aa5874

But, you have quote a passage that shows very well that Paul is NOT alien to the physicality of Jesus. Look at the verses preceeding and those after 2Cor 5.16

2 Cor.5.14-17 Paul is absolutely aware of the physicality of Jesus, but according to Paul now that Jesus has risen, old things are passed away, now is the time for the revelation Jesus.

Paul is about the new creature who has ascended to heaven.


The author of Mark does not appear to be aware of any dispute between any writer called Paul and Peter, nor does he show any awareness of any gospel of uncircumcision or circumcision.

The writing called according to Mark appears to have been interpolated with the long ending to be compatible with the doctrine of Paul when Jesus promised the gift of talking in "tongues."

Paul was absolutely aware of the gospels, and it was his awareness that allowed the writer to fabricate his so-called gospel of uncircumcision.

spamandham

...the psychological prison idea is interesting. I'll have to look into that.

Hold up. So we can see there is a conflict. But conflicts do not have to be sequential, and if they are, they do not have to be separated by large periods of time. It is possible that the 2nd century church consisted of conflicting theologies. That is sufficient to explain the disparity in the various Pauls. We know from other sources outside the epistles that there was indeed conflict in basic theology in the 2nd century church, so this idea fits well with what we independently know.

The physical Jesus idea was also rejected by Marcion, who was familiar with the bodily Jesus ideas. So I don't think this argues for an early dating of the 'authentic' Pauline, since we know this conflict existed within the church in the 2nd century for theological reasons rather than historical reasons.

It might even be argued that Paul's ideas are a later part of the natural progression of ideas...

? -> superman -> god/man -> god/illusion of earthly man (docetism) -> god/heavenly man (Paulism)

Although shown here linearly, I would expect the earlier ideas to still be followed by some sects as the newer ideas evolve from them.

...but carrying along those conflicting ideas is just as problematic as creating them fresh. If the church were unified in ideas that betrayed the earlier Paul, they would simply have abandoned his letters, or edited them beyond recognition to say what they wanted. The dizzying array of noncanonical texts proves that Christians of this time period saw fit to make up pretty much any text they wanted.

What we have seems like it must be the result of a catholicizing movement...well, we know that's the case anyway.

Assuming for a moment that Mark was familiar with such a dispute (which seems reasonable to me), I guess I don't see how that establishes that Mark was familiar with Paul's epistles. A later writer who faked the epistles would surely be familiar with this dispute as well.

aa5874

The church writers like Eusebius and Jerome have already placed Paul after the gospel of Luke.

The church writer Irenaes claimed the author of Luke was an inseparable companion of "Paul".

It is therefore just futile to claim that Paul was not aware of the gospel, the gospel story or the author of gLuke.


Church History 3.4.8Jerome On Illustrious Men 7 There are no other sources that can contradict the church writers, they are the ones who have placed Paul after gLuke.

Now even if it is believed that the church writers are not credible about Paul or gLuke, that is their story, Paul was after gLuke.

It is virtually imposible to prove that Paul was not aware of the gospel or the gospels. There is just no credible evidence anywhere to contradict the church writers.

Paul was absolutely aware of the Gospels based on the evidence supplied by the church writers.

Solo

There were multiple Christianities from 1st to 5th centuries, no doubt, but the retention of Paul by the strongest - and in time, the absolutely dominant - orthodox church, argues against such proposition. Paul was used by the Catholicos and by the Marcionites and by the gnostics. Surprisingly all three schools credit all Paulines as genuine except for the pastorals which were used only by the orthodox and Hebrews which Marcion did not consider Paul's writing. Paul supplied the mystery of pneumatic redemption which could be used to all sorts of purposes. And it was.

No, it does not argue for it but it does not argue against it either.

In Marcion's Euangelion (a version of Luke) Jesus is said to be 'a phantom'. (Can't confirm because I haven't read it yet). Marcion rejected the physicality of Christ but the orthodox accepted it, and refitted Paul's Christ on terms of the original Markan allegorical tale of the misunderstood and betrayed Jewish Messiah who walks on earth as the risen Lord for those who heed the call of the gospel. Mark provided the 'bridge' back to the Palestinian (Petrine) Jewish Jesus cult. So the physicality of Christ, asserted as Markan passion, I read as a historical marker (admittedly blurry) even if Marcion did not buy into it.

I did not know Joe Shuster was that ancient.


They did that in places, but on the whole - and after the church became dominant - Paul (including the fakes) would not be touched because he was canon. The texts became the sacred word of God.


Not sure what you are arguing. I am saying I think it can be demonstrated that Mark knew Paul, e.g.

1) in the Transfiguration - a key to understanding the resurrectional scheme in Mark - he uses a verb (metamorfomai, 2 Cor 3:18), consistent with Paul's view of the resurrection as an internal datum which, when played out before a vulgar or idolatrous audience (in Mark, the three disciples), has no effect. It was not understood as in the later gospels (and in the longer Mark) as bodily rising of a corpse.

2) the flight of the disciples from Gethsemane and Peter's denial of Jesus relate to Paul's argument with the Petrine missionaries in Gal 6:12....they ..would compel you to be circumcized that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

3) Jesus' cryptic reference to himself as 'bridesgroom' in Mk 2:19 refers to 2 Cor 11:2 Paul's 'for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband'.

4) Mark's unabashed admission that Jesus' family declared him out of his mind (when his followers were so fascinated by him that they would not eat) refers sarcastically back to 1 Cor 1:20-21: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. By Mark's time, the disdained manics felt so sure of their special status vis-a-vis God and their Christ connection that they taboo'ed the mocking of the Holy Spirit, the free manifestations of which so ired Irenaeus and would be instantly identified today as manic excitement.

5) There was most likely a variant of Paul's saying of the Lord day coming like a 'thief (kleptes) in the night'. It would have the Lord come like the robber (lestes) in the night. Both would be in reference to the sudden, stealthy and paralyzing nature of a complex partial seizure that was interpreted by Paul as the appearance of the risen Lord, or seeing the Lord. My little theory I hope will be borne by John 10:10 which shows that the terms were close and used in support of each other in the early communities. At any rate, Jesus' arrest in Gethsemane is a complex cipher, ironically "disabling" Jesus as power and delivering him into the hands of the powers-that-be. Jesus' saying : have you come out as against a robber ? has the signature Markan twist inverting the roles to be played on the judgment day. Mk 3:27 is another parabolic variation on the theme.

Jiri

aa5874

The chronology for the Pauline letters, as you propose, is flawed based on internal information. The church writers claimed that Paul was aware of the gospel of Luke, however gLuke was written after Paul was supposed to be dead, and there is no external information at all to even historically locate a physician called Luke who was a disciple of Paul.

All the information about Marcion using gLuke and the Pauline letters is from the church writers who cannot get their own date of writings and authorship in order.

The very same church writers who claimed Marcion used gLuke did not even know who wrote gLuke itself and when it was written.

The church writers that claimed Marcion used the letters of Paul did not even know what Paul really wrote and when the letters were written

This is Tertullian in Against Marcion.

Against Marcion 4.2 It appears that Tertullian is attributing an anonymous writing to Marcion while at the same time was relying on erroneous information about authorship and date of the books and letters in the NT.

The NT is a manipulated document where much of the information is erroneous or corrupted.

spamandham

Prior to Constantine, the only tool a church had to consolidate ideas was to appeal to the various sects. It is not surprising then, that the dominant sect came to be one that has appeal to all kinds of ideas - something for everyone. So Paul becomes a shape shifter who even feels compelled to explain why he is that way (though the passage is escaping me at the moment).

Unless we start with some assumptions about what is original and what is not, we really have no idea what Paul thought about Christ. He's all over the map even within the 'authentic' epistles. I've see numerous people here put together quite a composition of excerpts from the 'authentic' epistles that confirm the idea of a bodily Jesus in Paul's mind (I think you are familiar with these as well, and so this does not require discussion I hope). Arguments can of course be made that every one of these is a later interpolation, ...but if we are allowing for such wide spread interpolation on important doctrinal issues, why are we disallowing wholesale fabrication?

This *could* be the case, but then again, so could it not be. That's the problem I'm seeing. It's much too ambiguous to make a determination one way or the other. It's almost like pissing in the wind, where you have the ability to push a little harder, so that a little bit less piss blows back on you.

(feel free to reuse that analogy ).

I was hoping you would recognize the obvious metaphor and take the idea seriously... oh well.

...the existence of all the mid/late 2nd century noncanonical texts I think adequately demonstrates that the canon was still up for grabs at the point in history we are discussing. What we have left in the canon is that which survived the natural selection process...and nothing more. The canon was still being debated as late as Eusebius.

I guess I just don't buy into the concept that people were unwilling to muck with or even wholesale invent scripture in the late 2nd century...considering we have vast evidence of this happening both within the canon and external to it.

...the idea of a spiritual resurrection within Paul indicates that the idea was one of those being taken seriously by some of the early church, but that doesn't tell us that Mark's ideas are derived from Paul's ideas. What you're saying is possible of course, but it is not more plausible than the proposition that both ideas flourished well into the second century...and that's all that's needed to support the idea that none of the Pauline corpus is authentic.

The problem with this, as with (1), is we don't know a prior which doctrine is primary. The existence of Marcionism...I think... completely destroys the argument that a bodily Jesus evolved from a spiritual Jesus, since by concensus methods, Marcion's phantom Jesus post dates Mark's bodily Jesus. So we *know* (bodily Jesus -> nonbodily Jesus) happened, and it is reasonable to presume Marcion was not the end of those ideas, but that they continued to develop.


Both of these suffer from the same problem as stated above. However, I allow for Mark (and the other Gospels) to have been edited. It seems very doubtful that what we have today is a pure version of what 'Mark' originally penned. Now things get really messy, but hey, reality is under no obligation to mold itself to our desires for simple analysis.

Although an interesting observation/idea, I don't think this helps establish sequence.

My own suspicion, is that Mark was intended for a mystical audience who understood the symbolism and did not believe in a literal Jesus at all. If I'm right, then Paul's spiritual Jesus may have resulted from a misunderstanding of the secrets...somebody (aka 'paul') knew it was a mystery religion, but was not schooled in the mysteries and so just kind of guessed at it.

aa5874

Based on the NT and church writings Paul's Jesus was bodily resurrected. There is no information anywhere that Paul was a heretic like Marcion.

In Acts of the Apostles, a document canonised by the church and deemed to be sacred scripture, there is no indication whatsoever that Paul preached any other Jesus than a bodily resurrected Jesus.

It should be noted that Paul's letters were canonised and regarded as sacred scripture because the church regarded as totally representative of a bodily resurrected Jesus Christ.

Ro 1:3 - Ro 8:3 - It is just absurd to claim Paul preached a spiritual only Christ when he had already established the Jesus was in the flesh. And further, the church writers used the letters of Paul to counter Marcion's phantom.

It is completely erroneous to claim Paul preached a spirtual only Christ when the letters with the name Paul, Acts of the Apostles and the church writers did not ever indicate such.

Paul's gospel of uncircumcision is a post-ascension revelation and Paul admits that it was the Jesus who was in the flesh that now is heaven, the heavenly Jesus, that revealed many things to him.

premjan

The resurrection was probably just targeted at conversion of Egyptians (Copts?) who believed in physical resurrection. The born of a virgin thing may have been for the benefit of some other audience. The eating of flesh and blood was directed at some audience that believed in ritual cannibalism I think. It may have been a marketing ploy and it is not inconceivable that Jesus actually survived the crucifixion and spent his latter days preaching in Arabia or Kashmir or wherever.

spamandham

...I'm sure were all quite familiar with your hobby horse already.

aa5874

I am familiar with your hobby horse.

It is my position that Paul was absolutely aware of the gospel, the gospels and was a fiction writer writing after Justin Martyr.

I can ride my horse.