Ben C Smith

Excellent. I think this answers the OP. You appear to agree that, when Paul wrote that Jesus was born of a woman, he probably meant much the same thing as the Greeks meant when they wrote of the birth of Dionysus. You think Paul mentally located this birth of the seed of David in ancient times (but apparently sometime after David, right?), and that is fine (for this thread).

Others did that before Doherty (though he has fine-tuned a few points); what Doherty most famously contributed was an understanding that Paul did not even mentally locate Jesus on earth sometime after David, which is a position I think is almost untenable.

Ben.

Chili

Why don't you compare Jesus' divine comedy with Albert Camus' tragic expression "the horror" to see what to be "born under the law" amounts to. Metamorphosis is native to all sentient beings but sure is not very common for mankind these days and is unheard of in protestant circles.

Toto

I don't know what Paul might have meant. The phrase looks like an anti-Docetist interpolation, but doesn't seem to have any clear meaning.

ynquirer

What has a greater bearing - what the phrase looks like or the meaning it seems not to have? For it can be either an anti-Docetist interpolation and have accordingly the meaning of a profession of faith in a human Jesus, or it doesn’t have any clear meaning, but not both.

Toto

It hints at a belief in a "human" Jesus, but not necessarily a recently alive, known historical figure.

ynquirer

When did the Romans carry out the first crucifixions in Judea? That’s a terminus ad quo. Not much before Paul wrote, in any event.

Ben C Smith

Paul does not specify the Romans; and crucifixion (or forms of execution close enough to crucifixion to be thought of as crucifixion) was occasionally practiced in Hellenistic times.

Moreover, we do not necessarily have to suppose that Paul (or his predecessors) would have known exactly when the practice was introduced.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

While I regard the word hints as perhaps a bit watered down here, I think this answers the OP.

For the record, I do not think that Paul claiming that Jesus was born of a woman proves that Jesus existed. But I think it does effectively take certain options off the table.

Ben.

stuart shepherd

Dear Ben,
I think that Jesus existed, although not as wonder man. Just a charismatic teacher who got himself killed.
Those who knew him, knew he was from Galilee by his accent. Matthew and Luke seem to have gone through a lot of trouble to fabricate his birth in Bethlehem. Had Jesus been fictional they would have eliminated all the stuff about Nazareth and how he was really born in Bethlehem and just written he was from Bethlehem.

stuart shepherd

EarlDoherty

Why untenable? It only needs 3 requirements:

1. Paul and other early Christians regarded their savior Son as a spiritual deity. Nothing untenable there. Lots of "sons" and emanations of God, and sub-deities in ancient religious thinking who were entirely spiritual.

2. Paul and other early Christians regarded the Jewish scriptures as revealing the nature of deity and the processes of salvation. Nothing untenable there.

3. According to Romans 1:1-4, the Gospel of God about his Son revealed by the prophets (verse 2) indicated that the son was "of the seed of David" (just as the parallel verse 4 said, from scripture and Psalm 2, that he was made son in power upon his resurrection from the dead). We assume quite reasonably that the former (verse 3) referred to the various prophetic passages which said that the Christ/Messiah, now associated with the spiritual deity mentioned in 1 and 2 above, would be descended from David. Such passages would not be ignored. I cannot see how that thought process would be untenable.

Ergo, for Paul, his Christ was "of the seed of David." He added "kata sarka" why? I can't get inside his mind. Is it because he saw the Son as doing his redemptive work in the "fleshly sphere", however he mythically understood or located that? I suspect so,, but I don't know. Did it cohere in his mind with his own concepts of myth and mythical realms? I suspect so, but I don't know.

What I do know, or can state with sufficient confidence, is that he accepted what the scriptures told him, whether he understood it or not. He accepted it as part of the "mystery". Why do I know that? Because I see people in the 20th and 21st century doing exactly the same thing. Religion is not based on scientific observation or rationality. It is not believed in because it is understandable. Quite the contrary. It is believed in because it is a mystery (as more than one Catholic priest has told me). It is believed in because it has been "revealed" and one must have faith in that revelation, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. Ultimately, in my opinion, it is believed in because people have been indoctrinated into such beliefs.

Incidentally, why do you think Paul mentioned "son of David" only once in his entire corpus? And that associated directly with the 'gospel in scripture'? (2 Timothy 2:8 "Remember J.C., risen from the dead, born of David's line...", not by Paul, of course, seems to be a direct echo of Romans 1:3-4.) If Romans 1:3 is supposed to represent an historical knowledge and interest in Jesus as the son of David on Paul's part, why is there never a whisper of it anywhere else?

And why, if Paul wanted to mention something to do with Jesus' life 'kata sarka', something 'foretold' in scripture, did he pick this particular element, and not something of greater significance in that life on earth? Jesus being the son of David never figures in Paul's theology anywhere else, in anything to do with his gospel or the nature of his Jesus, so why bring it up here? Could it be that he knew nothing else than what could be found in scripture, which narrowed his possibilities to very few? (The vast number of so-called prophecies in scripture of Jesus' life were to come only later, when the evangelists created that earthly life out of those passages.)

Earl Doherty