dog-on

It happened because the scriptures, based on his understanding, told him so.

I don't understand why this obvious fact is so difficult to accept. Simply ask a modern fundamentalist Christian why they believe what they believe. Their answer, to this day, is not much different.

GakuseiDon

I suppose those are all possible.

GakuseiDon

I suppose it is possible. It would be interesting to build a picture of Jesus based on how Paul describes him in his letters. What would such a Jesus look like? Born of a woman, as a Jew, sometime after Moses, in a lowly manner like a servant, then crucified by the rulers of that time and died sometime in Paul's past. On the night before he was given up, he shared a last meal, presumably with followers.

dog-on

An interesting exercise.

Let's mine the OT and identify all of the references, available to Paul, that he would have needed in order to "create" his Jesus.

Probably not really difficult, as Paul pretty much points out most of them directly, as proof... ...

Jayrok

It could be that the Jews (that would have cared either way) may not have heard anything about it from someone named Paul. Paul went to the gentiles perhaps after being laughed out of the room by the learned Jews. Maybe they didn't take him seriously enough to consider writing notes about him and his radical ideas of their faith. By the time the christian works were circulated with the apologetics going back and forth to defend the christian faith, the Jews didn't feel threatened. It was a christian issue and between christians and their pagan scoffers (e.g. Celsus). Maybe there were commentaries later on in the early centuries, I don't know.


To clear up some confusion on my part, are you saying that you are a Christian but not in the sense that you believe the Jesus of the gospels is the real Jesus? Or are you still agnostic?

I thought your argument with Doherty was that you believe Jesus was a real person who preached and died in the first century. Is that not the case?

As for a picture we can build from Paul's writings, I'm interested in that too. If you believe Paul thought Jesus was a real human being in Jerusalem in his recent past, what do you make of Paul's Jesus... given the fact that you don't consider Paul's Jesus the same as the gospel Jesus?

Paul claims the Jews stumbled on the idea (fact to Paul) that salvation is obtained through faith, not adhering to the restrictions of the Law. The Law, to Paul, was put in place to point out sin to man, as you know. It was the barrier between man and God. Jesus fulfilled the law and thus canceled it as a requirement to salvation. To Paul, the Jews didn't get this memo and didn't understand it... i.e. the stumbled on the stumbling stone, which was Jesus superceding the written Law.

So to Paul, they stumbled on the message about Jesus. He doesn't, however, talk about Jesus coming to Earth. He listed obscure passages that he feels elude to the idea the Jews just didn't understand that the Law took a back seat to faith. There isn't really a need to have Jesus as a human being in front of the Jews. To Paul, the Jews misunderstood the message and rejected Christ by continuing to obey the Law to try and keep good works to obtain salvation.

Paul doesn't need an Earthly Jesus to point this out. He certainly doesn't use an Earthly Jesus. He always points to the prophets' words. Which is odd, because he is sort of an apologist in that he has to alter the meanings to fit into his message. This is why it was all a "mystery" to Paul. He was the only one who understood the prophets in that way. The learned Jews hadn't a clue.

So they had never heard of the name Jesus, specifically, but had missed the true message of God's salvation in the Scriptures. Paul was selected to show the Jews (later the Gentiles after the Jews rejected him) the error in their thinking.

Agree. Zion is symbolic of Jerusalem or Israel. I think it is important for Paul to use "Zion" because it is a piece of literature. It ties his message in with the Holy Scriptures. His whole message is that Jesus replaced the Mosaic Laws and ushered in the new covenant Jeremiah was speaking about. His motif is that Jesus was clearly in the Hebrew Scriptures from the start. He ties Jesus with "Wisdom" of Proverbs 8. Wisdom came upon men and they rejected her. Wisdom was present at the beginning of time and was brought forth as the first of God's works (Proverbs 8:22-23).

This is how Paul wants to thread Jesus into the Scriptures.

Jayrok

Is it possible Paul constructed Jesus on the fly? Attributes were heaped on as Paul crafted up more and more support from the Scriptures.

I'd be curious to see if there is any subtle differences in how Paul describes Jesus from Epistle to Epistle. He was born of a woman, under the law. He was also tied with Wisdom as he was present before time began... before the Earth was formed... and the first fruits of God's works.

Is it possible that Paul got the idea of a last meal ritual from other religious sects? In a sense to try and compete with rival religions of his day to show that Jesus was superior to other deities, such as Mithra? His gentile audience in Rome and Corinth, and certainly Ephesus, would have known about other deities, right? Think they asked Paul how Jesus stacked up against those other gods?

bacht

Paul only refers to Zion in the epistle to the Romans. This makes sense if his audience were Jewish Christians or God-fearing gentiles in synagogues. This would have been the most "Jewish" group he addresses in the letters, so we should expect him to use Hebrew references here more than elsewhere.

aa5874

It is absolutely not true that the writer called Paul did not use an earthly Jesus.

Look at Corinthians 11:23-34 - The writer called Paul did use an earthly Jesus.

ph2ter

There is some evidence which really points to the direction which says that the last meal ritual is invention of Paul.
The eucharist prayer which can be found in the Didache is certainly older than the Paul's version in 1 Corinthians. Inside the Didache version we cannot find even the hint that the bread and the wine may become the body and the blood of Christ or that the eucharist had been initiated by Jesus himself. The Didache version looks like ordinary Jewish prayer with the addition of the "through Jesus Your servant" formula.
The Didache testifies that Paul or someone before him invented the eucharist formula (in the form presented in 1 Corinthians) and that the eucharist had not been initiated by Jesus.

Jayrok

Interesting, thanks.