dog-on

Interestingly enough, there is really nothing to corroborate Paul's claim of "Jerusalem Christians", other than Paul's claim that there was such a thing. However, such a claim may make just as much sense within the context of providing Paul with an argument and a convenient background from which his claimed authority regarding his use of the Jewish scriptures could have been derived. How do you think such a claim could have been verified by those who actually heard this at the time? As it seems that Paul's writings were not generally well known until well after his death, I suppose such verification likely never occurred.

Just a thought.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

The Little Apocalypse of Mark does not contain just failed prophecies, but also quite successful prophecies.
As I have pointed out several times, there are two types of prophecies in Mark, 1) terrestrial/fate of temple-Jerusalem and 2) astronomical/global. The terrestrial predictions from Mark 2-22 (what is referred to as the tribulation in line 23) did occur at the time of the Bar Kochba war, 132-135. This section concludes with the statement: [23] But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. This whole section answers the question: When will the temple be destroyed and what will be the signs? Everything in it is correct strongly suggesting a date post 135 C.E.

Lines 24-30 is a different speech entirely, probably from a different source:

One might compare the whole thing to the popular belief that Joan d'arc was the predicted Maid of Lorraine. It was predicted that an armed woman would come and save France. Since part of the prediction had been fulfilled (Joan was an armed woman) one could surmise that the rest of the prediction would be fulfilled.

Since the terrestrial things had happened, one could surmise that the astronomical things would happen shortly. In this case "this generation" would refer if to a specific generation, to the generation that had witnessed the tribulation. Although, the statement could also be taken as metaphorical meaning simply the apocalypse will be soon.

The fact that Mark does not say how long a generation means indicates that he did not mean a specific time limiting statement. A generation could be taken to mean 20, 40, 80 or 120 years depending on the context. those who conclude he did mean this as a specific time limiting statement have the obligation to prove that Mark was indicating 20, 40, 80 or 120 years.

The fact that the Gospel of John doesn't use these predictions tells us little/nothing about its composition time vis-à-vis Mark's gospel.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Juststeve

Dog-On:

The book of Acts confirms the existence of a Jerusalem church unless you are prepared to label it as a complete hoax.

Paul does not use the Jerusalem church to buttress his claim to authority. Quite the opposite. He claims his authority derived from his encounter with Jesus, not from any stamp of approval he got from Jerusalem. He is in fact willing to say that on some important subjects Jerusalem and he did not agree.

As to Paul's writings and how well known they were, they look like letters he sent to the churches he had earlier founded. They would have been hand written, hand copied and perhaps passed around. They were therefore not well known in the way modern publishing make books well known, but for their time, I don't think we can know how well known they were.

Steve

Doug Shaver

Yeah, I think there's something very strange about that, when we consider a few additional details that the historicist assumption forces on us.

Whatever else might be pure legend, one thing almost certainly true under historicism is that Paul persecuted the first Christians before his conversion, and so he had to have heard something about whatever the first Christians were saying about Jesus. It is not credible that the original disciples were saying nothing at all about the things Jesus had said and done during his ministry. They were saying among other things, ex hypothesi, that this man was long-prophesied messiah of Israel. They could not possibly have gotten a hearing for that message had they preached nothing more than "God raised him from the dead after he was crucified," and Paul had to have had some inkling of whatever else they were saying about him, whether or not he believed a word of it.

So then he has his personal conversion experience. Paul himself gives us no particulars, but reasonable speculation is that something made him think that God said to him in effect, "Those Christians are right, and if you know what's good for you, you'll join them." But that was not all there was to it, by his own account. He didn't get his gospel just from that vision or whatever it was. He also got his gospel from his reading of Jewish scripture. Maybe his scriptural studies led to the conversion, or maybe the conversion experience moved him to look for its validation in scripture. We don't know, but he does attribute his gospel to both personal revelation and scripture.

What we have at this point is: Paul heard some stories about some itinerant preacher who'd been raised from the dead after being crucified by Pontius Pilate, and he had some experience that he construed as (1) confirming the preacher's resurrection and (2) revealing the spiritual significance of the event, and he thought that this experience either confirmed or was validated by his interpretation of Jewish scripture. That's phase one, during which Christians led by men who had known Jesus personally were limiting their preaching to fellow Jews and telling prospective gentile converts that they had to comply with Jewish law. After his conversion, Paul decides it's time for phase two: Take this message to the gentiles and forget about trying to make them keep kosher.

I fail to see how that explains, in any parsimonious way, Paul's supposition that everything about Jesus' life up to the moment of his death was irrelevant. Granted that his personal revelation had to be a product of his imagination, it couldn't have been just a random misfiring of a few neurons. Given just a proneness to believe that some man, some martyred charismatic preacher, would be chosen by God to be raised from the dead, elevated to divine sonhood, and made savior of the world, something had to make him think that this particular martyred preacher was that man, and that something had to have been something he knew or thought he knew about why he was martyred in the first place, and that in turn had to have been something he thought Jesus had done or said during his ministry. Something about Jesus' biographical particulars had to predispose Paul to believe that what God had revealed to him personally and what he had read in scripture was all about that particular itinerant Galilean preacher.

You may suggest that given his personal revelation, those biographical particulars became irrelevant to his thinking. Maybe so, to his thinking, but what about his audiences' thinking? He had all these things to say about one "Jesus Christ." If he was talking about a historical human being, did he never have to explain to which one he was referring? If he was talking about a particular man, did he never have to explain why he thought that man, and no other, was the fulfillment of prophecy? He said Jesus was crucified. Did he never have to explain why, of all the thousands of men who had died that way (many of them named Jesus), God had chosen this particular one to raise from the dead and endow with divine attributes?

No, not in his correspondence, you say. Well, for any given reference to Jesus in his correspondence, it was arguably unnecessary to provide any biographical particulars. But the supposition that some biographical reference would never once have been pertinent to any point he wished to make in anything he ever wrote is a reach beyond plausibility. You may say, "That's just your personal judgment." Very well. I think it a reasonable judgment, and I invite you tell me exactly what makes it unreasonable.

Toto

No one thinks that Acts is a "hoax," but credentialed scholars (such as Richard Pervo) threat it as primarily a theological work in the form of a Hellenistic novel. Only evangelicals seem to treat it as a source of historical facts.

TedM

If Paul had a vision or hallucination or even an overwhelming 'revelation' of a risen Christ, then he had all he needed--his own witness. For others, Paul uses scriptures, the testimony of resurrection appearances to others before him, and his own experience of the resurrection as the reasons for his audience to believe.

The simple answer then to your question would be that all Paul needed to conclude that it was THIS man was enough scriptural support for the Messiah to be resurrected: ie if a man was resurrected, then he was that Messiah.

If Jesus was meek and poor just as Paul described him and he was very godly (Paul describes him as sinless), but was not a great healer and his preaching was neither extensive or unique, then Paul would have little reason to focus on much more than the resurrection and its meaning in his writings, which were primarily to Gentiles who Paul saw as benefiting from belief in the resurrection by faith. That's a kind of historical Jesus that I see little basis for expecting Paul to have said much about.

IF Jesus had been crucified during Passover then it is possible that some of the visions or revelations people had were actually due to the realization that one could interpret those actions as a paschal sacrifice (as Paul does), which ties in nicely with the idea of a Messiah-Savior: Just as the pure lamb is sacrificed for the sins of Israel, the sinless lamb of God was sacrificed for the sins of Israel and--for Paul--the sins of the world. It seems to me that if ANY man some wondered was the Messiah was killed during Passover, the conditions would be ripe for the elevation of that man to the Messiah-Savior role, and belief of his resurrection would not be unlikely.

Little Dot

None of the gospels or the epistles for that matter were written that late. If they had been the writers would have mentioned the destruction of Jerusalem and there is not one word that would give anyone a clue that they did!

Toto

But they do - in the form of Jesus' prophecies in Mark 13.

There is also 1 Thessalonians 2:14

the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

This is generally taken to refer to the destruction of the Temple, which is used as a justification for allowing this to be an interpolation.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Besides the direct references to the destruction of the temple in all four gospels - Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 21, and John 2:19; we have to consider the overall plots.

John portrays Jesus as the final passover sacrifice. This should be seen as an explanation for why God does not need sacrifices in the Temple any more. The old testament's out of date, meet the new testament - Judaism with a nice new pagan son of God flavor.

Mark is busy explaining why no Jews ever heard of Jesus before the destruction in the temple. Everyone was too frightened to say anything and Jesus told them to keep quiet about it.

Matthew emphasizes that Jesus also was the New Moses, giving new laws, but tougher than the old laws. He's also fighting Marcion's claim (circa 160) that Jesus was not Jewish.

Luke just wants to tell everybody that Jesus is not just for Jews anymore, but he came to save all the Greco-Romans too.

Between 70 and 135, Jews were concerned with getting the damaged temple rebuilt and violently liberating themselves from the Romans. None of these messages would have been of interest to any Jews or anybody else before 135.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Little Dot

Matthew Henry says: