|
Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 2,579
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by hjalti
Yes, even if all of 1Cor 15 is inauthentic, that doesn't explain why v. 3-11 don't fit in the context.
|
FWIW, I have dealt with the context issues some time back on this board. I am reproducing the post here as there was an error in the original one:
Quote:
The passage of 1 Cor 15:3-11 has been cited recently several times on BCH as evidence of Paul’s knowledge of, and reference to, dominical sayings on resurrection.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received,
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time,
most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8 Least of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
10 But by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace toward me
was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of
them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.
11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Commenting on the dismissal of the passage as a later insert by R.M. Price and J.C. O’Neill, G.A. Wells pointed out (The Jesus Myth (or via: amazon.co.uk), p.278) that although the verses are present in all extant manuscripts, none of them are earlier than the 3rd century. Also, he argued ably, that lack of evidence of manuscript tampering cannot be invoked selectively to set aside a hypothesis of interpolation, recalling Haenchen’s view that chapter 21 of John’s gospel is not considered to be by the same author as the preceeding twenty by critical scholarship, even though there is no known manuscript variance present there.
So, if not the presence of 1 Cor 15 without the passage, what is the evidence of interpolation in it and how strong is the case that it is a “later credal summary not written by Paul” ?
I think the internal evidence is quite strong that Paul did not write the passage, as it contradicts a number of crucial elements in Paul’s posture and beliefs.
1. Paul’s view of himself vis-ê-vis other apostolic authorities is
internally consistent, and uncompromising everywhere elsewhere in
his letters. This passage is at loggerheads with that expressed
view.
2. Paul’s belief in his commission from God, and its directness, which is
absolutely central to his faith, is compromised by the passage.
3. the original pericope of 1:15 by Paul ignores the insert, and
4. the passage uses a resurrectional concepts which are likely
anachronistic to Paul
Ad 1) From my point of view, Paul built a very strong and invariant set of beliefs around his mission, his relationship with the church and other apostolic figures. His relation to other leaders of the movement can be summarized as “humble to Christ, haughty to men”. It comes the strongest in Galatians, where the agonistic apostle declares his gospel to be a monopoly from God and threatens everyone who contradicts him with hell (Gal 5:10). But even when he is calm, cool and collected, and writes a clever diatribe, as in 1 Cr 9, he makes his no bones about his own moral superiority. That the Paul who says (in 1 Cr 9:15) “I would rather die than have any one deprive me of my ground of boasting” would a few paragraphs down in the letter, place himself at the bottom of the apostolic heap, and agree that he is the least worthy, is something beyond my humble wits. And humble as my wits may be, they still observe that Paul does not consider his former self persecuting the church to have been a cause for penance and seeing himself as inferior to other men in anything touching on Christ. Quite the contrary, Gal 1:13-14, and Phl 3:6 strongly hint that Paul believed Saul’s zeal in persecuting the church attested to his moral fibre, and the change of heart in the matter was entirely God’s will.
Verse 11 introduces another idea alien to Paul’s habitual thought ways. Paul was very “territorial” when it came to his mission to the Gentiles, and so the point of indifference as to who preaches to the flock he addresses is frankly unbelievable to me. Compare for example with the statement made in the chapter immediately preceeding, 1 Cr 14:37, or 2 Cr 11:4-5, or Gal 3:1, 5:10, or Rom 11:13-14, 15:17-21, or 2 Th 2:15.
Ad 2) Paul’s letters continually advertise his spiritual independence, and his direct relationship with God. As I indicated elsewhere on BCH, I consider it axiomatic that his visionary experiences and revelations about Jesus Christ relate to a late onset of acute bipolarity (relatively late, Swedenborg’s came in mid fifties). Psychologically then, they would provide a hugely prominent internal psychosomatic data against which his beliefs operated. As Paul was a man of low social standing but high dominance, the belief that he was commissioned by God directly had also a big compensatory function. It was something that distinguished Paul from other men and fed his self-esteem. Paul’s viewed himself as someone set apart by God before he was born, one who received (in due time) important revelations about God’s plan for humanity. There is no indication in Gal 1:15 that anything was wrong with God’s timing of Paul’s commission. So it is that verse which clashes head on with 1 Cr 15:8 which sees Paul as being born ‘ektromati’, i.e. in a deficient (or abortive) manner time-wise relative to the visions of other dignitaries.
For the same reason, the double reference to “scriptures” in (3 & 4) appears to be a clumsy attempt at being Paul. As Price observed (through reference in op.cit. above) it contradicts directly Paul’s assertion in Gal 1:16 that God revealed his Son in him (en emoi – i.e. directly as a bodily experience – about which more some other time) in order that he might preach him among the Gentiles. By contrast, the wording in 1 Cr 15 replaces the interpreted content of his personal ecstasies and revelations with a vague reference to holy writs, with what looks like intent on the part of the writer to show that Paul knows the gospel expansions extant at a later point and underwrites them. Unfortunately for the inserter, the gloss occurs exactly in a place where Paul appeals to his flock to take his version of Christ’s resurrection - on faith alone !
Ad 3&4) The logical sequencing of the original 1 Cr 15 Paul’s pericope seems to ignore the insert. The verse 12 logically follows verse 2, in concretizing the proposition that faith is in vain without Paul’s gospel, if its central tenet, the resurrection of Christ from the dead is not believed. Paul goes on to raise the ante by suggesting that if he preaches Christ as risen from the dead and he wasn’t, not only the faith of his flock is in vain but that Paul himself is an impostor who misrepresents God, stressing again that without Christ rising, the believers are still in their sins. Then Paul changes his rhetoric and begins asserting that Jesus Christ is “in fact”(nuni) raised, offering as proof the presumed union with him of those in the congregation who have died before parousia. In doing so, Paul strangely duplicates the effort of the insert which claims a scriptural proof of Christ’s rising supplemented by the witness of a multitude.
The Chapter continues to expound Paul’s own eschatological blueprint until the emotionally gripping crescendo of 1 Cr 15:56-58. Not once in the excursus after verse 11, Paul re-references the section of 3-11, alludes to other eschatological scenarios, apostles, or appearances. He gives no hint of it even in the crucial section of 42-50 which builds a resurrectional model in familiar images of Pauline sensing of eternity, and which would call for an explanation of what the “third day” really means in verse 4, or how the “image of the man of heaven” that “we shall bear” in 49 squares with Jesus re-materializing post-mortem for family and friends in 5-7. Why does Paul have to spend thirty eight verses (starting with 20) to elaborate on a scenario which appears to be arguing with the very people among whom he feels to be the last and unworthy ?
Perhaps, there is an answer.
Paul promoted the classical Judaic concept (held by the Pharisees) of resurrection from the dead which was opposed to the teachings of HJ. HJ taught that the kingdom was attainable on earth, that it lay “within oneself” and could be entered “violently” through his baptism of fire which was also known (originally) as “the raising from the dead” or “resurrection”. To the traditions originating with the preacher of Q, the conservative Judaic ideas ran counter to the revolutionary message of Jesus, best attested by his saying “let the dead bury their dead” which makes it semantically explicit that he considered some dead to be dead only metaphorically. (Geza Vermes said the deadhead metaphor for unspirituality was current in rabbinical Judaism of J’s. time. Further, the themes of redemption from the Pit,/escape from Abaddon, around which the “raising of the dead” rituals would have been built, were common in thanksgiving liturgy at Qumran) In his reply to the Saducees in Mark 12, solving the marital situation in afterlife. Jesus insists that his raising people from the dead has nothing to do with actual dying – he is just transforming his disciples internally, reshaping them to experience his parabolic “kingdom”, i.e. a world which operates on different perceptual and cognitive principles. To the Phariseic Saul, all of this was folly and blasphemy, and he fought against it.
Paul, once he got the inside track on the Spirit, came to see in the destruction of Jesus through madness a supreme act of mercy and wisdom on God’s part who sacrificed his Son, for Paul to preach that all that is flesh must die, but that sin may be cleansed (and death nullified) through repentance, and faith as confession of this act of Redemption. But, while Paul received the wisdom to see that Jesus was internally innocent of any wrong-doing and that his death really was God’s will (as opposed to “nobody’s problem” for the unspiritual) , he did not budge from his pre-conversion position and remained radically opposed to HJ’s idea of kingdom of heaven on earth (verse 50 !!!). And for that he would know no other Jesus than the one crucified. It is that which Paul was set to expound in 1 Cr 15 when he was interpolated.
After Paul’s death, the two antipodal views of resurrection coalesced in the Christian communities eventually producing the gospel stories of Jesus appearing in flesh to his disciples. But IMHO, in Paul’s time such an idea of resurrection did not exist. The communities believed in either the HJ’s baptism, and experimented with altered states of consciousness communing with his spirit in the personal experience of his (earthly) resurrection, or sided with Paul who interpreted his ecstasies as Christ’s glorious life in heaven to be conferred on the deserving believers at the time of the return of the Redeemer or their individual deaths, whichever came first. As Paul’s approach assured greater stability of the communities and their collective mental health, it won out in the end, even if at the price of all but obliterating his brilliant, original existential paradox by the gospel Easter phantasists. Small price to pay I suppose in exchanging the world on the brink for a church triumphant.
Jiri
|
Regards,
Jiri
|
01-30-2010, 07:21 AM
