Jeffrey Gibson

Where -- and especially in chapter 3 -- does Paul say that God manifested his righteousness -- and especially the righteousness Paul says God showed ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ when he set forth Jesus as ἱλαστήριον -- through Paul?

Jeffrey

Ben C Smith

I do not exactly understand the meaning of Paul is according everything he says about his risen Lord to a recent crucified man; what are you trying to say? I do not think Paul is saying that everything true of the former is true of the latter.

I gave you the steps, each of which can be supported from the epistles. What did you find wrong with them?

Because Paul said that certain signs or actions were enough to convert some; Paul said that this was at least part of his evangelistic method.

Doug knew enough about the Pauline epistles to realize that at least part of the purported appeal of the message was signs or miracles or wonders or demonstrations. You did not know enough about them to even suspect that Paul ever claimed miracles for himself. I feel confident that most onlookers will make the right call on this one.

Still to be answered: Where did I question your integrity? Also still open: My attempt to understand your objections:

Any chance you will respond to this question this time round?

Thanks.

Ben.

gurugeorge

That argument is fair enough when it comes to persuasion-through-gullibility of the powers and virtues of the preacher himself (e.g. someone presenting himself as the Messiah, say) - but does it work to the same extent when it comes to belief in a proposition (i.e. that some guy who had been crucified a while ago was the Lord?)

Suppose on the one hand you have a proposition like this, "Hey, you know the Messiah you're waiting for? Well guess what - you don't have to wait for him anymore, because he's already been - he slipped under the Archons' radar by coming in a totally unexpected, obscure fashion, and brought about the spiritual kingdom of god - isn't that good news?"

Then on the other hand you have a proposition like this, "Hey, about 20 years ago there was this guy who was a great preacher and teacher, who got into trouble with the authorities and was crucified - but guess what, he rose from the dead! So we reckon this specific person, called Joshua, was the Messiah foretold in scripture".

The first proposition, which is a revision of the very concept of the Messiah, could easily be supported by "miracles" and any sort of preaching; the second would surely set up expectations about what this marvellous preacher said, and some kind of proof of the resurrection business. "Miracles" would be less relevant to the support of the latter proposition (and less relevant to the bolstering of any teaching arising from a school descended from that man).

In the former case, the charisma of the presenter of this proposition could easily be bolstered by the kind of gullibility-reliant demonstrations you're talking about, because it's all coming from the presenter himself - his presentation is of an idea, a revised myth, and in fact any "miracles" would merely make people more likely to trust his revised presentation of the Messiah concept, because he's an impressive presenter. In the second case, that kind of miraculous stuff would be sort of tangential, whereas some specific detail about this great preacher he's talking about would be more relevant.

After a while, the first proposition might awaken some curiosity - people might want more details, might want gaps to be filled in - "ok, the guy was obscure, but do we know any more about how he did his marvellous work?" But at first, all that's presented is a new Messiah concept, and that isn't, in an of itself, a scenario that requires detail about a person's life for support. Whereas with the latter proposition, you'd expect there to be details about this marvellous preacher, his words and deeds, right from the beginning.

Amaleq13

Why do you keep changing the subject, Earl? The evidence of the documents is certainly not on your side with regard to the primary subject at hand (ie whether Paul claims to have performed miracles and to have obtained converts by them). Within that context (ie our discussion), the evidence is most clearly and explicitly contrary to your "side".

With regard to the secondary topic of our discussion (ie human credulity and your demand for "dramatic" miracles), the evidence is also clearly and explicitly contrary to your "side".

Contrary to your "side", Paul did claim to perform miraculous acts and did claim to have obtained converts by them.

The risen Christ that Paul preached is certainly mentioned and precisely what he asked them to accept. Your claim that he could not have obtained their belief without mentioning the living man is 1) a weak argument from silence (especially given that we know we do not have all his letters) and 2) a failure to recognize the established fundamental credulity of humans.

What evidence and arguments are presented to convince Scientology converts that thetans exist?

What evidence and arguments were presented to convince members of Heaven's Gate that they would be taken aboard a spaceship upon their deaths?

Your expectations do not comport with reality, Earl.

Unfortunately, that absence of evidence (ie argument from silence) fails to provide any support for your position regarding whether Paul performed miracles, claimed to have obtained converts from them or whether people require "dramatic" evidence in order to believe the unbelievable.

The risen Christ is object of their belief and certainly not missing from Paul's letters.

That converts would require more than the performance of miracles by Paul or other apostles and the apparent support of Scripture is contradicted by history and the ongoing evidence of human credulity. You ignore it at the expense of your position's credibility.

TedM

Thanks Andrew. It is helpful when someone more knowledgeable than myself (you in this case) can provide stronger evidence than my own intuitive reading.

Earl, I don't know if I'll respond further, but I will make a few quick points:

1. I do not see any compelling reason to read "ALL" into the intent as literally as you do

2. You appear to be reading scriptural revelation into his reference to revelation in verse 18 yet unwilling to read Jesus' ministry into that same reference, which seems arbitrary. The way I read it the reference is not explained.

3. Verse 20 appears to me to explain verse 19 and lead into a major discourse by Paul regarding the history of mankind and his guilt before God, even if the preceding verses do not, and as such I consider 19 to be more reasonably connected to the context of that discourse than what comes before it. Usually blanket statements such as "that which may be known of God" preceed a discussion of explanation, rather than follow. Andrew's comment appears to support this idea, but more than that is the entire discussion by Paul that follows.

4. If you think Jesus should be mentioned in 1:17 or 3:25, that's fine to argue, but is a different argument. I'm arguing against the expectation that it be in verses 19-20.

ted

gurugeorge

It's a good point, but on the other hand isn't Earl conducting his own independent investigation into the veracity of the gospel stories? There's no apriori reason why he should be taking the minimalist critical biblical scholarship view as gospel (heh) - he's doing his own investigation, looking into the validity of the gospel Jesus as history, isn't he?

IOW GDon's casting "bait and switch" aspersions, but I don't think that's fair given the context of Earl's investigation.

(And, as an aside, after all, if Earl is investigating the truth of the mostly-gospel Jesus, if that's an argument against fundies, well they're no more likely to believe minimalist critical scholarship either. Perhaps Earl's common sense argument might actually have more traction than your pernickety philological investigations )

EarlDoherty

But converted to what? Paul never says that they were converted to believing that everything he said about his risen Lord was about a crucified human being back in Judea. You are reading that into things. That is called “begging the question.”

The question should not be answered in the isolation in which you have presented it. It’s a little like the defence attorney asking the prosecution witness, “Is it possible, yes or no, that someone else committed this murder?” Anything is possible. Within the larger context? That’s another matter. Paul on his conversion and for the next three years knew nothing about Jesus other than what he might have received through his vision. It’s not likely that vision spent a few hours reciting the Gospel story to him. Much later he spent two weeks with Peter and James. Did they recite the whole story to him? In addition to that, the context of Paul’s letters do not demonstrate any such knowledge, even in circumstances which cry out for him to appeal to them, and especially in passages where he excludes them (as in 1 Thess. 4:9). What you are trying to do is set up a hypothetical, for which there is no evidence (and some contrary to it), and then use that supposedly established hypothetical to pull me further into your thicket of improbabilities. Sorry, I won’t let you get away with that.

“Integrity”: Def. 3 (in my dictionary) “A sound or unimpaired condition.”

The word is not confined to some kind of ethical evaluation.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

No, Doug, the “primary subject at hand” is not whether Paul claims to have performed miracles and to have obtained converts by them. You have left out the essential element of this whole discussion, and how you could have missed it is a mystery to me (or maybe it isn’t).

The primary subject is whether Paul claims to have performed miracles and to have obtained converts to the idea that a recently crucified man was all the things that he preaches about his heavenly Christ and is to be equated with that Christ. There is no evidence of that on your side. The evidence on my side is that the epistles, not just Paul, lack any connection of their preaching to the recently crucified man in Judea of the Gospel story, and in fact make statements which exclude such a man from the picture.

Maybe, just maybe, you get it now?

You are absolutely right. But he did not ask them to accept that this risen Christ was to be equated with what can only be taken as a recently crucified man in Judea. Show me where he does, and you win the game.

Right again. The risen Christ is the object of their belief, and it ain’t missing. What is missing is any equation of that Christ with a recently crucified man. You are positing gullibility to believe something which is not even in evidence, which you cannot even demonstrate has been offered to them!

Thus, as far as "evidence" is concerned, your counter-examples of gullibility, as in the case of Scientology, are not valid. The presentation of the "thetans" is not missing. It is there (although only later). We know that Hubbard preached those Thetans because that's in the record. But if it were not, and you claimed (perhaps on the basis of some later development in Scientology) that those original Scientologist converts were gullible enough to believe in Hubbard's Thetans, you would be arguing for something which would not be in evidence and which we would have no good reason to believe had been offered to them as something to believe in.

This turns out to be a perfect parallel to what I'm getting at. Hubbard did not preach about Thetans to his original followers. That came only about 20 years later as a result of a fresh 'vision' on his part. Then he convinced scientologists (though only some, I'm sure) about the Thetan business. But they were already on board with him. If he had tried in the beginning to preach the Thetan ancestry business cold to people who were not already his, how many people do you think would listen, and how many would make insulting gestures at him and walk away?

"People are gullible." You're 'people', Doug. Would you be converted? Would any of the people you personally know be converted? Of course there are always a small number of people who sit at the far end of the idiot spectrum. The Heaven's Gate sect may be a good example. But how many did they constitute? A handful of kooks. That doesn't make the whole of humanity gullible idiots. Christianity supposedly took off like rocket, winning over Jews (!) and Gentiles all over the place, across half the empire, and long before any sign of the Gospels and its story, with its Jesus of Nazareth, comes along. Were they all kooks? Were they all gullible idiots?

Your gullibility argument doesn't work in its context, which is the point I just made with Ben. You need to bring a little more subtlety and sophistication, and a little deeper thinking, to your knee-jerk responses to me.

Good night.

Earl Doherty

Amaleq13

Sure it is. In fact, our discussion of the subject began with your statement here:
Please note that the recency of the crucifixion is not part of your objections nor, until this latest post, has it been offered as being your central point. If that was your focus from the beginning, you've done a horrible job of expressing yourself.

I will happily concede that Paul never explicitly refers to Jesus' crucifixion as recent but I will also happily note that has nothing whatsoever to do with my opposition to the position implied by your questions above or your subsequent defense of it.

Whether Paul preached a Jesus who was crucified recently, long in the past, or even in some heavenly realm is entirely irrelevant to the arguments I have presented. Whatever the contents of Paul's gospel, he clearly and explicitly claims to have obtained converts to it by way of performing miracles. Claiming that this could not possibly have included a recently crucified man is just another fallacious argument from personal incredulity.

Yes, you are attempting to change the subject from whether Paul and the other apostles obtained converts by performing miracles to whether Paul preached a recently crucified man was the Messiah.

Bad question, Earl. I used to be a staunch defender of your thesis when I first came to IIDB. In fact, you personally (via email) convinced me to buy your book at least a year before that. My signed copy, full of notes and highlighted text, stands as proof. I have since, however, lost "faith" in your conclusion subsequent to my participation here though I do continue to consider it a viable possibility. :devil1:

You'll simply have to do better than offer your personal incredulity that anyone would believe Paul's preaching involved a recently crucified man without specific evidence or "dramatic" miracles. It seems no more ridiculous than the notion that he was preaching a crucified man from the distant past or an entirely spiritual figure who never touched the earth. I consider them all to be fundamentally foolish beliefs but I know too much about psychology to suggest that any such belief is too crazy for people to accept if they think the claimant can perform miracles.

EarlDoherty

protithemi: (one def.) to display publicly, put on public view, present, etc.

In other words, the idea can be one of revelation. (And surprise, that actually fits in with all those other revelations words, like phaneroo, used by the epistle writers to refer to Jesus' manifestation.) Naturally, no translator is going to take it that way, probably none of them. And no lexicon is going to supply an outright translation of "to reveal." But then they are all committed to an HJ, so that's to be expected.

As for Romans 3:21f, my comment was a description of the passage, a paraphrase if you will, not part of a formal translation. (The translation itself conformed to the NASB.) I was referring to the meaning that we can take from it, considering what is said through those several verses. If anyone disagrees, let them demonstrate that in fact such a meaning cannot be taken from the passage as a whole. Then we at least have something to work with.

Earl Doherty