No Robots

There are many errors in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Richard Anthony argues that we have them precisely because they are so error ridden. It is also incorrect to speak of a single scribe for Sinaiticus, as this site attests.

Ben C Smith

I nowhere said merely. Paul clearly thought Jesus was both divine and human.

If the words were addressed to those hearing it from Paul, there was no need to situate those words on a specific night. I think you are espousing an impossible reading. Paul assigns a direct quote by Jesus in the second person plural to a particular night in his lifetime. Was Jesus, according to Paul, really speaking only to people who would come along later, like a TV actor alone on stage addressing a camera?

No. The obvious inference is that Jesus was not alone on that night when he broke bread during supper and spoke over a cup after it. The very fact that Paul refers to a given night (why not a day?) and a meal (one clearly consisting of more than the bread alone) tells us that he is familiar with a story he has not recounted in full.

If you insist that, for Paul, Jesus was alone with his thoughts on that fateful night, speaking to people who were not there, I leave you to it.

It does not have to have taken place. What is at issue is what Paul thought took place.

I think he gives us a running start on the question. More below.

In his book on crucifixion Martin Hengel lists a number of charges that could get one crucified, including treason, rebellion against the state, murder, magic, and other crimes. It was almost exclusively reserved for the lower classes, including (but not limited to) slaves.

For the sake of specificity, let me limit the following survey to crucifixions in Judea.

According to Josephus, Antiquities 12.5, Antiochus Epiphanes crucified those who opposed him. According to Antiquities 13.14 Alexander Jannaeus crucified many of his political enemies after defeating them in battle.

In Antiquities 17.10, some two thousand men were crucified for inciting a revolt against Rome. In Antiquities 20.5 the sons of Judas the Galilean are crucified. Judas himself had incited a revolt against Rome years earlier; Josephus does not tell us what crime his sons committed to merit crucifixion, but the implication appears to be that they, too, were rebels against Rome. In War 5.6 a Jew from beseiged Jerusalem is crucified in order to scare the other beseiged Jews into surrendering; again the crime appears to be rebellion against Rome. Same idea in War 5.11.

The dominant theme in Judean crucifixions seems to be rebellion against the presiding king or emperor.

Now, we know from 1 Corinthians 15.24-25 that Paul subscribed to the Jewish notion that it was in the job description of the messiah to abolish all authority and dominion and set up the kingdom of God. We also know from various places in the Pauline epistles that Jesus knew he was the messiah, and from 1 Corinthians 11.23-25 that he confided in other people at least some of what he was about. It is not a stretch at this point to suspect that Jesus, allegedly the messiah, was crucified in connection with his messiahship, and not for some other random crime that nobody ever mentions or tries to clear him of.

(Just to be clear here, I doubt any Roman ruler would have crucified Jesus on the specific Jewish religious terms of being a messiah; what would be at stake for a Roman is what a would-be messiah, or Jewish king, would mean for Roman rule.)

I think that Paul implies the charge for which Jesus was crucified in 1 Corinthians 1.23; 2.2; Galatians 3.1:

We preach a messiah crucified.

For I judged to know nothing among you except Jesus the messiah, and him crucified.

O brainless Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus the messiah was placarded as crucified?

I submit that speaking of a crucified messiah in the first century would be much like speaking of an executed mass murderer today, or a witch burned at the stake in medieval times, or a hanged cattle rustler in the old American west. If Paul himself did not mean to link the execution of the messiah with the charge of being a messianic claimant, and thus a threat to Roman or even local Jewish rule, he certainly made it easy for everybody after him to make that connection.

You may keep all these elements separate if you wish, but it seems far more parsimonious to suppose that Paul knew the execution of Jesus had something to do with his messianic status, a supposition that is amply supported by the gospel accounts, both intracanonical and extracanonical. We have the sources; let us put them to use.

Do you take Philippians 2.7 literally? One can, I suppose. But one can also understand it figuratively (as in Matthew 20.27 and Romans 15.8). Servitude is often figurative in Paul.

Ben.

Lógos Sokratikós

"Never refuted" is relative. Everywhere we can find "schools" that never consider themselves refuted, never cease to die or recant. The "plausibility" of theories depends on what paper you read and who writes it.

jakejonesiv

These are tangential issues.

Robots I am asking for the earliest extant text where we can unambiguosly distinguish between "Iesous Christos" and "Ieosus Chrestos", between "Chrestian" and "Christian."

It is a simple textual question, and it must have a simple answer. However, I do not know the answer. If you know, please just post the answer here plainly. If the answer is contained in one of your links, please fish it out for me. I don't have time to read superfolous material right now.

If anybody knows the answer, please post it. Could it be there is no hard evidence until after the third century???? Surely not :huh:

Jake

Amaleq13

I think it is implied by using the simple description of "human being" rather than something that more closely adheres to Paul's stated beliefs (ie Incarnated Son or Human Form).

Paul clearly thought that the divine Son took on the form of humanity but how Paul understood that is far from clear.

If the Origin Myth was intended to explain a new (Paul's?) interpretation of the shared, thanksgiving meal, it certainly was needed.

What an odd thing to say about a reported vision from a divine being.

It seems absurd to me to suggest that any inference from a report of an apparent divine vision based on a literal interpretation of that vision could be characterized as "obvious".

The thanksgiving meal of bread and wine predates Christianity but I'm not sure what you mean by "more than the bread alone" or where you obtained it. Would it make sense to offer an Origin Myth to explain an interpretation of the thanksgiving meal which takes place at a different time and includes different food or drink? When did Paul and his fellow Christians eat their shared thanksgiving meal? When was the Passover meal eaten? When was the Yom Kippur meal eaten (the other obvious connection with Jesus' sacrifice)? In addition, when does the condemned have his "last meal"? All of these would require an evening setting and none requires any connection to actual events.

IMO, you are reading far too much into this vision Paul describes.

I "insist" nothing but, if you insist that the events in visions must follow the rules of logic, I leave you to that absurd notion.

This is the reference I had in mind but your summary seems a bit disingenuous since they "opposed" him simply by continuing to worship as Jews:

But the best men, and those of the noblest souls, did not regard him, but did pay a greater respect to the customs of their country than concern as to the punishment which he threatened to the disobedient; on which account they every day underwent great miseries and bitter torments; for they were whipped with rods, and their bodies were torn to pieces, and were crucified, while they were still alive, and breathed.

Was it "the Jewish notion" that this would take place at the End Times and by a Resurrected Messiah as Paul describes here? This is all part of the new definition of "Messiah".

It is absurd to suggest that this can be obtained from Paul's divine revelation, Ben. What are some of the other "various places" you find this notion supported? I hope they are more reliable than a mystical vision.

It certainly is a stretch given that you apparently base it on a vision providing an Origin Myth and a prediction about events during the End Times. Do you have anything less mystical to support your contention?

I can see why you might "think" that but I don't know how you eliminate the rather obvious possibility that Paul's faith that Jesus is the Messiah would make it virtually impossible for Paul to refer to him in any other way regardless of whether it was technically appropriate. IOW, I would fully expect Paul to refer to Jesus as "Christ" even if, as I suspect, he firmly believed that this was only true after he had been sacrificed and/or resurrected.

I don't understand how a position that involves more assumptions could be considered "more parsimonious".

So much for sticking just to Paul, I guess. You just can't help it, can you?

In reality, the Gospels really don't help your case at all since the trial scenes are such a mess of clearly fabricated nonsense. Even after cleaning away all the more obvious silliness, we are left with a Jesus who kept his alternative messianic purpose a secret but was framed for being a traditional messianic claimant but was considered innocent by Pilate but was executed anyway yet his former followers were allowed to later set up shop in his name and in the same town. If you consider that ridiculous mess to support you, I leave you to it.

I take it as someone else's expression of their faith. Only they can tell us if it was meant to be taken literally. It would be consistent with the notion that Paul believed the Incarnated Form to have been crucified among the "best men" who did nothing but continue to worship God faithfully.

No Robots

Justin (110-165) provides the earliest textual evidence of the distinction between "Christian" and "Chrestian", making a play of words out of the similarity:

In our case you receive the name as proof against us, and this although, so far as the name goes, you ought rather to punish our accusers. For we are accused of being Christians, and to hate what is excellent (Chrestian) is unjust.

andrewcriddle

Theophilus in Book 1 of "To Autolycus" c 185 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/...m#P1399_405324 says Whatever Theophilus means he must be talking of Christians not Chrestians.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

Not sure why an exact setting was needed to push a new interpretation of a thanksgiving meal.

Paul is describing a scene. That scene happens at night, during and after a meal. That scene includes a short speech delivered by someone participating in the meal (at least taking bread and a cup) in the second person plural; if the most natural inference is not that the person delivering this speech is speaking to other persons at that meal, then there is no sense in ever drawing inferences from a text. We may as well hang up our hats as critical readers of the text.

1. If it were only bread and wine, why say after supper? Why not after the bread?
2. The context in 1 Corinthians 11 tells us that a full meal is involved with this ritual that Jesus supposedly inaugurated (if the full meal was bread alone, then it was enough bread to satisfy, not just a fragment or two).

The origin of the nighttime setting is not at issue. What is at issue is what it implies about the brief narrative that Paul gives. He is not speaking of certain kinds of meals in general; he is speaking of a particular meal on a particular night during which particular words were spoken.

I am drawing inferences. Natural, logical, consistent inferences. Just as I would draw from Shakespeare or Peter Abelard or Bede.

You are confusing the vision itself with the content of the vision. If I tell you that I had a vision in which JFK predicted 9-11 before it happened, you have no reason to place this prediction within the lifetime of JFK or to expect any particular logic to it. If, however, I tell you that I had a vision in which it was revealed to me that JFK, on the night before his assassination, said: Some of you [plural] will see two mighty towers fall in New York, then you have every right to wonder to whom I imagine he spoke those words the night before his rendezvous with fate in Dallas, Texas.

In like manner, we have every right to wonder to whom Paul imagined Jesus speaking the words of institution on the night before he was delivered up to death. If Paul really did not intend to imply that Jesus was talking to somebody on that night, then he expressed himself quite poorly.

????

I agree with the second half of your statement completely, and have no idea whence you derive any sense of disingenuousness on my part. The Jews opposed Antiochus. The text says they opposed Antiochus. And I am quite certain that Antiochus could easily have said to himself: Hmmm, I gave orders that were supposed to alter their practices, but these Jews are opposing me.

Yes.

No, but the resurrection part was not really the controversial bit; the controversial bit was the death that preceded the resurrection. (One cannot be resurrected unless one has first died.) The resurrection was (at least part of) the Christian solution to the problem of the crucifixion.

(Not the end times part!)

Every innovation to the usual expectations is clearly marked in Paul; he flat out tells us that the crucified messiah is a problem, a break with expectations.

Well, from you, for starters:

You and I have already agreed that Jesus, according to Paul, knew he was the messiah. If you are going to play up a difference between knowing that he is the messiah and knowing that he will be, that is simply not the distinction that I am making. My point is that Jesus knew that a messiah was promised, and he was it, and he knew this before he died, not merely after.

Absurd to suggest that, for Paul, Jesus mentioned on the night before he was handed over that he was going to die a sacrificial death? That is what the text says. Absurd to suggest that, for Paul, Jesus was actually addressing people on that night? I humbly submit that it is difficult to imagine Paul thinking that Jesus was all alone, muttering to himself in the second person plural over supper.

Last night over supper I said: You had better remember me when I am gone.

If you heard me say that, Amaleq, would you not wonder to whom I was speaking last night over supper?

Again, it has nothing to do with how reliable the vision was in an historical sense. It has everything to do with how Paul is imagining the scene when he narrates it for us. And his narration implies that Jesus was not alone on the night before he was killed.

Here was the part of my argument that makes that option less likely:

What, after arguing that Paul has a certain scenario in mind I am not permitted to note that other sources confirm this scenario?

Which commentaries have you read that attempt to clear up the mess?

The gospels are clear that Jesus was killed (so far as Rome was concerned), not for being a bad slave, not for murder, not for jaywalking, but for some claim, however garbled, that he was the true king of the Jews. That is, the messiah.

Ben.

Steven Avery

See the thread above, especially the Corinthians reference given by Ben. Many expectations were spot-on, many were off. Simeon and Anna expected the Messiah,yet the apostles were not comfortable with the crucifixion aspect; the Targum had said that the Messiah was the subject of Isaiah 53, while bypassing the suffering aspect.

Tis a good question if anyone has done a study looking for Targum phraseology per se. If you have such a study, share away, they would be hamstrung a bit by the language changeover. The issue I am referencing is the places of agreement, where "Messianic expectations" in the Targum dovetail with NT description of such expectations and realities.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Ben C Smith

You know, Amaleq, as I survey our conversation it occurs to me that our disagreement lies much further back than just the text of Paul. I think it lies in what we expect out of the text, and how we approach the text.

I do not think you very much want to make connections, to draw conclusions, to tie up loose ends. If Paul (or the Didache, or Mark, or whoever) does not come right out and say X, you do not want to infer X.

I, on the other hand, do want to make connections, to draw conclusions, to tie up loose ends. And I think I want to do these things as a rule with any text, ancient or modern.

(The fringe historian Martin Bernal once divided the world up into lumpers and splitters. I would be a lumper; you would be a splitter.)

So, for example, Paul talks about a messiah figure who dies the kind of death that one might well expect a messianic figure to die, and I want to draw the conclusion that these two data are related somehow, that the messianic figure was killed precisely because he was obeying what he perceived to be his messianic mandate. (I do not want to have to live with the coincidence that, for Paul, this figure both thought of himself as the Davidic messiah and died the kind of death that we might expect a person claiming messiahship over the Jews to die, yet the two are not related.) You, on the other hand, apparently do not want to make such a connection. No doubt you would say that reading that much into it fails to take Paul on his own terms. What I would call tying up loose ends (thus achieving parsimony) you would call making unnecessary leaps or assumptions (thus spoiling parsimony).

Despite the fact that we were doomed to disagree from the start , I hope we have both benefitted from the exchange. I know I have. Thanks.

Ben.