windsofchange

It's also worth considering that, since Paul wrote his letters before any of the Gospels were written, there might not have been this idea of a set number of apostles - 12 only - that may have been an idea that was developed as the mythology grew. You know, 12 apostles = 12 tribes.

(Note - I'm not saying it's "obviously true" - just a possibility.)

Doug Shaver

The gospels and Acts are fiction. Nothing they say about the apostles has any evidentiary value.

aa5874

Exactly!!

That is the root of our problems on these discussion boards, we already know that there is no evidence to support the Biblical claims, yet some continue to claim 'Paul' wrote, 'Paul' knew and 'Paul' wrote before the 'Gospels'. It bears repeating, 'The Bible has very little evidentiary value'. There are no known original documents of Christian Bible. The dates affixed to the writings of the books are speculative. The Bible is 'harmonized' when it is regarded as fiction.

andrewcriddle

1 Corinthians 1:12 and simila verses imply IMO that Cephas/Peter had preached in Corinth. Given Paul's attempts to be conciliatory towards Peter and Apollos in the Corinthian correspondence I doubt whether he is one of the 'super apostles' attacked in 2 Corinthians 11.

(From Galatians chapter 1 Paul clearly knows of a group of apostles going back to the beginning of Christianity and centred in Judea, it really doesn't seem likely to me that they are the rhetorically skilled preachers giving Paul trouble in Corinth.)

Andrew Criddle

Andrew Criddle

Gamera

Let me suggest you've utterly missed the irony of the passage. Paul calls them "superlative apostles" precisely because they are not. They teach a false gospel, using typical classical rhetoric. He says so specifically that these guys are preaching a false gospel, so by definition they are not the apostles we know about.

His point is he doesn't use persausive rhetoric, but he teaches the real gospel, making him the real apostle, in contrast to the false "apostles."

This is typical Pauline irony, of which I can give you a lot of examples.

In any case you've seemed to miss the statements in the passage you quote about the falsity of the teaching of the "superlative apostles."

2 Cor 5. 1 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. 5 I think that I am not in the least inferior to these superlative apostles. 6 Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. 7Mat 10:19-21 When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21

Put heavily ironic quotation marks around "Superlative apostles" and the passage makes sense in a way you have missed.

windsofchange

Good point, Gamera. Set and match.

I still think there were other "apostles" though.

Solo

While I don't believe the gospels and Acts are entirely fiction, I would agree that Jesus was not walking around Galilee and Judea with twelve apostles. In my scenario, Cephas and the Zebedees were probably part of the inner core of his entourage. At any rate, I don't think Acts 8 is entirely fictional when it distinguishes between the water baptism of Philip, through which converts believe in Jesus Christ and the laying of hands of Peter and John, through which they receive the Holy Spirit. Since the latter involved magic that interested Simon Magus, which Philip did not know, I would say Peter and John were part of the Jesus crowd and Philip wasn't. As for the function of the apostles, I believe it was a designation originating in James' church and did not necessarily involve followers of Jesus. My hypothesis relies on Heb 3:1. In James' church, which was a Nazarite congregation, my little theory goes, adopted both, John Baptist and Jesus as martyrs of Israel which kills its prophets, and admitted their followers. In the church, Jesus was thought of only as one of the apostles, not angels, or mythical "beasties", but human wise messengers from God, who guided the community through the apocalyptic last days.

The Twelve probably originated later, functioning after the death of James the Just until the the fall of Jerusalem. The gospels, which date from after the Jerusalem church dispersed, could be thought of as attempts to reconsolidate the believer base of the church's Jesus faction which grew the fastest through the missionary work chiefly of Cephas and Paul. In them, the apostles and the Twelve were merged and received retroactively a commission as symbolic witnesses of Jesus' earthly ministry.

Jiri

Doug Shaver

That does not mean it has none. Some parts of it can tell us plenty about the beliefs of the men who wrote it. You're making the fundamentalist all-or-nothing mistake, supposing that if you can't believe all of it, then you can't believe any of it.

Steven Carr

Talk about begging the question!

I wonder how different the Jesus was that these 'super-apostles' were making converts with....

Perhaps they were teaching about a Jesus who was crucified under Pilate.