spin

It shouldn't make clear that he became the son of god on resurrection.

hjalti

spin is, as always, on topic and with good posts I'm disappointed with the fellow board-members who use this verse frequently in debates but haven't engaged the topic. :P

Sure, this is a possible explanation. But I personally find it hard to believe. Was Paul so eager to try to sell himself that he couldn't write: "From Paul to Romans" and had to insert something. I don't buy it.


Next, what to make of the adoptionism in these verses. First of all is Paul elsewhere an adoptionist? Or is this an unique feature of this passage?

Don't we see some sort of adoptionism in Acts? In 13:33-34 the sonship of Jesus is linked with the resurrection.

So I agree that the adoptionism in Romans 1 is clearly contradictory to later orthodoxy, I can't see why someone like the author of Acts couldn't write it. And we already see catholicizing interpolations in the Pauline epistles, and surely the author of Acts is a "catholicizer".

spin

You mightn't buy it, but the Romans weren't directly known to Paul, so I see nothing unusual about Paul introducing himself or his beliefs. The material you're considering for an interpolation is what one would expect for such an introduction.

I think you're misreading Acts here. "You are my son; today I have begotten you" (Ps.2:7b) is given to justify the promise given to "our ancestors" which has been "fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus". This is not adopting Jesus, but maybe the adoption of believers from Antioch in Pisidia: as Paul continues (v.39), "by this everyone who believes is set free from all those sins".

What would your Acts-like interpolator have done to Paul given the former's anti-Jewish rhetoric (v.46, "...judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life")?

hjalti

Right, there is nothing unusual about Paul introducing himself or his beliefs, but isn't it unusual to see such a lengthy discussion of one's beliefs in the address?

Nope, I think you are misreading Acts here

I think that the talk about "children" is just there in connection with "the fathers", nothing here about believers becoming the children of god.

Psalm 2:7 is in other places used to refer to Jesus (like in the baptism or in Heb 5:5). It's after all an enthronement psalm about some special son of god.


But the other question I raised is independent of Acts, isn't the adoptionism in what I think is an interpolation contradictory to the christology we see elsewhere in the Pauline epsitles?

I don't understand the question. Are you saying that an Acts-like interpolator would leave some anti-Jewish interpolations in the epistles? If so, then a passage in 1Thess 2 comes to mind.

angelo

If taken literally, what the gospeler was trying to say is that Joseph, Jeebuse's father was from the line of David. But we all know that Joseph was not the father, the holy spook was.
Therefore, the question becames a misnomer.

avi

The date of origin of P46 is disputed, earliest is late second century, more typically, early third century. It awaits non-destructive 14C testing, to offer at least a date for harvest of the papyrus, if not for the duplication of this collection of Paul's epistles.

avi