krosero

I agree that because Paul received what he did from other people, this does not tell us the truth of those claims. One thing I would say differently is that Paul received information about people who had visions, and information about their claims, when he was persecuting them. Small difference, perhaps. But I think it's important to frame the problem correctly. The difference might come to matter in ways we can't anticipate.

krosero

We could use the testimony of Acts, where Paul hears Christ speaking to him. If not, we may want to take Paul at his word that his vision was not vague but certain, to him. And we can deduce that he was busy persecuting certain claims, about a certain figure, and had a vision whose content included that figure and something of the claims associated with him.

krosero

At the thread you lay the problem out at the beginning with a model just like the one in your statements above, namely: do Paul's apparent HJ statements refer to a historical Christ or do they refer to scripture?

I had looked through the thread and found some interesting issues, but the only thing I would add at this point is that the model is not comprehensive enough for me. We ask if something comes from history, OR from scripture. It's too dualistic. I would find it more persuasive if the options were listed this way:

1) Christians used their existing scriptures to tell them some facts about the past, present, and future.

AND

2) Christians used their existing scriptures to shed further light on things that they had experienced in the past or were experiencing presently.

AND

3) We may not able to choose between these when deciding how to judge anything that they report.

In short, we may not know whether someone, when wondering what Christ must have done, looked to scripture to find out, or whether they inquired into a real event and looked to scripture to shed light on the event (or to confirm the event's importance in salvation history). They certainly had both tendencies.

That sort of model, I think, would be comprehensive, and therefore persuasive.

robto

It's relevant to the debate that the words Paul uses for "received" and "handed on" are used as technical terms in the mystery religions for the passing down of the tradition. It's also used in Wisdom of Solomon in the same way. (I don't have my references in front of me, I'll try to look it up later.)

NOGO

Your mode l does nothing to explain the two main points that I raise in the thread that I pointed out to you.

1. Paul does not claim Jesus' life and teachings as a revelation.
a) he claims revelation through scriptures
b) and direct revelation.
2. Paul does not attempt to prove that the man (if man there was) Jesus was the messiah as described in scriptures.
a) as the gospels do
b) in the form: Jesus did this and the scriptures say this.

The whole thread is in support of these two points.
Your approach is to whitewash these issues in order to escape the logical conclusion.

My point is not that Paul uses scriptures to explain things.
If I had made this my central point then you would have been justified in writing what you wrote. But I did not.

You are answering an issue which I do raise (see below) which is not the main issue of my thread. Then you are saying that what I wrote is not good enough for you. I need to put in a form for which you have an answer.

Now concerning the idea that scriptures are used to explain past, present and future events.

I raised several points, for example Romans 15:1-3
About Jesus not pleasing himself
If as you say Christians used scriptures to explain things in the past and present then Paul would have presented the situation where Jesus did not please himself and then refer to scriptures to explain.

He does no such thing.
Paul reads facts from scriptures. He does not interpret historical events in the light of scriptures as you claim.

You are reading this in Paul.

Paul does explain one historical event using scriptures and I do show this in my post. I show it in order to compare two very different type of statements from Paul. I show the difference between Paul explaining an historical event using scriptures and others like Romans 15:1-3 which are not historical explanations but simply reading facts from scriptures.

In one case Paul does name the historical event, ie the faith being spread to Christians. In the other case (Rm 15:1-3) there is no historical event. This shows that Paul does know the difference between these two types of statements. Only present day Christians seem not to know.

So, your sweeping statement is empty of meaning.
You are not answering any of my points.

krosero

Then I should be more direct. I want to give every one of my posts as much time and thought as I can spare; I have started two threads that are still open, and have been invited to another thread that I need to go to before I could look throughly at the one you started. Your opening post is very long, and I tried to finish it when you first posted it. But I'll try to answer some of what you say in a way to get the current thread back to the point of how Paul got his information. You brought us to the question of whether "according to the scriptures" could be represent historical information -- an issue I did not raise. As far as I'm concerned, it's conceded that if you hear something from other people, what you received need not be true.

But on the point of "receiving": I think it's nearly certain that Paul would not persecute men without troubling himself to know what they were claiming. He says his information represents claims that these men were preaching: "Whether it be I or they, so we preach and so you believed." That is the positive evidence that the Corinthians creed was what he originally persecuted. The negative evidence is that Paul's letters show no sign of a dispute beyond the circumcision and dietary issues, as Doherty argues himself in his book. Another piece of negative evidence is that Paul shares these creedal and seems to have seen at least some of his Gospel in his visions: but the rational reason for why one man's visions may correspond to other mens' visions is that the man heard of those visions first through his environment.

Now let me relate to this question of "receiving" what you said:

1a and 1b. If Paul received his Corinthians creed from men, as we are discussing here, or heard it from men at any point (as he surely he would have heard it before, during and after his meeting with Peter), then 2b is incorrect. You need another option, or another way of laying out the possibilities. If you disagree that what he says in Corinthians is from men, then share your objections here and we'll discuss them.

2a and 2b. The latter is incorrect. Paul does say, in the form you suggest: Christ died for our sins and was raised, and the scriptures say so.

cass256

Which version of testimony in acts? The one where he was blinded and told to go to Damascus to be told there what me must do? He didn't recieve any other info from the light..
or the version Where he wasn't blinded but instead told by the light at that very time what he must do?


It is hard to speculate from that testimony how Paul recieved what he recieved, and what he really recieved. Did the light calling itself Jesus tell paul, or did Paul have to go to Another person in Damascus to be told his mission? like this other of the 3 versions given in Acts said:

cass256

You have to keep in mind, that as Doherty is basically saying in the begining, Paul thinks of himself as the savior. He in effect did take on jesus' ministry for himself. If there hadn't been a Jesus, Paul invented one. He just needed a name for the guy who died, because he took the name "Savior" for himself.

If Luke was Paul's personal physician as they claim, how come he can't even get Paul's story straight? Luke didn't get the Jesus story straight either, he should have been able to get details of the crucifixion, Judas, etc. to agree with other followers who supposedly knew Jesus. I have to wonder if Luke knew Paul at all. It doesn't seem to matter, though. Paul was a great salesman, and apparently had good connections in Rome. Maybe he ran into Josephus, or ran with him at some point..

cass256

I'd have to read thoroughly, but what i find interesting that is rarely mentioned, is that Luke in Acts tells the story of how the 11 Apostles decided it was right to choose another Apostle to take Judas' place, Peter quoting psalm 69:25 and 109:8 the last being which would be that of one of the 12 Apostles. However when Paul tells his 1Corinthians 15, the 12 Apostles are no longer the 12 Apostles. They have now become simply "the 12", who Jesus showed himself to, and after james "all the Apostles" (what ones were there besides the 12 already mentioned?) and then he adds himself, and goes to vs. 9 The scriptures did not say "and let a bunch of other people take his office, and one called Least". Paul and Luke clash again.

krosero

You're raising a lot of points about Luke and Paul contradicting, and I'm not sure how they relate to the issue of what "received" means. My short answer about the testimony in Acts is that I meant the one in which the voice identifies itself as Christ. But I did not insist on using Acts.