spin

That's our problem: we don't know. And you haven't answered my question, but that's understandable.

The problem is that we just don't know what the relationship between them was and not rejecting them may be tantamount to poisoning the well. This means that it is important to get the utmost from Paul by himself, given his necessary linguistic and cultural relationship to the past, not the future. He is after all closer to the LXX and Philo of Alexandria in time and culture than to much of christianity. And what we get from Paul directly we can be more content with knowing that it is what the text meant.

It may ultimately not be necessary, but the results must be tested, don't you think? Otherwise we aren't really reading Paul at all, but carrying out eisegesis.

Doesn't the philological similarity between 1 Cor 15:9 and Gal 1:13 cause you worry?

spin

You can be all Hindu about this and say it's all the same, but chronology is essential to construct when dealing with texts, so that you can attempt to develop relationships between the ideas in those texts. The indications we can pick up that hint at chronology are important.

aa5874

You don't make much sense. I cannot accept such nonsense. We have MULTIPLE translations of Galatians 1.1.

We have MULTIPLE translations of Galatians 1.12.

You do not appear to be any different to Ratzinger or Sunday School teachers who want people to accept what they say without evidence.

All of a sudden, you seem to know the translation of Greek words and those that do not agree with your speculation are wrong.

You must know the doctrine of the Church that Jesus was of the seed of God and without a human father and that the Canon is a NON-HERETICAL compilation.

There is NO evidence anywhere in Apologetic sources that the Jesus cult worshiped men as Gods.

You are either naive or have limited knowledge of the Pauline writings and the doctrine of the Church with respect to the nature of their Jesus.

If you want to argue that Jesus was human it is highly illogical to use the Bible.

Well, I will TEST your logics with a series of questions and expose your absurdity.

Question 1. Paul, are you the Apostle of a Man?

Paul: NO.

Question 2. Of whom are you an Apostle??

Paul: Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead.

LegionOnomaMoi, you have very little understanding of logics.


Question 3. Paul, did you get your gospel from a man??

Paul: NO.

Question 4. From whom did you get your Gospel???

Paul: From the revelation of Jesus.

LegionOnomaMoi, you have very little understanding of logics.

Apologetic sources of antiquity like Tertullian that mentioned the Ebionites did NOT even know that "EBION" was not the name of a man. The word EBION means POOR but Tertullian thought Ebion was human.

You need to understand that people here do NOT accept apologetic sources as historically credible without corroboration.

Justin Martyr did NOT write anything about Paul so I don't know how the Ebionites would have known of the Pauline Jesus.

aa5874

You failed to show that Paul could NOT have written the Phrase "the THIRD DAY".

You have completely forgotten that Apologetic sources claimed Paul was AWARE of gLuke.

See Commentary on Mattthew Paul COMMENDED gLuke according to apologetic sources so he could have written that Jesus was raised from the dead on the THIRD DAY.

LegionOnomaMoi

Very true. Translations are always interpretations. If only you could read greek. But even given your translations, had you studied logic, you would realize your conclusions are logically invaled.

Your translations ascribe a quality to paul (that he is an apostle) because of two things: Jesus and God. Additionally, the translation states that it wasn't from man.

So Paul states (according to your translations) that humans didn't provide this status, but that Jesus and God did. Logically, you cannot validly conclude that Jesus is inhuman from this.

To illustrate:

Let's say I'm promoted. The only person capable of promoting me is my CEO. However, my senior manager has a lot of pull. If my senior manager tells my CEO that I should be promoted, and my CEO decides to do so, then I can truthfully say "my CEO promoted me." However, as this would not have happened without the help from my manager, I can likewise say "My manager and CEO promoted me." Both statements are true.

However, neither indicates that my manager is my CEO.

In otherwords, if Paul states "humans didn't make me an aposte" this is a true statement even thousands of humans were fundamental in the process. If it requires god to be an apostle, then every human on the planet could say X is an apostle, and be wrong.

The point is that as long as Paul states one non-human entity did not make him an apostle, if thousands of humans helped, itis still true that a non-human entity made him an apostle



And every single one states that some revelation, not a human, was the source. If I learn that Hessian matrices are useful when it comes to identifying fixed points in a dynamical system from a lesson, then it is the non-human lesson I learned it from. If the lesson was taught by Joseph Silverman, I can still say I learned it from the lesson. Which means that, even though a human taught the lesson, I can truthfully say I did not learn it from a human.

The same is true of learning from a revelation.

And here again, just as the logic behind probability confused you, so too does logic present a problem for you.



That means a lot coming from someone who has no background in history, no background in greek, no background in latin, no background in hebrew, no background in classics, no background in textual criticsm, no background in socio-religious research, no background in ... well I could go on, but what's the point? You can't even compute how probable a series of coin tosses are. I can't expect you to have any idea how probable a given account in history is.

I can read ancient Greek. That didn't happen "all of a sudden." As for who is wrong and who is speculating, you can assume whatever you wish. I'll stick to historiography and the historic method. But don't let that stop you from ignoring logic, reason, and historical methods to support your claims.


Again, you might want to alert the various non-christian historians who disagree with you (which includes virtually every historian of this period there is, christian or no). Because apparently those who have actually studied history, scholarship, and can read the texts you can't, completely disagree with you.

I'm sure it's all a conspiracy. Like evolution.

You talk about logic but basic logic behind probability seems beyond your grasp.


You mean you will ask questions and supply your answers. Great. I can do that too:

Question 1: aa5874, do you have any clue whatsoever about logic, history, reasoning, or any other topic related to this or any other post on this forum?

aa5874: No.

Well that settles it then.

aa5874

Those are NOT my translations. It is a waste of time for you to argue against me and still want me to use your translations.

I will only accept the translations of NEUTRAL sources.

By the way, I know just enough Greek and just enough logics to know how to destroy your fallacious arguments.

Please, don't waste my time. The Pauline Jesus was God's own Son who was raised from the dead. Gods and Son of Gods are MYTHS.

I was hoping you would change the subject to avoid you being embarrassed however you insist.

Ok, the source of the Pauline Gospel was NOT human.

Logically, the Pauline Gospel was from a revelation, NOT from human, not from flesh and blood, not from reality, not from man, and not of men.

Logically The Pauline gospel has NOTHING to do with an historical Jesus.

Logically, an historical Jesus is IRRELEVANT for Pauline gospel.

You have just shown that you have very little idea of how to apply logics.

You have no credible sources or evidence of antiquity to support your claims about Paul and Jesus just Background Noise.

In Galatians, in the Bible, Jesus was NOT human but was God's own Son who was Raised from the dead

When you are arguing with me about Greek translations I will NOT accept your translations. I will only accept translations from neutral sources.

You can read ancient Greek but have NO evidence for your claims about Paul and Jesus.

The Jesus stories were NOT WRITTEN just for Scholars. Once translated there are rather easy to understand.

The Pauline gospel was NOT from man and Paul was NOT the Apostle of a man--this is so easy to understand.

An historical Jesus is NOT needed for the Pauline writer.

LegionOnomaMoi

Of course not. You are using translations. If they were yours, then you could read greek. But you can't. So you rely on the intrepretations of others.

All translations are interpretations. That's why those who really wish to know what a given text says learn the language it was written in.

You don't know greek, and as for logic, I can direct anybody to the multiple posts you wrote demonstrating your incapacity to grasp the simple logic of probability.

Interesting. So Augustus Caesar, the rulers of ancient Egypt, Alexander the great, and so on were myths. I'm so glad you cleared that up.



Oh darn. You tried to use logic again. A+ for effort. But the author of Galatians also states the he spent ~2 weeks with Peter. And the fact that Paul claims to have received a "revelation" from Jesus does not mean he never received information from other sources.

I know that, as this is logic, it's probably very hard for you. But logically, if Paul claims he received the information about Jesus from revelation, it does not mean he did not also receive information from others (like Peter).

If only you had a background in logic. Or history. Or Greek.


Which "logics"? Zadeh's? Quine? Haack? Frege? Russell and Whitehead? Forget names. Propositional logic? Predicate logic? Modal logic? Many-valued logic? Fuzzy logic? Three-valued logic?

Which "logics" are you applying along with a historical method you ignore to texts you can't read to a culture you know little to nothing about?

Bernard Muller

to Spin,
I see your point and I agree in part. The relationship between Paul and Cephas was not the best, according to the Pauline epistles, and may have changed along the years. But for sure, it was distant and rather cold, not fraternal (Gal 2:7-8 is likely an interpolation because here 'Cephas' was replaced by 'Peter'. See here for details http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/barnikol.htm ). And in that dispute in Antioch, Paul picked on Cephas rather than the others. Also, even if Paul mentioned several times the pillars & members of the church of Jerusalem, never he said those were in the Lord or in Christ.
I have quite a bit on the Nazarenes and the relationship between them and Paul on that webpage: http://historical-jesus.info/hjes2x.html
I think the Pauline epistles show the relationship between Paul and the pillars and Cephas and the church of Jerusalem, contrary to what is shown in Acts, was rather stressed.
Paul is in the LXX and Philo of A, but also he had a large part in defining Christianity. And he was the pioneer for making converts of Gentiles westwards.
I also used Paul in order to delimite HJ: fully human, Jew, poor, humble, of little reputation, dealing with Jews only and crucified in the Jewish homeland as "Christ" (for king of the Jews).
No, because it is corroborated in Gal1:23 and in Acts (and I do not think "Luke" knew about Galatians). Paul might have felt he had to say that because the Jewish preachers were likely using this fact to show Paul could not be trusted. Paul's response: I earn my redemption because I preached the faith I tried to destroy. And that was understood by the churches in Judea!

Bernard Muller

to aa,
Do you really consider that, from an apologetic writer almost 200 years after the fact, as evidence of something true? Do you?
More so when gLuke, with the help of Josephus' Wars (published 78), wrote about the siege of Jerusalem (prior to the desolation) and its trampling by Gentiles (Lk21:20,24) when Paul is indicating he may go to Jerusalem (1Cor16:3-4), obviously not destroyed yet.
Is Origen credible here, more so when he declared, in the same passage, that gMatthew was the first gospel written?

sotto voce

It can be. It can be telling historical technique. That the deity remained silent for 600 years before telling the world that his prophet Jesus had been much misunderstood is such an application of chronology, because the teaching of the very same deity, by this supposed history, is diametrically opposed to itself.

But unless one can find a significant difference in the teaching of Paul as recorded in Acts and the teaching of the letters attributed to Paul, one is chasing the wind. Or, perhaps one can track down a meaningful difference between the latter and the teaching of Stephen, to which Paul was presumably witness, in order to give meaning to such research. But such difference has not been noted in all the years of qualified scholarship since the Renaissance. It has always been supposed, and surely, very sensibly supposed, that the message that Peter gave to thousands of fellow countrymen in Jerusalem, people from all over the known world, was the very same message that Paul gave to the Jews of Damascus shortly after. Surely, someone would have noticed, would have objected, would have dismissed the late recruit as a dangerous revisionist, had Paul argued with Peter, James and the rest. In this case, chronology seems to give exactly the opposite indication that is supposed here.