Layman

Which one did you get?

He has two. The earlier one I found to be more detailed and helpfull. I believe the title is Paul: Founder of Christianity or Follower of Christ? His most recent "Paul and Christ" was helpful, but did not provide as much information.

Steven Carr

Paul knows only of Jesus returning at the final resurrection.

Wright teaches that when Jesus spoke of his 'coming' , Jesus was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, not the general resurrection.

There is no continuity. The fact that you did not post a single verse from Paul supporting a claim of a Roman invasion of Jerusalem is proof enough. Wright is wrong. End of story.

Steven Carr

Wright wrote 'His (Jesus) dramatic action symbolized his belief that he was called to be the Messiah, the one through whom Israel's destiny would be realized. He had authority over the Temple. The house of God might be destroyed, but he would be vindicated.'

Very soon you will be able to tell us where Paul mentions this forthcoming Roman invasion of Jerusalem and destruction of the house of God by Roman armies that Wright says was the centrepiece of Jesus's message.

Where does Paul say that the destruction of the house of God would be a sign of the vindication of Jesus? (Wright is big on the destruction of the Temple being the vindication of Jesus)

Should I hold my breath? The silence of you and Layman to actually name a verse where Paul even hints at such a thing is astonishing for such well-read people.

It is a silence matched only by your protestations that there IS such a continiuity of message. The more they protest though, the less they quote Paul on the destruction of the Temple.

Here is some of the continiuty between Paul and Jesus.

1 Corinthians 13 'If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.'

Here Paul implies that having a faith that can moves mountains means having a very great faith indeed, but he denigrates this ability.

Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.

Here Jesus says that even a tiny faith is one that can move mountains and he praises the ability.

Feel free to quote Wenham saying that Paul is continuing the message of Jesus here.

After all, both passages have the words 'mountain', 'faith' and 'move' in them, so Christian apologists can turn them into meaning exactly the same thing, although they are totally opposed to one another.

I'm sure Layman will find that a very easy task to do. After all he has the very small (or is it very great?) faith needed to make mountains move, so finding continuity between Paul and Jesus here will be easy.

Steven Carr

Once again, Vinnie and Layman refuse to answer this question, and actually defend the words that Wright wrote.

I shall repeat Wright's words, and see if Vinnie or Layman will try to defend Wright's claim.

'It should be clear from all this that if Paul had simply trotted out, parrot-fashion, every line of Jesus' teaching if he had repeated the parables, if he had tried to do again what Jesus did in announcing and inaugurating the kingdom he would not have been endorsing Jesus, as an appropriate and loyal follower should. He would have been denying him.'

Why would repeating the parables and teaching of Jesus be denying him?

Notice that Wright sticks in the qualifier 'every line of...' to Jesus's teaching, just so he can make some more strawmen out his opponents. Wright, as a serious conservative scholar, just cannot stop himself caricaturing views of people he dislikes, by ascribing ridiculous beliefs to them.

Nobody thinks Paul should be expected to reproduce every line of Jesus's teaching, yet Layman assures us that Wright is responding to real positions that real people hold.

Vinnie wrote in response to my question about who Wright was responding to :- 'Countless HJ proponents who do not see explicit continuity between Jesus and Paul, thats who!'

Who are these countless HJ proponents who hold the position that Wright was responding to - that Paul should have trotted out parrot-fashion the parables and repeated every line of Jesus teaching?

Layman

Must you be so obvious in your untruth Carr? I never said anything about what Wright wrote. I just said you were being silly by claiming that Wright was responding to Doherty. Obviously he was not.

A complete recounting of my statements in this thread:


1. Where does Wright mention Doherty?


2. I don't see any reason to believe that Wright has even heard of Doherty, much less that he responded to him in an online article.

People other than Jesus Mythers have argued that Paul, not Jesus, invented Christianity. That Paul absconded with some of the concepts but ignored his teachings. That Paul would not have made a good Jesus follower.

This is one of your siller anti-Wright screeds.


3.Which one did you get?

He has two. The earlier one I found to be more detailed and helpfull. I believe the title is Paul: Founder of Christianity or Follower of Christ? His most recent "Paul and Christ" was helpful, but did not provide as much information.

At least try and be honest. These kind of obvious untruths do your cause more harm than good. Yes, the third-person usage is annoying, but it is this kind of dishonesty that is the real reason so few people attempt to engage you on issues. Kudos to Vinnie for lasting this long.

Bernard Muller

One good reason is the parables are not from Jesus and "Mark" invented the Jesus' parables genre.
As far as teachings are concerned, Jesus' ones were very limited and of little value, or of no use, for Paul.
parables
teachings
Best regards, Bernard

Bernard Muller

In GMark, GMatthew & GLuke, the 'coming' is described to happen AFTER the destruction of Jerusalem.

Best regards, Bernard

Vinnie

The more detailed earlier one. I'm trying to finish Maccoby's, The Mythmaker, Paul and the Invention of Christianity now...

And Carr, Wright is not alone. As I quoted Gibson:

Scholars see the outlook stamped throughout Paul. I am not sure just citing one verse will demonstrate this. And I never once defended this continuity. Secondary works on Paul are enourmous. I'm still researching. I don't form conclusions before I research (aka Jesus was or was not continuous with Paul).

All I said was that you are falsely critiquing Wright for arguments he did not make. If you want to refute the continuity then pick up the book by Wenham I did.

N.T. Wright: "No doubt there are dozens of different details to be examined carefully if the question off Jesus and Paul is to be sewn up in all its particulars. To go further into the question at this point is unnecessary; it has been done so well. So recently, by David Wenham in his book Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity6 that it would be tedious to traverse the same ground again."

I am not going to provide statements to you proving this. I am not sure I believe this and I know secondary literature widely disagrees on the interpretation of various passages in Paul. Wrights major fault was pointed out by LTJ.

One has to reconstruct both Jesus and Paul before they can see if there is a continuity. This is not an easy matter and one not to be resolved by a bunch of internet skeptics who've never read detailed, secondary works on Paul, except possibly the dutch radicals and a few like Maccoby and co. So ecuse me if I lack interest in ressearching and digging up cites to post here. I'm content to keep shuffling through informed secondary literature at this time.

If Paul went out like Jesus did it would be. I'm thinking most of Jesus' teaching and parables were about the kingdom of God and led to its inauguration in Wrights view. This does not mean Paul can't quote a parable. What it means is that we don't expect Paul to go and do exactly what Jesus did because he inaugurated the kingdom and Paul is living in light of it and so are his communities (converted Christians). We don't expect an exact parroting of Jesus by Paul. All we are looking for is a continuity.

This doesn't mean Paul cannot quote a parabl for instruction here or there or the sayings of the Lord. Wright would contend that Paul shows ample knowledge of Jesus' teachings.

Thats the only point, it doesn't clear up everything. Its a short, popular way of addressing the situation. Wright alludes to other scholarly works who have gone through and shown the continuity and also offers discussions of various Pauline passages throughout his own work.

I'm not defending a view I do not share any further. I started off saying Wright was misunderstood and critiqued for stuff he did not argue and that there is a lot of scholarship on the continuity issue. The dutch radicals, Doherty, Freke, Gandy, Wilson and Maccoby are not the only "scholars" to actually seriously discuss Paul.

If I see something glaring from Wenham when it gets here I'll post it.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

Looks interesting from my first readthrough but I'll have to read it again when I have more time. I think it falls well short of establishing their use of a written version of GTh but it seems like a sound argument of a shared philosophy if not an identical community. They may have had a written collection or they may have been the ones who eventually produced the one we have. I don't recall reading anything on GThomas arguing a specific location for its writing? Where do most scholars guess that to be?

Just to check that I am reading you correctly, Paul is deliberately avoiding referring to the teachings of Jesus because he considered this "proto-Thomas/Thomasine" group to be focusing too much on them?

Vinnie

For those reading, I think this parable view is only possible if five other considerations are met:

You think Q is later than and dependent upon Mark as Bernard does.
You think Thomas is dependent upon the canonical Gospels as Bernard does.
Do reject that Mark had access to parable sources as Bernard does (cf. Mk 12)
You reject Matthew had access to independent parable tradition as Bernard does.
You reject Luke had access to special L traditions possibly with parables as Bernard does.
Mark was actually THAT creative with all the non-passion narrative pericopes.

THat Mark invented the parable of Jesus, in my estimation, is not even worthy of serious consideration but Bernard and me differ most sharply here on questions of source stratification. Ergo, sharp difference in how you reconstruct off the basis of them.

Vinnie