Ben C Smith

Most analogies of this kind fail on one simple matter. Was the death of the person in question viewed as salvific and prophetic?

John Lennon, while his death was famous, is remembered not for that death but for his life.

Paul tells us what is most important to him about Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 2.2:

For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

2 Corinthians 5.16:

Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh. Although we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer.

I am fully aware that various mythicist interpretations play upon these verses, but is this the Paul from whom we are expecting details about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth? I myself am quite pleased to find out as much as we do about Jesus from Paul.

But that was not the purpose of my original argument. My original argument has to do with the value of the argument from silence in general.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

To all: There seems to be a general impression that I am pointing out a few dominical teachings in Paul in order to show that Paul is not silent on the dominical teachings.

That is not at all the thrust of my argument.

Rather, my argument is that, granted those few attributed dominical teachings in Paul, whether they be from an historical Jesus or from a personal revelation, we cannot expect Paul to use them just because the context looks ripe for one of them.

This argument is intended as an antidote for the kind of argument that was made a couple of weeks ago on this board, to wit, that Paul did not know any dominical resurrection sayings as cited in the gospels because he failed to use them in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15. That argument was fallacious, as should be clear by now, even if other matters are still fuzzy to some.

My point is this: We do not know that Paul did not know a particular (kind of) dominical saying or deed just because Paul failed to cite it where we might expect.

Ben.

Steven Carr

You think the saying in 1 Thess. 4 comes from the Gospels?

Did I say that? I think not. If you read the thread, I said that Matthew 22 supposedly gave a proof of the resurrection, yet Paul never used it, nor had any Christians in Thessalonia or Corinth heard of it, or else they would not have denied the resurrection that their Lord and Saviour had preached.

The saying in 1 Thess. 4 does not even use the word resurrection. Paul has to connect it to a resurrection, not using any supposed saying to do so.

Why did Paul not use in in Corinthians? Possibly because he was no longer convinced that the end would come in his lifetime (see 2 Thess. 2 where Paul writes as though there may be a delay).

If so, then it would no longer be a good argument to us.

I'm still curious to know who made the arguments from silence about Gal. 6:6 and Romans 7:1-4 that you have refuted. If nobody made any such arguments, then whose position have you refuted?

Steven Carr

If all that mattered to Paul, was Jesus crucified, how different were the different Jesus's he warns people about in 2 Corinthians 11? Non-crucified Jesus's?

Steven Carr

People obviously agree with you, as they do not think Paul would have used them in Gal 6:6, or Romans 7:1-4.

But why did converted Jesus-worshippers ever even begin to doubt the resurrection of the dead if the person they worshipped had spoken on the subject?

And do you have one scintilla of evidence that Paul knew of any 'dominical resurrection sayings as cited in the gospels'?

If Paul knew of any, he would have used them in 1 Thess. 4.

Ben C Smith

No.

1 Thessalonians 4.15-17 also gives a proof of the resurrection, yet Paul fails to use even it in 1 Corinthians 15.

That is incorrect. In 1 Thessalonians 4.16 Paul says that the dead in Christ will be resurrected (οι νεκροι εν Χριστω αναστησονται).

Paul has to connect the dead will be resurrected with the resurrection?

In 1 Thessalonians 4.17 Paul writes of we who are alive, implying that he will be among the living. In 1 Corinthians 15.51 Paul writes of we [who] will not all sleep, implying that he will be among the living.

The line may be crossed in 2 Corinthians 4, but not in 1 Corinthians 15. Not yet.

Asked and answered.

A hypothetical argument from silence; I called it an exercise, remember? Contextual fitness does equal authorial usage.

That is a different topic with its own interests.

You can throw those away, if you wish. The 1 Corinthians 15 one was the strongest, anyway, and the one which you yourself stumbled into.

Note to all: This is the kind of argument that my observations are intended to counter. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul fails to use a dominical resurrection saying that we know he knows, yet somehow his failure to use a saying that will make it into gospels not even written yet in 1 Thessalonians 4, instead of the saying that he does use, means that he did not know any.

This is the sort of conflicted position whither the argument from silence will lead the unwary.

Steven, if you are no longer interested in this debate, not even interested enough to look up 1 Thessalonians 4.15-17 in the original language to see what the word for raised is or to compare 1 Corinthians 15.51 with 1 Thessalonians 4.15-17 for the Pauline perspective on imminence, just say so. I get the feeling you are just throwing ideas out now, not really weighing them for their significance.

Ben.

Steven Carr

And verse 16 is not part of the 'saying' which is only verse 15.

So there is no word for resurrection in the supposed resurrection saying of Christ.

You are right about me missing the bit in 1 Cor. 15, where Paul thinks he will still be alive when Christ comes.

So why doesn't Paul repeat the argument from 1 Thess. 4? I don't know. Whcih argument do you think is better - the one in 1 Thess.4 or the one in 1 Corinthians 15?

All I can say for certain is that nobody seemed to know that the person they worshipped had settled the issue once and for all in Matthew 22.

But as you say, Matthew 22 had yet to be written.

Ben C Smith

I disagree there. The saying goes through verse 16 (coordinate the that clause of verse 15 with the for of verse 16, and it would seem that verse 16 is the very heart of the saying).

Each has its strengths... and weaknesses.

You never did understand what I was arguing from Garrow and Carlson about the Thessalonian misunderstanding. You will probably have to read the book, the article, and the response in order to understand it all; and of course you would be free to disagree even then.

Nevertheless, your certainty here is misplaced precisely because of your reliance upon the argument from silence. Just because Paul does not cite a dominical saying in 1 Corinthians 15 does not know that he does not know one (witness 1 Thessalonians 4). Likewise, just because Paul does not cite anything like Matthew 22 and parallels does not mean he does not know it. And, even if he does not know it, that does not mean Jesus never uttered it.

I myself am not yet decided on the authenticity of the resurrection pericope in Matthew 22; but when the time comes to decide you can rest assured that the argument from silence will have little or nothing to do with the decision.

Therefore, Paul would not have known which saying to pick in order to assure that the canonical gospels would confirm his words. Turns out he picked the wrong saying for your tastes, an agraphon.

But then, he was not writing for you.

Ben.

Solo

It looks like we have one of those [] where we need to agree on some common ground to get anywhere. The "argument from silence" works, as I said, "in the aggregate". It is when we look at Paul's letters as a whole that the issue arises. Isn't it strange, that given what is claimed for Jesus in the gospels, Paul should be completely silent about it, (except for a couple of instances which look very suspicious). This perception cannot be "deconstructed" by saying, ok in this instance (resurrection) Paul is not really silent because he uses a dominical say elsewhere (and it actually may be his own revelation), and in another instance he just forgets to attribute the "blessing of those who persecute you", and in yet another he does not know that his physician's Jesus asked to pardon those who are about to crucify him, when Paul pardons them himself. So, if we go from instance to instance, obviously there always will be some explanation which will justify your view that the argument from silence is "perilous". But that is not the case if you see the larger picture.


And I am ok with that - it is not possible, on the information that we have, to make or refute the AFS on the basis of an individual instance what a silence "means" or whether actually Paul is silent on anything in particular. But just because a case for silence is poorly argued by X, it does not mean that it is not argued well by Y, and that the objection that is valid for X extends automatically to Y.

Best,
Jiri

Solo

There are many problems with the passage and I will start a thread to see what people have to say to my strong hunch it was inserted after Paul was long dead. But the verb you mentioned (Gr. οπτανομαι) I don't think is one of them. It is sufficiently vague to allow the "appearance" to mean an experiential datum, rather than relating by definition to an act or permission of seeing something concrete. It could have been Pauline. Paul uses the verb only once elsewhere (by Strong's concordance), in Rm 15:21 where he quotes Isaiah.

Jiri