Solo

There are two things here to consider. One is Paul's view of the resurrection, which is a completely timeless phenomenon. (As I had argued here previously I do not believe, on internal evidence, that Paul was the author of 1 Cr 15:3-8). Two is the crucifixion of Jesus, which Paul knows was a recent event that happened in time and space, and to which the phenomenon of resurrection relates, or better, to which in Paul's revelation the experience of grandeur, and hyper-elation, belong. For Paul, it was his revelation of Christ, that was the activating agent (You may have seen the quip to Ben's question 'when did the seed come', refering to Rom 5:6. I said 'when it was delivered to Paul' refering to 1 Cr 3:6). Paul's revelation
was directly from God, and he relied on no 'church tradition' or stories of the earthly deeds of Jesus, because his revelation told him that whatever Jesus did on earth was rejected by God, so that Jesus would fulfil his role of suffering servant of Isaiah.
What are the internal indicators then that Paul believed the crucifixion was recent ? In my view there are two: 1 Cr 15:18-20. Paul ponders what happened to those who "sleep in Christ", i.e. those of his converts who died since Paul started to preach Christ. He calls Christ "first fruits" to them, the first ones to have been resurrected with Christ from the dead. This of course relates only to Paul's "activation" of the seed. Theoretically, the crucifixion of Jesus could have still happen ages ago, and the resurrection only become actionable when Paul was told by God about it. The problem with this theory (G.A.Wells) is that Paul mocks his opponents who preach the earthly Jesus as power (that will return), by reminding them of the Cross which voided Jesus as earthly power (see 1 Cr 1:18-30, Gal 5:11). Now the question of course is if the event happened hundred or more years before Paul, why would Paul argue with Peter and Co. (and possibly others) about it cca 50CE ? What would 'the silence' about (mythical) Jesus in that long time frame signify ? I wonder.

Now, why does Paul not place the crucifixion in a more restricted time frame ? I think it is an important strategic point with Paul. The phenomena he relates to the "life of Christ" (which today would be described medically as photism and synaestesia accompanying temporal lobe events) obviously existed before the historical marker of the crucifixion. What could very well have happened if Paul was careless, is that someone could have said to him: 'look you say this relates to an event of twenty years ago but I had this vision that you describe as Christ thirty years ago ? What is going on ?'

Jiri

Steven Avery

Not only that, but a deeper look shows that an earlier date is quite sensible with a harmony of the Gospels and Josephus. Even Gary Goldberg seems to be quite sympathetic, as shown in the thread :

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=142802
In what year was John the Baptist killed?

although I do not think Goldberg has updated his website with the TedM material.

The Tektonics article by JPH makes some excellent points.

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/josephusvsmarkjbapt.html
Josephus vs. Mark on Herod vs. John - Contradiction -- or Complement?

Clearly one would not expect divine judgment to necessarily be immediate and in fact a foreboding period would be likely. Herod dreadfully realizing that he had actually beheaded a special "just man and an holy" (Mark 6:20) one to whom Herod had been listening, at least outwardly.

And we could consider more the 40 years leading up to the destruction of the Temple after the crucifixion of Jesus. An example where the time gap itself is an essential part of the dynamic of judgment.

(Overall, I would go one step further than the Tektonic article and assert that this historical account parallelism is a dynamic evidence of the historical sense and accuracy of the Gospel writers .. it has long been rather amazing to me that folks would assert that John the Baptist is represented historically accurately in the Gospels but that Jesus is supposed to be, in their minds, fictional.)

Some other articles touching the dating of John's death issue are ..

http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/JohnTBaptist.htm
John the Baptist and Josephus by G. J. Goldberg
(awating the Ted Hoffman addition)

http://ptet.dubar.com/bible-jtb.html
Did John the Baptist die after Jesus?

A 2002 article that goes into chronological issues is on JSTOR.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=002...3E2.0.CO%3B2-O
An Anchor for Pauline Chronology:
Paul's Flight from "The Ethnarch of King Aretas" (2 Corinthians 11:32-33)
Douglas A. Campbell - JBL Vol. 121, No. 2

Perhaps Tules Nessa Sari or a friend has a JSTOR subscription.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

JoeWallack

Josephus:
Who?



Josephus

BAPTISM, n.
A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways -- by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

the_cave

This is actually a very interesting question. It does suggest that Paul thought the crucifixtion, whatever it was, was an event in time that had taken place sometime within the relative recent past. It seems more likely that he thought it was on the order of a few years before, or at most a couple of decades, rather than a century or two, since he seems to act as though he is saying something new.

That's actually more than the OP asks--the OP just asks, whatever the crucifixion was, when did it happen? It does sound like Paul thought it was a recent event.

Exactly--when was that?

Sure--so look at the temporal side of the question. When was it?

Sure, both/and. As others have noted, that's actually an orthodox teaching of (quite historicist) Christianity! So the question is, what did Paul think the temporal side of that equation mean?

Agemegos

Not even indirectly? Doesn't he date events that were before the execution of John, such as the marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodias? The death of Herod Philip? If Josephus dates the death of Herod Philip to 33CE, this puts Herod Antipas' marriage to Herodias no earlier than 34 CE. If (as the Bible story requires) John was arrested for denouncing this marriage, imprisoned for a long time, and then executed, the execution cannot have taken place in time for Jesus to have been taken for 'John the Baptist come again' at the beginning of his ministry, had a three-year ministry, and been crucified in 29 CE.

Ben C Smith

Josephus says that Herodias left Herod Philip and got married to Herod Antipas while Philip was still alive. See Antiquities 18.5.4.

Ben.