Gamera

You have confused the gospel (a narrative that is preached to non-christians) with the epistles, a commentary on Christian living directed at Christians, and in the genre of the classical "arts," manuals for becoming expert in a particular skill.

In the epistles (which are not the gospel) Paul mentions his preaching, and in that regard, he mentions that Jesus was a man, who lived some kind of extraordinary life (extraordinary enough to save mankind), who descended from David, who was executed by a particular Roman form of execution (meaning he was deemed a criminal), who was buried for three day, who rose from the dead and appeared (communicated) with various apostles and others, including Paul.

That's biography That's a narrative. It isn't a creed.

Gamera

Then why did he ask what the speaker meant? No ambiguity, no question of intent.


Earl, reluctantly I have to conclude from this post that you have no credibility as a linguist, whatever your expertise in Greek may be. The fact is as a linguistic practice English speakers seem to conflate "appear" and "reappear" all the time. The overlap is marginal and context specific, but it's there. Consult the Congressional record and you'll find example after example.

Better yet, ask yourself if you'd understand a Congressman who thanked Condi Rice after lunch for appearing before the committee (even though she appeared before lunch). You would. You wouldn't be confused and think that the speaker thought Condi was appearing for the first time. And if you understand him, the field overlap. Sorry, it has nothing to do with logic or your invocations of critical thinkilng (the fact that you would confuse critical thinking with linguistic practice is itself a lack of critical thinking).

Anyway, leaving English words aside, have you still not bothered to look up the Greek verb at issue and researched the scope of its semantic field?

Rick Sumner

Which of those verses, in particular, do you see as precluding the understanding of "gospel" I gave above? Where is he referring to a narrative, rather than a plan to save people?

I think you misunderstand Paul. Thoroughly. You will, incidentally, find a sizable percentage of Pauline scholars who would agree with that assessment--participants as diverse as Das, Sanders or Wright. The only passage you have a leg to stand on is 1Cor.15, which I'll leave (at least for now) in favour of looking at other verses. Our understanding of 1Cor can, perhaps in a later post, be enhanced by our reading of what Paul's "gospel" is (I will note, however, that many a commentator--particularly many a NPP commentator--has spilled plenty of ink on why your reading of 1Cor.15 is wrong).

Let's take a closer look:

The gospel "concerns" Jesus, nowhere does it say the gospel *is* Jesus. You might also be interested to know that it is generally held that Rom.1.3 is not Pauline, but rather reflects a pre-Pauline address, in the spirit of Bultmann. The position is not without detractors, of course, but it would be pretty safe to say it's the case, and substantially less safe to say it isn't.

The gospel is the power of the cross of Christ. Paul couldn't be clearer on that point--it isn't the cross itself, it's the cross' effect. How you could read that and take anything different away from it is astonishing to me. He fairly explicitly disavows the position you attribute to him. This is one of the most compelling verses against your position (it's also a point against Earl's position, that the gospel is Paul's "knowledge of the Christ," as an aside).

I can only scratch my head at this. There's no indication here that the gospel is a biography, and every indication it isn't. Paul never once equates a narrative element with the "faith" by which people are saved. It is that faith that's at issue here.

Why do you think it's a stumbling block? Because it's a narrative? Not at all. This is another solid point against you, rather than for you. The stumbling block is that salvation comes from a crucified man,. The stumbling block is not simply that a man was crucified. It's the ramifications of that death, not the death itself, that Paul is addressing here.

You're reading your "i.e" into the text, since it doesn't appear anywhere near it.

2Tim? You're kidding me, right? That's substantially later than Paul, written after the term "gospel" had achieved its present meaning.

I suggested nothing of the sort, so I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth. Specific details (namely how the Gentiles work into the plan) are exclusive to Paul, but the good news that there is an eschatological plan coming into effect is not exclusively Pauline. How do I know that the particular formulation of the salvation of the Gentiles is exclusively Pauline? Pretty easily, actually. First of all, he has to defend it perpetually. Secondly, he tells us as much.

This is thoroughly irrelevant to any understanding of what Paul means by "gospel," at any rate. It merely tells us that he wasn't the only one with "good news."

My turn:

Paul's pretty clear here about what his "gospel" is.

His gospel is his knowledge of what saves.

Here we see the real crux--if the "gospel" is the same narrative, then there is no difference between the gospel of the "circumcised" and the "uncircumcised." But Paul describes it as such. Why? Because they have different messages of salvation.

What is the gospel, if not the salvation of people, when it is equated with the blessing of all nations? Surely that isn't a synonym for "narrative." On the contrary, it's exactly what I said it was--an eschatological plan. The salvation of the Gentiles.

Are the gentiles made heirs by the narrative? Of course not. They're made heirs by the significance of Jesus' death. It is not, here or elsewhere, the death itself that is the "good news." The good news is--consistently--salvation.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Gamera

Well, I am in fact a poststructuralist. But we don't even need to go there. The issue is purely philological: does the semantic field of phainerow overlap at some point with various Greek verbs to mean "reappear." I have yet to see Doherty indicate that he has even addressed the issue with anything ressembling research. It appears everybody is just working from lexicons, and although lexical entries involve some research into the scope of a words semantic field by the lexographer, they are not dispositive, because the lexgographers usually have bigger fish to fiy (like finishing up a usual lexicon) especially involving ancient or extinct languages, where we can't ask native speakers what the words means.

By the way, I suspect Wright is right for the wrong reasons, and Doherty is wrong for the right reasons. My little research into the matter aside, it wouldn't suprise me if phainerow doesn't encompass the meaning of "reappear." But in these particular passages, I wouldn't translate the meaing as "appear" either. It seems to me that the sense of both Paul and John is not "appear" but "manifest." The context indicates that they are talking about Christ not simply showing up, but becoming manifest in his escatological capacity. Jesus "appears" but what interests the authors is his appearance in the sense of the purveyor of God's salvation, of God's complete plan, of the embodiment of all the hopes of the community being addressed. So it's Jesus and it's not Jesus.

But this identity and difference which seems to fascinate Paul and John only works if indeed it is a reappearance, a recurrence. Jesus recurs, but not just as Jesus, but an escatological Jesus.

In that sense, Wright gets the implied sense correct. But it's much more prismatic and complex than Jesus showing up a second time and saying howdy.

Gamera

Again, you are confusing epistles with gospels, two different genres.

Paul's "understanding" of the gospel is set forth in the epistle. Paul's gospel is not. We know that because he refers to the gospel that he preached without going into detail, even as he goes into detail in the epistles about what it means to be a Christian in the 1st century.

But he does indicate that his gospel is biographical. The quotes speak for themselves. His references to Jesus being executed (i.e., deemed a criminal), of having a certain ancestry; of being buried for three days; or rising from the dead and then interacting with people -- what do you call that? It's biography. It's not creed. It's a narrative. Which of course accords with the greek word for gospel (not to mention the English word), as well as tradition.

Now, you can just claim you don't see it and that it's not a narrative to set forth a persons background, relationship with society, death and interaction with people. But then I can only conclude you just don't want to use the term "narrative" as it is normally understood, because it casts doubt on your particular view of Paul. That's tendentious thinking and not very convincing.

Rick Sumner

No, I'm afraid I'm not. You're confusing "good news" with "narrative." Two different terms. You apparently missed my edits (I didn't think I would have time for more detail, so apologies for that). I'll give you a chance to go back and have a look.

Despite what you seem to think, Paul (outside of 1Cor), never speaks of his gospel as a biography of anything. Whether his epistles contain information about Jesus or not (and I think they do) is a separate issue from that. I would agree that they contain narrative elements. But those narrative elements are not the good news Paul is preaching.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Steven Carr

So presumably Wright struggles with the English language, not realising that 'appear' overlaps 're-appear'.

Wright writes on page 175 of the book on Colossians in his 'Paul for Everyone' series 'One day Jesus the Messiah, who cannot at the moment be seen within the old world, will appear again....'


Why put in the 'again', when any idiot knows that appear can mean appear again? Did Wright really think that he had to qualify 'appear' so that people knew it meant a reappearance?


Perhaps Wright puts in the 'again' , because it is mysteriously missing from the Greek text? A fault in the Greek that is easily rectified....

And once you have added the word 'again', you are entitled to say that Colossians 'puts it' as 'reappear'.

Gamera

Presumably. He's painted himself into such a corner by not researching the semantic field of phainerow that he's quibbling about a common English linguistic practice that can be found in the Congressional record or the minutes of a local HOA meeting.

Because in the context English speakers sometime use again with appear and sometimes don't. Your argument appears to reduce to "A word means one thing and one thing only at all time." Like I say, I'm sensing a great deal of linguistic naivety here.

Perhaps. More likely the context called for it. Notice if he didn't put "again" the sentence would make perfect sense.

I think your view of translation is simplistic at best, tendentious at worse.

Amaleq13

You claims that Paul's gospel included the "unique life" of Jesus were shown to have no basis in his letters but entirely founded in your imagination. It is pure self-delusion to think otherwise.

It is plain to everyone but yourself.

Gamera

Your defintion of εὐαγγ�*λιον is contrary to its usage. I really relates to "news," i.e., an event, i.e., a narrative. You're are created a tendentious definition to comport with your view of Paul, but this violates not only the usage in Greek, but how Paul uses the term. It's not a coincident that the synoptic gospels are called, well, gospels -- the genre itself is biographical.

1. I suspect if Paul wrote a 30 page narrative of Jesus from birth to death to resurrection, you'd still claim it's not a narrative. Paul references his gospel in passing, and the references involve the course of Jesus' live, his background, his interaction with others, his death and resurrection. Most people would call that a narrative. If you choose not to, I can't make you.

2. We don't really have any example of Paul's preaching, except for Acts (which seems in fact not to be the gospel he preached -- but a prolegomena to it) and except for his passing references to what he preached, as mentioned in the epistles. We also have tradition. So your claim that you know what Paul preached and it isn't the very gospel that seems referenced by his own epistles and tradition is, well, unconvincing. Again, you're either confusing epistles with gospel (two separate genres) or you have access to Paul's gospel in ways you haven't told us. Please, elaborate.