GakuseiDon

Guilty as charged. It was offered in that spirit, i.e. "just call it an interpolation to try to explain it away, rather than try to explain it".

Toto

Jesus died, according to the gospels, at age 30 or 33, well past the time when he would normally have been married according to the Jewish customs of the time. In any case, many people of the time died in their 30's.

It would have maximum value. If Paul is addressing a group of young adults considering marriage, being able to point to a shining example of celibacy would be highly relevant. Christians were called to emulate Jesus in respect to his crucifixion - why not in respect to his married life or his celibacy?

Are Christians allowed to just give in to their lusts because Jesus was sinless and died for them? Otherwise, this doesn't make much sense.

On the contrary, what Jesus is reported as saying in the gospels about marriage was aimed at the ordinary householder.

Toto

But you will notice that most people who argue for interpolation argue that a certain faction of the church made an interpolation for a particular theological or political purpose. Your proposed interpolation lacks any such proposed author or reason. You evidently do not really understand the spirit or logic of your opposnents' arguments.

aa5874

I think you right, this another example of the fictitious nature of the Pauline Epistles. This is another smokng gun.

krosero

What I’m wondering is what effectiveness the fact of Jesus’ celibacy would have had in such arguments. Was Jesus’ celibacy, for instance, intentional? Or was it incidental to his mission? Was there any tendency at all, if and when the topic of Jesus’ celibacy was brought up, to view it as incidental to his mission? And would anyone have had the (quite reasonable) thought that Jesus did very well not to get married since he was meant for the cross? I mean, someone destined for the cross probably should not get married, leaving behind a widow and orphans (and perhaps risking their lives too?)

I think that Paul needed a more normative example, and so he chose himself. He was in the same situation as anyone in his flock – awaiting the Lord, perhaps suffering persecution for the Lord, but not being the Lord himself.

That is not to say that the Lord himself could not ever serve as an example for behavior. I don’t find your argument irrational. I just wonder how strong it is. We have a phrase today that is popular in many quarters, "What Would Jesus Do?" At least one Christian writer (I can’t remember who) has objected that such a question, though perfectly valid, is no simple proposition, because Jesus was the Son of God, and we are not.

This is going too far, and a case of a false dichotomy.

Yes, and Paul does find relevant what “the Lord” said about it. I guess that you probably would argue that “the Lord” here refers to a celestial Jesus or to God, but the point I would make here is that there is no problem with Paul finding a human Jesus’ words about marriage less problematic than his perhaps incidental celibacy. "What Would Jesus Do?" is a tricky question, but "What Did Jesus Tell Us To Do?" is pretty straightforward.

Kevin Rosero

Toto

Since we have no evidence that anyone ever mentioned Jesus' celibacy or lack thereof, we just don't know. We don't know if Jesus knew he was destined for the cross when he came of age, we don't know if his parents knew that he was destined for the cross (the parents typically would have arranged a marriage for him.) We do know that marriage and marriage status was an important aspect of life, not incidental as it might be today for a young urban professional job seeker.

Paul had to argue specially for celibacy, and the pink elephant in the living room that he doesn't mention is whether Jesus was married.

It was more of a rhetorical question. But your original question still does not make sense. Jesus might have had an easy time being celibate because he was born sinless, but that does not make him any less of an object of emulation.

I think you are going too far when you say there is "no problem." You have given some rather weak reasons for Paul to avoid using Jesus' example or counter-example in a discussion of celibacy, but they don't seem to hold together very well.

Assuming he existed, Jesus could have been an Essene, of the sect that practiced celibacy. In which case, why not mention it? Or he could have been married, fathered 10 kids, and then left home to preach his gospel to rich women, sending home the collection plate to support his family. Was there a big cover-up? What else didn't Paul tell us? Was Jesus the 1st c. Benny Hinn, with a large mansion and retinue to support while he put on a show of voluntary poverty?

I think we've only begun to explore this.

krosero

Remember, I'm asking about whether the early Christians (not Jesus himself, or his parents) would have had any tendency to regard Jesus as destined for the cross, or fully dedicated/consecrated to that certain mission, making his celibacy seem either incidental or perhaps even necessary considering what he was going to do. Do you think any young people considering marriage would have had any tendency (as they do today) to regard Jesus' case as a special case that, while certainly worthy of emulation on a general level, might not apply to them in all specifics? That they might say, "Yes, but that was Christ"? Do you think that Paul might have regarded his own case as more normative than that of the savior?

I think you may be right about this, and there are several possible avenues to explore. Right now the question this is raising for me is why certain expectations about what Paul should have said sound so slam-dunk to some people, while to others they do not seem nearly so strong.

Often when Doherty makes similar arguments, I find that the argument feels anachronistic, though I cannot always say exactly what is being retrojected back into the past (maybe because it's more than one thing; or because anachronism is mixed in with other problems). If you're curious, there's one phrase you used that struck me as anachronistic: "shining example."

As I say, I'm not sure I can pinpoint why it seems to me that referring to Jesus as a "shining example" doesn't feel right, but it doesn't. Let me see if I can express this.

To the extent that Jesus would have been regarded as a perfect creature, then yes, everything about him would have been "shining." But what shines with perfection is not necessarily an effective "example" for situations that are both different and more ordinary.

Marriage was highly prized. Young people would have desired it. Being told that Jesus himself was celibate, who was the onetime sacrifice for all sin, does not exactly convince them that they need to make the same sacrifice(s). Paul, as their counselor and direct guide, in a situation more analogous to theirs (he being one of the saved, not the savior), is a more relevant example (at least, I think, in Paul's eyes).

That seems, to me, perfect natural. But why do others have such different expectations?

I might find these arguments from silence stronger if the situation were more like this: Christianity begins with someone who was regarded as an ordinary human being, perhaps better than most, but not regarded as divine, not regarded as raised from the dead, not regarded as a miracle-worker. This man lives out a full life. He is not the savior, but merely Paul's (greater) predecessor in the movement. This man, I think, would serve (relatively) unproblematically as a mere example for good behavior; he led a life (more) analogous to that of ordinary men and women.

Muhammad is something like this, to Muslims. And there is a corpus, I think, of his sayings and doings, which are regarded (again, I'm going merely on memory here) directly as guides for what ordinary Muslims should do in their own lives.

Sometimes it seems to me that people expect Paul to speak of Jesus as if he were merely like that: not Paul's personal savior, not the risen Jesus (which is all that Paul actually seems to care about), but merely the pre-resurrected Jesus who started the movement and whose every move and every detail should have been mentioned as the key to salvation. The latter kind of man is the only one that a rationalist could accept, but in looking for that man, is it possible that that rationalists lose sight of how Paul would have viewed Christ?

Theists, on the other hand, will not have the expectation that Paul would view Christ as anything other than the unique Savior. In fact Christians who are interested most in the risen Jesus -- who believe that the risen Jesus is what saves, and who take little interest in the quest for the historical Jesus -- are probably closest to Paul's own attitude, and are least at risk of forgetting which Christ Paul saw as salvific.

Those are just some thoughts I'm beginning to formulate. What do you think of them? And why do you think that some expectations for what Paul should have said appear strong to some and anachronistic or otherwise problematic to others?

Kevin Rosero

krosero

by the way, that last question is a big one and I'm not one to expect quick replies to big questions; I prefer thoughtful answers. consider it rhetorical if you want; it's kind of just a question I'm putting out there for people to consider thoughtfully (if they find it a good question), and then to answer if they want.

Sparrow

Under the assumption there was a Jesus, at what point do you think his special status as a manifestation of God became known to those around him? Despite the stories in some gospels of magi visiting the infant shortly after birth, I have a hard time wrapping my head around any explanation of a human childhood for a deity. I cannot imagine Joseph and Mary disciplining him. Yes, I know that is an argument from incredulity.

You seem to be suggesting that there was some general knowledge among the populace that Jesus was very special and so unlike everyone else that none of the societal norms would apply. If so, either no one wrote anything whatsoever about it or none of it survived. I'm more inclined to think that any historical Jesus was not so different from the rest of the community. Bart Ehrman in 'Misquoting Jesus' discusses how certain manuscripts relate the story of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist as implying that that was the day that Jesus became the son of God. If so, that was well after Jesus would normally have been married.

Gamera

I fail to see how this follows. Paul's "argument" for celibacy is highly qualified and somewhat complex. It doesn't follow at all that Jesus would be the paradigm case. Paul's point seems to be (a) it's easier to preach the gospel effectively if you're not married (because the obligations of marriage will otherwise weigh upon you); and (b) if you can't put aside lust as a single person, get married, since it's better to have the obligations of marriage affecting your evangelistic work than sexual immorality, which Paul argues destroys the Christian witnessing of the gospel.

Jesus wasn't an evangelist in Paul's iconography of the gospel. He was the main character of the gospel narrative about whom those who proclaim the gospel preach. So whether Jesus was married or not doesn't advance his argument about celibacy at all, because it's not about celibacy, but the proclamation of the gospel message.