Vorkosigan

OpenMInd, you're coming late to a conversation that is ongoing. There's nothing doubtful about a historiographical methodology that finds the Paulines to be constructed fictions. There's a whole wing of ignored-but-never-refuted scholarship that finds them to be so, the Dutch Radicals, a cause currently championed by Hermann Detering (http://www.hermann-detering.de/).

Reality is that historical methodology as it is used in NT studies is not like historical methodology as it is practiced elsewhere. We have had numerous discussions of this here; just type in "methodology" in the search function and start reading.

Vorkosigan

No Robots

Shirley Jackson Case provides an early refutation of the Dutch Radicals.

Amaleq13

Paul doesn't tell us though he does offer an apparent connection to the Passover lamb in 1 Cor 5:7. I tend to assume the Risen Christ and/or Scripture revealed it just like everything else.

Ben C Smith

What it refers to (for me, at least) is a human being who either claimed to be the messiah himself or was claimed by others around him as the messiah. As long as we agree that this is what is under discussion, call it what you will. But the term incarnation tends to carry some very heavy orthodox baggage (for example, it is well nigh impossible for some to hear that term without thinking of the virgin Mary), and I myself would prefer to stick to Pauline terms when discussing Paul.

The connection to the Passover lamb is apparent only if one already knows somehow that the death in question was supposed to be sacrificial. Which leads us back to my question: How did Paul know that the death of Jesus was supposed to be sacrificial? Your answer, apparently, is:

Let me ask you two questions:

1. If the messiahship of Jesus was revealed to somebody after the resurrection (whether through a vision or through scriptural reflection), to whom was it first revealed?

2. Does Paul, in your judgment, think that Jesus knew he was the messiah (or going to be made the messiah) before he died? Does he think he let others, perhaps those close to him, know he was the messiah (or going to be made the messiah) before he died? Or was it a surprise saved for after he had died (for some other reason?) and God met him in the afterlife or some such?

Ben.

Vorkosigan

I've read Case. He's bog-standard apologetics that takes the Paulines at face value and "refutes" the radicals.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

How bizarre. It seems to me that of the two of us, I'm the only one sticking to Paul for my understanding. You have neither a man claiming to be or being claimed to be the messiah in Paul yet they appear in your explanation. Paul gives us the descending Son who took on the form of man (ie Incarnation) to be sacrificed and resurrected to be the Risen Jesus Christ.

I would prefer that you stick to Pauline terms as well. When are you going to start?

How else could one understand the Son's willingness to take on the form of man in order to be killed?

I have to confess that I cheated off of Paul for all my answers.

Ben, you can read Paul just as well as I. The Risen Christ first appeared to Cephas.

Unless one of the things the Son "emptied" himself of in taking on the form of man was knowledge of his purpose , I would think so.

Paul says nothing about anyone close to the Incarnated form. I would think any such disclosure ran the risk of tipping off his would-be executioners as to his true identity and purpose.

Ben C Smith

I thought my answer to this was sufficiently clear. I was objecting to the term incarnation as loaded with ideas beyond what Philippians (for example) would give us.

If you are objecting to my hypothesis that Paul knows of a man named Jesus who was crucified as a messianic claimant, so noted, but that hypothesis is exactly what is on trial here; so far as I know, the incarnation is not on trial in this thread, and to use such a weighty term might distract from the proceedings.

All right, then, you would agree that during his purported lifetime, according to Paul, Jesus knew that he was either the messiah or the one destined to become the messiah. (And which of those would you opt for?)

Just checking, since I had no guarantee that you would directly connect the resurrection appearances with the actual revelation that Jesus was the messiah.

So again we have to imagine a human being walking around knowing that the messiah has come, and it is he. And again I agree with you.

According to Paul, on the night before he was executed Jesus told some person or persons (well, it has to be the latter, since the verbs are plural) that his body was to broken for him or them and his blood spilled as inauguration of a new covenant. According to you this kind of sacrificial death is the very basis of messiahship for Paul. Whom, then, did Jesus inform of the imminent breaking of his body and spilling of his blood, his friends or his enemies?

Another question: Paul is quite clear that Jesus Christ suffered crucifixion. That is a pretty specific form of death. Men are not normally crucified unless they have been accused (and presumably convicted) of a crime. Surely it would have occurred to Paul and other early Christians to wonder what crime the messiah had been accused of. Speculate for a moment. Of what crime do you think Paul (and the early Christians he once persecuted) thought Jesus had been accused?

Ben.

No Robots

Case writes:

In all fairness to the modern radical movement it may be said that its exponents have presented no thoroughgoing argument for the spuriousness of all the Pauline letters. Bauer's results are referred to occasionally, and the negative position of the Dutch school represented more recently by Van Manen, or the skepticism of Steck, is sometimes cited in this connection. But all of these positions certainly need at least to be revised and supplemented before the world of historical scholarship can be expected to treat them seriously.

How is this "bog-standard apologetics"?

In any event, there are more recent refutations of the radical position. Detering himself has posted a critique of his Der gefälschte Paulus (The counterfeit Paul) written by Rainer Riesner. Reisner writes "Daran sieht man, wie längst nicht bloß namhafte evangelische Verlage sich zunehmend auf theologischen Schund verlegen", ie. "Herein we can see the extent to which prominent Christian publishers are not afraid to print theological trash."

Amaleq13

Yes, you made it clear that you were importing considerable baggage onto the term that has no basis in Paul. I'm asking you to stop doing that for the sake of this discussion.

incarnation: A bodily manifestation of a supernatural being.

How else can one refer to the Form taken on by the descending Son except as an Incarnation of that entity?

As far as I can tell, there is no evidence in Paul to support this hypothesis.

I cannot control the excess weight you place on the term except by asking that you stick to your own restriction and rely only on Paul for your understanding. When you speak of "a man named Jesus", you are speaking of the Incarnated Form of the Son with absolutely no assumptions involving the virginity of the mother or the immaculate nature of the conception. It doesn't even require a mother though Paul asserts this elsewhere.

I already answered this question: "Unless one of the things the Son "emptied" himself of in taking on the form of man was knowledge of his purpose , I would think so." I've been considering that since writing it and I think the idea of the Son becoming amnesiac with regard to his purpose makes for a great story but poor theology. I think it is more likely that it was believed that knowledge of his purpose was not "emptied".

I think it is sloppy terminology, in the sense of sticking to Paul, to refer to the Incarnated Son as merely a human being. What I believe we have to imagine is the Incarnated Son as aware that he has to get executed by the archons without them knowing his identity/purpose and that this will result in his becoming a new sort of Messiah.

I think it is a mistake to historicize an apparent vision Paul has had to the point of assuming that this information is being addressed to people with Jesus at the time of the events in the vision as opposed to being addressed to the people hearing about the vision.

I see no reason to assume what Paul describes actually took place and, instead, see it as an Origin Myth created to justify this particular interpretation of the sacrifice.

I've made this same observation several discussions and I've said that this is a question I certainly would have asked of Paul. Unfortunately, he never tells us why Jesus was executed. Of what were the hundreds (thousands?) of victims of crucifixion in the preceding two centuries accused? I don't recall Josephus providing this information when he writes about them though, IIRC, he says they were righteous Jews.

Amaleq13

If we take Phil 2:7 literally, perhaps he was crucified as a disobedient slave.