Freethought & Rationalism Archive

GakuseiDon · 01-31-2004, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
It also undercuts Doherty's idea that Paul had a proto-gnostic view of the crucifixion occurring in a sublunar plane, with Jesus executed by demons. We have no evidence that Paul knew or cared who crucified Jesus.

But, if Paul had believed in a historical Jesus, how could that have been the case? Is this a reasonable assumption to make? It is the main strength of Doherty's argument.

Amaleq13 · 01-31-2004, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
I don't think Paul is that ambiguous, except in that one key phrase "rulers of this age". From the quotes supplied by Kirby, you can see that Paul uses the words "heavenly powers" elsewhere, so we can see that Paul could have referred to them if he wanted to.

From the quotes supplied by Kirby, we can see that many scholars think Paul was referring to demonic forces but in a different way. The split in scholarly opinion as well as the linguistic information supplied by Mathetes and Spin clearly supports a description of Paul's writing as ambiguous.

Quote:

So why hasn't Paul singled out Jewish or Roman authorities? Because he was a Jew writing to a Roman controlled region, and doing so may have opened up a can of worms, politically.

That is a possible explanation assuming (and, thus, begging the question) that Paul is referring to human rulers.

Quote:

I suppose that you could argue that Paul should have written "earthly rulers", but that would assume that the group he was writing to didn't know itself who "the rulers" referred to.

According to Mathetes and Spin, there are a couple different words Paul could have chosen that would have eliminated the current ambiguity.

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