Vinnie

To possibly coin a good analogy, The Gospel authors are writing primarily about the past and recording the story of how they got to where they are. Paul is writing about the present and where they are going from there.

Of course the Gospels also include propaganda, apologetics and polemic so this alone is a bit simplistic but you should get the point.

Vinnie

quartodeciman

It seems all too easy to forget that Paul wasn't there during the ministry and passion of the Christ. He got his "orientation" entirely from that incident on the road to Damascus. He might have learned a few intimate facts during his stay with Peter, but he didn't hobnob with the other apostles and followers. So he knew pretty much what he got from his flash of revelation (plus a smidgeon of other facts). In his letters he is already a modern preacher creature, full of high concept (and "a way with words").

Layman

Where does Wright mention Doherty?

gregor

Vinnie

I read the article. Wright's argument is lost on me.

We have the following established facts from the epistles:

1. Paul is writing persuasive pieces.
2. Paul is trying to argue that his interpretation of Xianity is correct.
3. Paul's argument would have been bolstered if the written gospels existed (or if oral traditions with contents similar to the gospels were known) - as Paul would simply say "as is written. . ." or "as we all know. . ."
4. Paul does not refer to a number of items that later find their way into the gospels.

Wright attempts to defend this by saying (to the effect) 'of course Paul doesn't refer to the (extant) gospels - that would be placing himself on the same plane as Jesus. He intentionally failed to mention historical facts, despite the fact that this would make his persuasive writing more persuasive.'

That argument is analygous to the apologist claim: "of course the post-resurrection accounts appear contradictory - that makes them more truthful."

Steven Carr

No we are not.

Wright's central theme is 'Jesus warned that to take this route would result in huge, unmitigated disaster; and that this disaster, if Israel brought it down upon her own head, would have to be seen as the wrath of Israel’s God against his people. Such action would mean that the perpetrators had translated their vocation to be the light of the world into a vocation to be the judges of the world. Those who judged would themselves be judged. Those who took the sword would perish with the sword. Those who turned the Temple into a den of brigands would only have themselves to blame when the Temple itself was torn down, so that not one stone was left upon another.'


Wright's excuse for Paul failing to mention the forthcoming destruction of Jerusalem is that (apparently) only a Messiah can say that Jerusalem will be destroyed.

This is just silly.

Wright's view of the eschatological message of Jesus is directly relevant to Paul's teaching on the Law (esp. Galatians 4) so he has to confabulate a reason why Paul has so little of Jesus's teaching.

I agree Paul was not writing a Gospel.


But why would Paul using one or two of Jesus' parables be Paul denying Jesus? You somehow forgot to address that point.

BTW, how does Wright manage to turn Jesus's words in Matthew 21 'a den of robbers' into 'brigands', where Wright takes 'brigands' to be violent zealots who Jesus says will die by the sword because they lived by the sword?

Surely the moneychangers were not the violent sicarii and zealots.

Steven Carr

Where they are going from there?

According to Wright, Jesus preached that the city of Jerusalem and the Temple was going to be destroyed.

That is where they were going from there.

So why is Paul silent about where they were going from there?

Your quote of Wright says 'Jesus warned that to take this route would result in huge, unmitigated disaster; and that this disaster, if Israel brought it down upon her own head, would have to be seen as the wrath of Israel’s God against his people.'

Romans 3:1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. 3What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? 4Not at all!


How can Paul say there are many advantages to Judaism and that any lack of faith of some Jews will not stop God being faithful, when Jesus is saying that Judaism was heading down a path of unmitigated disaster , bringing down the wrath of Israel's God on his own people?

How can any sane person write what Paul did, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ had said that the wrath of God was coming down on a people that Paul says God will be faithful to?

Surely Paul, or somebody in the law dispute, would have pointed out that the Jerusalem church was living in a city under the judgement of God.

Vorkosigan

Thanks for the longer excerpt, Vinnie. I can't see how it refutes Carr's point. In or out of context, Wright's point is so blatantly stupid that it cannot be taken seriously as being written from the pen of a thinking human being. Further, your excerpt also shows how Wright deploys beautiful rhetoric to cover the gaping holes in his ideas. Like this passage:

• Paul, of course, believed that he was living in the very early days of spring. Almost all the ice and snow still remained to be melted. Looking at the world nearly two thousand years later, one may suggest that we have got no further (in Northern Hemisphere terms!) than March at the latest. Some places have felt real sunshine, have seen flowers and blossoms which show that winter is really over. Other places remain icebound. Some places experienced early blooms, but the snow has covered them again. Part of the point of the new age, it seems, is that it doesn’t conform to a timetable like the natural seasons.

or this, mere sermonizing, unsupported nonsense claims...

• Of course (lest ears be so dull that they translate what I am saying into its opposite) – of course the proclamation of Jesus, and the gospel announcement of Paul, addressed human beings with a challenge and a summons, a warning and an offer, which went down to the very depths of human experience, into the far recesses of the heart, awakening parts which other messages could not reach.

...can't be taken seriously. No one who believes that Jesus' message "....awakening parts which other messages could not reach" can be taken seriously as a scholar.

As for this, Vinnie...

• "Despite the popular impression, there are in fact a good many echoes of the actual saying of Jesus in the letters of Paul, though here again, Paul has not been a slavish repeater of tradition so much as faithful rethinker of the rich material he has heard, using it in fresh ways for his own very different context. "

...it's just rhetoric designed to make you miss the fact that Paul does not know, and has never heard of, the gospel legends. Wright's whole "argument" in this passage simply attempts to explain away Paul's lack of knowledge of the gospel fictions by claiming that (1) Paul's role precluded him from explaining this and (2) Actually, he did explain them, but reworked them in ways so fresh you don't recognize them. Anyone spot that very basic contradiction? Both points cannot be true. The rhetoric is like sweet frosting covering a very stale cake.

Further, Wright's portrait of Paul levers him out of his actual social world. Paul is very clear that he is one among many such missionaries running around the Med basin, and that they are in competition with one another, all more or less on the same level, spreading different versions of the new cult. Wright's "argument" removes Paul from this living context and places him in a dead transcendent relationship to Jesus -- Wright talks about "roles." But Paul has no "role" vis-a-vis Jesus. He has never met Jesus and knows nothing about him. His reticence on Jesus' life and teachings is due entirely to his lack of knowledge of them. In other words, Wright's "argument" consists of a theological interpretation of Paul masquerading as a historical interpretation of Paul. Uh-uh. That is not acceptable historical analysis, and that is why Wright's contemporaries pay not the slightest attention to his "work."

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

Whose position was he arguing against then, when he said that Paul would be denying Christ, if he used some of the parables?

I could be wrong that it was aimed against Doherty's position. I often am wrong, so it would be nice to know who was proposing the position Wright was arguing against. I assume it must be somebody, as Wright would not try to attack positions that nobody holds.

Steven Carr

I found that bizarre.

Apparently, if you repeat Jesus's parables 'parrot-fashion' (whatever that means!), you are denying Jesus, but if you rework them and take them out of context, in a 'very different context', that proves you are a true follower of Jesus.

Yet, Vinnie wrote as though I had not quoted Wright's words 'parrot-fashion',
but as though I had reworked them for my own very different context.

Surely, if I had done that, that would prove I was a loyal Wright supporter.

rlogan

Note the distinct lack of citations in these Wright-isms.

All over the place Paul speaks of his mission. In Ephesians we see the term "prisoner" of Christ used (hardly invoking rights of free-lance liberties).

He states directly where his knowledge arises:

"How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery"



unsupported nonsense claims...