EarlDoherty

This is a good example of why I don’t hover over my keyboard waiting to respond immediately to every response to my postings. “The game is up”? Hardly. And there’s no “period” about it. I acknowledged that the word “miracles” was, if not “everywhere” at least was claimed to represent an adjunct to the preaching of apostles and the workings of the community. I pointed out that the pervasive impression created by these references is that they were hardly of any great consequence (certainly not when compared to the miracles of the Gospels and Acts), since not a single one is described anywhere in the epistles, and they are treated in such a throwaway manner. So the “game” is about what they constituted, how dramatic they were, and whether they would have been sufficient to convert strangers to what would be (if they applied to an historical man) outlandish and even blasphemous claims about him.

Not one of you entered into that “game.” You responded with nothing which would answer any of those questions.

What did you do instead? The poor man’s response. Question the integrity of the questioner. I was asking for a specific dramatic miracle, yet because I didn’t think to consider references to miracles in general (as I recall, only one of them, Romans 15:19, actually would have made my point, that Paul attributes miracle-working to himself or other apostles), there is something deficient with my knowledge of the epistles. Well, I can assure you (for the benefit of those who think I share infallibility with the Pope, or even greater still, an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything under the biblical and scholarly sun with Jeffrey Gibson), I do not carry every verse or piece of datum on every subject around in my head. I have to look quite a few things up. Which I'm sure places me on the same level as most folks around here.

Like I said, if you can’t win by argument, settle for innuendo.

Anyway, if we are going to waste any more time on this exchange, please counter my argument that none of these references to “signs, wonders and miracles” can be considered to be dramatic enough that we could readily believe they would be sufficient to convince anyone cold that a crucified criminal back in Judea had walked out of his grave, was really the pre-existent Son of God, had been God’s agent of creation, had been and continued to be the force which held the universe together, and by his death had conquered the demon spirits. And what evangelical preachers do today is completely irrelevant (not that they claim much in the way of miracles, either, and I would suggest that what they do and talk about is pretty much on the same level as what Paul is talking about). They are building on 2000 years of history and faith, and they are not saying to their congregations that Joe Blow, an executed criminal back in their home town whom their congregations had never heard of, had risen alive from his electric chair and was the redeemer of the sins of the world.

One of the great problems around here is that too many dissenters have an inflated view of their own counter-arguments, which too often amount to little or nothing when closely scrutinized and in fact do not address the actual issue that has been put forward.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

How about this as a pecking order, in ascending order:

- “scholars” who are graduates of Bible Colleges
- mainstream traditional scholars who have overriding confessional interests, like Luke Timothy Johnson
- critical scholars who, up to a point, allow rational evaluation of the evidence to govern their conclusions
- mythicists

Obviously, nothing lower in the pecking order is going to affect the top rung.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

On what basis did Paul persecute? If we should not be allowed to read into Paul knowledge of Jesus and his life which he demonstrates no knowledge of (and even excludes in some his remarks)—in other words, we should not automatically read the Gospels into the epistles—we can hardly read into Paul’s career as a persecutor contact with that same undemonstrated knowledge.

There seems to be a shortage of appreciation for the concept of fallacy on this board. I’ll take my “strawmen” any day.

Earl Doherty

eheffa

Thank you Earl.

Your responses are clear and cogent.

How much of our perception of the details of Paul as the great "Persecutor" are actually derived from the book of Acts? It seems to me that without Acts to prejudice the question, we would have a very different perception of the writer of the Pauline epistles.

-evan

Ben C Smith

Let us review the questions you actually asked, and see which of them have been answered.

Here is the beginning of the exchange between you and Doug:

Then come your questions, or the game, as it were:

Doug answered this one before you asked it. The faith was not based on the life and times of the recently deceased Jesus. Neither unwillingness nor the inability to tell much about the life and times of Jesus is going to make any difference to a religion that is not based on those things.

Convincingly enough to help in conversions? Paul seems to think so. Recall that GDon gave you Romans 15.19...:

...in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the spirit, so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.

...and that I compared it with 1 Corinthians 2.4-5:

...and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

What is the demonstration of the spirit and of power? It can hardly be words, since Paul is ruling that out. Whatever this demonstration is, Paul presumes that the faith of his Corinthian converts rests on it, not on words or wisdom. This is squarely on point for what Doug was saying.

There is another reference, too, which I shall save for last.

This question of yours was not directly answered. Nor do I think it really can be. Too much depends on what would qualify as a miracle.

This was not a question, but it was countered nonetheless. We found that Paul does attribute miracles to himself and to his converts.

No one showed you an account; I do not think one exists. But what Doug was claiming does not require an account; all it requires is that miracles helped evangelize.

Answered in full.

Yes, in Romans 15.19 and apparently also in 1 Corinthians 2.4-5. (See also one other passage, which I will give last.)

He states that he acted in certain ways so that their faith would be based on the power of God, or demonstrations of the spirit and of power, rather than on human words.

Of all your questions, all but about two were answered in full. People did not refuse to engage in the game; we all played.

Full stop. Where did I question your integrity? If I did so, or even gave the impression of doing so, I apologize, because I did not mean to do so.

I recall exactly where I questioned your memory and your competence. But I do not recall questioning your integrity.

One of your requests was for a miracle account (you did not use the term dramatic). The rest were not.

Why would you not think to consider references to miracles in general when such references were all that would be needed to confirm what Doug was saying?

Not so, and this even after you have been personally shown the references. Let us review the relevant ones again; Romans 15.19 (which you acknowledge); 1 Corinthians 2.4-5 (which you have not acknowledged, and which is not quite as clear as the Romans reference); and 2 Corinthians 12.12 (the clearest reference of them all!). There is also one more reference that has not, to my knowledge, been brought up yet. See below.

Yes, there is something deficient with your knowledge of the epistles.

Yes, most of us have to look things up, too. I know I do. But most of us also do so before countering the point an opponent is making.

Innuendo of what?

I am not sure how you are imagining the miracles working. I cannot speak for Doug, but here is my own process:

1. Paul encounters some potential converts and tells them about the risen Lord.
2. The potential converts say: Show us.
3. Paul does something that they would interpret as a miracle.*
4. The converts interpret this as a sign.

* As for the kind of miracle, I am not certain, but I suspect it could be a healing (see 1 Corinthians 12.28) or some bit of supernatural knowledge about a person (see below).

Finally, here is that other reference I promised. 1 Corinthians 14.24-25:

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.

This falls short of an actual account, but it is hypothetical. Paul really seems to think that a word of prophecy can so disclose the secrets of the heart of a man that he instantly converts.

Here Paul actually describes a conversion, hypothetically of course, in terms exactly along the lines of what Amaleq13 was saying.

Ben.

Amaleq13

Get down off the cross, Earl, the rest of us want to see the view.

Your integrity was not questioned. Your apparent lack of familiarity with the evidence on a point so clearly relevant to your thesis is what "disturbs" or "surprises" some.

Neither do I but I do tend to recall what seem to be significant points and Paul's attribution of miracles to himself and others but not to Jesus certainly seems to qualify. That you apparently agree that this is a significant point makes your unfamiliarity with it surprising to some and disturbing to others.

Nobody's argument was based on your apparent lack of familiarity with the texts. This is a straw man.

Does your "argument" have any basis other than your subjective opinion about the credulity of 1st century citizens?

My own personal and professional experience suggests that you are arbitrarily underestimating the credulity of Paul's audience.

Why should anyone consider your subjective opinion about what would constitute a sufficiently dramatic miracle to be a valid argument?

What they do today is remarkably similar to what Paul describes, Earl. That you think they do not claim much in the way of miracles suggests you are unfamiliar with what they are doing. They claim people are being raised from the dead, Earl!! And people believe it!!

You need new crazy beliefs that are readily accepted without "dramatic" miracles? Ever heard of Heaven's Gate? How about Scientology?

People are credulous, Earl. You should have figured that out by now.

My thoughts exactly. Your position on Paul's miracles simply has no traction.

EarlDoherty

God, I love it when my opponents do my work for me. You are exactly right. The faith Paul is preaching is NOT based on the life and times of the recently deceased Jesus, simply because that is not what he is preaching or envisioning. That is what his letters and all the letters of the first century, along with a few other documents, convey, because they make no mention of such a thing.

The double fallacy in your argument is the very idea that anyone could think that Paul could be going about telling of a Son of God, creator agent of the universe, redeemer of the worlds sin, etc., etc. who was a recently crucified criminal in Judea, and somehow not have to preach his life and times. On what basis (damn it, I hate repeating myself so much) are the people he talks to going to be converted? What are they going to be converted to? To the existence of a Son of God in heaven? (That, of course, to judge by Paul and the others, is precisely what they were converted to.) But you are maintaining that they were converted to the fact that a man recently on earth, crucified in Judea, who is even being claimed to have risen from the dead, was this Son of God, agent of creation, redeemer of the world’s sins, etc., etc.. How then, I ask again (and again and again), can Paul possibly NOT preach the man and his life??? How can their faith that this man was all that Paul supposedly claims he was possibly be based on nothing being told to them about that man and his life??? Why does Paul, for all he talks about faith, never mention the requirement for faith that the recent Jesus of Nazareth was this Son of God, agent of creation, redeemer of the world’s sin, etc., etc.??? He never does.

I’m sorry, but I cannot get my brain around this kind of thinking that you are indulging in, whether you’re in another universe or not.

Yes, their faith rests, at least partially, on whatever it is that Paul is referring to by the “demonstration of the power of God.” First of all, I have given you very good reason to doubt that this ‘demonstration’ refers to anything at all dramatic. Maybe Paul fell down in a fit and uttered words supposedly spoken through him by the Holy Spirit? Or after he arrived in town, a statue of Jupiter happened to topple over? Or maybe when he put his hand on someone’s head, the guy thought he felt better? We have no reason or evidence to think that his ‘power of God’ was anything more than this sort of thing. Now, is Paul going to use this sort of thing as his sole argument to believe that the crucified criminal was the Son of God, sustainer of the universe, redeemer of the world’s sins, etc. etc.? Or is he going to, by necessity or simply because he realizes it would add to his case, mention something about that man’s life to enhance the listener’s view of him and help convince them that he was everything Paul is presenting him as?

You maintain that you all played the game. But you did not. You simply showed that Paul is claiming that certain “signs, wonders, miracles,” whatever he or you want to call them, was stated by him to have played a role in his winning over of converts. That is not the essence of the ‘game.’ The game, as I laid it out, was that this situation may be feasible in regard to the preaching of yet another spiritual deity by someone like Paul, backed up by passages in scripture to indicate the existence and role of that deity, but it is insufficient and infeasible in a situation in which someone like Paul is trying to convince people that a recent man was all these things. You did not play that game. Neither you nor Doug have attempted to give me any justification for thinking so, or to counter my objection (logically, psychologically, according to the record, whatever rules you want to play by) that it would be impossible.

By the way, you throwing out another passage which I did not at the moment recall as on a par with the one in Romans is not evidence of my deficient knowledge of the epistles, it is evidence of not remembering every individual passage at all times. We all do that, yourself included as you admit. Yes, it would certainly be preferable if I looked up everything before making a statement, but if I don’t you’re free to correct me, to remind me of my oversight. What you are not free to do is extrapolate from that and impugn my integrity or competence. (Besides, if I didn’t do that sort of thing every now and then, Jeffrey would have nothing to find fault with.) Essentially, I’m simply trying to save time, but given the limitations of my memory, maybe I’m going to have to amend my ways.

If that’s all it would take for you, you’re a pretty persuadable fellow. As for 1 Cor. 12:28, I seem to recall—(no, no, I’d better look it up!)—“gifts of healing” are listed separate from “powers” (dunamis is also used for miracles or the ‘power’ that produces miracles). And you have apparently overlooked the earlier 1 Cor. 12:9-10, which clearly separates healing from miraculous powers (don’t worry, I won’t impugn your competence on that basis).

And your final reference kept for a dramatic finale (1 Cor. 14:14-15), doesn’t accomplish anything that I can see. Once again, Paul does indeed “think that a word of prophecy can so disclose the secrets of the heart of a man that he instantly converts.” That in itself should show that he is not presuming to think that a mere word of prophecy can by itself convince the listener of all that you want to read into Paul’s preaching.

Your scenario does not in any way show that by such a demonstration Paul would be likely to convince anyone that a recently crucified man whom they never heard of was the Son of God, creator and sustainer, etc., (you know the drill). Besides, were Christian apostles the only ones going around producing these ‘feats’? Would any preacher of any faith with that kind of stock-in-trade have been able to convince listeners of any outlandish idea they put forward—and claiming that a recently crucified criminal had walked out of his grave would certainly, in anyone’s eyes, be outlandish. The sort of thing that Paul refers to in those epistolary passages are not liable to have been any more dramatic, if only because if they were they’d offer a little clearer reference than what they do. In my books, those ‘miracles’ by those apostles, would have to be virtually raising the dead as well. (Which I suppose points to the recognition of such by the author of Acts who had to have the apostles do something ptruly miraculous.)

Gotta run. So I'm posting this without rereading it. If I've made any mistakes or overlooked anything, please feel free to correct me.

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

Yes. Exactly.

I think I was right when I wrote:

Recall that I asked you the following in an attempt to get past this impasse:

You did not take me up on this.

I have never suggested otherwise.

This question appears to be directed toward somebody else, somebody who said that this sort of thing was the sole argument (and you even italicized it for emphasis!) used by Paul. I do not know who that somebody is, but hopefully he or she will be able to answer your question for you.

Game over.

This is a new game. Not the old one, which I have now copied and pasted for you several times.

Let me rephrase your own words in answer: This situation is feasible in regard to the preaching of a spiritual entity [like the risen Christ] by someone like Paul, backed up by passages in scripture [which Paul gives] to indicate the role of that entity.

I did not say otherwise in this case. The passages that GDon presented you are the ones that I think you should have found on your own; 1 Corinthians 2.4-5 was more subtle; I would not necessarily have expected you to have it to hand simply on the basis of your own memory or a Bible Concordance... until I told you about it on this thread. I kind of expect you to at least pay attention to what I am writing to you. Case in point:

I ask you again: Where did I impugn your integrity?

Did you ignore or forget that I asked you that in my last post? Why are you writing this question as if I had not even asked you where I had challenged your integrity?

You are correct. Healing and powers are separated. What I should have said, and did not, was that healing could possibly be one of the signs of an apostle. (At least some healings are classified as signs in the book of John, for example.)

What are you talking about?

What Paul is convincing his converts of is that a certain crucified man is the risen Lord. He does this, at least in part, by showing signs of some kind.

What is it that is tripping you up here? I am not tracking you.

Just run through the natural steps:

1. Somebody gets the idea (whether from a vision or from an empty tomb or from something else; I am not sure) that Jesus, a recently crucified man, has risen from the dead and is now enjoying eternal life (that is, he was resurrected, not back to this life, but rather into the life to come).
2. But, if that is the case, then the end times must have begun, since the general resurrection has already started.
3. If the end times have started, then the spirit must be being poured out, as the prophet Joel foretold.
4. If the spirit is being poured out, then there ought to be miracles, visions, dreams, healings, and the rest of the expected signs.

So Paul convinces his converts (in part) that this is so by reversing those steps:

4. Paul gives a sign of some kind that he himself is authorized by the spirit.
3. This means the spirit has been poured out.
2. This means the end times have started.
1. This means the messiah has appeared. Cue sermonette on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (the messiah).

This is very rough, of course, but it ought to get the wheels turning.

Ben.

gurugeorge

To be fair to Earl, I don't think he's talking about a psychological impossibility, but something like an extraordinary unlikeliness, given that, if something like the gospel stories were true, there would have beeen so much material in Jesus' doings and sayings that would have been fuel for Paul's positions, yet all that mass of material seems to be untouched, and Paul prefers his own or some random sayings, or sayings from the OT. IIRC Earl has quite a lot of bits in TJP where he goes into some detail about the gaps here.

GakuseiDon

Yes, he does, but the problem there is that many of those gaps are more relevant to those who take the gospel stories as true, rather than to scholarly consensus. Look at these two quotes from Earl, earlier in this thread.

Compare:

Most critical scholars today reject that [miracles were performed], even in regard to Jesus. Such things, they think, were only attributed to him and to them later (as in the Gospels and Acts).

with:

If Paul (or anyone here) is going to claim that his own “signs, wonders and miracles” were what converted the gentiles, does anyone honestly think that he would not also have appealed to Jesus’ own miracles

To me, quite a few of his gaps are like that -- Earl acknowledges that the Gospel accounts are not taken as historical by critical scholars, but still uses those accounts to point out silences in Paul. Like Ben, I also wonder how Earl's theories would fare if he stuck to what "most critical scholars" say.

I think Earl is still using the tension between the Gospel Jesus and Paul's Jesus here. Paul plainly tells us that Jesus's death and resurrection is his focus. If that supports mythicism, then so be it. But it is a theme that goes through the early writings. Here is Paul:

Phil 2:

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him

It wasn't how Jesus lived that was important, but how he died. Again, if this supports mythicism, so be it, but that is what Paul is telling us.

Also, Hebrews 5:

7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear,
8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him

In both passages, it is Jesus's death that is important, not his life. But even then, there are hints of the pre-Risen Jesus. For Paul, he was "of no reputation". For the Hebrews author, he wasn't "prefected" until AFTER suffering (what was he before that?). Before he was perfected, he "offered up prayers and supplications". Why doesn't the Hebrews author tell us about those prayers and supplications? Actually give us an example? (Similarly, I noted earlier that Paul talks about miracles and wonders performed by the early Christians, but also curiously doesn't give any actual examples. Why? Wouldn't people have been interested in such examples?)

My speculation (though I've heard others propose the same): In conjunction with the occasional nature of the letters themselves, early Christians believed that Christ was coming back soon, and that Christ's death and resurrection was a sign that the end-times were upon them. Thus the emphasis on his death and its implications. Salvation came through his death, not his life. It wasn't until it became clear that Jesus wasn't coming back soon that stories about his life were compiled.