dog-on

G-Don,

Before I respond to the rest of your last post. Can you please clarify what you believe that Paul means by this:

Thanks.

Solo

I don't think the 1 Cor 15:3-11 passage comes from Paul for reasons many times repeated on this board. (see e.g. Robert M. Price's Apocryphal Apparitions). Besides the "scriptures" here may be an idiotic reference of the interpolator to early christian writings, similar to 1 Tim 5:18 invoking as scriptural a Q saying in Matthew and Luke.



Again, I read this as an attempt to run away from the problem of reusing an unknown ancient historical figure for new purposes. What you are saying is that Paul could have "derived" Jesus from LXX interpretively. That may or may not be. But the argument here was that Paul believed Jesus an ancient personage (rather than a recently arrived charismatic figure) about whose martyrdom he and his fellow mystics had new revelations.

If that is so, I am saying, then the name "Jesus" was historically apprehended in the communities as relating to martyrdom or legal tresspass for generations. The name would have been recognized and it would, presumably through generations, have left some kind of trace for Cephas and Paul and others to pick up on. We do not know of any such trace. Paul does not provide us anything. Second, what were the social, historical, psychological contexts of these new revelations and speculations that could plausibly account for the sudden reklindling of interest in this presumably old story ?

Ok, since dog-on blew my cover here as a Mormon missionary, I am authorized to say by the elders that such a scenario is inherently implausible, and that either Jesus was a modern charismatic historical figure in Paul's time or a newly created myth.

Jiri

GakuseiDon

These are the passages. I'll give my paraphrase afterwards:

Gal 3:15 Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man's covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it.
Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ.
Gal 3:17 And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect.
Gal 3:18 For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
Gal 3:19 What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made

My paraphrase:

Even in a covenant between men, no-one annuls or adds to it. So, after God made his promise to Abraham and his seed (who is Christ), what happened to that promise when the law came into effect 430 years after Abraham? Nothing. God would not annul the promise that He made to Abraham and Christ.

So, what purpose did the law serve? It was added because of the transgressions (presumably after Abraham), and served until the seed of Abraham should come.

This is part of Paul's commentary about the law. What is interesting is that it places Christ (the seed) coming AFTER the law was made.

dog-on

I think you are, perhaps, reading more into this than is really there, regarding a reference to an earthly visit by Jesus.

Later in that same chapter:

Paul specifically does not say "Before Jesus came", but "Before this Faith came", faith in Jesus Christ (as revealed by the scriptures).

At least, that is how I read it.

aa5874

But, there is no information or evidence to show that the letter writer called Paul was the earliest Christian writer.

The information from the church writers place the letter writers called Paul AFTER the gospel called Luke was already written.

And P 46 is presently dated between the middle of the 2nd-3rd century.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support the concensus that the letter writer called Paul was the first christian writer.

dog-on

Yup, that would be about it...

dog-on

That's why I added the qualifier to my statement.

So?

and?


Sure, but that isn't really relevant to the fact that such a consensus does, in fact, exist, now does it.

Ben C Smith

It seems worth pointing out that the best manuscripts lack the words in[to] Christ after by God in this verse. The UBS edition 4 gives the shorter reading a ranking of A (virtually certain), based on the very impressive confluence of P46, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Ephraem rescriptus, and other manuscripts.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Paul says both, and they are not mutually exclusive.

In 3.19 he says that the law was in effect until the seed (which in 3.16 he has defined as Christ) should come. Unless Paul sees the law as still in effect for his Galatian converts (an overtly unsupportable position), then the seed, to his mind, must have already come (sometime after Abraham but before his own penning of the epistle).

In 3.25 he says that faith has come, and he is playing this faith over and against the law (see verse 24). This emphasizes that the law is no longer in effect for his Galatian converts, and thus entails that the seed promised in verse 19 has already come. This does not hurt the case that GDon is making; it helps it.

I have pointed before to an online article that claims that cool came to Las Vegas in the sixties. This does not contradict Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack coming to Las Vegas in the sixties; to the contrary, cool came because the Rat Pack came. Likewise, Paul is saying in Galatians 3 that faith has come because the law is no longer in effect, and the law is no longer in effect precisely because the seed (Christ) has come.

Ben.

bacht

Fair enough. I realize that the cosmology of the time was more complex than our simple heaven/earth model. Paul mentions visiting the third heaven, and I believe there are allusions to seven heavens in pre-NT lit.

If I understand correctly, the Greeks considered the fixed firmament of stars as the highest level, under which there were planetary spheres, below which was the sublunar (earth-moon) realm and finally the earth (?)
[you did a thread about this a few months ago I think?]

I don't know what to make of the Zion reference. I'm very skeptical of Paul these days, he seems like a wax nose turning in any direction a commentator wishes.