Newfie

Actually, I feel quite the opposite about the nature of the social organization of the very earliest Christian groups, before Paul. In the gospels and in Acts there are hints that Jesus counted women to be important members of his movement. Many women possibly saw a chance for greater equality in the edgy atmosphere surrounding Christ's imminent return. It only seems like unofficial planning for the long term of the faith in Paul's time started reasserting the traditional women's role.

bacht

Well, there's ongoing debate here about which came first, the gospels or epistles. I see the letters as reflecting the earliest situation, with the gospels reflecting later beliefs, but it's still an open question afaik.

Newfie

Add to that the question of whether Paul's views genuinely reflected apostolic beliefs in general, or his own personal opinions, and the dating of various source materials used in the writing of the canonical gospels and the question truly does become muddy. Paul admittedly never met the real, live Jesus and yet his views, as expressed in reaction to specific cases in individual churches, are often regarded by many as more authoritative than Jesus' own views recorded in the canonical gospels. The image I get is of a widely varying range of views coming out of the Jesus movement with Paul's opinions just being lucky enough to have caught on and surviving to this day.

bacht

That's the other question, whether there was a real Jesus at all for Paul to refer to. I think not, but again this question is up for grabs.

DCHindley

Ben,

In theory, the grammars tell me that the definite article does not have to be physically present for a noun to take the article (did I express that right?) in a narrative unit. When reading Paul, I should expect to see both KURIOS and QEOS used with and without definite articles in similar contexts.

However, some while ago I had noticed that in the Christologically oriented passages or clauses within the Pauline letters, KURIOS with the article always seemed to refer to Jesus Christ, but with an anarthrous QEOS referring to God, (stressing the divine quality rather than pointing to a specific God). Alternately, in non-Christological reated passages, KURIOS was generally anarthrous and seemed to always refer to Yahweh as a circumlocution, while QEOS always seemed to take a definite article (as in THE God of the Jews). In other words, maybe these characteristics could represent stylistic differences between an original author and an editor/redactor.

IMHO, James 4:10 is clearly an example of an anarthrous KURIOS used as a circumlocution for Yahweh. On the other hand, in James 4:15 it is not so clear to me whether Yahweh/God (as the Lord of men), the Lord (Jesus), or a human lord is meant.

Even so, I do remember looking at the catholic epistles around mid 1997 to see if they exhibited the characteristics I saw in the Paulines. I do not recall seeing any clear signs of these tendencies except possibly in 2 Peter*. In Hebrews, for example, the Christology is clearly a fundamental part of all the arguments made, and shows no sign of being tacked on like commentary. I have not had the time to really look closely at the letters of apostolic fathers in Greek, but it looks like there may have been similar Pauline-like editing of Clement's 1st letter to the Corinthians and the Ignatian letters (shorter Greek rescensions). At the moment, it is my suspicion that re-publication of ("updated") letters with interleaved commentary was a cottage industry among one or more parties or inter-Christian factions in the mid 2nd century.

DCH

*Possible interpolations in 2 Peter:
1:1b a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ 1d and Savior Jesus Christ 2b and of Jesus our Lord 8b in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ 11b of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 14b as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," 18 we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 21 because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God 2:1b even denying the Master who bought them 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first 3:1 This is now the second letter that I have written to you, beloved, and in both of them I have aroused your sincere mind by way of reminder; 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. 15 And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability 18b of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

Newfie

I see what you mean. Maybe the Jesus we see in the canonical gospels was invented to better fit Paul's version than, say, the Jesuses who appear in other gospels and the Sith Lord who appears in Revelations.

Do you get the impression that Paul was separate from the apostles who supposedly had actually known Jesus? Either the version that came to him in his roadside fit was entirely divine, and thus did not really resemble the man they knew, or it was entirely the product of Paul's imagination or subconscious. He may have felt rather guilty about his role as a persecutor and his visitation by "Jesus" may have been a psychotic event of some sort. Who can say, right?

I think it possible that there was a small Jesus movement that Paul did help persecute until he had this attack of conscious after which his hyper-divine model of Jesus caught on, particularly with "small j" Jews and Gentiles, thus hijacking the entire movement away from the Jewish understanding that Jesus was not, actually, God. But again, who can say?

aa5874

Or maybe it was the other way. Maybe it was Paul who was invented.

Or perhaps the vision just did not happen, the event never occurred, do you ever get that impression?

I think it is possible that there was no persecution at all by anyone named Paul.

And there was no hyper-divine model of Jesus, the authors called Paul just claimed they received revelations from Jesus the son of God of the Jews.

Ben C Smith

Thanks for the response, David.

If the definite article is not present, then the noun is clearly not taking the article. There are no indefinite articles in Greek; it is definite or bust.

Did you perhaps mean that a noun can be definite and yet lack the article?

What about Romans 1.7? God is anarthrous, but then again so is Lord, and it has to be Jesus here. In Romans 10.9 the creedal expression Jesus is Lord lacks any article. See also Romans 14.14. Or did you have something different in mind with that qualifier, the Christologically oriented passages?

There is no guarantee, but I was assuming it meant Yahweh based on parallel expressions such as Acts 18.21. That assumption may be mistaken, but I would like to see the specific argument for the Lord in such an expression meaning Jesus as opposed to God the father.

Ben.

bacht

As aa5874 implies, you're putting more credence in these stories than we would. It's quite possible that there was no Jesus, no Paul, no Peter etc. There is basically no historical evidence for any of them outside of the New Testament, which is a faith document (or propaganda, depending on you pov). There are references to John the Baptist and James the apostle in Josephus, but otherwise the whole cast of characters could have been invented.

Newfie

Maybe, but the movement did shift from the Jews to the Gentiles and a figure like Paul does greatly help explain this shift, wouldn't you agree?

It would be the only way that Paul, who was known to have not been in Jesus' inner circle and was an outsider to the apostles, could have possibly claimed to speak with Jesus' authority.

In successful fiction nothing is added to the story without purpose. Be he fiction or not Paul's Faith has been successful, so why include a detail like being an enemy of the believers that would do nothing else but cast doubt on his motives?

Or is it like the testimony periods in many modern day churches which leads one to believe that a Christian cannot be taken seriously in their faith unless they have some grave past sins in which to profess?

By "hyper-divine" I mean Jesus as the literal Son of God, not just a man with a special relationship with God, which would have been completely acceptable to the Jews.