Steven Carr

1 Corinthians 2
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.....The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

So how did Paul get to know the mind of Christ, when all the words were words taught by the spirit?

1 Corinthians 3
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.

All those oral traditions about the teachings of Jesus, all those oral traditions about the miracles of Jesus, all those oral traditions about the life of Jesus....

Did Paul really regard that as 'milk', not to be compared with 'solid food'?

How could Paul have passed on all those oral traditions about the teachings of his Lord and Saviour - and then call them 'milk'?

1 Corinthians 4
Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written'

All those oral traditions about Jesus? And then Paul warns people not to go beyond what is written?

So what was the point of the oral traditions about Jesus, if Paul trashes oral traditions as not written?

bacht

it's a mystery...

youngalexander

What oral traditions? The evidence seems rather thin.

Steven Carr

The mystery deepens when we read NT Wright on page 31 of 'Paul for Everyone - 1 Corinthians'

There we learn that Paul had only taught the Corinthians the basics.

And yet we are assured that Paul doesn't mention the miracles, or Bethlehem,Mary, Joseph, Judas etc etc etc because he took it for granted that his readers already knew all of these things, so he did not need to repeat it again in his letters.

Despite only being told the basics, they knew every detail of the Gospel stories so well that Paul had no need to refer to any of those stories when teaching them what Christianity should mean to them.

Of course,Paul can refer to episodes in the Old Testament which are obscure to us. 'We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes.'

Paul takes for granted that these people were very familiar with the Old Testament, and can allude to that.

Perhaps the 'milk' was the basic interpretation of the Old Testament, and the 'solid food' a deeper interpretation of the Old Testament.

It certainly wasn't the oral tradition of what their Lord and Saviour had done and preached.

bacht

...which suggests that Paul was addressing Jews or gentile converts in synagogues who knew the scriptures.

As for Mary & Joseph, the simple explanation is that Paul was unaware of these stories, or didn't care about the nativity of the Christ (funny how Mary appears briefly in Acts but never in the same scenes as Paul :constern01

Steven Carr

And the brothers of Jesus make a brief appearance , before they are deemed not even worthy of being considered for the title of 'witness to the resurrection' - not even James made the raffle for that title.

bacht

Maybe they were the same ones who thought Jesus was crazy (re Mark)

aa5874

But, the Pauline writer claimed he got revelations from Jesus about events on earth and it would appear that he became familiar with the Jesus stories. And apparently, it was assumed that Isaiah 7.14 was a prediction about the nativity of Jesus


Romans 1:1-4 - Now, the author of gJohn did not write about the Magis, the killing of the innocent, the flight to Egypt, the circumcision of Jesus or when Jesus was teaching in the Temple at a very young age, but there is enough in gJohn to reasonably conclude the author was aware of the Synoptics.

It is the very same with the Pauline writers, there is enough information to show that the Pauline writers were familiar with information found the Synoptics.

bacht

Well this is one of the key arguments isn't it, whether we can see traces of the gospels in Paul. And as you point out there's more than one writer to look at, so the basic question is what did the original Paul believe (if there was such a person), when did he live, when did he write, who was his audience etc.

It does seem like the focus of Paul's "mythology" is different from Mark et al, and maybe his eschatology was more urgent. Paul's Christ is finished his main work, while in the gospels we're looking at the 'prequel' before the main event (the resurrection). In both cases the end is near, but Paul seems to really believe it, while the synoptics are less anxious.

Solo

...:constern01:

2 Cr 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

In other words: one has the 'mind of Christ' because one is true to the unio mystica one has experienced in the euphoric heights of spiritual ecstasy.

Jiri