spamandham

Gal. 3:23

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.

...slightly more obscure, because you have to read the surrounding context to understand what "until faith should be revealed" means, but it is nonetheless another explicit claim of revelation of his gospel. So your count is at least 5.

Ben C Smith

IOW, no, you have no intention of backing up your claim from the texts.

Thanks.

Ben.

I Testify Online

It was John wasnt it?

spamandham

The authentic letters of Paul are generally dated earlier than John. No respectable scholar believes the Gospel of John was written by the apostle John.

JoeWallack

JW:
Fair enough. It's not the only assertion but it is the primary assertion. See how easy that was. Still not a hint in your writings that you were wrong when you said there is not a hint in Paul that the supposed crucifixion of Jesus was doubted. Galatians 3:1 creates doubt all by itself about whether Jesus was crucified.

JW:
A logical explanation and it may be just like you are describing. But it's not necessarily an all or nothing thing. Paul's letter describes what is important to him and in Galatians that's the issue of following the Law. The means of Jesus' death is secondary. But is it an important issue in Galatians? I think it is. Look at how many times Paul uses "crucified" in Galatians. Better yet, look at how Paul uses "crucified" in Galatians.

A possible scenario is that Paul's initial doctrines are Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection. Paul writes 1 Thessalonians with these two themes and never mentions crucifixion because there is no need to. As Paul and his followers are persecuted Paul expands the sacrifice them to a suffering sacrifice that identifies the idol worshiper with the idol. Paul goes to Galatians who have never heard of Jesus and presents him as crucified to maximize the supposed suffering. Subsequent historical witness tells the Galatians that Jesus was not crucified which removes credibility from Paul's argument. Paul responds:

Everything needed to explain why Paul said Jesus was crucified when historical witness said he was not can be found in Galatians. Paul always uses "crucified" figuratively in Galatians. Paul explicitly identifies the actual means of Jesus' death. A means which is supported in the Fathers and Jewish writings. The historical means of Jewish execution at the time. Paul does not use "crucifixion" before Galatians because he had not yet created the argument. Galatians is where he presents his argument. Jesus was historically hung but figuratively crucified. No need for Paul to subsequently explain or opponents to subsequently deny. It's all in Galatians.

As always, maybe Jesus was crucified. The following factors though create a low threshold for doubt on the subject:

1) Nothing extant from Paul's opponents.

2) Unclear who Paul's opponents were.

3) Unclear what the nature of Paul's opponents' argument in Galatians was.

4) Paul's credibility was easily impeached in Galatians by his opponents.

5) Willingness of Paul to make figurative arguments.



Joseph

Amaleq13

That is because you have yet to convince me that this is true.

No, it requires additional assumptions that do not appear to be warranted. I think Ben has already done a fine job arguing this point.

The evidence you are missing, however, is that which suggests such an explanation is necessary.

JoeWallack

JW:
The theme of the Epistles is determined by the circumstances of the time. A literary analysis of 1 Thessalonians shows that the primary doctrines are Sacrifice and Resurrection. The theme of 1 Thessalonians is enduring affliction. The ironic contrast is being comforted by the faith of those enduring affliction.

We have no provenance for 1 Thessalonians so this is all guesswork but since the theme here is enduring affliction until Jesus' return it is logical to guess that it is an earlier epistle. Relatively few believers have died but they are starting to get nervous that believers are starting to die with no Jesus in sight.

Paul's emphasis here is on surviving and not dying. Therefore, he does not want to use death language for the believer.

If Galatians is signficantly later than 1 Thessalonians than Paul is dealing with a new problem in that now significant numbers of believers have died with no Jesus in sight. Paul may have than expanded the role of believer to include martyr as an apology for his false prophecy of Jesus' imminent return. Now the image of Jesus' supposedly crucified is useful to Paul as he can compare Jesus' "crucifixion" to the believers' crucifixion (which is exactly what he does in 1 Thessalonians, except figuratively) and he creates a model that has expanded to include death as part of enduring affliction.

If Paul's epistles are more motivated by specific literary themes than history in general, they could explain why there is no mention of crucifixion in 1 Thessalonians. Because Paul is emphasizing surviving for the believer there is no parallel to be made between Jesus' crucifixion means of death and the believer.

What is reMarkable about 1 Thessalonians is how much it supports Marcon:

1) No references to the Jewish Bible.

2) Generally the reference is "Jesus" as opposed to "Christ" and the emphasis is on "son" rather than "messiah".

Unless there are two different authors for 1 Thessalonians and Galatians I have faith that Paul's thinking changed over time and that Jewish pressure may have made him move towards Judaism by proof-texting the Jewish Bible and increasing the Messiah emphasis. Marcion may have just liked the older phonier Paul.



Joseph

spin

Truth to you is not the issue. Your common sense notions aren't sufficient criteria. You fail to see that they are not related to the text but are your hurdle.

Rubbish. Ben simply stonewalled on the verse (it doesn't say what it says) and talked about another verse, which like you he failed to make sense of. Neither of you could make sense of 3:1 or of 6:12 or, worst, of the whole revelation.

You, Amaleq13, cannot admit that you are simply peddling a conjecture, when you've been doing it for months.

The evidence you refuse to face -- not that it's missing, you refuse to face it --, is what Paul says: he got the gospel from a revelation and you are in denial over the fact. You assert that he got most of it from a source that he excludes. He is the chief witness against your fabrication.

He has made it clear that he had a telephone to god rather than good teachers and the best you can say is: not so. He must have got most of it from those people in Jerusalem who had totally misunderstood the Jesuine message. And I love your insistence on the theory that the people in Jerusalem must have believed in christ crucified because Paul didn't argue about the notion -- a simple argument from silence. It's your "beautiful plumage!" :wave:


spin

JoeWallack

What a nightmare...


JW:
Paul is the primary witness for the assertian that Jesus was crucified but lacks the credibility to prove this assertian by himself for the following reasons:

1) Age - 2,000 years creates doubt all by itself.

2) Subject matter

a) Religion is a poor source for history.

b) Religion utilizes the figurative more than history (so Paul's use may be figurative).

3) Impeached credibility - A primary argument of Paul is that his Jesus is the logical conclusion of the Jewish Bible which is clearly a wrong conclusion.

4) Source - Paul clearly states that his primary source is revelation and explicitly denies any significant human source.

5) Variation

a) Marcion, a comparable witness to Paul verses the orthodox, saw a significantly different Pauline corpus.

b) Paul's writings contain contradictions and ambiguity.

c) The orthodox version of Paul (Acts) differs significantly from Paul's Paul in that orthodox Paul is a partner with first-hand witness while Paul's Paul is a competitor.

6) Institutional discount - The orthodox have preserved the extant evidence and had motive and opportunity to make changes which improved orthodox assertians. Therefore, any orthodox assertian, such as crucifixion is less likely than the extant evidence indicates.

7) Second hand witness at best

Thus we have it on good authority that Paul, by itself, can not prove anything.

Paul's witness though can be upgraded to the extent he refers to first-hand witness. I have demonstrated in this Thread that Paul never explicitly asserts that first-hand witness asserts a crucifixion. In order for Paul to invoke first hand witness for the crucifixion it has to be done through implication.

I have also demonstrated that in general Paul claims revelation as his source and denies human source. One must than go through all of Paul's implications for a specific assertian which may be based on historical witness, to determine the evidence rather than just proof-text one or a few assertians regarding potential historical claims.

Defenders of HJ often proof-text specific implications from Paul that Paul would have been aware of general and specific historical witness to Jesus and, while not attributing his knowledge to historical witness, would not have wanted/been able to contradict this historical witness. This would put Paul in the position that some of his supposed revelation merely informed him of what historical witness was already saying but which he previously did not believe. This presents two problems for Paul as historical witness:

1) Before revelation Paul did not believe historical witness.

2) Paul explicitly denies have human sources.

More than enough to have serious doubts about Paul as a witness. HJ defenders are forced into a position of believing that Paul had a source of historical witness but never acknowledged it. So much for Paul's credibility. Let's go through Galatians and look at the implications for a historical source for Paul:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Galatians

JW:
The implication here is that Paul is familiar with the promotion of Jesus and is countering it. No specifics though.

JW:
Paul makes a point of saying that after revelation he did not check his revelation with any human. The implication is that there would be no need to because the divine is a higher source and checking with a human source would be an insult to the divine. Another implication is that there are differences between Paul's revelation and historical witness. And another implication is that Paul than started promoting Jesus. We also have an implication that Paul avoided promoting Jesus in Israel because he knows there are differences between his revelation and historical witness (his best chance for success is promoting his revelation away from historical witness).

Also note that the potential motivation for Paul to go to Jerusalem is explicitly because he acknowledges there were apostles (not disciples) before him and not because they were historical witness. It's an open question regarding why Paul thought of the Jerusalem apostles as some type of authority. Was it because they were historical witness or just because they had revelations before Paul.

JW:
Implication that they shared notes. But what's missing is stated motivation for Paul's visit.

JW:
Another implication that Paul is now promoting what he formerly persecuted, but again , no details. Since we have reason to believe that at a minimum the difference between Paul's promotion and Jerusalem's is the Law, we can't be sure what they have in common besides promoting Jesus.

JW:
Here Paul flips the significance of meeting with Jerusalem 14 years ago. The comparison is having a 15 day layover with Cephas verses promoting his revelation independently for 14 years. The implication is that Paul was not interested in and did not want to know what Jerusalem was doing. There is also an implication that Paul wanted to avoid Israel but was pressured into going there and explaining himself because there were differences between his promotion and Jerusalem's. Note especially that Paul's claimed motivation here to check with Jerusalem is revelation ("And I went up by revelation"). Another problem for HJ proponents trying to get an implication that Paul had a historical source for HJ which he used because Paul met with historical witness.

JW:
Paul explicitly discredits the potential implication that he uses a historical source here while meeting with the potential source.

JW:
Once again, no specifics. All we know is that there are differences between Paul's and Jerusalem's promotion of Jesus. We also know that Paul's main point here, that a key difference was acceptance of different circumcision policies, is than immediately cut off by Paul's description that Jerusalem did not accept different circumcision policies. Considering that this is the key issue of Galatians, circumcision policy, we have a huge credibility problem with Paul here = bad witness.

As we can see, there are plenty of implications that Paul had a source of historical witness but there are also plenty of implications that Paul avoided/didn't use this source.

I have resurrected Peter and after 3 days he will start a Thread here outlining support for MJ/HJ in all of Paul's writings.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

spamandham

I didn't see anything in what you quoted that implied the Jerusalem gang were historical witnesses of an earthly Jesus, aside from the contentious "James the Lord's brother".