Julian

Also, consider the Pauline passage and spin's post in light of the Lucan parallel being a Western Non-interpolation. Not saying that it definitely is, just a suggestion. Also, consider the Didache in its treatment of the meal and in relation to this. I find it hard to believe that the eucharist would have been neglected to the extent that it has if it was truly known in Pauline times (if he did indeed write in the 50s and 60s).

Julian

neilgodfrey

Winsome Munro argues that the entirety of 10:23-11:29 is a later pastoral stratum with more in common with Colossians, Ephesians and 1 Peter than the undisputed Pauline thought.

So in 10:14-22 we have:

Exhortation "Flee from idolatry . . . Judge what I say"
Questions "The cup, is it not the sharing of the blood of Christ? The bread, is it not the sharing of the body?
Explanantion "For we, though many, are one bread. . ."


Exhortation "Observe carnal Israel . . ."
Questions "Are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar? . . ."
Explanation "Pagans sacrifice to demons, not to God. I don't want you communing with demons!"


Exhortation "You cannot share the table of the Lord and of demons. . ."
Questions "Or shall we provoke the Lord's anger? Are we stronger than he?"
Explanation ..... missing ..... until 11:30

Note how the explanation ties in linguistically with the question: Question about bread is explained with a reference to bread. Question about sacrifice is explained with reference to sacrifice. The final question with no answer supplied is asking about how their strength compared with God's. 11:30 continues: For this reason many are weak and sick among you . . . .

Before 10:23 Paul has forbidden touching anything that might be contaminated with idol sacrifice. From 10:23 there is a change in tone -- a more moderate accommodation with the norms of the world. This is followed by a sexist passage antithetical to the thought of equality of sexes and races found elsewhere in Paul. And where else does Paul express such retentive worries about how people have their hair done?

Then the next passage begins (11:17-19) with a thought that makes no sense if we try to reconcile it with the same pen that went beserk in attacking factionalism in chapters 1-3. We go from "I beg you please, since it has been declared to me how contentious you lot are, how carnally divided you all are. . ." to "I have heard a rumour and I think I partly believe it . . . " It is incomprehensible to try to think how this could be from the pen of the original author. The interloper is gently introducing a change to the happy communal fellowship to make it more sombrely ritualistic and controlled.

What follows is a continuation of pastoral rules, an imposition of a ritual on the recipients of this letter that would have been alien to the thought of the original author. The Lord's Supper, according to the original (10:16-17), was a meal to commemorate the unity of all as one body in Christ. The "pastoralist" imposes a more defined cultic order on this -- it's point now is the more sombre memorial of the dead, and the making of the covenant.

Further, as Robert Price has also pointed out, the ritual introduced (from Luke) speaks of "the cup", not some historical "a cup". It is speaking of a "ritual historicized".

Neil Godfrey
http://vridar.wordpress.com

aa5874

Well you can continue to read and look at 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, "It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
I knew a man in Christ about fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth,) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
And I knew such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth,)
How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."


Now whether he was historical (in the body) or mythical (out of the body), God knows. One problem there is no God.

Solo

Agreed.

Hyam Maccoby who took liking to the Ebionite tradition that Paul was not a Jew believed Paul invented the Lord's Supper (quoting the 1 Cr 11:23-30.) He enthusiastically points to Lietzmann's analysis of Acts to argue that the Nazarenes of Jerusalem did not know "the Lord's Supper" and practiced the traditional kiddush instead. Lietzmann read the "breaking of bread" in Acts 2:42, as the "betzo'a" i.e. the ceremonial thanksgiving at the start. This view is further supported by the Twelve giving up on table service (6:2), farming it out to Steven and the Seven Hellenists. This is as much as saying the Eucharist was not part of the liturgical function of the Apostles in the early church. Hardly credible if instituted by Jesus (and if the Jerusalem Church was from the start exclusively Jesus-worshipping church, which I don't think it was). Maccoby cannot be doubted on his assertion that the Eucharist ceremony is absolutely antithetical to Judaism if read as orginating with HJ. But Maccoby I think misread Paul, and quotes the wrong passage of 1 Corinthians. Paul toys with the Eucharist imagery - suggesting not a sacramental ceremony but sacramental symbolism:

1 Corinthians 10
----------------
14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.

16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

(How could anyone knowing the origin of the Eucharist, and intending to write on it in the next chapter, ask such questions ?)

17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

(Sounds like Paul is making this all up by himself, does it not ? He is not quoting Jesus - whom he knew only from his crucifixion on !)

18 Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

19 Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?

20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons

21You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons.

Jiri

spin

As you see I wouldn't agree over 11:29, as it has the notion of the body, which is unrelated to the last supper ritual...

And I would ask, "which reason is this", if it is not the fact that "anyone who eats and drinks without discerning [diakrinwn] the body eats and drinks judgment [krima] on himself"?

Then notice how the terminology from here regarding judgment, which is not used in the insertion, is taken up and developed in v31: "But if we judged [diekrinwmen] ourselves, we would not be judged [ekrinwmeQa]."

Verse 29 belongs with the thought in v31 and I think forms part of Paul's thought. In fact, it explains the problem he is trying to deal with.


spin

gnosis92

For the simple reason that there are enough details in his statement that matches up with events in the Gospels.

neilgodfrey

the notion of the body ("the communion of the body") is related to the last supper meal in 10:17 (10:14-22/11:30), but aside from that, 11:30's idea of being 'weak' can be directly related to the rhetorical question of how "strong" worshippers are compared to God in their challenging of him: "Are we stronger than he?" (-- and this is in the context of thoughts of ancient Israel and provocation of God to jealousy, for which one may be reminded that many were struck down with plague.)


Munro's analysis would tie the reason in 11:30 directly to 10:21-22. Someone of a "proto-pastoralist" bent has read the original text condemning any hint of mixing "the communion of the body of Christ" (10:16) with sacrifices to idols/demons, and he originally read at the end of 10:21 (beginning v.15):

I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say . . . . You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.

And when he read that (as a "pastoralist") he said to himself, "No no no .... that's going too far and is just not practical in the real world. People are not sick because they have acted 'reasonably'."

So beginning with 10:23 he has slid in a more "socially oriented ethic" of the proto-pastoralist with "just don't make life complicated or embarrassing by asking any questions about where your food comes from". (Pastoral epistles are big on making a good impression on outsiders. Paul couldn't give a damn about 'pleasing men'.) It is certainly not the thought of the Paul of Galatians who will not budge an inch on his theological principles merely for the sake of avoiding offence to anyone. Nor is it the thought of 1 Cor. 10:14-22 which demands complete avoidance of food tainted with idolatrous associations. (Okay, nor is the compromise position found here also a full-fledged Pastoralist position; Munro suggests that this compromise position (also found in Romans) belongs to a catholicizing period that proved a failure -- why else would the interpolator have even been bothering with these epistles unless it was to sanitize them and bring Paul 'into the fold'? But the failure of the attempt led to the later Pastorals to give up on the idea.)

And he has found a more proto-pastoralist-friendly guilt issue over which to blame people for their illnesses. It is because they do not respect the formal eucharistic ritual that he is pushing. Not because they simply ate food they could not easily avoid or because they did not go along with some original so-called "pauline" instruction.


Munro (and Walker too??) discuss the way interlopations frequently appear to repeat words from the surrounding original text apparently to construct a more plausible sounding way of having them flow or fit together. The introduction of the judgement terminology that you discuss here are seen by Munro as possible links to the adjacent original fragment. 11:30-32 belong after 10:22 and 11:33-34 follow on directly from the thought of 11:29.

Munro points to the use of "we" that I've highlighted above. The first person plural that is used in 10:14-22 is picked up again in 11:30, whereas it is nowhere found in 10:23-11:29. This would appear to add a little strength to the argument on other grounds that 10:23-11:29 has broken up and squeezed in to the middle of an original passage.

As for the judgment issue, 11:30-32 all tie in well with 10:14-22. As you point out, there is the theme of judgment, of judging ourselves before God judges us, and when we are punished by God it is so that we won't be punished with the rest of the world. All this follows neatly from an admonition by Paul to judge carefully what he is about to say (10:15) and his warning that we run the risk of provoking God's jealousy and suffering the same fate as ancient Israel.


The original issue "Paul" addressed was the mixing of food sacrificed to demons with their meal ritual. From 10:23 we have a dilution of the original message, then a series of other "pastoral" like (unpauline) ordinances introduced. The verses beginning the last supper section were scarcely penned by those who wrote the original letter (or at least the opening 3 chapters). 11:18-19 "partly" believes a "rumour" that there may be factions -- not on the grounds of what has been declared but by his deduction from some prophetic or philosophical principle (11:19). Then another pastoral direction for how to bring some control and order into their gatherings is delivered.

It may well be that the Lucan passage, as you argue, is an even later addition, a subsequent filler to add a bit more punch to the unpauline pastoral authority dictating how church meetings should be organized.

Or it may be that the original "proto-pastoralist" had a nice piece of rhetoric he'd mentally rehearsed a dozen times before penning it here, and then found himself awkwardly working at a way to add in this extra Lucan detail in an attempt to make his point with a double-punch. He has lost his rhetorical wind as a consequence, but what price can he (or a later redactor) place on right ritual!

Either way, 11:23-26 is not original. Only a question of how far either side of that we think we need t go before we meet the original author.



Neil Godfrey
http://vridar.wordpress.com

judge

Why would Paul have introduced the Jewish ritual meal to the Corinthians?

judge

So, if the gospels are not pre 150AD, where might we expect to find details of the life of Jesus prior to 150 AD?

You wrote.

What do we have that we know is pre 150 AD that might mention details of the life of Jesus but which fails to do so?

Are you asking, why doesn't Josephus mention details of the life of Jesus or are you thinking some one else should have done it?

spin

Can you make sense of "judging/discerning the body" if it meant anything other than of an individual's body, ie that the person was too concerned with bodily desires which would be applied to the way people wrongfully entered into the ritual feast?

Just so that you know, neilgodfrey, I've never heard of Munro. That may not be a good reflection on my acquaintance with the subject, but I would rather hear from you and your analysis. I try to give mine.

I don't necessarily mind people hacking this material up, but I need to see it done in bits that allow me to understand why changes were made.

11:33-34 tell us that the context is one of sharing a communal meal, which is consistent with the lord's feast in 11:20. 11:33 talks of eating together, which looks back to 11:21 when people start to eat before everyone is there. 11:34 says that if Paul's readers are hungry, they can eat at home. We are not dealing with food from the table of demons here, but simply with decorum at the table.

This might give one a free hand to decide that anything that looks like it might be pastoral material could not have been written by Paul.

That is not what 11:20-22 is dealing with. It is dealing with the way the ritual meal should be approached. No gutsing and leaving people hungry, no getting drunk, while others went thirsty, themes referred back to in 11:33-34 in the resolution of the discourse.

We agree here on 11:23-26, though I'm sure we'd also agree on 11:27-28 as well.


spin