Gamera

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul states he is reiterating the gospel he earlier preached to the Corinthians, or at least what is "foremost" in that gospel (protois)

He then narrates some events about Jesus, focussing on the appearances made by the risen Christ (forming a body of witnesses that Paul is at pains apparently to highlight).

What is striking about that gospel (besides confirming that Paul's gospel took the form of a narrative) is the profound ambiguities the story line holds for us. It is very unclear from the language what exactly happened and when in relationship to Jesus and the apostles and the other witnesses (assuming the other witnesses weren't apostles). Did he appoint them (in Paul's view) while alive and then appear to them after he arose, or did he appoint them after he was resurrected.

The importance of this ambiguity is that this was well-worn territory for Paul. Even accepting the earliest date for 1 Corinthians, Paul had been preaching this gospel in agoras across two continents for a number of years. He knew it like the back of his hand. You would think the story line would be honed and hence crystal clear. But for us, at least, it isn't by any standard and regardless of whatever theoretical school from which you approach the Christian scriptures. It's simply turgid, or seems turgid to us.

What are the implications of this ambiguity? Why would Paul's listing of the "foremost" elements of the narrative he used as his gospel not be easily understandable to us?

My conclusion is that the audience must have been aware of a vast back story that made these verses clear. Paul merely has to allude to the this back story, using a "shorthand," and he is confident the audience will fill in the blanks. In contrast, we have lost the full back story, and so only have before us the perplexing allusions.

I further conclude that the Synoptics and Acts seem to provide a back story that makes sense out of the allusions (more or less), and therefore it is likely that Paul was assuming the same or similar back story. If Paul was working with a different back story (say a mythical Jesus narrative), you wouldn't expect the allusions in 1 Corinthians to fit the Synoptics/Acts narratives. But they do.

Finally, I take this to support the historicist position. First, it fits the Synoptics/Acts narratives, which presents an historical Jesus. And second, the back story must involve Jesus' conduct in the context of that time and place. There is no allusion in 1 Corinthians rendition of the foremost elements of Paul's gospel of any events in the deep past or in heaven. It is all grounded in the recent past, suggesting that the activities of Jesus occurred in the recent past.

dog-on

Doubtful. Besides, much of that section is a later interpolation...

The synoptics are fictions. Acts is a later construct, written by the orthodoxy as they were editing Luke. Their (the Orthodoxy's) purpose was, of course, to bring divergent factions together under one roof...