spin

You just need to answer, well gosh, judge, Paul uses christ to refer to Jesus. In fact in the surrounding verses of Galatians chapter 1 he uses "christ" to refer to Jesus no less than 7 times! I doubt that this reflection of his non-argument will have any effect. He's too busy playing devil's advocate.

--

On κυριος though, there are no number of times that you can belt the plainly used difference between the titular and non-titular uses into judge's head: it simply won't stick. It's just too complicated. What he makes of Ps 110:1 given his refusal to appreciate the difference would make an interesting study. You would be wasting your breath continuing on the subject given his refusal.


spin

judge

Looks like you failed to read the whole converstaion here, and were a little to quick to try to score points.

If you go back and read the discussion you will see that "show_no_mercy", made a claim that "Paul consistently uses "the lord" to refer to the god of the Jews; ".
All I was pointing out was that "consistently" was the wrong choice of word.

But, well, rather curiously, you left that part of the discussion out.

Whether or not paul used christ to refer to Jesus, at all, or ever, or hardly ever or never,or often is irrelevant to the claim that ,"Paul consistently uses "the lord" to refer to the god of the Jews; ".

aa5874

But, it must be noted that the Pauline writers HARDLY EVER or NEVER did refer to the God of the Jews as LORD once Jesus Christ was mentioned in the same verse.

The Pauline writers CONSISTENTLY referred to JESUS as LORD.
The words LORD GOD cannot be found in any Pauline Epistles but you will find the LORD JESUS or Jesus our LORD about 100 times.

maryhelena

But if the people to whom Paul is writing, and Paul himself, believed in a historical Jesus - then there seems to be no trouble then in believing that Paul is breaking his 'rule' re use of the term 'brother'. In other words - the assumption of a historical Jesus is sufficient to read Paul as though he is breaking his 'rule' over use of the term 'brother. ie spiritual brother.

So, minus Jesus being historical and having a blood brother - suddenly the blood brother interpretation of Paul in Gal.1:19 becomes a poor interpretation! Methinks the difficultly is in a mindset that is tied to the idea that no historical Jesus equates with no historical 'lord' that Paul might have had in mind. If Paul is breaking his 'rule' for a historical Jesus that's OK - but if Paul is breaking his 'rule' for historical person X - Paul is not allowed to do so - because, well, that's a poor interpretation......

Perhaps its time for mythicists to break free from using the assumption re a historical Jesus - time to stop interpreting Paul as though they were engaging in an either or contest. No historical Jesus therefore only spiritual brothers, of the Lord, for Paul to be associated with. That assumption is no different than the historicists assumption of a historical Jesus.
:constern01:

ApostateAbe

sorry, wrong thread post.

spamandham

We don't know a priori that Paul's Jesus is a contemporary of Paul. We are attempting a very complicated analysis where all of the following are little more than guesses:

1. The century in which Paul wrote
2. Whether or not Paul as we know him is essentially historical or some kind of legendary figure that others attributed their writings to
3. The century in which the gospels were written
4. What parts of Paul's texts are genuine, interpolated, outright frauds, etc
5. The intents of the writers
6. The fidelity of Josephus' blurb about James given that the 'he was the christ' paragraph has almost certainly been redacted
7.-1000 ...

This isn't trivial, but the best approach to complex problems is to dispense with assumptions and go back to what can be stated with highest certainty and see what reality unfolds as a result.

In this case, we can definitely say that Paul uses variants of brother/sister nearly 100 times to refer to fellow believers, 1 time to refer to Jews (and he clarifies that), one time to refer to James as the lord's brother and 1 time to refer to brothers of the lord. Without assumptions that Jesus is Paul's contemporary, the best interpretation is that Paul is using brother in this case in the same way he uses it dozens of other times.

...and if we make neither assumption, what would be the best interpretation given what we know?

maryhelena

What do we know? Well, here is what Paul tells us in Gal.ch.1.

"For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.....But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, and was pleased to reveal his Son in me......I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was......after 3 years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter......I saw none of the other apostles - only James, the Lord's brother".

I would think, from this alone, that Paul can be read as not referring to James as a spiritual brother of the Lord. The apostles are also spiritual brothers - hence no differentiation by the use of 'brother' if all are spiritual brothers.

Paul says he persecuted the church. What church? Was there only one church and not multiply conflicting sects or communities? (I might be wrong here, but is not Doherty's position one of multiple independent groups and not one of communities that are functioning under a uniform 'church' structure?). So, whether or not Paul is historical or someone else writing under that name, the writer admits to being late to the party. Not only that, but that he had previously been engaged in activities against the 'church'.

A mythicist position, which has no historical Jesus of Nazareth, therefore has no reason to think that Paul followed on shortly after the end of the gospel Jesus timeline. The Aretas and Damascus connection shortly after the end of the gospel timeline is itself controversial. Thus, it is not conclusive evidence that Paul was active shortly after the end of the gospel timeline. That the Jesus storyline was placed within a certain historical time slot is indicative of prophetic interpretations in play. Minus a Jesus storyline, the historical time slot is still relevant to early, or pre-christian history. Paul is outside that specific time slot - how far removed from it is the question - there is no need for an immediate, historical, follow on to the non-historical gospel storyline - the 'need' is only the gospel storyline. The historical time slot that gave rise to, that 'supported' the gospel interpretation, is static. (for example, the 15th year of Tiberius). Paul has been backdated to follow on the gospel storyline.....The historical time slot for Paul's own activities - if he was Jewish - was most probably just prior to or after 70 ce. (which does of course place 'Paul' in the same historical time slot as Josephus - which is another issue..........)

So, we have a church that was functioning prior to Paul. A church that had apostles. A church that had a Lord of which James was a brother. Read at face value and without gospel glasses - that reads that James was a blood brother of the Lord. The question is - who was the Lord of the pre-Paul church; the Lord of the communities that existed prior to Paul. If Jesus did not exist historically - and Paul knows this - then the blood brother of James is not Jesus - it is someone else. If the apostles that Paul speaks about are taken to be historical (human) if James is taken to be historical (human) - then why the need to make the brother of James, the Lord, a spiritual being? Surely, that assumption, that the Lord that is being referenced is a spiritual being, as opposed to being a human being, is questionable. How many other times Paul uses 'brother' to refer to spiritual brothers is irrelevant in the context in which he uses it in Gal.1:19.

The best interpretation is that Paul met those who were apostles in a church, a 'church' that was functioning prior to his own involvement. Paul meets James - a brother of someone who is/was considered a Lord in that early community or 'church'.

In Gal.ch.1, Paul was meeting with historical ie human people - all of whom were also spiritual brothers. Paul differentiates one historical, human person from the others and says that this particular individual was a brother of the Lord.

spin

(I've pointed out the tendentiousness of this last phrase.)

But I've already shown that Paul specifically calls certain people "the brother", which indicates that there are those who are a rung above the ordinary believer, Timothy, Apollos, etc. Calling someone "the brother" is done by Paul, now that may be an abbreviated form of "brother of the lord". In the context where the plural (brothers of the lord) is used 1 Cor 9:5, we are dealing with religiously significant people.

He says the "assembly of god" (Gal 1:13), which sounds like a Jewish group, doesn't it? You must be careful to avoid anachronism, such as assuming a later meaning for a word. εκκλησια in Paul's time just meant "assembly", didn't it? Was there any time for it to have taken on any specifically christian significance at this stage? I think not.

What does εκκλησιαν κυριου mean in Deut 23:2?

What exactly does Paul refer to with "assembly of god"? is it any different from the "assembly of the lord" in Deut? Probably, but how?

I'm not a mythicist, but if there happened to be a Jesus behind the gospel figure, he didn't come from Nazareth. Nazareth doesn't present itself as part of the earliest gospel.

Still on the apparent anachronism, reading the christian understanding of εκκλησια, when there is no sign that it is relevant.

Another grammatical assumption beyond the evidence. With the expression "Enid, the sister of the sacred heart", you can't say "the sister of Enid, the sacred heart" can you? What about "Stan, the brother of the cross"? "the brother of Stan, the cross"?! What makes you think that "the lord" functions grammatically any differently from "the sacred heart" or "the cross" here? Short answers is "nothing". You are assuming too much. Rationalizations based on such assumptions have little to recommend them.


spin

show_no_mercy

I guess my problem is Paul's claim of his previous life in Judaism. According to the traditional progression of Jesus worship, by the time Paul was writing Christians were still seen as "Jews" and that's why they were a negligible offshoot. That Jesus was still seen as a human being and not co-equal with the Lord. This wasn't supposed to happen until whenever John was written.

That phrase, the non-titular "the Lord" had special meaning in Judaism and was restricted to being a circumlocution of saying YHWH.

For instance, what would we make of these quotes:

*And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved: for in Mount Sion, and in Jerusalem shall be salvation, as the Lord has said, and in the residue whom the Lord shall call.

*We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes

*They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power

*But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from evil

*because the day of the Lord is at hand, and it shall come like destruction from the mighty

*The Lord is good, and gives strength in the day of trouble: and knows them that hope in him

*What do you devise against the Lord? He will make an utter end: there shall not rise a double affliction

*Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Without looking these up, are these Christian passages or Jewish passages?

Even Philo, who said that the Logos was a secondary deity, said that "the Lord" was greater than the Logos:

So even for a near polytheist like Philo, the non-titular "the Lord" was still a divine title; still reserved for the god of the Jews.

If these early Christians were using the non-titular "the Lord" as a substitute for Jesus -- as in "brother of the Lord" -- then it would seem that his deification came a lot sooner than NT historians say. Adding to the confusion is when Paul quotes the OT and says that "the Lord" said those quotes. Is he talking about Jesus or YHWH? (like in 1 Cor 2:16).

Both of these make me think that Jesus was revealed in a non-Jewish reading of scripture, not from a recently deceased human being.

maryhelena

That quote is from the New International Version. If you happen to think that that translation is giving the wrong message, a message that is, seemingly, the same in some other translations - then perhaps your attention could be cast in a direction that might achieve some consensus re the correct Greek translation. As it stands the quotation is ambiguous - thus allowing more than one interpretation.

Fine - but the context of Gal.ch.1 is dealing with people that Paul says he met - the apostle Peter and James - to single out the 'lord' as being a spiritual lord is possible but it's not impossible to take the 'lord' to be as historical, as human, as the apostle Peter and James.

Again, I'm using the New International Version. And yes, I am aware that 'church' is an anachronism. I'm simply using the word that is in the translation at hand. As to "assembly of god" being a Jewish group - which would imply that early, or pre-Paul, christian history was Jewish - that is an assumption. It could also be a case of a later Jewish understanding, spirituality, interpretation of OT, being backdated upon an earlier non-Jewish "assembly".

spin, I don't know any Greek - so asking me to understand your point when you use Greek is a waste of an argument...plain english would be appreciated.

I am a mythicist and I don't believe there is a historical Jesus behind the gospel Jesus - so Nazareth does not feature in any argument that I might make re a history of early or pre-christian history. I use Nazareth only in the context of the gospel storyline re Jesus. Of course, since the name Jesus means something like "Yahweh delivers (or rescues)" (Wikipedia) the Jesus designation could be attributable to any historical figure that followers of such a figure deemed to be relevant to their 'salvation', however defined. And perhaps, in the process, the real identity of such a historical 'salvation' figure would be submerged. Thus, starting a historical search for a carpenter named Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, is nothing more than a wild goose chase....