religionists, I doubt that would have been enough to beat actual lineage connection and actual teachings from the Man Himself presented by people sent out by the Man Himself.

Actually, I've seen somewhere the argument (I think it may be in one of the Radikalkritik essays online) that this Jewish Christian document is actually a sly retort to proto-orthodoxy - "you claim apostolic successsion, but actually your church was founded by a visionary, we have the real apostolic succession". The whole fudge of Acts' reconciliation of Peter and Paul was meant to get around that. The Kerygmata can be seen as a response to this proto-orthodox fudge from the Jewish Christians: "you ain't foolin' anybody".

IOW I think the real scenario is that Paul spread a visionary proto-gnostic, Jewish-based, but universalised Christianity, pre-Diaspora, and that Rome was one of the places he spread it to. Proto-orthodoxy developed from Paul's proto-gnosticism, but in the course of developing a "hardened" historicity for the cultic figure (as part of its powerplay "apostolic succession" ploy), it had to distance itself a bit from Paul, and snuggle up to Peter (representing Jewish Christianity, representing a supposedly authentic lineage and connection to Jewish ancientness that Romans liked). Hence the fabrication of Acts and Luke as we know it.

This lineage connection to Jewish Christianity was invented by proto-orthodoxy, but the Jewish Christians (knowing no better, having lost the true origins of their sect during the Diaspora) were fooled by this flattery (eventually coming to take the hardened historicity so seriously that they held Jesus as a mere human prophet, more in line with Jewish tradition). But the kerygmata represents a sort of mid-way point, showing that some Jewish Christians, though flattered, weren't totally fooled by all this proto-orthodox folderol, and remembered well enough that Roman Christianity's founder had been a mere visionary (i.e. the kerygmata takes the proto-orthodox fabrication to its logical conclusion, showing that if it were true then the Jewish Christians had the best claim - of course by this time the Jewish Christians did think it was true).

(Meanwhile, the other streams of Gentile Christianity founded by Paul developed into various Gnosticisms, but eventually themselves were fooled by the proto-orthodox ploy, bought into it, and became "docetic" Christianity by the time of Constantine.)

(Sorry for going so far ahead but I think you have to see the whole picture for that early part of the jigsaw puzzle to make full sense.)

gstafleu

So rather than a "didn't know" argument, what we have here is a variation on "not interested:" Paul may have known some historical details, but even if he did he didn't want to be seen affiliated with the Jerusalem crowd and so preached something completely different, willfully staying away from any overlap. Is that about it? Again, possible, but a bit forced. And does the text really support it? Under such fairly adversarial circumstances (he is basically relegating the Jerusalem crowd to yoyo-dom as they got about all the essentials wrong), could he get his version approved and reach a more or less amicable division of labor?

Now, let's say you are right for a moment. Can Paul then be said to have preached anything like what was later to become orthodoxy?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

No. Not quite.

He knew (hypothetically) about an HJ, that he existed and died and so forth, in broad outline, but was not interested enough in him to actively pursue the details.

And he did not shy away from the HJ just because somebody else was preaching him. He had a positive revelation of the risen savior.

Yes, I think so. Paul insists that his focus is Christ crucified. Accordingly, we hear a lot about his death (and resurrection), but little else.

Anything like it? Yes, close enough for the orthodox to make him a poster child. Orthodoxy itself? No. Paul seems a little docetic to me.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

IF Peter became an apostle because of a vision of the risen Christ, a Christ of whom he had no knowledge prior to this vision, then he was changed from one totally ignorant of Christ to an apostle.

Paul was changed from one who was hostile to Christ to an apostle.

Although these are different trajectories they are IMO sufficiently similar to make Paul's drastic distinction between himself and the other apostles unlikely.

There is a far more drastic distinction between Paul's trajectory and Peter's if Peter was previously a follower of Jesus who was appointed an apostle subsequently. This explains better Paul's drastic distinction between Peter's story and his.

Andrew Criddle