MCalavera

Ah, but resurrection is all metaphorical/spiritual. Your "bodily resurrection" view makes no sense.

spin

Not an idiom, unless you can show a track record for such a use, which you can't. It is a metaphor whose implications, the sleight on oneself, one needs to accept.

I pointed to the evidence. Don't talk rubbish.

That's correct, but doesn't deal with anything.

The "it" is undefined as you state it.

JonA

Good to know you think that.

Now, how about providing some evidence that early Christians thought of the resurrection as merely spiritual/metaphorical?

Jon

aa5874

The claim that Jesus, God's Own Son, had a body in no way destroys his MYTH existence.

Romulus and Remus, and Achilles are Myth characters yet were considered human.

Romulus in "Plutarch's "Romulus" did BODILY resurrect and REMUS was buried by Romulus.

"Romulus" Whether a character is claimed to have a human body is IRRELEVANT to Mythology.

In effect, characters such as Robin Hood and King Arthur could have been Myths THOUGH described as human.

The Myth Gods of the very Romans and Greeks were depicted as HUMAN.

Without any credible source of antiquity for an historical Jesus it is most reasonable to claim that Jesus was a product of Myth Fables of antiquity.

By the way, Any claim that 1 Cor.15 was interpolated is UNSUBSTANTIATED.

It cannot be shown that "Paul" could not have written the entire passage, that "Paul" was a known heretic in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple or that writings under the name of Paul clearly contradict 1 Cor 15.

Solo

I think there is also a general tendency to talk through one's hat: I wonder if you found a letter signed by Copernicus that deplored heliocentrism, or one by Freud admitting he sucked Oedipus out of his thumb, whether you would just as quickly arrive at the conclusion that one cannot expect them to spout the same nonsense all the time.

I take it that you have not yet noticed that being "humble to God before men" does not mean the same thing as being "humble to men before God". :huh:

Thanks for sharing that. However, I come from a country in which smart peasants observed long ago that in a liar's world even saints and fools are competitors. So this type of argument does not impress me much.

Best,
Jiri

MCalavera

It was a joke. I'm with you.

DCHindley

Jon,

What I find is that 15:3-10 does not form a block interpolation. The reason is that a simple argumentative strand runs through 15:1-20 that is only interrupted by statements that unnecessarily complicate the sense of this argumentative strand.

RSV 1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel [i.e., Paul's gospel, which is that gentiles faithful to the Jewish God can share in the inheritance God promised to Abraham's children], which you received, in which you stand,
2 by which you are saved [in the day the promises are at last delivered to Abraham's children by God], if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain.
3a For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received,

3b that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God ["God" here has a definite article in the original Greek].

10a But by the grace of God [this "god" has no definite article, so the passage is something like "By divine grace ..."] I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

10b On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God [this "God" has a definite article] which is with me.
11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

12a Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead,

12b [H]ow can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13a But if there is no resurrection of the dead,

13b then Christ has not been raised; 14a if Christ has not been raised,

14b then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
15a We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we (so) testified of God [these "Gods" both have a definite article]

15b that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise

15c if it is true that the dead are not raised.
16a For if the dead are not raised,

16b then Christ has not been raised. 17a If Christ has not been raised,

17b your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
18a Then those also who have fallen asleep

18b in Christ

18c have perished.
19a If for this life only we have hoped

19b in Christ,

19c we are of all men most to be pitied.

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

In this kind of has-to-be-wrong highly-speculative way of looking at chapter 15, the lesson about resurrection (into the age of promise when that day comes in God's good time) is not about Jesus at all. It is about asking those who think that there will be no resurrection how God will be able to deliver on his promise if those who have passed away cannot participate in some way.

The interpolator (whose additions as I identify them are boldfaced and offset), though, is trying to sell his dead and resurrected Christ as the alternate, and in his mind correct, answer to the resurrection deniers Paul addresses. Essentially, he is adding his own commentary to what Paul said.

Ahhh, bedtime.

DCH

judge

Vaguely sugesting it is a sleight on himself does not show in any way that "it cant be both" though. You have not shown that Paul cant believe that he was "set apart from birth" and "aborted" metaphorically in some meaning or other unless you can demonstrate the meaning of this metaphor.
Which, you have not attempted to do.
Isn't that fair?

JonA

The fact that the text may read just fine without the passages in question is no evidence that the passages in question are unoriginal to the text.

If you want to use the let's-remove-the-passage-and-see-how-the-rest-reads approach, you must show that the passages in question, when present, create for a cumbersome, less effective, argument. And this they certainly do not do; on the contrary, without them the argument has no substance whatsoever.

It's really hard to make a case that Paul didn't believe in a resurrected Jesus without disregarding all of the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians.

Jon

spin

You've lost the focus of the statement, because you already, wrongly, know what the verse is about. It's not about the rehearsal of the gospel, but about salvation through perseverance in belief in the gospel.

Crap. He is arguing that faith in the resurrection is necessary. An argument that is neutered by 3-11.

The 'intervening stuff' has nothing to do with faith in the resurrection. It is about evidence for the resurrection.

Reading skills.

Reading skills, TedM. Paul moves from singular "I" to plural "we" frequently in 1 Cor. Why does Paul mention Sosthenes, Apollos, or Cephas at all if you are just going to ignore them?

You are mixing up what he is talking about. Paul claims a special relationship with the Corinthians. That in no way means that it was only he who talked to them.

It might be handy if you read 1 Cor 3:5, for example. Who preached to the Corinthians??

If the Corinthians know who preached to them, as obviously Paul has shown they do, then the "we" is transparent.

Omitting the section shows that reading the passage makes sense without the material. We know who the "we" doing the proclaiming refers to anyway.

Note that Paul is talking (v.14) about "our preaching" being in vain, ie those who were physically present and talked to the Corinthians. It is those people who would be false witnesses. You have misunderstood the passage.

(Yet again, TedM. :angry: I thought you had been shamed into learning how to spell "Galatians" years ago.)

Gosh. Argument by bald assertion! Perhaps you might try to think about what the specific subject is, ie the significance of the Greek verb suggesting a relationship between speaker and listener and its (in)appropriateness in the context. You haven't dealt with what the verb means at all here.



It certainly does not. From its parts, εκ => "from", τρωμα => "a festering", "wound". The use of the word in LXX Job 3:16 should have been sufficient for you to forget this line of non-reasoning.

Either you deal with what the word actually means or you are making the text say what you want disregarding the text.

You are implying answers to a question containing erroneous assumptions.

If the material in vv.3-11 is under question, you can't argue a case from it.

The act of receiving them is in dispute because of the specific verb.

Still assuming that the passage is kosher, when that is in dispute.

Who proclaimed the gospel to the Corinthians is a known fact to both speaker and listener. You have no argument.

Paul is talking about people proclaiming the gospel to the Corinthians with the "we". That has nothing (at least directly) to do with the resurrection witnesses in vv.3-7.

You don't deal the lexical issues and you don't comprehend the source text. I understand why you don't see the problems here.

igsfly:

Whoooosh.

For the long suffering reader, if you missed it, there are three problems with 1 Cor 15:3-11:

• The resurrection witnesses have nothing to do with Paul's discourse of the logical necessity of belief in the resurrection. In fact, the witnesses suggest that faith in the resurrection is not necessary.
• The verb παραλαμβανω suggests a hierarchical relationship between Paul and the people who supposedly supplied the witness testimonies that is inappropriate.
• The self-deprecating statement about Paul's aborted birth is inappropriate for one who is singled out at birth for great things.