fromdownunder

...based on the famous (Pick Your Subject) for Dummies book series.

OK, in dummy terms (i.e., me), Paul was presumably writing to Jesus believers in the 40's and 50's CE. Questions:

Who was Paul actually writing to (no, not the salutations in his letters)?

Have we got any historical records, or anything at all outside of Paul of these very early Jesus groups?

Why was there so much divergance from the supposed original teachings of the supposed Jesus in such a short period? Or was Paul trying to do a Hubbard?

If they accepted that there was somebody called Yeshu/Joseph/Jesus before Paul's letters, and he apparently thought that they did, where did this acceptance come from?

Or did he make the Jesus story up out of whole cloth, and was writing to nobody at all?

Any other releant comments appreciated. I know where I am coming from, but on re-reading this, I am not convinced that others will.

"Responses for Dummies", please.

Norm

Clouseau

What divergence was there?

Toto

Maybe churches. Maybe Christians in general, even though he put his essays in the form of letters to specific churches.

Nothing. Unless you identify Paul with Simon Magus.

The different versions of Jesus that Paul warns against could be evidence that the gospel story is pure fiction. I don't think Christians have any reason for there to be so many people who forgot Jesus' words a few decades after his death. (Or could it be Satan leading them astray?)

Who knows?

That's a possibility - especially if you think that Marcion wrote the letters.

wordy

Me being a Dummie too got interested in this Didn't many of the winners talk about Marcion in ways supporting that he was important as a source.

But suppose Paul really existed, could he not have addressed the Gnostics, they existed long before alleged Jesus and Paul, so maybe he tried to take over their congregations from within.

fromdownunder

I think that just reading the first two Chapters of Romans alone indicates that Paul was not happy with the direction that the Roman "Christians" were taking. so, the divergance would be Paul's view of Yeshu's message as opposed to theChurch in Rome's view of the same message.

Of course I may be misreading these chapters completely which is why I headed this thread the way I did.

Norm

fromdownunder

[QUOTE=Toto;4488427]Is there a thread or an essay on II where I could read up on this?

Thanks

Norm

Clouseau

It may appear that Paul was berating the Roman church, but I think he was merely giving precautions against various errors, at most- that he was just saying what was on his mind, to people he had not visited in person, who perhaps did not take as clear a view as he did. When he writes 'You who pass judgment' he means anyone who passes judgment, and presumably does not have the Roman church very much in mind when writing it.

'First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.' Rom 1:8 NIV

We don't actually know what the Roman church's view was, but it does not seem to me that Paul's teaching is different in any way from that of Jesus. Jesus based all of his teaching in the OT- he claimed that all he said was fulfilment of 'the Law of Moses', 'the Prophets' and 'the Psalms'- the three divisions that made up the whole Scriptures at that time- and there is little of Paul that cannot be traced back to that same Scripture, and to Jesus' teaching.

Doug Shaver

I am aware of no reason to think the salutations were not genuine.

No.

Because the people who invented Jesus were a different sect from Paul's.

I don't understand the question.

No.

Solo

Paul is addressing himself to a core of Gentile believers (and sectarian Jews) who are accepting Jewish God and associating with Jewish communities, with whom he had some previous contact (except Romans). He often addresses them as "saints", i.e. those who have knowledge of bodily mysteries he himself experiences. He expounds to them his theory of God's Wisdom, in which God sent his Son to earth to show the vanity of material existence. His expositions are attempts to create communities of ethical spiritualists, whose central purpose in life is to maintain purity for the coming Judgment.

Outside of a small academic fringe which believes that the Dead Sea Scrolls reference the early Jesus movement, Paul's letters are all there is.

Since the gospels are written after Paul, and Paul categorically refuses to recognize any deeds or wisdom of the earthly Jesus (who he preached had been sent to be embarrassed, rejected and made appear as sin), it is difficult to tell what in the gospels comes from Jesus, and what from Paul, or other utterances in apostolic visions of Jesus.

That is the million-dollar question. How did the movement agree on the designation of Jesus/Yeshu across divergent and contradictory views of him which apparently existed already in Paul's time ?
Paul indicates that the crucifixion was a shameful end of Jesus, if it is not seen as act of God's will, a supreme sacrifice made on God's behalf. It is hard to see (for a dummy like myself e.g.) where such a theory could have been built around purely abstract, or mythical death.

Jiri

wordy

Could be that he just made a niche and a Brand that was his way of gaining an upper hand and him taking over. Me guessing