Mythra

Okay - I think you might have lost me. (a quite easy thing to do, by the way)

But - are you saying that because Jesus "appeared" to Paul in the passage, that all of the other "appearances" (Peter, and the 12 and James and the 500) had to have been of the same nature? (revelatory, or visions)

I've never taken it to mean that. I always took it to be that Paul was constantly defending his visions as being equivalent to the other apostles' experiences - experiences with the physical jesus.

I think that this is the prevalent interpretation. Fully recognizing that it may be completely wrong.

Toto

You are right - that is the prevalent interpretation. But there is no real authority in the language of the text for it. It's just a case of interpreters reading the gospels back into Paul's letters.

GakuseiDon

Nothing wrong with that, esp if (1) the Gospels were written after Paul, and (2) the Gospels make no mention of Paul.

If Mark knew that Peter, James and the other disciples only knew Jesus via visions, and knew that Paul also only knew Jesus via visions, why not include Paul in the Gospels?

Interestingly, Ignatius also uses the same expression, here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...s-roberts.html

Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria, which now has God for its shepherd, instead of me. Jesus Christ alone will oversee it, and your love [will also regard it]. But as for me, I am ashamed to be counted one of them; for indeed I am not worthy, as being the very last of them, and one born out of due time. But I have obtained mercy to be somebody, if I shall attain to God.

This article here goes into the topic in some depth:
http://jnt.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/25/4/469.pdf

It concludes:

Paul is describing himself as ‘the abortion’ from among the apostles, that is, one who has been cast aside and rejected in the same manner as an aborted fetus.50 The e1ktrwma does not refer to a vague sense of his ‘wretched state’ but to his feeling singled out from the other apostles. This use is certainly figurative but does not contain the problem of relating the word to the timing of Paul’s call, or to some otherwise unknown meaning or metaphor given that the word’s basic meaning fits well with this interpretation. Paul is ‘an abortion’ from the apostolate, and thus needs to defend his apostolic commission. Although it is set, like many of Paul’s self-deprecatory comments, in the context of a defense of his status as an apostle, it would be a mistake to read this statement as an inverted form of boasting or as a mere rhetorical device. That Paul’s self-deprecations are employed in passages that serve to defend his apostolic authority does not necessitate reading them solely as cleverly devised boasts. Paul is, in all likelihood, making a virtue out of necessity by stressing that his distinctness as an apostle is at least partly the consequence of being the direct recipient of divine commission, so that his separateness from the other apostles is, while inarguable, not without its reasons or its merits. Interpreting 1 Cor. 15.8 in this manner does not necessarily imply a reference to some conflict between Paul and the ‘other’ apostles or negative actions on their part towards him, but it does imply that Paul’s unusual apostolic commissioning was well enough known that he needs to continually attempt to explain and defend it.

dog-on

Or it is part of the interpolation and was not written by the original author.

http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/rp1cor15.html

gstafleu

If ektrwma can have the meaning of generalized piece of scum, couldn't Paul here be referring to the fact that he used to prosecute christians?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

I think that is exactly what he is referring to.

...and last of all, as if to a miscarriage [or piece of scum], he appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

The use of the term miscarriage, by itself, I do not think has anything to do with timing; it has to do with Paul not being fit to be an apostle. There is a sense of timing here, however. Paul says that Jesus appeared to him last of all.

I do not think the sense is difficult. While the other apostles were fulfilling their apostolic commissions, Paul was persecuting their work, the church. That makes him both last of all on the list of appearances (a timing issue) and a piece of scum (a worthiness issue).

I do not think that any difference between Paul and the others in the kind of appearance (postresurrection body, vision from heaven, or what have you) is either affirmed or denied in this passage.

Ben.

gstafleu

This brings up an interesting question: what prompted the translators to this rather misleading "one untimely born" bit? Even if they found "piece of scum" perhaps slightly undignified, there must be ways to say this with acceptable circumlocution: "as one not worthy to convert my neighbor's ox" comes to mind immediately. Or were the translators just not aware of the scum factor?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

The word means a miscarriage or an abortion, both of which entail the fetus exiting the womb before the proper time. The King James version had one born out of due time, and that version exercised a profound effect on other English translations. But some translations do have abortion (Darby) or abnormally born (NIV, NJB, NAB).

Ben.

gstafleu

So ektrwma was a general insult ("You ektrwma, may the nine-bladed sword gore your outer innards!"), and the translators may have been aware of this but went for a more literal translation? If so we have an interesting example of myth-building-on-the-fly here: later interpretations now try to literally interpret the out-out-time bit and thus come up with a whole new interpretation of the Life of Paul.

Gerard Stafleu

Toto

From reading the article linked above, the evidence is not at all clear that this was just a general insult. Mitchell seems to reject that: The NT commentators do not seem to want to deal with the Gnostic references to the Pleroma, perhaps because they assume that those references were written after Paul wrote.

But is this more evidence that this passage was written later than around 50 CE?