NOGO

This is my forth thread on the differences between the Gospels and the Epistles.

In The Lord's Supper: ...
I dealt with differences between Paul`s Lord Supper and the Gospels version.

In Why doubt the historicity of Jesus?
I talked about when Jesus got the title of "Son of God". The Gospels clearly have it before his death while Paul and Hebrews place it after his resurrection.

In Resurrection of the body
I dealt with differences between Paul`s version of Jesus' resurrected body and that of the Gospels. It seems that Jesus inherited a body which he took with in back to heaven.

In this thread I want to compare what Paul has to say about Jesus' mission versus the Gospels'.

Paul goes back to the garden of Eden and claims that something happened there that upset God and Jesus was sent to fix this. Christians call it the original sin.

One must conclude that Paul invented this from midrash, since the Gospel's Jesus does not mention this story nor does he state it as a reason for his coming. Not only that but this story is no where to be found in the OT and none of the prophets mention it either.

By going all the way back to genesis Paul gives enough scope to Jesus' mission to include all of humanity. So Paul's Jesus came to save everyone.

On the Gospel side we have a very different view.

Nowhere in the Gospel is Jesus seen as the saviour of all the world. In fact there are clear statements to the contrary.

Jesus refuses to help a woman because she was not a Jew. He adds...

It is of little use to then claim that he finally help the woman. His stated purpose stands. Helping the woman in question was an exception not in his stated purpose.

This, then, is a summary of Jesus' purpose which John would announce.

Luke also restates it later after Jesus' death.

The proof that Jesus said abosulutely nothing about salvation for the Gentiles is found in Acts.

The story starts in Acts 10:10 when Peter sees a vision and later goes to visit Cornelius.

Note the bold text. Peter is saying that GOD (not Jesus) showed him that he should also go to Gentiles.


Conclusion:

Jesus' mission and the faith's target audience was therefore changed from what it was early on. The directive to do this did not come from the Historical Jesus, if there was one.
On the other hand, Paul created a mission for Jesus which suited his goal to bring the faith to everyone.

Paul, therefore, has Jesus coming to redress an error committed in the Garden of Eden and thus befalling all of humanity while the Gospels have Jesus coming for the salvation of the state of Israel only and salvation for the gentiles coming as an afterthought.

Amlodhi

I agree that Jesus' original target audience was the Jews, but I think the "mission" aspect goes even further than that. Allowing (as you mentioned) an actual historical Jesus, there seems to have been enough candid information retained in Acts to indicate that Jesus' crucifixion was never meant as a vicarious sacrifice as Paul contends.

Acts 21:20-21 ". . . Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are zealous for the law . (21) And they are informed of thee (Paul), that thou teachest all of the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise children, neither to walk after the customs."

Being "zealous for the law" and not "forsaking Moses" refers to Mosaic Law which includes the offering of animal sacrifice for the remission of sin.

Paul is then told by James (Acts 21:24) to accompany four men (who are under a vow) to the temple and to undergo a purification ritual to demonstrate that he (Paul) also adheres to the tenets of Mosaic law. Paul, not being under a vow, may have undergone a distinctly separate type of purification ritual than the other four men. This would most likely be a type of ritual cleansing, described in the book of Numbers, for those who are ceremonially unclean due to contact with unclean things or some prohibited activity. Yet this type of purification still involved a ritual washing, the passing of a designated period of time, and an animal sacrifice (i.e. a sin offering).

Therefore, the original disciples, who learned of the nature of Jesus' mission from Jesus himself were, for some reason, under the impression that it was still necessary to offer sacrifices for the atonement of their sin. Thus, they could not have understood Jesus' crucifixion as being a (once and for all) vicarious atonement. The usual apologist argument for this is that the disciples just didn't know yet. This was, however, long after pentecost when the disciples had received the Spirit for understanding:

John 14:26 "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you."

Thus, the apologist argument that the disciples "just didn't know yet" assumes that, even having received the Spirit of Truth, the disciples were still going around teaching false doctrine to thousands of Jews. Rather than this unlikely scenario, it seems rather more plausible that the man who had never met or talked to Jesus, but claimed he obtained his doctrine from personal revelation, is simply providing a good example of how the gospel evolved and that Jesus' mission was never meant to be understood in terms of a vicarious sacrifice at all.

Namaste'

Amlodhi

NOGO

Amlodhi

Thanks for the reply.

Very interesting point and another item on my list of differences.

Nogo