arnoldo

It's all a rather unconvincing argument from silence trying to "prove" that Paul wasn't aware of the Apostle's teachings who would eventually write the Gospels. On the other side we have textual evidence from Clement of Rome, who lived in the first century, that the writings of Paul and the person of Cephas were acknowledged. Note the following reference of Clement to Paul's writings;

. . . which references the following

razlyubleno

What makes you think the Gospel stories were "preached" prior to being written down? Is there any indication that Mark's audience didn't understand his Gospel as an original work, a composition, a substantial embellishment on what they'd already heard? The narrative framework may not have existed as early as Paul. And many of the stories may have been created during the process of writing.

razly

Amaleq13

You are shifting the goal posts. It is a strong argument from silence that Paul did not know the Gospel story as we know it.

This does nothing to suggest that Paul knew the Gospels.

aa5874

The writer Paul does not at all appear to have been the first to write about Jesus Christ or the first to know of the character called Jesus Christ.

The letters of "Paul" did not explain the origin of his Jesus Christ, there is almost nothing about the actual life of his Jesus, where he lived, his parents, his siblings, his so-called trial, how he was crucified, where he died or was buried.

For the 25-30 years or so that Paul was supposed to have preached his gospel, he did not give a single date, a month and year that his Jesus did anything.

No dates from "Paul" for the betrayal, the crucifixion, burial or resurrection of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It must be likely that "Paul's" expected his readers to know all those details.

"Paul's letters" cannot answer the fundamental questions about Jesus Christ unless some other source is used.

"Paul", who is this Jesus?

"Paul", where did Jesus come from?

"Paul", when was Jesus on earth?

"Paul, under what circumstance was Jesus betrayed?

"Paul", after 30 years of preaching and teaching about Jesus did you visit his mother?

"Paul", how old was Jesus when he died?

To answer those questions there must have been another source.

If "Paul" was an actually teaching and preaching about Jesus in the 1st century, between 36-66 CE, he must have been asked these questions but in all his letters there are no answers unless the readers were already aware of the answers from another source.

"Paul's" gospel was not from by revelation it was from some other source, perhaps The Synoptics, gJohn and Hebrew scriptures.

"Paul", where did you get the name Jesus from, who told you about him?

"Paul", why did you say Jesus was born of a woman? Who told you that?

People must have already known the answers to those questions, that is why "Paul" did not answer the questions in his letters.

Perhaps, Peter the Apostle knew all the answers long before Peter as found in the memoirs of the apostles, the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles.

Loomis

If you really want to know you might want to check out Zechariah 3 LXX.
Compare that with Hebrews 4:14-15.
See?

Paul got the name Jesus from the author of Hebrews (but he probably didn’t know where the author of Hebrews got it from).

It’s the same ‘Jesus’. In both episodes Jesus was a high priest who was tempted, but who was made ‘without sin’ by God.

Here’s the catch: If that really is where the name Jesus came from then Paul was unaware of it. Because in Zechariah 3 LXX Jesus and ‘the Lord’ are two separate characters, whereas Paul treated Jesus and ‘the Lord’ as one and the same character.

Paul’s version of Jesus was based on all of those instances of ‘the Lord’ in the LXX – where Yahweh’s name once was but was removed in the translation. (Compare Joel 2:32 with Romans 10:13 and maybe you will see what I mean.) In a manner of speaking Paul thought Jesus was Yahweh; but he didn’t know it because his bible only read ‘the Lord’. :rolling:

It looks to me like Paul was pretending that Jesus was a fulfillment of some prophecy and that his proper name (Jesus) was some sort of revelation; that the nameless divinity known only as ‘the Lord’ in the LXX, now had a proper name and a face.

aa5874

The character called Joshua in Zechariah is not the Jesus Christ in the Pauline letters. There is no indication that the Joshua in Zechariah was betrayed, crucified, died, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Jesus Christ is supposed to be the name of a real man who actually lived within about 10 years of "Paul's" conversion.

Jesus Christ must have gotten his name from his parents or whoever named him as a child.

Jesus must have been a real man if Paul was preaching about him that he was betrayed, died and was resurrected.

Hebrews may have been written after Paul was dead. According to church writers Paul died under Nero. When was Hebrews written.

Are you claiming that Jesus the man had a different name before Paul called him Jesus?

"Paul" was supposed to be preaching to real living people about a real man called Jesus who rose from the dead.

Here is another catch. Jesus was supposed to be a real man. Paul met Jesus after he had died and was resurrected.

The man Jesus had his name long before Paul met him in a resurrected stated.

You mean that when Jesus was a baby somebody called him Jesus. He must have been a real baby, with a real name before he became a man and resurrected.

I don't understand how this works. Jesus was a real man, people knew Jesus was a real man, he had a real mother, but Paul thought Jesus was Yahweh.

How did Jews think a man was Yahweh?

Again, Jesus was supposed to be a real man and real people must have known him, he could not have been nameless until the day he died and was resurrected.

He must have had his name Jesus before he died, before Paul met him in a resurrected state after he was dead.

Paul does not need Zechariah, he either asked Jesus himself or ask some-one who knew Jesus as a real man.

Remember Paul was supposed to be living around or at least from 40-64CE who preached and wrote letters about a man that was already known as Jesus long before he was dead and resurrected.

aa5874

Well, it is not even certain what are really "Paul's" letters, it is not certain when they were written, it is not certain when the gospels were written or who really wrote them.

The letters with the name Paul that are called inauthentic may be the real letters from Paul.

So, no. It cannot be assumed that the gospel writers were not contemporary with "Paul" when nothing about the NT is certain except it's uncertainty.

dog-on

At a certain point in time, it became beneficial to merge a new religion that had no history, with an old religion that had a lot of history.

As these two religions were, in fact, dissimilar in many ways, what we are left with is a pile of contradictions.

show_no_mercy

For some reason, this post assumes that every single thing that we know in life comes from something that we've read. In other words, it's impossible for illiterate people to know anything, and babies know how to read from birth so that they can learn their family's names, their name, etc.

Or maybe there actually are things that we know and learn about from sources other than writing.

aa5874

But without any history, how did you determine that one religion had a lot of history? It may be that one religion had very little history which made it extermely easy for the other to manipulate.

I would think it would be extremely difficult to re-write the history of the Jewish religion, it had lots of history, by the Roman Church than to re-write the history of the doctrine of Marcion and the Marcionites or some other sect that were operating in secret without any public identifiable place of worship and where followers are reluctant to identify themselves as believers.