Solo

This is an interesting item. Two out of the three of these verses are not in the genuine Paulines and, the Romans quote falls in the closing doxology of Romans (16:25-27) which very much looks like a later addition. The conservative T.W.Manson alleges (in Peake's Commentary) that the verses were most likely a later addition of Marcion. It may well have been then that the copycats impersonating Paul in Ephesians and Colossians took this as genuine Pauliana, and copied it believing that Paul thought Christ lived long ago.

The alternative explanation is that the mystery and secret of Christ was held to have existed before Jesus' time, something that would have originated in the 'experience of Christ' but was not revealed until Paul, a near contemporary of Jesus the Nazarene through whom it was activated. Paul admits there were people 'in Christ' before him (Andronicus and Junias Rom 16:7), though this too falls past the undisputed text of Romans. At any rate, it is clear that the earliest Christ mystics would have been baffled by the discovery that the phenomena referenced by Paul existed before Jesus died and Paul received his revelation about it. All it would have taken is for some elder to say that he had the visionary experience Paul described before Jesus expired on the cross. Perhaps the formula of "the secret kept for ages" originated from such incidents.

Evidently the early church had no problems using the pre-existence of Christ in making assertions of his ancient presence. Eusebius (H.E. 1.4) claimed that Abraham interacted with Christ.

Best,
Jiri

Kapyong

Gday,

You can hardly pretend they are good evidence for Jesus. Would you like to quote some of these Talmud references? Such as Jesus having 5 disciples and being stoned to death in Lydda? Is that good evidence?


What?
After ALL this time you STILL think the MJ theory is a 'conspiracy'? That it's 'falsification', or 'made up from whole cloth'.

Why on earth don't you learn what the JM theory IS, Steve? Instead of repeating claims that show you have no idea? You keep saying completely wrong claims about the JM, and worse - you steadfastly refuse even study the MJ argument!

Don't you think you could argue much better if you actually understood what JMers really argue?

Only IF you ASSUME Jesus existed in the first place!
If he didn't then it wasn't 40 years at all. Begging the question.


Nonsense -
We DO have exactly that for Ulysses - tales of a person with some supernatural episodes - much like Jesus.


A myth can ALSO be embellished with fantastic claims. But you have just ASSUMED the mundane claims true.

Fantastic claims have been made about Luke Skywalker. Do you believe the mundane claims about Luke are true?

Fantastic claims have been made about Krishna. Do you believe the mundane claims about Krishna are true?

Fantastic claims have been made about Hercules. Do you believe the mundane claims about him are true?

Fantstic claims are ALSO made about mythical people.


K.

Toto

How do you get all of this out of

Romans 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

without reading your prior beliefs into it? Paul doesn't ask how they can believe in the one that they saw and did not understand.

Juststeve

Toto:

I get what you call "all that" from reading Paul in context, not by picking out three sentences and acting like I know what Paul is talking about. The difference between you and I is I'm trying to figure out what Paul is saying, your trying to score points.

Steve

aa5874

Excuse me. I don't make things up. The Pauline writer did use these words "according to the Scriptures".

Please examine the Pauline writings carefully.

1 Cor. 15.3-4 Let us search the Scriptures. I found the Scriptures.

Matthew 27:57-60 - According to the Scriptures, as stated by the Pauline writer, the body of Jesus was indeed "RESIDING" in a TOMB..

I did not make that up. I don't know who did but it is in the Scriptures.

It would SEEM the Pauline writers KNEW the Scriptures. He did NOT make it up either.

The Scriptures SEEMS to be BEFORE the Pauline writer wrote 1 Cor. 15.3-4.

spamandham

I'm saying the text we've been discussing suggests that Paul's savior is not a messiah at all nor a man of the recent past, but is instead the promised salvation of YHWH (which is what the name 'Jesus' actually means) that Jews had failed to accept throughout the ages.

The reason Paul is unconcerned with an earthly Jesus is because Jesus was never an earthly being to Paul. He is a spiritual being, who brings spiritual salvation through a spiritual kingdom, and is known by extracting him from the Jewish scriptures - the word.

The raising of YHWH's salvation from the dead is not a literal resurrection of a corpse, it's the resurrection of the right kind of spiritualism - revival in modern terminology - which replaces a long period of rote following of the Jewish law for appearance sake, which Paul equates with death.

Juststeve

Breaking news, noted Bible scholar aa establishes that the Gospel of Matthew was written before Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. More news at eleven.

Toto

Please do not impugn my motives. I am trying to figure out what Paul is saying. I don't think I know. But I don't see any context that would change the plain meaning of those sentences.

I only posted three sentences because of space. What do you see in that chapter or the entire epistle that supports the idea that any Jews saw Jesus crucified in recent history?

Juststeve

Toto:

Lets see where we are:

1. I posted in response to Steven Carr's question to me in which he asked if I didn't think Romans 10 was evidence that no one had heard about Jesus before he was preached by Christians. I said I did not think so and said why. You amended the question to include Romans 14 and I responded to that.

2. You then put this question to me : Would they? People who witnessed the resurrected Jesus would have to hear about the significance of that event? I responded by saying that even if we posited a person who knew Jesus, saw him crucified, and saw him resurrected he would still need to be instructed in Paul's theory of salvation. Notice I did not say there were such people because I don’t believe the resurrection occurred.

3. You then asked for an explanation of this “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” I suggested a bit of context to determine who these people who have not heard or believed are. Who is it that Paul says need preaching?

Where was Paul’s mission? It was not in the Galilee or in Judea, it was in Asia Minor. Who was his mission to? People who had never had the opportunity to see and hear Jesus while he preached in Galilee and Judea. These were the people who didn’t believe because they hadn’t heard. The fact that such people existed in no way suggests that Jesus did not.

Steve

Toto

Please note that I did not amend the question. I meant to type Romans 10:14 but omitted the 10. There is no reference to Romans 14.

OK, skip over that.

The context, please. Paul is writing a letter, allegedly to the Church in Rome, possibly to some other church. He is talking about the Jews. All Jews, everywhere, including Jews in Asia Minor who could have used the Roman roads to travel to Jerusalem or Galilee, and at least some of whom should have seen Jesus preaching in Jerusalem, if in fact Jesus had preached there.

Your interpretation rests on adding facts that you think you know from other sources.