GakuseiDon

OK. I believe Paul is trying to use the Scriptures as much as possible to back up his ideas about Jesus being the Messiah for Jews and Gentiles. He has to; there is no other way for him to prove it.

When he claims that "Christ crucified" is a stumbling block, he isn't getting that from Scriptures. And when he says that the Israelites stumbled over a stumbling block (regardless of what that stumbling block is), he isn't getting that from Scriptures, either:

Rom 9:32 For they [Israel] stumbled at that stumbling stone.
Rom 9:33 As it is written: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame".

IOW, we can see that he is taking CURRENT events, and finding passages in Scriptures that match them.

OK.

Could be!

True enough. Thanks for your time.

aa5874

What you think Paul believed is irrelevant, you must show first that there was indeed a person called Paul who wrote letters in the 1st century.

You must show that the letters to the so-called churches could not have been written by some-one who simply used the name Paul to fabricated a bogus chronology of Jesus believers.

If you can not overcome those basic hurdles you are wasting time in futility.

Just assuming that the letters contain history proves nothing since no assumption about Paul can be corroborated or supported by any external non-apologetic source.

What you have failed to recognise is that once there were more than one person using the name Paul, the identity of Paul and the identification of his writings are forever lost unless some external non-apologetic source of antiquity can be found and there are none, right now.

And further nothing in the letters with respect to Paul can be shown to be true or likely to be true, since his history is found in a book called Acts of the Apostles filled with fiction and implausible events.

aa5874

The use of the letters with the name Paul to support the history of Jesus has shown been to be a complete disaster.

The history of the writer called Paul is itself uncertain and cannot be corroborated by any external non-apologetic sources.

It should also be considered that church writers have accused other Jesus believers of lying about the nature of Jesus, yet they themselves presented Jesus as an incredible creature truly born without sexual union, truly resurrected and truly ascended to some place called heaven.

Now, church writers claimed that the letter writer called Paul had a disciple and close companion called Luke and that this disciple Luke wrote about the letter writer called Paul from his conversion to arrest and trial in Rome.

But, this writer called Luke produced a most fictitious account of the conversion of the writer called Paul in chapters 9, 22 and 26 of the book called Acts of the Apostles. In these incredible stories, the writer called Saul/Paul is blinded by a bright light and hear the voice of some-one who called himself Jesus, but the stories are shown to be complete fiction when the writer of Acts claimed the writer called Paul received his sight again after some kind of scales fell from his eyes.

Acts 9. 18 Somebody is lying, it is either the author of Acts, Saul/Paul or all of them them.

But, this fictitious story has confirmed that there are lies in the canonized NT.

Now, again, if the title of the book is taken into account, “Acts of the Apostles”, it would be noticed that the writer called Paul is NOT among the named apostles.

According to the author of Acts, the eleven apostles that remained, after Judas the betrayer had left or died, prayed to the Lord for guidance, having nominated two persons, Matthias and Justus who were [b]with the disciples all the time. See Acts 1.21-25.

The eleven original apostles chose Matthias.

How did the writer called Paul become an apostle without prayer to the Lord, approval or selection from the twelve apostles and was not with the apostles all the time from the time of John the Baptist to the resurrection?

Now, based on Acts, the apostles were in touch with Jesus while Jesus was in heaven, He sent the Holy Ghost to them, but Jesus did not tell them about Paul only Matthias.

Paul must have just made himself an apostle and just lied claiming that Jesus revealed things to him because there is no record that Jesus told the original apostles anything about Paul based on the author of Acts, a close companion of Paul.

There are huge massive holes in the history of Paul, his conversion is just incredible and how he became an apostle is unknown.

Fenris_Wulf

A couple of points;

The jewish religion had a long history of "finding" lost books by prophets that proved an ideological point supported by the person who "found" the books.

The Jewish religion was based on the idea tha JWHW punished his people on a regular basis by allowing foreign powers to conquer them.

The first gospel was most likely written after the revolt of 66-70 CE

There was a strong messianic expectation at that time based on the 70 weeks of days prophecy by daniel (who was quite popular at the time)

Based on these thoughts, Mark, using the LXX, Josephus, and possibly some Pauline style writings, wrote a Midrash explaining that JWHW hadn't abandoned his chosen people by allowing the Romans to destroy the temple (or levelling Jerusalem if written later), but rather was merely punishing them for not recognising the Messiah who was sent to them. This idea is also entrenched in early Jewish writings. (I'm in the car writing on a laptop, so I can't look things up ) where JWHW allows the destruction of Israel as punishment for the persecution of his Prophets. This is not a failed Messiah, but rather a story of hope because the Messiah will return to set things aright and establish JWHW's kingdom on earth (free Israel). This would explain to people that the reason so many other Messiahs of the time had failed.

rlogan

It is abundantly clear to anyone who reads what you write that this is not a hypothesis, but the core assumption you start with, and every jot and tittle of writing you see is interpreted this way as the default position.

The burden of proof is then placed upon others to move you off the interpretation of any particular piece of evidence, while at the same time you retain your belief in the historical core.

Circular reasoning. If there was a historical Jesus that Paul was writing about, then he was doing so because there was a historical Jesus he was writing about.

Jesus GakusiDon IT MEANS EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS.

WE are the ones accepting it at face value and not INTEPRETING it to mean something else. YOU are the one changing the meaning in order to shoe-horn it into the assumption of history instead of metaphor.

I would appreciate that you not say such disengenuous things. Toto has REPEATEDLY affirmed EXACTLY what it means, and I am in 100% agreement.


Read again what Toto has said. REPEATEDLY.

Demonstrate, please, that you are a reasonable person that actually considers what has been said to you REPEATEDLY instead of saying untruthfully that we have not supplied any alternative meaning.

Follow this example Don. I doubt you can, but try:

EXAMPLE:

STUMBLING BLOCK is a METAPHOR Don. Get it? There is no fucking BLOCK of STONE Don.

But you are so blind that you insist there must be a REAL BLOCK. That is your methodology applied to the block.

WE ACCEPT THE DAMN METAPHOR AT FACE VALUE. NO GOD DAMNED BLOCK.

METAPHOR DON. METAPHOR. Golly, this is a real hard one too. What is the metaphor referring to? Duh.

You insist we have to go BEYOND THE METAPHOR and supply you with some STONE BLOCK.

THERE IS NO BLOCK.

YOU are the one going beyond the face-value meaning insisting that there must be a REAL BLOCK with this methodology. WE are the ones sticking with THE TEXT which is clearly METAPHORICAL.

Zion is not Jerusalem, Don. That is YOU struggling to turn what is clearly a metaphor into a SPECIFIC CITY.

Hopeless...

GakuseiDon

A hypothesis is "a suggested explanation for an observable phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal predicting a possible causal correlation among multiple phenomena".

My hypothesis is that, based on the letters of Paul as we have them now, Paul is talking about an earthly Jesus, crucified in Jerusalem, and in his near past.

If that is the case, I believe that the best explanation for why Paul believed it is because there was a historical Jesus.

I'm assuming that the letters of Paul generally attributed as genuine are genuine. So interpolations of key passages will affect the validity of my conclusions.

No. My reasoning is: If Paul was writing about an earthly Jesus who died in Paul's near past, then the most likely explanation is that he is doing so because there was a historical Jesus.

I agree that there isn't a real block.

Paul gives us what the metaphor refers to:

1Cor 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness

Paul then says in Romans:

Rom 9:32 For they [Israel] stumbled at that stumbling stone.
Rom 9:33 As it is written: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame".

Toto's point was that "stumbling block" may have been a common metaphor, so any association between 1Cor 1 and Rom 9 is weak. I agree, but I don't see it as being a coincidence, for reasons I gave earlier.

Obviously, Israel stumbling is a current event. Why is Paul pulling out a passage from Isaiah to describe a current event? Why THAT particular passage?

I agree that there is no real actual block.

I agree that the text is metaphorical and that there is no real actual block.

Well, Zion certainly refers to Jerusalem, so I'm suggesting that this is a possibility. Is there a better reading available? Toto has suggested that Zion is irrelevant in the "Deliverer will come out of Zion" passage, and probably doesn't refer to crucifixion in Jerusalem in the earlier passage. What do you think Paul means by using those passages? Toto might well be right, but if Paul is supposed to be getting his information from Scriptures, then why would Paul regard "Zion" as irrelevant?

Toto

Which have gotten lost in the subsequent discussion. Care to link to them or summarize them?

How weak does a correlation have to be before it becomes a "coincidence?"

Israel stumbling seems to be a recurring event. I suspect that this "stumbling" is just their stick-necked refusal to accept everything that Paul tells them.

Paul finds passages in Isaiah and interprets them creatively. What more do you need?

Ben C Smith

What is hopeless is this inane stream of rhetoric on your part, rlogan. GDon is always very reasonable (and calm, a trait that seems in short supply on your part). He is making a reasonable point (one with which I think I happen to disagree, incidentally) in a reasonable tone of voice, and you respond with invective — much of it aimed squarely at a straw man; to think that GDon was insisting on a literal block of stone, for example.

Ben.

aa5874

If you assume the letters to be genuine you really have nothing to prove.

You must show the evidence for your assumption that the letters are indeed genuine. How come the letters are genuine?

If I assume the letters are not genuine then it would be obvious that I will come to different conclusion.

You must get over that hurdle, you must show the evidence that allowed you to assume the letters are genuine, since an opposite assumption will contradict your hypothesis.

Your argument as it stands is extremely weak. You assume Paul wrote the letters in the time zone stated, you believe he wrote about a crucufixion in the recent past, therefore you believe Jesus was historical. This is a very weak hypothesis based on assumptions and beliefs.

GakuseiDon

Sure. It was back in #294:

Paul writes:

Rom 9:32 ... For they [Israel] stumbled at that stumbling stone.
Rom 9:33 As it is written:

"Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."

...
Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes...

I'm suggesting that Paul believes that something happened in Jerusalem, and that Jesus was somehow involved.

I need his interpretation. Please note that this is a cumulative case. As I've said repeatedly, I can't prove anything, but I am trying to explain what makes the most sense.