Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 12-23-2008, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayrok

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdeering

Paul had the chance to learn Jesus' history and he chose not to. Knowing some of these stories would have made his work much easier, what better teaching tools could he have had? I prefer to think not of an argument from silence as an argument for ignorance, one would think Paul might have mentioned visiting the empty tomb, or talking to the hundreds (thousands) of people who saw and heard Jesus (not to mention that his mother was a virgin)? It's almost as if Paul was not interested in Jesus' life on Earth.

Well I agree Paul doesn't spend time talking about empty tombs or visiting virgin mothers or about Jesus' life on Earth.

Apologists will reply that Paul didn't mention these things because his letters were written for a purpose and they weren't for describing Jesus' human life... or that his audience would have already known those details, etc.

But of course this falls short in my opinion because there were a few times when Paul could have used the words of Jesus or his actions to settle arguments in his church. One such issue dealt with foods sacrificed to idols or otherwise considered unclean. Paul told readers he didn't see foods as unclean and that one man shouldn't talk down to someone who might abstain from pork, for instance. However, it seems the issue would have been closed easily had he simply given Jesus' take on unclean foods (Mark 7).

Another issue in Corinthians where his church wanted to know how the body could be resurrected. Paul gave them his take on the subject. It seems he could have simply reminded them of the empty tomb, how the physical body was gone from the grave. Surely they had heard of that story, right?

If they had heard of that story, or of the story of Lazarus for that matter, why would they have to bother to ask Paul how the dead body would be resurrected from the dead?

So there were places Paul could have used the words of Jesus to solve church issues and to clarify things.

But to play Devil's advocate, we don't have enough information to know for sure that Paul didn't get any details of Jesus' life from Peter. Maybe he heard things but chose to simply not use them in his correspondence. After all, he didn't get his gospel from Peter. We don't know what Paul knew of Jesus other than what we read in his letters.

Paul's information about Jesus came from revelation so Paul does not need to read anything about Jesus. The letter writer called Paul wants his readers to believe that even if nothing was ever written about Jesus that he was in contact with Jesus through revelation.

And further, gMatthew could have been written and circulated in Judah or some other place and not where the so-called Paul was doing his missionary work.

And if the story of the letter writer was fabricated, then it would have been fabricated to appear plausible.

It is possible for the letters with the name Paul to have been fabricated to distort the truth about the historical Jesus.

Amaleq13 · 12-23-2008, 08:09 AM

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Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Spin on the crucified messiah:

The Pauline gospel was of a crucified messiah.
Paul got his gospel from no man.
Therefore, the men who preceded Paul in the faith did not believe in a crucified messiah.

Spin on messianism:

The Pauline gospel was messianic.
Paul got his gospel from no man.
Therefore, the men who preceded Paul in the faith... were messianists! (Somehow.)

Ben.

The boy is just plain fickle.

Amaleq13 · 12-23-2008, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

I have to scratch my head over how people suggest that Paul is saying that he got EVERYTHING via revelation, including the name "Jesus", even though he had been persecuting people of the same faith previously.

It is a perverse skeptical literalism that was once the domain only of folks like double-a but has now spread like a virus to others.

Amaleq13 · 12-23-2008, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

His gospel (to his own satisfaction) was about a messiah. You pointed out that Paul does not say he got some of the gospel by revelation; by your logic, then, that means he is claiming that his predecessors did not believe in a messiah.

It is an obvious and fundamental flaw that will never be accepted because it is so obvious and fundamental.

Cognitive dissonance* is too strong.

*I figure he probably still has the DSM lying around.

Toto · 12-23-2008, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayrok

Question about 1 Timothy 1 and Jesus' historicity:

Paul (presumably) opens this letter by instructing Timothy to stay in Ephesus to keep certain men from teaching false doctrines or devoting themselves to myths and endless genealogies (1 Tim 1:3-4)

Is it possible that these men were teaching about the virgin birth and the Christ's bloodline back to King David as we read in Matthew and Luke?

Is it possible that they heard that Jesus was born of a virgin and in the line of David and were teaching this? If that is so, then Paul is calling the birth a myth?

I know there isn't enough info and speculation is all one would have, but is it possible stories of Jesus' virgin birth and Jewish Bloodline were circulating at the time of Paul? Or 1 Timothy may be a later pseudo-Pauline letter.

Paul seemed to emphasize to Timothy that God's work was all about "faith" (vs 4), not stirring controversies and the like.

Paul almost certainly did not write I Tim. The general consensus is that it was written somewhat later than Paul, and there is informed speculation that the three Pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus were written by the author of Luke-Acts, and were intended as Part III of that saga. If that is the case, the false doctrines could be those of Marcion.

The reference to geneologies might refer to the differing geneologies of Jesus in Matt and Luke. Christian apologists argue that the geneologies referred to are from the Hebrew scriptures

andrewcriddle · 12-23-2008, 08:33 AM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

There is a fundamental problem with using information from the letters with the name Paul, there are no corroborative sources for the information in the letters themselves.

What I was saying is that Paul's letters, (if reads as authentic documents), imply that the differences between Paul and his opponents, although very major to Paul, were seen as less important by others.

The question as to whether or not the letters really are authentic documents is a separate issue.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr · 12-23-2008, 09:31 AM

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Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

DO they no longer accept Christ as crucified?

Does Paul ever defend Christ crucified? No.

Paul defends his interpretation of the significance of Christ crucified.

That is what his Galatians had been "bewitched" into abandoning.

SO when Paul said that Jesus had been portrayed to them as crucified, they already knew that and he was doing no more than reminding them that the crucifixion freed them from the Law, rather than other interpretations?

aa5874 · 12-23-2008, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

There is a fundamental problem with using information from the letters with the name Paul, there are no corroborative sources for the information in the letters themselves.

What I was saying is that Paul's letters, (if reads as authentic documents), imply that the differences between Paul and his opponents, although very major to Paul, were seen as less important by others.

The question as to whether or not the letters really are authentic documents is a separate issue.

Andrew Criddle

Authenticity cannot be a separate issue when in order to accept your analysis the letters must be accepted as authentic.

If there are not authentic it is obvious that your analysis is completely flawed.

Authenticity is a most pertinent issue.

martini · 12-23-2008, 01:00 PM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

On the "Paul's Gospel" thread, I linked to Bishop Carlton Pearson's webpage on his "Gospel of Inclusion", which he talks about as his Gospel. This is one that he received by revelation. God apparently told him that there is no hell, and that Christ's sacrifice means that everyone is automatically saved. He has been rejected by the fundamentalist church he was part of, and now has his own church. As far as he is concerned, he is still teaching the same faith, but he now has a different gospel message.

If Pearson wrote "I received my Gospel from no man", no-one would have a problem with that, and no-one would misunderstand what he is saying. I have to scratch my head over how people suggest that Paul is saying that he got EVERYTHING via revelation, including the name "Jesus", even though he had been persecuted people of the same faith previously. I think that Paul is claiming something similar to Pearson: he preaches the same faith as the others, but he has his own gospel message, one that he received via revelation and learned "from no man".

But, now Pearson would be preaching ANOTHER Gospel. And Galations 1.9-8 becomes applicable.

Galations 1.8-9

Quote:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you let him be accursed.

As we said before, so say I now, again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be ACCURSED.

Pearson would have been deemed to be cursed by God.

thanks for the clarification, GD

aa: this is the point i was trying to make, yes. if "the gospel" was not a specific bit of information, Galatians 1 (for example) would not make sense. if preaching "good news" was just a haphazard collection of tidbits about Christianity, how could Paul make this delineation between his gospel and another and rail against theirs and not his own?

"the gospel" must necessarily point to specific Christian theology.

spamandham · 12-23-2008, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

d/ Paul and Barnabas believed in an already arrived crucified Messiah, the Jerusalem Apostles did not. Paul and Barnabas originally believed that this radically changed the status of the Jewish Law but under pressure from Jerusalem Barnabas stopped believing in an already arrived crucified Messiah and became more Torah observant leading to a quarrel between him and Paul.

...
d/ Is both implausible in itself and in terms of Paul's response (which never defends the fact of the crucifixion. )

Why do you find (d) implausible in itself? Second, since 2 Gal is about Jews who normally ignore Jewish law behaving hypocritically when other Jews are around, why would you expect Paul to defend the fact of the crucifixion at this point? That certainly wouldn't aid his argument, particularly if that aspect of faith was not shared by the Jerusalem gang.

We really know next to nothing about what the Jerusalem sect believed, except that we know they were in some way devoted to Christ, they were Jews by birth, and they didn't bother with Jewish law.

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