TedM

Many verses seem to refer to God, many to Jesus, many to perhaps both. How is the reader to know when it isn't clearly one or the other? Is it safe to assume that since God was "Lord" in the OT and Jesus was also "Lord" in the NT that any NT reference to the Lord INCLUDES Jesus as a manifestation of God Himself?

See all 402 references here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/...rase&bookset=2

spin

Two things:

1) among those 402 hits are a number of cases that refer to the "lord Jesus (Christ)"; the discussion involved the use of "the lord" when it substituted a name, not when it was apposite.

2) why are you asking about the whole new testament when we were discussing Paul, who wrote before any of the other texts were written? Don't you need to try to establish what Paul meant?

Stuart

Most often it's simply the title to address to Jesus. This usage parallels the title by which slaves addressed their master (e.g, Matthew 25). Other places like in Acts 4:26 clearly is used to distinguish the father from Jesus as separate entities. Often its usage is from OT quotes and references to Angelology, which different groups interpreted differently even within the orthodox, but generally these are understood as YHWH.

BTW, since English translations often include "phantom" Greek words to "help clarify," you shouldn't trust any English translations, as these often have subtle theological assumptions present that may or may not be correct understandings. I suggest instead you look up using an interliner such as studylight's. Here is the look up for the same search

http://www.studylight.org/desk/inter...3=str_nas&ns=0

hjalti

After a quick glance (and not looking at the Greek) I don't think I saw a single instance of Jesus being called "the lord" in Matthew or Mark, but it seems to be used often for Jesus in Luke. Very interesting.

TedM

I think this is a very weak argument because the term "the Lord Jesus" or "the Lord Jesus Christ" or "Jesus our Lord" all make it clear that the being/person called Jesus was considered to be an authority figure worthy of the title "Lord". Depending on the grammatical usage the word "the" would be used in some cases.


Paul's own usage would be most important, but there may be value in the others. The closer in time and/or provenance, the more relevant.

spin

The interesting think in Luke is that the writer of the birth narrative obviously didn't use it for Jesus and you have to wait until Lk 7:13 before you get your first exemplar of "the lord" in lieu of the name "Jesus". And look at the crazy way it is first used in Jn 4:1! Look:

When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,

and then see how the modern translations smooth over the mess, eg.,

NIV: Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John--

TedM

moved from spin's thread on McGrath:

As long as Paul makes clear that "Lord" references Jesus much like the word "Teacher" could, then what difference does it make whether he OFTEN or NEVER uses "the Lord" in place of Jesus' name? Obviously it would be acceptable to do so. That's why "the Lord Jesus Christ" should not be dismissed as you seem to be doing. Who is to say that "the Lord" in "brother of the Lord" is not meant as a Title for Jesus in the same way, since obviously Paul could have written "brother of the Lord Jesus Christ", or "brother of our Lord"? (for clarity try "brother of the Teacher Jesus Christ" or "brother of our Teacher".)

In any case, among my examples I gave I count 10 uses of "the Lord" which are in lieu of the name "Jesus". Not 2.

I agree though that "the Lord" COULD refer to God in Galatians 1:19. I didn't know that was even up for debate. Of course it could. It's just that there is little reason to think that it does for all the reasons I've given.

aa5874

There is no evidence that the Pauline Corpus was before any writing in the NT and you yourself admitted there is NO provenance for the Pauline Corpus to establish it as the earliest source.

You have not presented any Pauline Corpus that has been dated to any time before c 66 CE.

We know that it has already been deduced that the Pauline Corpus is a product of multiple unknown authors.

How in the world can you determine what "Paul" means without first looking at the sources of antiquity that used the Pauline Corpus?


What did Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Chrysostom and other Jesus cult writers claim about the "LORD"?

What did Writers of the Jesus cult that made references to Galatians 1.19 say about the "Lord"?

It is an extremely simply matter.

Clement's Letter to the Corinthians Jesus is the LORD in the Jesus cult--not just the Pauline Corpus.

hjalti

Yes, I also noticed that.

What I find interesting is that arguably the earliest and the most jewish gospels seem to avoid using "the lord" for Jesus.

I didn't see any examples in the general epistles (again, only a quick look over the search result Ted linked to).

Another interesting thing I noticed is that in Rev you have "the lord god" (kurios o theos). Perhaps "o kurios" is starting to become too ambiguous so they have to add "theos" when it's about the Christian god.

spin

The two passages that I acknowledged were 1 Cor 6:14 and 1 Cor 11:23-27. Outside those it's merely guesswork. But see below.

I've decided that the best way to deal with the topic of Paul's usage of lord is to create a dedicated thread so that we can concentrate there on Paul. It is a unique case that is separate from the gospel usage in the sense that it is the very first christian literature we have and boasts no dependence on anything that came before other than Jewish literature, especially the LXX and hence its usage of "the lord".

Hopefully we can work out the uneven usage of kurios in the gospels here.