Toto

1 Cor 15 doesn't use the word "untimely," or anything close. It uses the word ektrwma, meaning abortion or miscarriage, which happens when a birth occurs too early, never too late. But that word is too graphic for genteel Christian Bible readers, so it was softened to "untimely born," meaning "born too early, before being fully formed."

I spent a lot of time on this issue some years ago on this forum. A noted historian and popularizer, Will Durant, in his "Story of Civilization" volume on Caesar and Christ (or via: amazon.co.uk), read this to mean that Paul thought he was born too late to know Jesus. Christian apologists like to quote Durant in support of their claim that everyone supports the existence of a historical Jesus, but in this case, Durant was just flat out wrong, and I finally got everyone to recognize that Durant was misinterpreting the English translation - everyone until you came along.

archibald

Toto,

Is it just me, or do the first two verses of 1 Cor 15 not set up the reader to be told about Paul's gospel?

TedM

Ok toto. I was influenced by the usual use of the word 'untimely' in my translation, the way the verse begins, and also the blueletterbible which defines the word to mean 'untimely', in opposition of your claim above. Thanks for the input though. The blueletter has a comment that what he means is he is no more fit to be called an apostle than an aborted baby is to be given a name. He also says that the phrase in question ties into verse 9--it would appear to make more sense then as the beginning of verse 9 than the end of verse 8. That's an interpretation that makes more sense to me than just saying 'oh wretched me'..

Do we have a thread on Paul's humility? Does he ever refer to himself this way? I can't recall offhand.

judge

Delete

DCHindley

You could try a library with the hardcopy volume 9 of The Ante Nicene Fathers series by Roberts & Donaldson. This is the index volume for the first 8 volumes, and for each passage of each biblical book is indexed to volume and page it can be found. I do not believe it has been scanned by CCEL.

However, each volume (1-8 & 10) has a smaller index for each work contained in it, including a scripture index. At one time CCEL didn't scan the indices for the online versions of these books, as the page references were omitted from the old ASCII scans. Now that they have rescanned them using much better OCR software, it may now contain the indices.

DCH

Iskander

Another interpretation of ἔκτρωμα: (ἔκτρωμα , a pejorative term - related to Paul's physical appearance


In contemporary Spain the word ἔκτρωμα is used routinely as a pejorative term .The Spanish word is sietemesino, which means he is a seven-months one.
More crudely the word “aborto” is used as in, es un aborto, meaning he/she is an aborted one.
There are other alternatives and untimely is one of them, meaning the same in a genteel way.


It should make no difference at all whether one uses untimely or another equivalent translation and as to interpretations of the text there are dozens of weird people trying to make a living out of it.

DCHindley

The interpolations that Jay termed the "second voice" don't have to have MJ implications. Personally, I think there was a real Jesus, only he was more political than is commonly assumed. After he was executed for sedition by the Romans (regardless of whether his execution was justified or not), and the resurrection story became associated with him (regardless of the actuality of this event), the significance of his death and resurrection was radically reinterpreted by some part of the movement he started.

He became transformed from a resurrected messiah figure who was now in heaven ready to descend to inaugerate the kingdom of God on earth as soon as God gives the nod, to a divine redeemer figure, "Christ." In other words, mythical elements, derived from a variety of sources (possibly some already existent myths from common culture) attached themselves to the memories of the man Jesus. It doesn't take long before it is no longer possible for his followers who took this path to seperate the man from the myth about the man.

DCH

DCHindley

You are right it is not stated in 1 Cor 15. It is mainly stated in Romans chapter 4 and Galatians chapters 3 & 4, but the implications of the story is constantly alluded to in many other places. You can see how I teased one from the other in a set of files that are on Ben C. Smith's Text Excavation website, here.

DCH

spin

Yes, it's just you,... hoping too much from the English translation you are using.

archibald

Thankyou. Could you elaborate? What is a better translation?