Elijah

This may not be even close to what you are looking for.

I tend to think of Paul as an elitist of the highest order. I don’t think he thought too much of the apostles just because they witnessed the crucifixion. I think he believed he had a higher understanding due to his years of studying religion compared to the years of fishing the apostles did.

I also think his faith was different because the apostles were convinced (supposedly) by the miracles and the resurrection, but I think Paul was convinced by Stephen dying the way he did. I think Paul killed a lot of heretics claiming to believe this and that but I think when the time came they all tried to fight or beg for their lives and Stephen didn’t in imitation of Jesus. I think this had an effect on Paul and he took this as a sign of being
something real. Maybe Paul just saw it as Stephen must have really believed in the resurrection or maybe he understood the whole martyr deal early.

I look at Paul as a new breed of believer that wasn’t convinced by actually seeing Jesus perform, but by seeing his effect and understanding.

Also I don’t think Paul saw Jesus as the teacher the synoptic gospels tried to make him out to be.

Gawen

I don't know. I find it strange that all we have is the Passion narrative and Q before 1 Thessalonians, which is quite a departure (and the rest of Paul's letters also a departure from the other gospels). It's as if the Gospels, IF written latter than Paul's first letters are trying to counter Paul. Something like the last swan song of the Jerusalem Church that rather quickly died away and gave over to Paulanism.
The NT makes no sense to me whatsoever.

motorhead

I don't think it's been proven concretely the earliest writings were a passion narative and Q. I think it's speculation. Q is a hypothetical document anyway.

Doug Shaver

Yes, there must have been -- on the assumption that the gospels are stories about a real person.

I've never seen it suggested that they were written by the same person. According to Christian tradition, the gospel of Luke was written by an associate of Paul. Not many modern scholars think the tradition has any connection with historical reality.

Some of the leaders of the Jerusalem church were indeed called apostles. Some of those same people are mentioned in the gospels as being among Jesus' 12 disciples.

There was nothing for him to get far away from. The gospels did not exist in his day.

Now, nobody disputes that the gospels had not been written yet. The conventional thinking, however, is that the stories that eventually ended up in the gospels were circulating within the Christian community during Paul's time. You are correct that much of Paul's writing is very hard to explain if that was the case. That is one reason, among many, why some of us believe the conventional thinking is wrong.

gstafleu

First, why would we expect Luke to be contradiction-free re Paul? That would only happen if he made a conscious effort to be so, plus he had our current set of epistles available to him. If this was tradition, based on something historical or not, why would you think later copies of the tradition would accord with the original? Even with modern day tools scholars disagree about events that everyone agrees actually happened and are thus physically monolithic.

Give the man a brownie .

Correct. As I said, the gospels are later elaborations. They may be descendents of Pauline thought, or a parallel development.

What is not true is that there was a historical Jesus as pictured in the gospels. What you are missing is that understanding . Once you have that understanding, the rest flows.

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

To help some more (or to spread some more confusion), consider the following.

Mythology in the Middle East took, quite some time ago, a different tack than many others. Rather than seeing time and the universe as an endless cycle, it saw a beginning and an end of time. We already see this in Zoroastrianism, which posits a "saviour", the Saoshyant, who, at the end of time will help defeat evil and make everything good.

The problem with this is the long wait. The Jewish religion didn't care to wait that long and thus moved the arrival of the saviour up to the nearer future. Plus, being much more tribal than Zoroastrianism, the saviour was only supposed to save the Jewish people and kick their enemies' butt, rather than saving the whole world.

While satisfying to the sense of instant gratification, this solution introduced a new problem: the saviour never showed up. This was bad for morale. Hence Paul's brilliant idea, which consisted of two parts. 1) The saviour had already come, we just missed noticing it. And 2) the saviour had saved not just the Jewish people but everybody, so the savings coupons, in the form of Paul's epistles, were valid throughout the world rather than just in the Jewish neighborhood.

Quite a bright idea, but, as gurugeorge points out, it does lead to reactions like "Huh, what, how come we never heard of this guy?" Hence the gospels. This of course led to new problems, given that modern historical research can show that it is very unlikely that there actually was a historical Jesus.

A possible solution to this seems to be giving up on the idea of a saviour as some external entity that has appeared or will appear in the physical world. Rather we now posit the saviour inside ourselves, see e.g. Tom Harpur and Freke & Gandy. This has the advantage of being unfalsifiable, just like the original idea of a saviour at the end of time was. So in some sense we have now come full circle.

Gerard Stafleu

Gnomelord

Just going to throw in my two cents about ol' St. Paul the Pharisee. He was a Pharisee, and conversion doesn't magically stop that.
I'm far from qualified to speak on the subject, but there is an excellent resource to be had on just this topic. In the book The Writings of St. Paul (A Norton Critical Edition written in 1972 The link will send you to the 2006 2nd edition) there is an excellent essay called Hebraists, Hellenists, and Catholics written in 1860 by Ferdinand Christian Baur (a German theologian of no small renown. He pretty much invented the idea of examining the Bible in a historical context when he developed the Tubingen school of theology.) that goes into detail concerning factions in the early church. In it he discusses the development of the two gospels: the one for the Jews and the one for the Gentiles. I would like to say that's a gross oversimplification, but it really isn't.
Allow me to pick a few choice quotations.
"As the number of converts from heathenism increased, and as the efforts of these who carried the Gospel to the Gentiles diffused it more and more widely throughout the Gentile world, the Christians of Jerusalem became alarmed. They could not look on with indifference, when they saw a Gentile Christian Church arising over-against the Church of Jerusalem in utter disregard of the ordinances and privileges of Judaism, and yet putting forth a claim to equal place and dignity with themselves."

There we see a very obvious conflict between two early church factions, in perfect alignment with the so called "conflict model" concerning the formation of Christianity. On the next page we see how it is resolved.

"The three principal representatives of the Church of Jerusalem did indeed give to Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, but the agreement which was arrived at consisted simply in recognizing that each party had a right to go his own way, separate from, and independent of the other. Thus there were now two Gospels, a Gospel of the circumcision and a Gospel of the uncircumcision, a mission to the Jews and a mission to the Gentiles."

That meeting in which James, Cephas, and John approved this whole two gospels thing can be found in Galatians 2 : 7-10
Some quick background before I begin: in this scene Paul brings Titus (an uncircumcised gentile) to help him make his case before the Church of Jerusalem.
"But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
(For that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles: )
And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do."

Yeah, that last bit was most likely them asking for a bribe, go figure.

Anyway, if you'd like to read more about St. Paul of Tarsus there is a wonderful, readily available resource called Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E.P. Sanders. You can buy it on amazon for about $10, it runs for about 150 pages, so you could cover it in an evening or on a Saturday afternoon.

Rick Sumner

Quite emphatically seconded (and thirded, I suppose, by the decidedly more eminent Mark Goodacre, who noted some time ago on his blog his intent to use this text for his class on Paul).

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Gawen

I can see that there is probably no headway here. Nor can there be. And I surely do not want this to become a MJ vs. HJ thread.

Ok...let's assume there were no other writings before and during Paul's stuff up to Colossians.
Why is Paul's salvation doctrine so vastly different than Mark's, Matt's., and Luke? What would possess the writers of the synoptic Gospels to write a doctrine of a Jesus so different than Paul's and a history never explored in Paul's?

Yes, I am aware that Paul was no eye-witness and his stuff came from visions, etc.

The only thing I can think of is that Paul used a 'concept' and ran with it.
Actually, I said this backwards...sorry.
I agree. The gospel stories may have been written closely after the alleged crucifixion and none survived. But Paul's did. Why do you think, or what do think are the reasons Paul's are believed first? IOW's, why does a "vision" reign over 2nd or 3rd hand anecdotes?

Gawen

I don't have a frakkin clue. That's why I'm posting here.

How do you know...in either case?

How do you know this? Because they have been dated later doesn't mean that they weren't written years before and not survived...does it?

The synoptic gosels, Thomas and the Didache do not sound anywhere near like Pauline thought...not a parallel to them.

What is not true is that there was a historical Jesus as pictured in the gospels. What you are missing is that understanding . Once you have that understanding, the rest flows.

Gerard Stafleu[/QUOTE]I'm not concerned with MJ/HJ. I am concerned with the gospels version of a Jesus and the seeming contradictory value in Paul.