Grog

So "lower" = "earlier"? And yet you contradict yourself because Paul is the "higher" and clearly "earlier" than Acts. Also, Paul was written by Paul, so how can we give priority to a speech written by Luke (reported by Luke) as being earlier than Paul, himself?

I think you are grasping at straws here.

And yet, if "lower" = "earlier" than your assumption that the development of Christology, historically, went from Jesus the man to Christ the god, is upset, indeed, falsified by the fact that our earliest evidence states that Christ is cosmic god. In fact, as you say, the highest of Christological development: co-existent ("since time began") with God.

I can't untangle all these knots. Luke in Acts contradicts Luke in Luke. Ok, what do you make of that? You take that to mean that Luke in Acts is more authentic than Luke in Luke? Why is that? Why would Luke in Luke say something he knew was wrong (and then get it correct in Acts?). I don't follow this logic.

Try this on:

gLuke existed prior to the final redaction and incorporation into the volume Luke-Acts. Acts was written (as per Knox, Tyson) as a response to the Marcionites. At the time Acts was written, Luke underwent its final (?) redaction. The speeches in Acts are not so much historical, as theological argument against Marcionites. They are made up to rebut the arguments of Marcion. I strongly recommend that you at least read Tyson's book on Luke-Acts.

On Paul. So we have "authentic" writings of Paul. We have alleged speeches of Paul's written (I follow Tyson here) 70 or 80 years later, but you give priority to the speeches? Can you explain that? Even if we grant a date in the 90's for Acts, I can't see how you justify this position.

Diogenes the Cynic

No. Bart Ehrman says that Luke has Paul making speeches that are contrary to and more primitive than Luke's own Christology which indicates that Luke did not invent those speeches himself.There is no claim that the speeches are authentic, only that they are non-Lucan.

Sheshbazzar

-Before this moves too far away I'm going to have to reply to it, and perhaps surprisingly say that I certainly agree with your assessment.
The source(s) of 'Mark', and in fact the entire NT writings, while gaining their strongest expression in Hellenistic Greek writings, and did despise Judaism, if anything, despised the ancient Hellenistic culture, and that -intellectual freedom- represented by its many varying cultural religious and philosophical traditions even more.

The NT writers had it in for 'this present Age', for 'this world' and for 'all the powers of this world', and all of the religious and political 'systems' of this world.
They were 'world-class "world haters".
What their aim was, was an absolute Theocracy, with them and their form of religious dictatorship at the top, replacing every other form of human religion, thought, or government.
And as they gained numbers and power they set about on a campaign of undermining and destroying every opponent, every religion, and every philosophical system, or government that allowed for any independent freedom of thought or expression.

Everything that people now did was to be in the service of The Church, everything people under its influence even thought was now to be in unquestioned obedience to, and in absolute conformity with what the authorities of The Church thought, and decreed that all others must also think.

This is what led to the ridiculously contrived Papal decrees and precisely defined monstrously hair-splitting details on the nature of The Church's god, with life threatening anathemas for any who would not conform, literally right down the very last letter and dot; 'Recite this, this, this and this...or die!'
It was an insane religious system, one inimical to all human liberty, or social progress. Piously murderous, its adherents would chant their mind-numbing self-absolving prayers while torturing and murdering their victims 'for their own good'.

It is still with us, and for those so infected, establishing a worldwide Theocratic Kingdom with themselves in charge is still the ultimate goal. It is their firmly held belief, that they are the visible 'body' and 'members' of 'Christ'. And to resist the rule of 'the Church' is to resist 'Christ' Zombie Jebus himself.
And this same syphilitic mental disease afflicts both the old Whore, and her whore daughters, they are all the same, all vying to be the ones to suck men dry.
Ultimately their goal is that "every knee shall bow, and every mouth confess" to them, being the body of their 'Christ Jebus'.

They can go fuck themselves.





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Diogenes the Cynic

This is not true. Paul does not have a particularly high Christology.
Because its Christology is earlier than Paul's.

Our earliest evidence says no such thing. Paul says no such thing. Paul does not say Jesus is God or coeexistent with god. Neither does Luke. That doesn't come along until GJohhn.

No one said anything about "authentic," just that those particular speeches reported by Luke were not Luke's own invention. There is no claim for authenticity, only independence from Luke.

Grog

What mystery do you think Paul is revealing?

1 Cor 1:7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Cor 2:7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

You simply ignore what Paul says. Notice, here to that Jesus is yet to come.

Your reasoning is circular.



Read above. Do you think GJohn has "late" ideas? Logos-belief is attested in Philo who was dead by the 50's. So how do you call these ideas "late," but the idea that Jesus was crucified by Pilate "early" when we have no attestation of that idea until at the earliest the 70's?
So you just ignore the scholarly arguments that go against your view? I could accept that if you provided a good argument for why scholars like Dibelius is wrong. Even Bruce accepts that they are Luke's inventions, he just believes that Luke more or less captures the essence of what would have been said.

These speeches are inventions, you don't have a good reason for thinking otherwise.

Steven Carr

I see.

So Ehrman slags people off for not having the right credentials - the credentials that lets him claim that something doesn't even have to be authentic to count as outstanding historical evidence.

Steven Carr

Was that before or after he started symbolically eating the body of Jesus and symbolically drinking his blood?

Diogenes the Cynic

I guess I don't see your point here. Paul thinks the "revelation" is that the world is about to end, not that Jesus is God. Paul thought (or at least said) that the "raising" of Jesus was a revelation that the resurrection and judgement of the dead was about to begin.
We have the crucifixion from Paul, and we know that GJohn is much later than 70. Philo's dates are irrelevant, what makes John's Christology "late" is that it pushes Jesus' existence back before his birth. Jesus evolved Chronologically from the ground up - from purely man to purely God. This has been fairly obvious to anyone who's ever seriously studied it.
I'm not arguing with Ehrman, you are.
We actually do have a good reason for thinking otherwise, as I've already stated, those speeches contradict Luke's own Christology, and Luke would have no reason at all to say either that Peter had a lower Christology than Luke's own, or that Paul altered his own views.

Luke is reporting a Christology that predates even Paul. It's not credible that it would move backwards from Christ at birth to Christ at Resurrection.

Diogenes the Cynic

Is it your contention that Paul's adaptation of the seder to a more Gentile appropriate eucharist ritual is evidence, in itself, that Paul thought Jesus was God?

If Paul thought Jesus was God, then why didn't he ever say so?

aa5874

There really is no point in you posting because you are extremely unreasonable and do NOT even accept what is actually written in the NT. You seem to be a in serious state of DENIAL.

You are just making Blunder after Blunder. You seem to beyond any sort of rational.

Both the Pauline writer and the author of gLuke claimed Jesus was the Son of God.

Jesus in the Pauline writings and gLuke MUST exist as a God once Jesus is considered the Son of God.

Please, show that you can reason or else you do NOT make sense.