Llyricist

Going around in circles..... from the OP:

GakuseiDon

Hi Jacob. No, not in the Pauline epistles, but I think Papias and Polycarp strongly suggests that there was an Apostolic tradition.

GakuseiDon

What, then, was Paul's gospel? That may be the key to this question.

As I said previously, it was probably no more than that Christ had died for our sins and been resurrected, to deliver Gentiles and non-Gentiles alike "from this present evil age". This he got from revelation, and to this the Jerusalem group "contributed nothing". That is, they agreed with Paul.

But that is not to say that Paul learned nothing else, either then or at a later time. The primary focus in Gal is on Paul's gospel, not Paul's knowledge.

How do we distinction between what Paul learned from revelation, from visions of the Risen Christ, and from other people?

I agree with everything but (3). Why would Paul say he had the Jerusalem group's approval, and at the same time say that their reputation was irrelevant? Paul seems happy enough to report that James, Cephas and John gave Paul the "right hand of fellowship".

I suggest Paul is simply saying that "the truth is the truth", and reputation isn't relevant to this. The Jerusalem group were recognising the truth in Paul's gospel. This was important to Paul, as some in Galatians (maybe "people of reputation" as well?) were questioning Paul's gospel.

Yes, but why was their reputation irrelevant? It is because "God shows no partiality", not because their reputation was unwarranted. Is Paul saying that their reputation is unjustified? No, but simply in the case of preaching the gospel, the truth is more important than reputation.

Yes, but again, WHY is it irrelevant? Because the Jerusalem group doesn't know what they are talking about? No! It is because God doesn't care about reputations, and neither does Paul. Paul is saying that the Jerusalem group has the reputation, but the truth is more important. I also think Paul is probably saying this also to push back at his critics in Galatians.

No, I think you have that wrong. The people Paul didn't yield to were the "false brethren", not the Jerusalem group.

Yes - "God doesn't care about reputations". Paul isn't saying that their reputation is unwarranted. "God doesn't care about reputations" would be regarded as true whether Paul was an MJer or a HJer, wouldn't it? And I think Paul had good reason to do this, as next in Gal he goes on to criticise Peter.

Are you saying then, that Paul would have considered reputation important to God if members of the Jerusalem group HAD met the living Jesus?

Given that Paul next writes in Gal that he confronted Peter, we can see he has good reason why he wants to de-emphasis the stress on reputation, and to focus on "truth".

There is nothing there to go against a HJ. If anything, that passage seems more consistant with there being a HJ.

Amaleq13

This has already been covered in the thread. If Paul knew of teachings from the living Jesus, wouldn't they have been part of his proclaimed gospel?

I've already explained this to you. Paul did not seek their approval because he was impressed by their reputation. He makes that clear when he states he went there after fourteen years because of a revelation. He is re-emphasizing this point after asserting their approval. IOW, "I got their leaders' approval even though their "high reputation" is ultimately irrelevant."

If he was truly "happy enough" with that, he would not have felt it necessary to add the dismissive comment.

Except he isn't just talking about "reputation" in general. He is specifiying their reputation.

You are simply saying the same thing over and over again in different words but you continue to avoid the meaning. All of this adds up to Paul dismissing their reputation as irrelevant. That makes no sense whatsoever if that reputation was based on their former role as disciples. It seems to me that having spent time with the living Jesus listening to his teachings might be considered relevant to most folks when it came to assuming authority for carrying on his work. You disagree? It is clear that Paul's dismissal would be impossible if their reputation was based on being former disciples.

No, I'm saying Paul would never try to make such an assertion if their reputation was based on being former disciples. It would be foolishness to anyone who knew the basis.

"Big deal," says Paul. "So they actually knew the guy and heard him teach. That doesn't mean anything. God doesn't think that previous experience is relevant."

Why would he expect the Galatians to believe such nonsense? Being a former disciple of the living Jesus wasn't relevant to preaching his gospel? It simply is not credible.

I agree that this is not an argument against an historical Jesus. It is, however, an argument against the idea that the apostles were former disciples.

GakuseiDon

Only so far as those teachings were relevant to Paul's gospel message, which was primarily focused on Jesus's death and resurrection, and its implications for the Gentiles.

But that is Paul's gospel. What he knew from the apostles and others is another matter. This list of comparisions in Paul's epistles with NT sayings is from here: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/musly1.html

(JESUS) Luke 6.27-28: "Love your enemies...bless those who curse you"
(JESUS) Matt 5.24: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"
(PAUL) Romans 12.14: "Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse"

(JESUS) Mark 7:15: "there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.
(PAUL) Romans 14:14: " I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is profane in itself"

(JESUS) Matt 17:20: "if you have faith...you will say to this mountain, 'Move'..."
(PAUL) I Cor 13.2: "if I have all faith so as to move mountains..."

(JESUS) Matt 19.21: "If you would be perfect, go, sell all your possessions and give to the poor..."
(PAUL) I Cor 13.3: "if I give away all my possessions..." (contra Rabbinical advice! Cf. b. Ketubot 50a and Mishnah Arakin 8.4)

(JESUS) Matt 24.43: "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44 "For this reason you be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
(PAUL) I Thess 5:2,4: "For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night...But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief;

(JESUS) Mark 9.50: "live at peace with one another" (verb forms are absolutely identical)
(PAUL) I Thess 5.13: "live at peace among yourselves"

(JESUS) Mark 4.22: "For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it should come to light.
(PAUL) I Cor 4.5: "who will bring to light the secrets of darkness and will make public the purposes of the heart"
(PAUL) Rom 2.16: "God judges the secrets of people, according to my gospel through Jesus Christ"
(PAUL) I Cor 14.25: "The secrets of his heart are made public"

(JESUS) Mark 14:36: "And He was saying, "Abba! Father" (very uncommon usage)
(PAUL) Gal 4.6: "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!""
(PAUL) Rom 8.15: "you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

(JESUS) ark 14:22-23: "And while they were eating, He took some bread, and after a blessing He broke it; and gave it to them, and said, "Take it; this is My body." 23 And when He had taken a cup, and given thanks, He gave it to them; and they all drank from it. 24 And He said to them, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
(PAUL) I Cor 11:23: "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 25 In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." [the whole thing!]

(JESUS) Luke 10.7: "And stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages.
(PAUL) I Cor 9.14: "So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. "
(PAUL) I Tim 5.18: "For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing," and "The laborer is worthy of his wages."

Yes, I disagree. In Gal, just after Paul's comment about reputation, Paul attacks Peter for not eating with the Gentiles. I would say that Paul HAS to de-emphasis their reputation, as they were disciples of Jesus while He was alive. It is the advantage that they have over Paul.

Yes, being a former disciple of the living Jesus wasn't relevant to Paul's gospel, which was focused on the resurrection implications for salvation.

That's not to say that Paul didn't know and use the teachings of the living Jesus, as the examples above show.

Anyway, I admit it is speculation either way. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on why Paul wanted to de-emphasis the Jerusalem group's reputation.

Amaleq13

It is difficult to understand how any teachings from a living Jesus could be considered irrelevant. The only reason you expect Paul to have included such teachings is because of the later Gospel stories. Nothing in Paul supports this expectation.

I know it wasn't your intention but the list only serves to emphasize the fact that Paul never attributes any of these sentiments to the teachings of a living Jesus. They are only attributed to Jesus in the later Gospel stories.

Paul dismisses their reputation as irrelevant. He does not simply "de-emphasize" it. There is no support at all in Paul's letters for the assumption that these men are former disciples.

Sorry, but I don't consider that to be credible. Even if we assume that Paul would have this view, it makes no sense to suggest he could rely on others to share his views.

Your examples showed no such thing. What they show is Paul expressing similar sentiments to sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel stories but utterly failing to connect them to a living Jesus.

Only because you refuse to take the text at face value. I do not consider your interpretation to be at all credible.

Layman

So the point is just to come up with some excuse to avoid the well-accepted meaning of this passage?

In any event, 1 Cor. 15 is not your only problem. Scholars from all perspectives have detected prePauline formulas throughout his writings. As stated in the original article:

When arguments involving the Greek and manuscript traditions are involved, I do think that expert opinion is important. Appeals to them are hardly fallacious. As Carrier noted:

Amateurs often disregard the crucial importance of field-familiarity, i.e. that one must have a long and deep acquaintance with a particular time and culture in order to make reliable judgments about the probable and improbable, the expected and unexpected, and all the other background assumptions necessary to understanding the significance of any particular fact or claim--in short, one must be cognizant not merely of the literary context of a statement, but its entire socio-historical context as well. And that is no easy thing to achieve.

You are missing the point. If this was added my a later "HJ" type Christian, it's meaning is inconsistent with your understanding of "according to the scriptures." In other words, you're "fallback" evasive option seems inconsistent with your stated position.

Further proof that you are just looking for rationales instead of the truth in Paul's writings.

First, because it does not say "learned from scripture." In fact, Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon defines it as "according to, agreeably to; in reference to agreement or conformity to a standard." Page 328. Thayer's also notes that the term is used the same in 1 Cor. 15:3 and James 2:8 (as I pointed out above).

Thayer's also notes that the term is used the same in the following other New Testament verses. Examples:

Mark 7:5: "The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?'"

The Pharisees are accusing Jesus' disciples of not doing what the scriptures say they should do. It has nothing to do with how they learned about what the disciples were actually doing.

Rom. 8:4: "so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

Again the term has nothing to do with how something is learned, it has to do with walking in conformity with a certain idea. Some behavior is consistent with the flesh and some is consistent with the Spirit.

Rom 14:15: "For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love."

Paul did not learn about Christian problems with eating pagan food from "love," but he notes that there is a certain way of approaching the problem that is "according to love." That is, if you do something that hurts your brother you are not in compliance with the standard set by love.

Which Lexicon's support your reading of this scripture?

Second, because I have not seen any New Testament scholar or historian who has adopted any such understanding.

C.K. Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, page 338.

Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, page 299.

Third, because the term "kata" does not mean "learned" or "discovered" or anything remotely similar.

Some other translations render it thus:

(CEV) I told you the most important part of the message exactly as it was told to me. That part is: Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say.

(GNB) I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures;

(GW) I passed on to you the most important points of doctrine that I had received: Christ died to take away our sins as the Scriptures predicted.

(NISV) For I passed on to you the most important points of what I received: Christ died for our sins in keeping with the Scriptures,

Fourth, your translation is inconsistent with how the same phrase is used in James 2:8.

Jam 2:8: "If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing well."

As in 1 Cor. 15:3--and the other examples noted in the First point, the scriptures are a standard, something to check against, not the source by which the author learned about the behavior being discussed.

Fifth, as I have shown above, your translation of the term renders the sequence of descriptions absurd. As I mentioned above:

Sixth, you fail to consider the impact of Paul's Pharisaic, Jewish background has on his approach to the scriptures.

David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?, pages 51-52.

Also, I want to reiterate that you have created a false dichotomy and are applying much to rigid a definition of "gospel" to Paul.

Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel, page 69.

Perhaps more important, you are ignoring the contexts of the two passages. In Galatians, Paul is defending himself against Judaizer influence that likely was claiming that they trumped Paul's teaching because they represented the Jerusalem Church. He had to show his independence and the superiority of the message he preached--regardless of who preached it. (Gal 1:8: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!"). In Corinth, Paul was trying to convince a congregation that overly favored direct revelation. He responded to them by stressing that what he had preached before was based on the common experience of all of the Apostles. (1 Cor. 15:8, 11: "and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.... Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.").

MB Thompson 'Tradition' in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, page 944.

And Kim, again:

[quote]For the present purpose is is enough to see the mutually complementary character of Paul's statements in Gal. 1.12 and 1 Cor. 15.1ff... in the Galatian passage Paul asserts that he received his gospel not from man but directly 'through a revelation of Jesus Christ' because here he is concerned with the origin and essence of his gospel, while in 1 Cor. 15.1ff. he reproduces the early Christian tradition as the gospel that he preached to the Corinthians because there he is concerned to remind them of the terms in which he actually preached the gospel to them, and to emphasize the resurrection of Christ as being the common preaching of all the apostles (1 Cor. 15.11).

Kim, op. cit., page 70.

Seventh, it seems very unlikely that a Pharisee would have constructed the kerygma of 1 Cor. 15:3 based on a reading of scripture. This is especially true of the "raised on the third day" part. It is more reasonable to conclude that the early Christians had certain events that they believed happened, and also believed must have been ordained by scripture. So they searched their Jewish Bibles to find out what seemed to fit.

Barrett., op. cit., page 339.

Amaleq13

No, the point is to obtain an understanding that doesn't contradict Paul. Your suggestion that he obtained information directly from the Jerusalem group clearly falls into that category. Both the idea that the passage is an interpolation and the idea that Paul is repeating beliefs he has heard from members of the Church of God are superior to your suggestion since they do not contradict Paul's statements elsewhere.

That you keep quoting Carrier as a defense for repeated appeals to the majority suggests you do not understand either the nature of the logical error or what Carrier is saying. It is not sufficient to simply list names in order to obtain Carrier's "support". You have to provide evidence that the conclusions are based on the "field-familiarity" he is speaking of.

That the phrase might have a different meaning if written by another person is obviously irrelevant to considering it as genuine. This is a meaningless observation. It doesn't matter what a later Christian wrote since we are trying to understand what Paul believed.

"Why do Your disciples not walk as they learned from the tradition of the elders?" How is this an inaccurate interpretation?

You can't walk in conformity with a certain idea unless you first learn the idea. To be in conformity requires a learned understanding beforehand or it is just a coincidence.

None of your examples actually excludes the possibility that the information found to be in accordance with Scripture was initially learned from Scripture. Paul is talking about revealed truths not witnessed events and nothing you have provided shows otherwise.

You are insisting that the only way Paul could claim that "died, buried, resurrected" was "according to Scripture" is if he was talking about events that had actually been witnessed. You have utterly failed to support this claim without contradicting Paul's own statements about the nature and origin of his gospel (i.e. divine revelation). We are talking about a man who felt free to claim:

"You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?" (Gal 3:1, NASB)

When I read Paul talking about a proclaimed crucifixion of Jesus being as real to believers as a witnessed event, I have to consider your interpretation to be excessively restricted.

Edited later to add:

You quoted Barrett:
Nobody is claiming that a Pharisee constructed the kerygma from reading Scripture.

On the contrary, this detail appears to be entirely derived from Scripture unless we are to reject the Gospel stories as unreliable on this point. They portray Jesus already raised by the beginning of the third day. If, on the other hand, the Church of God had Psalm 16 (NASB/AMP) in mind, the connection between three-day descents into Sheol and the traditional waiting period of three days to determine "true death" are obvious.

I agree but we can't ignore how Paul describes those "certain events". The early Christians with whom Paul had contact believed that the Risen Christ appeared to Cephas. The beliefs began with a revelatory experience and Scripture was found to "conform" to those beliefs.

It may well be that the divinely revealed truths were made before specific passages were alleged in support of it.

I agree and the death of Christ was revealed when the Risen Christ appeared to Cephas.

Layman wrote:
On the contrary, I assume it was Paul's Jewish background that prevented him from recognizing the "truth" of the Scriptural passages proclaimed by the Church of God as fulfilled.

On the contrary, it is your attempt to read unsubstantiated information into Paul that lacks justification. Why would Paul leave anything important or relevant out of his gospel?

You have added nothing to new to arguments that have already been shown to lack credibility.

Layman

Your squirming around the linguistic evidence and Thayer's definition of "according to" convinces me you have nothing more to offer in defense of your unique, bizzare, and completely unsupported translation of "according to the scriptures." One last chance. Who else adopts your translation and why do they do so? What outer verses use the phrase, or a similar phrase, in your way?

Amaleq13

You have not yet explained what is wrong with the interpretation whenever texts or traditions are being referenced:

"Why do Your disciples not walk as they learned from the tradition of the elders?" How is this an inaccurate interpretation?

Where does Paul tell us that the events that happened "according to Scripture" were known to have happened before reading it there?

LOL! Were you wearing a cowboy hat when you typed this?