Vinnie

Not!

Hot off the press

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/thessinterpolation.html

Vinnie

Layman

Nice work.

I can see Doherty is eager to get rid of this passge: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.

Having Jesus killed by earthly actors instead of demonic entities in the heavens is a heavy blow to his theory.

Of course, this should be unsurprising because, as Peter Kirby has shown, Paul already attributes Jesus' death to earthly rulers in 1 Cor. 2:6-9.

It seems the only real reason for supposing the passage an interpolation is because of the reference to "The wrath of God has come upon them at last." But this only makes sense if no other event or events could have been seen by Paul as God's judgment on the Jews. Such an argument seems untenable given that two calamaties had fallen upon the Jews around the time that Paul was writing: the expulsion of the Jews from Rome and the massacre of thousands in Jerusalem. Wenham favors the first as an explanation. I personally favor the latter. Certainly the deaths of thousands of Jews within the Holy City during the Feast of Unleavened Bread would qualify:

Jewish Wars, Book II, Chapter 12.

[Vinnie, it would appear I misinformed you as to the cite. The reference is correct, but I must have emailed you Antiquities when it was Jewish Wars.]

Amaleq13

To be fair, Doherty lists several scholars (none of whom are mythicists as far as I know) who interpret this passage otherwise (i.e. demonic powers). I think they make a compelling case but the passage still doesn't necessarily argue against historicity. This passage might only reflect Paul's belief about the spiritual culprits who acted through the Romans.

Either way, it is the Romans and not the Jews who are being accused which stands directly contrary to the passage in Thessalonians. Vinnie likes to soften the reference by saying it indicates Jewish "involvement" but the text plainly accuses the Jews of putting Jesus to death. He has also suggested that we need not read this literally but that seems arbitrary given the other two (prophet killing and persecuting Christians) are clearly intended literally. Assuming an historical Jesus, it does not seem reasonable to suggest that Paul would make such a false statement when he would know that Jewish leaders were to blame for convincing the Romans to kill Jesus. Even Josephus' interpolator knew enough to include those claims. Contrary to one of Vinnie's "bullet points", I don't consider this consistent with Paul's expressed views at all. The closest he is willing to come to identifying the actual murderers is the "rulers of this age" but he can't think of anything more subtle while falsely accusing his own people? I don't buy it.

As I understand it, this passage has an apocalyptic sense of finality.

“But (11) wrath has come upon them [1] to the utmost.”

Footnotes

1. Or forever or altogether; lit to the end (NASB)


“but the anger did come upon them -- to the end!” (YLT)


I agree with you against the first suggested alternate event but, despite the tragedy involved, I can't say the second seems like an event one would interpret apocalyptically even if you were there at the time. It certainly would have been traumatic but not nearly enough for a Christian to start saying “told you so”.

Now, the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple is another story entirely. I see Christians calling THAT "God’s wrath come upon them forever"!! Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of Jews might not have agreed.

Layman

I am very familiar with Doherty's argument on this.

I suggest reviewing this thread: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...ers+and+archon

The usage of the terms strongly suggests that Paul is referring to earthly rulers. But what clinches it is that Paul is contrasting human wisdom with God's wisdom: It is clear in this passage that Paul is speaking against those who consider themselves wise and powerful in this world and age--namely, human beings. A reference to fallen angels would be out of place here. The entire passage serves to present the contrast between God's wisdom and the wisdom of this world, the latter of which is clearly inferior and in ignorance of God's wisdom (unlike the Christian initiates).

I disagree, Paul is referring to the wisdom of Jewish and Roman leaders. Just before the relevant verse Paul sets it up, thus:

"For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to tthose who are the called, Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and th weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Cor. 1:22-25.

As Craig Blomberg notes, "The 'rulers' refer at least to the religious and political authorities of the day, comparable to Caiphas and Pilate, who crucified our glorious Lord (v. 8)." The NIV Application Commentary, 1 Corinthians, at 63.

Paul is not above speaking in generalities, as he does in 1 Cor. 1:22 when he notes that "Jews ask for signs" even though he knows that many Christians are Jews (as attested by his soon-after statement about "those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,") who are excluded from his preceding statement. Additionally, Paul later refers to receiving 39 lashes from "the Jews" rather than from the leaders of the synagouge.

There is no basis for the bright line you are attempting to draw here.

Paul was not shy about referring to Jewish and Greek opposition to Jesus and involvement in his death in 1 Cor. Chapters 1 & 2. And given that Paul stresses his own persecution of the Christians as a leader of the Jews we should not be surprised that he raises the subject again here. If Paul was going to use the churches in Judaea as examples of suffering through hardship, a focus on Jewish persecution would be expected given that it does not appear that there was any Roman persecution of the Christians there.

No doubt Paul is seeing God's active hand here in persecuting the Jews. But I don't think that you have to equate that with the apocalypse to do the language justice.

I think you are being anachronstic here and not fully appreciating the horror (to the Jews) of what Josephus reports. To them, Roman soldiers had descrated, in a very crude way, the Temple. Then Roman soldiers were called in an killed 10,000 Jews! During a sacred holiday no less. Even Josephus, who would want to downplay any Roman atrocities, stressed that this feast became the cause of mourning to the whole nation, and every family lamented their own relations.

Bear in mind that the normal population of Jerusalem was only about 30,000 itself--though pilgrams raised the number around the religious holidays.

And though perhaps the expulsion from Rome standing alone may not be a candidate, when you combine these events it would probably seem to the average Jew that the world was falling apart for Jews. And to Christians as if God was exacting judgment on them for their opposition to the true Messiah. Indeed, I think any Christian would be hard pressed to resist such a spin on recent events. Especially if he expected the soon return of Christ.

I agree that if Paul had knowledge of both incidents the destruction of Jerusalem would do the most justice to his comments. But that is not the question. The question, given the manuscript support here, is whether Paul could have reasonably seen a great wrath having been unleashed upon the Jews? The answer is yes, he could have. And probably did. How do you think the Christians would have seen the killing of 10,000 Jews by pagan soldiers on one of their most sacred holidays? The judgment of God for opposing the messiah and oppressing the church would be the most likely conclusion.

Vinnie

Amaleq13, I addressed your points inside. The verse does not refer to the destruction of the temple.

Vinnie

Layman

What, you expect them to read the article referenced in your opening post?

Vinnie

I did at one time

At the least I can go around trumpeting this verse as solid proof of an historical Jesus until someone does read it

Vinnie

Layman

Nah, they'll give you the good 'ole "You have to look at the entire argument, this one verse can't prove anything."

Vinnie

You know me, I have no problem adding another clear reference to an historical Jesus in the Pauline corpus. I'll provide another after that, then another after that, then another after that and so on and so on....

How many do I need to provide to overthrow mythicism? The communis opinio here seems to be that I need 4 times as many references to an historical Jesus in the Pauline corpus as there are words in the Pauline corpus

Vinnie

Layman

Even if you thought you found many historical references, it would not explain why Paul was not offering guided tours of the highlights of Jesus' earthly ministry.