aa5874

But, Paul placed himself after Jesus actually lived on earth.

Paul placed himself after Jesus had ascended to heaven.

The god/man character already had a name, perhaps 40 years, before Paul was converted.

Paul does not need to look in the LXX to find out the name of a person who was living on earth and ascended to heaven, he just have to ask someone who knew the name or read that a god/man died named Jesus and ascended to heaven during the time of Pilate.

Matthew 1.21 was a possible source for the name Jesus.

Mt 1:21 - [/quote]

The passage that you qouted clearly has "US" and not "HIM" or "HE'. Who is the "US" in the passage?

The passage clearly state that "HE" will revive "US" not that HE will be revived.

In another part of the passage it clearly states that HE will raise US up on the third day, not that HE will raise on the third day.

The passage you quoted is about US not about him at all.

Paul placed himself after Jesus and a gospel writer claimed Jesus said these words before he ascended.

Matthew12.39-40 This passage may have been a possible source for Paul.

Loomis

I don’t understand why you think any of that is important. It’s just bullshit. Jesus never existed and it’s all fiction.

It looks to me like the messianic stories about Jesus go all the way back to the OT stories about Joshua. I’m not sure where you can cut it off and say “this is Christian” or “that is Jewish,” but it's certainly older than 40 years.

I don’t think so. I think Paul and Matthew are drawing from the same source –earlier stories like Zechariah 3 LXX where Joshua is the messiah. Note that Matthew is using Jesus as a title – on the same level as Emanuel.

Also, there are certain passages from the Sermon on the Mount that appear to be polemics against Paulism, and if so then that would place Matthew after Paul.

I don’ think so. 1 Corinthians 15:4 claims, "he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures." The story about Jonah points to a longer period of three days and three nights and isn’t related to anything in the context of resurrection.

Hosea 6:1-2 is based on Baal imagery where Baal (the Lord) dies and is resurrected every year with the return of rain after the dry season.
The speaker represents a group of people who are depressed about winter and the dry season. They are looking forward to the resurrection of Baal (the Lord) to end the dry season. It fits much better than the story about Jonah.

It’s conceivable that the author of Matthew 12.39-40 was familiar with Corinthians 15:4 but didn’t know which OT verse Paul was talking about and assumed that it was Jonah.

aa5874

It is important unless you don't realise that Paul is just bullshit, too. Paul was writing backdated bullshit in some other century but pretending he was writing in the 1st century.

It was Jesus who used Jonah. That's their story.

And I told you already Hosea is not about Jesus Christ, maybe philosophy.

Solo

You also called it an 'honest mistake'.

I would not say Paul was 'inserting ideas' into Joel. He is simply reusing Joel's formula in a different context. He performs a similar operation with Isaiah's phase 'the day of the Lord' in 1 Th 5:12.

No, I don't think you are describing the difference between us. First there is the question of the usage of Lord in referring to YHWH prior to the IT-period. Vermes' expose (in Jesus the Jew) asserts it had a very limited usage and 'the Lord' as a general (or absolute) title of God is distinctly non-Jewish. It comes around (as marah) in the later Aramaic writings. The Psalm 110:1 invoked by Jesus in Mk 12:36, to deny his Davidic descent would not work in Hebrew because the one who speaks to 'my Lord' is described by the tetragrammaton, not as adonai. But if Mark plays with Lord as the Messianic title, it is because he uses the LXX and Paul as his authority who threw the switch. But like Paul, and this is my second point, I am convinced Mark knew the 'absolute' title in LXX was used to translate the ineffable name into Greek. It is simply not credible to maintain that Paul (or Mark for that matter) would have not been able to read the LXX 'kyrios' references, as belonging to the God of the Jews. You would just have to demonstrate this assertion somehow for it to be believable.

I have no doubt that Paul knew the "proper name" in that verse as he knew the "proper name" behind the Lord of Leviticus 24:16.

Unless he really was stoned.


Jiri

Clivedurdle

Would some basic principles help here? Where Paul writes Confess Jesus as Lord what is he saying? That Jesus is Yahweh?

aa5874

If the Pauline writer only knew Greek then he probably would not even be expected to know what Yahweh means or that Yahweh was transliterated to the LXX as some other word.

For example, if the LXX erroneously used the word "virgin" instead of "woman" in Isaiah 7.14, no Greek-only speaking person would have been able to know or even assume that the original word may have "woman" instead of "virgin".

The earliest extant source to reveal transliteration problems with Isaiah 7.14 was Justin Martyr one hundred and fifty years after the error.

It was Trypho the Jew who pointed out the "virgin" and "woman" problems of Isaiah 7.14.

I wonder if any Jew pointed out the "Yahweh" and "Lord" transliteration problems to the Greek LXX readers before they configured their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Solo

I don't think this was a transliteration problem. In Judaism, there was a taboo associated with uttering the sacred name of the Tetragrammaton. Anyone other than the high priest uttering the name publicly was guilty of blasphemy. This probably prompted the LXX translators to write YWHH down as 'lord' (kyrios) which was the Hebrew-speakers' non-blasphemous substitute (adonai) for the sacred name when reading it.

Jiri

aa5874

So, it was obviously a transliteration problem. The Greeks have no direct word for the sacred name of Yahweh.

Loomis

Bingo.

DCHindley

Sorry, I should have said vs 3, not 9.

The problem with the Pauline letters is that they really don't make sense if you read the text "in context," which I presume you mean "sequentially." Long time ago I realized that the christological language seems to be disconnected from the arguments being presented.

The arguments are not about the death, resurrection and vicarious atonement of the believer's sins, which is what Christianity is all about. They are about justification of gentiles before the God of the Jews on the basis of their faith, if it is like that which Abraham had when God told him his "seed" would inherit the earth.

The Christ statements seem to be glosses and commentary meant to modify or in some place change particulars of these lines of argument about gentile justification. If you were to bracket off these Christ statements, what is left (the arguments about justification of gentiles under various circumstances and how that allows them to consider themselves part of God's people) makes perfect sense, while the Christ statements cannot be made to present any sort of systematic argument.

Without the Christ material:

Rom 10:3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 [...]. 5 Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by it. (Lv 18:5) 6 - 9 [...] 10 For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. 11 The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." (Is 28:16) 12a For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek;
12b [...]. 13 For, "every one who calls upon the name of (the) LORD will be saved." (Joel 2:32)

The Christ statements are, on the other hand:

4 For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified

6 But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" (that is, to bring Christ down)

7 or "Who will descend into the abyss?" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)

8 But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); [Dt 30:12-14]

9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved

12b the same (one) is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him

It is not hard to see the difference between the coherence of the former, and the incoherence of the latter.

DCH