Gawen

I'm having so much trouble understanding this, I could even think of an appropriate title.

Let me bludgeon along and see if any of you can shed some light on this.

Obviously, there must have been some sort of tradition, oral or written devoted to Jesus' life and such before Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. It's my understanding that The Gospel of Luke and 1 Corinth. may have been written by the same person or by two different people closely related by/to the Jerusalem Church(?)

It is also my understanding that the Jerusalem Church was headed by some of the 12 Apostles. Knowing that Luke and Paul were neither I witnesses to earlier events, it still makes me wonder how Luke and 1 Corinth. do not mesh. If Luke borrows from Mark and possibly Matthew, AND there was some sort of 'tradition", how can 1 Corinth have become so far removed from "Jesus' message" as told in the Gospels? Or, visa versa?

I still don't know if I'm making sense for you. Here's an example.
Paul's teachings do not seem to be drawn from the ecclesiastical background he claimed. (Evidence the contradictions to Law and eating food sacrificed to idols as another example).
Jesus' Apostles, practiced a communal meal that was more in the order of continuing the fellowship they had enjoyed with Jesus. It was not (I think) a 'remembrance' of Jesus' death, or the 'last supper'. It was a fellowship celebrated with joy and happiness, a looking forward to their next meal with their Lord, such as in Acts 2:46.
But Paul seems unhappy with this convention, for it was apparently making some headway into the congregation at Corinth. If this is true, it would have been a challenge to his authority as sole 'master' of the church. Paul was concerned about the event celebrated by the Jerusalem Church. It did not fit his somber nature, and it was a device of the Disciples. To enforce his view against that of the Apostles, he inserts the words, this "do in remembrance of me".

So we learn that the Communion, in its present form, is not something instituted by Jesus or his disciples, but by Paul because Paul insists that he received the tradition about the Last Supper directly from Jesus..."For I received from the lord what I also delivered to you..." (I Corinthians 11:23)

We know Paul wasn't part of the Passover meal, so once again we are faced with another of Paul's 'visions.' (Gal. 1:12). But within the structure of the Jerusalem Church, they being Jews, how could they celebrate a Communion with Jesus (who still enforced the Law) by eating/drinking blood? Even Paul's Gentile congregations were forbidden to eat blood.

Also, some theologians maintain that the Jerusalem church did not celebrate a meal in remembrance of Jesus' death. If this is true, then how could Paul have obtained his information from a source in which it did not exist? So, is there a Communal tradition before Paul or did Paul make it up because the long version of Luke,(22:19b-20) is an insertion? "In remembrance of me"...these words do not appear in any of the Gospels, so can anyone insist that Jesus spoke them?

The Apostle's view was one of comforting one another and looking forward until they would share the meal with Jesus himself in the New Kingdom. Paul's view was one that proclaimed, "...the lord's death until he comes." (I Corinthians 11:26). If the Jerusalem Church celebrated a Pauline 'last supper', wouldn't it be reasonable to say it would have been at the time of the Passover, since that was the final meal they shared with Jesus? Is there anything to indicate that they did, even at the Passover?

But to go further along, Paul, however, having had his way in forming a 'sacrament of death', is not satisfied with this new meal, but must add a threat of damnation to it.

"Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord... For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." "That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died." (I Corinthians 11:27-30)

side note: Since there has been no word of deaths or illnesses attributed to the taking of the 'communion meal', we must assume that everyone who has taken it has been worthy, or Paul is wrong.

So Paul was only following his usual pattern of moving to disorient the Jerusalem Churches ordinances and traditions, which they did (allegedly) receive from the Lord. He reinterpreted, changed the work of others, then instituted it as his own, and added a 'threat' of heavenly destruction if anyone dared to challenge his (Paul's) authority.

Even if his conclusions were not based on scripture or other theological evidence (that we know of), Paul liked to threaten those over whom he had control. Where Jesus saw sin and ill health as cause and effect, Paul saw it as a punishment for disbelief and unworthy participation in his newly created sacrament.

I'm just not understand this departure or separation between Paul and the Gospels. How does Paul get so far away from them?

In perhaps 20 years, with an organization strong enough to defy the "mother" church, Paul relieves himself of the Apostles, takes over congregations that others had once started, along with those he claims as original to himself, departs on a theological rampage of his own creation which eventually overwhelms and relegates the Jerusalem church to certain destruction and which ultimately influences the Synoptic Gospels. How can this happen?

wordy

Paul seems to be a "Johnny come lately" a new kid on the block and the Old Gang see him as a threat to the stability cause he is good at getting supporters and for a while he took over and won but later the Constantine gang won and still rules and the Martin Luther Protestant Gang barely survives, the latest threat to the Church is the Words of Faith and the Mega Churches.

Well sort of. Muslims maybe is the upcoming new kid on the block and they will win cause they have the kill yourself for the group weapon.

But who knows. Maybe Christians also will use that weapon, the anti-abortion gang has shown them willing to die for the group.

We had communists who was willing to kill themselves and others for the "cause".

Future doesn't look bright.

Gawen

Paul may have been a "Johnny come lately", but it is seen that HE sees the original church as the threat. I get the impression that the Disciples tried everything they could do. Barnabas takes Paul to Jerusalem to meet with certain Apostles. He's prodded into beginning a ministry. And it all goes downhill from there. I can't see how Paul nearly singlehandedly usurped the Jerusalem Church in a generation or so.

Paul and Luke disagree in places. Matthew, Mark and John tell of a kinder, gentler Jesus. The Apostles did not recognize Paul's claim to apostleship as is evidenced by the continuing opposition from them. His theology and his letters do not indicate that he had sufficient knowledge of Jesus' teachings and ministry or he would not have preached a gospel so contrary to Him or that of the Apostles.

The persecution that he involved himself in had nothing to do with Jesus, his beliefs, or his indictment as a seditionist, but but seems to be rather an assault against Stephen and the Hellenists. He could have been no more successful in proving Jesus guilty of a religious crime than were the High Priest and the Pharisees.

He had no concept of Jesus' life or ministry, and fifteen days was hardly enough time for Paul to absorb what it had taken the Apostles years to assimilate. Beyond that, the trial and the crucifixion as described by the Gospels do not verify tradition or Paul's concept of those events. Having claimed that Luke is in error in every count where Paul denies what 'the beloved' Luke has written, are we now to discredit the Synoptic Gospels because they do not agree with Paul's accounts?

I truly can't see how this all happened all so quickly.

Julian

Here are some more things to consider that may help you or confuse you further. Bear in mind that I do not regard 1 Cor. 11:23-27 as authentic Pauline verses mostly because of their jarring anachronism.

1) We do not know much of what the Jerusalem church did in the way of rituals. You cannot assume that they had a eucharist.

2) Paul must be read in the context of there being no narrative gospels, at least, not the ones that we know.

3) The eucharist in 1 Cor. is remarkably similar to the one in Luke, but there is good reason to think that the one in Luke is partially a second century interpolation. For more detail, check up on the Western Non-interpolations.

4) We do happen to have an extremely early description of the eucharist from the Didache, and it sounds nothing like the description in 1 Cor./Luke.

It seems rather strange to me that we would find a gospel-perfect eucharist in the mid-first century (1 Cor.). That eucharist then seems unknown at the end of the first century (Didache). It then reappears in its original form again in the late first/early second century (Luke).

It seems more likely that Paul knew of communal meals but nothing of any eucharist other than what we find in the Didache. Later, once the gospels start appearing and the eucharist approaches its final form, first attested through a partial eucharist in Luke, it becomes finalized and retro-fitted into the earlier texts (including a fix in Luke), although the Didache is missed which probably means several things: a) The Didache was no longer in much use since the church had changed, and b) The letters of Paul were not yet widely popular.

Anyways, you can draw your own conclusions from all this, my main point was simply that each text should first be read within its own context. It is difficult to sit here with all the texts and think of Paul in an environment without any narrative gospels.

Julian

ETA: The chapter and verses for the Didache eucharist is 9:1 onwards

Cheerful Charlie

True.

But such rituals are well attested to by mystery cults and Isis and Horus cults popular at the time of Jesus. Such could have easily been the model for Mark that the other synoptics copied.The question then is, did Mark get his eucharist from the early Churches who copied these things, or did the early churches get this from Mark? It seems then to me, the churches had something of this sort in their agape feasts.

CC

Gawen

I suppose (the bolded) is my real question. It would make sense to see the Narrative gospels come before Paul's epistles. But they don't. And James' gospel seems to repudiate or at least answer to Romans and/or 1 Corinth (faith with works instead of Paul's faith without works---yet Paul contradicts himself in Galatians about it). At any rate, like I said above, there must have been some sort of tradition other than Paul's because Paul seems to bash the other Apostles and/or elders of the Jerusalem Church (or mother church if that seems to fit) and their ways.

CC--So which is the mystery faith, Paul or whatever Paul disagrees with the Jerusalem Churches faith/traditions? It's all extremely confusing to me.

Gawen

I am also understanding that Paul, a Hellenised Jew-who studied under Gamaliel, is using the LXX and not the Masoretic Text...although I wouldn't know if this were true or not.

At any rate, I found this:

(The Holy Scriptures; Masoretic Text; Jewish Publication Society: Preface: Page V)

What does this mean and how could it be detrimental towards Paul and his use...or misuse of scripture?

gstafleu

Try the following. Paul came before the gospels. He did not preach an earthly Jesus but a spiritual one. The gospels were later adaptations of Paul's ideas, adding a historical component.

Try this as a hypothesis and see if your problems go away.

Gerard Stafleu

Gawen

But they don't go away. Luke contradicts Paul. where Paul contradicts writing, such as Luke, Paul is to be taken as correct. This is to say that the Bible is something less than inspired by God. The Jesus in the gospels paints an entirely different idea of salvation than Paul does.
Paul never refers to Jesus' teachings. The only aspect that is mentioned out of Jesus' entire life is the crucifixion and his assumed death on the cross. On this one detail alone, Paul draws his theological conclusions.

What he learned in fifteen days with the Apostles, no one knows. Had he learned anything of Jesus' works and teachings, especially since Paul called him Lord, they would seem to have been important enough to recall at least once in his writings.

Either I'm not seeing it, or something missing...or something is not true. And this is what confounds me.

gurugeorge

I think to really clear up Gawen's problems, you'd have to add that the "Apostles" and the "Pillars" before Paul weren't preaching an earthly Jesus either: they had a vision (kind of like a collective hallucination based on their study of Scripture and their spiritual exercises) of a Messiah who instead of being something to come, had already been and done his work (in a manner influenced both by Scripture and by the dying-rising redeemer myths which were both native to the region and also found in the Hellenistic Mysteries).

IOW, the Messiah they were preaching was just as mythical as the traditional Jewish Messiah, only in the past instead of the future, and tinted by the dying/rising mytheme. Paul picked up he ball and ran with it, turning the parochial Jewish idea into a universal idea.

This time inversion was a clever trick, but unfortunately it left a gap for speculation, for unlike something that's going to happen, something that has happened leaves causal traces (and even mythical entities of the past had left supposed traces - e.g. footprints, places they'd been, etc.), so it was probably natural for people to wonder who and where, precisely, He'd been.

Enter sundry speculative fictions filling in the gap, Mark's wins out (because of its dramatic power and its use of some genuinely profound sayings from "Q", which may be a something like a collection from a non-Christian/apocalyptic tradition that itself had made use of Cynic sayings). A feedback loop sets in, and the rest is history.

I think in this light it's also easy to see how the "gospels" proliferated: there was no actual "history", passed down by the Pillars or Paul, from a living human source's life, to serve as a "control"; the various "gospels" were each "Apostles's" or preacher's attempt to fill in the gap. Most people came to love the Markan skeleton (I mean let's face it, its a damn good story), so many of them used that as a basis, or used other gospels which used that as a basis - but even then there was lots of jazz played on the theme, until the Canon was gradually firmed up and the line drawn.