TedM

I don't quite get that. Was he not incarnated for that purpose? If so, what was he before the execution, just "the Son"? Would he not have been 'descended from David", "born of a woman", "under the law" had the execution not happened? Would he not have been sinless, desiring only to please God?

ted

Vinnie

I would never advocate reading Paul with a "gospel Jesus" in mind. What I would do is read Paul with a backdrop of an recently deceased historical Jesus who started a movement. I would comb Paul looking for information about this fellow, his views, the earliest movement and so on, since I deem Paul an independent source. But the information is scarce but that also makes the little we have a little bit stronger.

Vinnie

TedM

I did this and came up with a list by book of his possible 'historical Jesus' references. I found this:

Paul’s authentic epistles plus Colossians consist of a total of 1589 verses. In my bible the average full page has about 22 verses. Therefore Paul’s epistles consist of only about 72 pages! From the above, there are 92 different verses that reference Jesus in ways that sound human. That’s more than one reference per page. 31 of these refer to Jesus’ death with no further detail. Another 27 include further detail associated with Jesus’ death. The remaining 34 or so do not pertain to his death.

I don't want to debate them here, but I posted these references on another thread a few months ago. If you want to take a look, go to http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=2518883 In blue is a what I'd call Paul's biography of a HJ. That is followed by a post showing the sources I used from Paul. I used the authentic books + Colossians only. Though one may not agree with my summary, it may still be helpful information.

ted

TedM

I'd be curious as to your response to my questions yesterday on this issue. TIA,

ted

Amaleq13

He was incarnated to be the ultimate atoning sacrifice which, subsequently, made him the Messiah according to a new and unique definition.

He was the Son with the appearance of flesh but I doubt Paul would ever put "just" before his name.

Sure, but in what sense would he have been the Messiah? There were a lot of guys who met those three qualifications but they had to do something to get to be called "Messiah". The previous qualification involved freeing Israel but the new qualification involved giving himself up as the ultimate atoning sacrifice.

Actually, you could argue that he really didn't qualify until he was resurrected. That vindication becomes his "annointing". This would be consistent with the prayer in Philippians.

Why would that alone qualify him to be considered the Messiah?

spin

There are basically three references involved in the discussion (all from 1 Cor.):

1) 2:8b;

2) 6:14; and

3) 11:26-7

The first two can be dealt with if you look at the immediate context: see which makes better sense, with or without the verse.

The third is part of the one clear piece of gospel material contained in the Pauline corpus. In the midst of a passage about the feast of the lord (one can find the ritual feast in the Qumran literature, as well as the temple centred sacrificial feast) and the correct way to approach the feast, which abruptly stops at 11:22 and restarts again at 11:28, with an intervening passage which institutes the last supper, followed by an attempted relinkage (11:27).

Consider those sure examples in which "lord" indicates god:

1) Rom 4:8 (from Ps 32:2);

2) (Rom 9:29);

3) Rom 11:34 (basically Is 40:13);

4) Rom 14:11

5) 1 Cor 3:20;

6) 2 Cor 6:17-8;

These are all based on HB and must refer to god. There are others that in my mind clearly refer to god, as I have argued with Andrew Criddle, but as they are open to interpretation, I'll leave them out.

Hopefully some of this will answer some of your questions.


spin

GakuseiDon

I agree. That's why I say that the problem exists even if there were proof that Jesus was historical.

Conversely, why no evidence of a relics trade before the third century?

We don't.

Toto

Conversely?

Because there was no historical Jesus to have left relics? Possibly even the second century writers that you claim believed in a HJ had only a vague sense of his historicity, and it took about a century to really believe that the gospels were history?

gurugeorge

This is predicated on your acceptance of (e.g.) Barnabas as an HJ writer. It's not a problem for MJ-ers, who all come from Missouri

IOW, yes, if you take X writer as an HJ writer then the apparent undecidability is a problem. But if one simply takes the MJ criteria (wall-to-wall weird, mystical and visionary Christs/Logoi/Sons, etc., blocking out the familiar human-being-albeit-God-type JC) then the MJ-er has the luxury of being happy to have, on the one side fairly clear and unambiguous (one might say mini-proto-Nicene) statements in people like Ignatius and Justin, on the other unambiguously weird and unrecognisable "Christs" in people like Paul; so things like Barnabas, which are inbetween and difficult to decide, aren't a problem.

You are the one who has given the "unambiguous" criterion, and presented examples; yet upon being shown that some of what you present as unambiguous is actually ambiguous, you are saying that the ambiguity is a problem for the MJ-er? No, it's a problem for you, but not necessarily for the MJ-er.

See above. This is a problem given your prior acceptance that these are HJ writers, but the MJ-er is in the very position of questioning all this - all of it. For the MJ-er the sorting-out of texts starts with the question of a HJ being the very thing to be decided, not a thing that's first accepted (even as a belief-about) and then, puzzlingly, shown to have unclear references in some cases.

Why "definitely"? On the basis that they refer unambiguously to HJ? But we have seen that of these two (as examples) only Ignatius is unambiguous in the required sense. That he doesn't present "details" isn't a problem precisely because the small references that are there are unambiguous statements of belief in a HJ. We are no longer, in such cases, presented with wall-to-wall weirdness, and at least something of the familiar Jesus has found its way into the text. That's enough relief for the MJ-er to (tentatively) categorise as HJ.

[later note] A slightly different way of talking about this has occurred to me. It all depends on context, right? At one extreme, we wouldn't expect even a 40 AD Christian's laundry list (hypothetical HJ or MJ) to have any mention of Christ at all. But at the other extreme, when what's under discussion is religious and moral material, we would expect a Christian (hypothetical HJ or MJ) to mention teachings "from" their relevant "Christ". There are all sorts of possible inbetween scenarios, and one has to look at it on a case-by-case basis. Where passing mentions of the creed aren't out of place, one would expect a passing mention to either an HJ or an MJ. And so on. The MJ idea arises because when you look at texts in this way, according to what you'd expect from the context, there's a ton more references to various MJs (taking this term broadly as Doherty does) than HJ. In order to take those references as being references to an HJ, you have to hem and haw and "interpret". That's possible, and understandable from a Christian point of view. But you can also leave them as what they apparently are - references to a various non-HJs.

I can't accept that way of working, because I can't go with your blithe acceptance of any of these writers as HJ in the first place, when that's the very thing which has to be investigated! And when, further, your deciding criterion for HJ-ness is itself found wanting in some of the very examples you offer, surely the problem is "yours", not "ours"?

gurugeorge

That's a possible exercise, and you'll get, as a result, the kind of NT scholarship that's familiar.

But if you try reading Paul without the backdrop of a "recently deceased historical Jesus who started a movement" in mind, if, from the outset, you bracket that possibility, keep an open mind about it, like a historian would, what do you get?

What I get is something quite strange, something that precisely doesn't speak of a recently deceased historical Jesus, and speaks instead of an apparently visionary, mystical "Christ" - a Christ that's in me, but wasn't, apparently, in Palestine circa 0-30 AD.