Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[pakeha]

Stone, it seems to me Paul mentions Jesus, never as an ordinary human, but always as the resurrected saviour of mankind.
One example from 1 Corinthians 15

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

Does Paul's worldview even admit the existence of a non-miraculous individual, a mortal preacher, in short, an historical Jesus?

 

[TimCallahan]

Am never certain when T.C. is being snarky and when not. His itemizing here of so much of the "platform" of the mythers -- underscoring the full trinity of the myther-woo mantra from Galatians with a trowel -- as if that long parenthetical cadenza is really more his concern than the shorter question, which seems like the tail wagging the dog, makes one wonder if the question isn't downright rhetorical rather than serious. Is he simply taking this opportunity to re-present once more the sacred screed of the mythers as an attempt to proselytize? -- and bother any attempt to take the question itself seriously.

No, I'm not being snarky. Paul says explicitly in Galatians that his gospel is not man's gospel, but that he got it directly for a revelation of Jesus Christ. You might try actually answering my question. Here it is again, differently worded:

Since Paul says he got his gospel from a revelation of Jesus Christ, how do you see his words as being directly from Jesus, unless, of course, you believe the ghost of J.C. delivered them to him?

You might try actually answering a question as well as being honest enough to disclose your own position. Heres's how that's done:

My position is that there probably was a historical Jesus, but that the narrative material of the gospels, along with much of that of the Book of Acts is almost entirely fiction. It is further my position that Paul largely ignored any historical Jesus in favor of the Jesus of his revelation. About the only thing we can say for the historical Jesus is that he was a messianic pretender who was put to death by the Romans for sedition. We can infer, I believe that he taught a an anti-materialistic philosophy that involved non-retaliation and mercy over retribution. I believe his messianism was of a passive sort,; i.e. that he believed it wasn't necessary to raise an army to throw out the Romans, but that God would raise him from the dead as a prelude to a divinely ordered apocalypse. I suspect that Jesus saw himself as the Son of man character of the Book of Daniel

Now that I've disclosed my position, I invite you to disclose yours.

I wonder just how loooooooooooonng mythers think Paul's revelation of the "risen Christ" really was! It must have been exceedingly long -- and discursive -- if it included Jesus's telling him incidental details like his teachings on marriage and divorce, or his stuff with the eucharist!

You'd have to ask Paul that. He's the one claiming that he got his gospel from a revelation of Jesus Christ, that is gospel isn't man's gospel, that he didn't get it from men, and that he didn't confer with flesh and blood.

The whole tone of all -- every single one -- of Paul's references to human details in the Jesus bio*, the references that I itemized earlier from primarily 1 Corinthians, read so strongly like references to details that his audience already knew, as if he's writing this stuff out to jog their memories and not his, that it becomes pretty silly to imagine that all these memories originate with his own experience. Context, again and again, suggests that Paul is often writing about shared knowledge when referencing biographical details, not original knowledge.

Okay, fine. So you're saying that, despite his statement in Galatians 1, he actually did listen to what those who were apostles before him said of Jesus, which is quite a bit different from his receiving directly from Jesus.

The very fact that throughout this whole marriage-etc. chapter Paul is so careful to distinguish between Jesus's thoughts and his own speaks for itself. He's offering something explicitly new to his readers, and what is new to them is strictly that which Paul is deliberately identifying as his own thoughts and not the Jesus thoughts at all. Else, why place the Jesus thoughts alongside his at all? It's clear that the Jesus thoughts are being used as a shared context in which to frame Paul's own thoughts, the latter constituting the sole unfamiliar ingredient for his audience. By extension, the Jesus quotes can't be new to his audience at all.

So, again, where do you think he got the thoughts of Jesus? Were they, after all from what others said of Jesus, which, in Galatians 1, he claims to have ignored?

* It's interesting that whenever Paul references any details in Jesus's pre-Resurr. bio at all, those details are purely human with no abracadabra at all, no water-into-wine, no raising of Lazarus, no loaves and fishes, no walking on water, no desiccated fig tree -- none of that.

He still says that Jesus rose from the dead. That sounds supernatural to me. The fact that he does not mention any of the miracles of Jesus would point either to his essentially ignoring most of the life of Jesus in favor of his revelation / hallucination or to their being the invention of the gospels writers or both.

 

[Stone]

My position is that there probably was a historical Jesus, but that the narrative material of the gospels, along with much of that of the Book of Acts is almost entirely fiction. It is further my position that Paul largely ignored any historical Jesus in favor of the Jesus of his revelation. About the only thing we can say for the historical Jesus is that he was a messianic pretender who was put to death by the Romans for sedition. We can infer, I believe that he taught a an anti-materialistic philosophy that involved non-retaliation and mercy over retribution. I believe his messianism was of a passive sort,; i.e. that he believed it wasn't necessary to raise an army to throw out the Romans, but that God would raise him from the dead as a prelude to a divinely ordered apocalypse. I suspect that Jesus saw himself as the Son of man character of the Book of Daniel

Now that I've disclosed my position, I invite you to disclose yours.

For crying out loud, I already did that -- in detail -- at the top of the page here --

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117203&page=12

All right, so you disagree with my position, but that wasn't what you were after -- I thought. I thought you were after my position, period. I gave it -- in that post -- as a direct response to your invite -- which was identical to the wording of your post here!

How in hell does that previous post at the top of page 12 not give you your answer? There, I give you very clearly just where I'm coming from. If you don't like it, you don't like it. But don't say I haven't supplied it! I have!

WHY ARE YOU REPEATING THE INVITE HERE?!

Stone

 

[IanS]

You have still not addressed the context in which Paul proffers these APPARENT (happy now?) quotes from an historical Jesus

Well the "context" in all Paul’s letters is that (a) he never claims to have met Jesus, and clearly does not claim ever to have heard Jesus say anything (except as his religious belief in divine ghostly visions of a dead Jesus/God/Lord), and (b) repeatedly emphasises that all his knowledge of Jesus comes to him from what he believed to be his correct understanding of OT scripture.

If Paul is quoting what he thought a visionary ghost had told him, then a visionary ghost is not a real speaking historical person is it?

I find it snarky to use the term "living Jesus" since that's redolent of fundie-ism; if you said "dead Jesus", that would be fine by me, since I view him as an ordinary human).

Well you seem to find a lot of things "snarky", because you must have said that about other peoples posts here at least 100 times by now (literally, 100 times lol!). You seem to find everything that ever disagrees with your certainty in Jesus "snarky".

But if Paul is quoting what a real historical Jesus ever said, then by definition that must be a "living Jesus". Dead people don't talk!

You wanted me to say that Paul had not heard the words of a "dead Jesus"?? What does that mean!? The fact that Paul might have believed that a ghostly vision of a dead Jesus had spoken to him, is not evidence that a real human Jesus ever lived or ever said the words that Paul may have thought he heard in a rapturous religious dream, is it!

Paul's context involves carefully distinguishing between what Jesus said and what Paul is saying. Why? How come? Why do that at all unless Paul is aware that his audience is quite likely aware of -- some of -- what Jesus said already?

It's not a "careful distinction". He is telling people what he received from his visions of the Lord according to his understanding of OT scripture. Paul is not claiming to know what a living Jesus actually said (Paul never met any living Jesus). That line in Corinthians is not evidence that Paul knew the words spoken by a living Jesus ... and a dead human Jesus, cannot "speak" to Paul or anyone else!.


The problem in all of this is that you are attempting to clutch at straws as evidence to support your belief in Jesus. But straws such as that line in Corinthians cannot be evidence of Jesus because Paul has already told us that all such information about Jesus came to him from his understanding of what he thought was meant by OT scripture (plus he thought that he saw visions of “the lord”, and thought he “received” the word of God). He is not, as far as any of us can honestly tell, quoting words from someone he had never met and who he thought was by then dead.

 

[Brainache]

...

It's not a "careful distinction". He is telling people what he received from his visions of the Lord according to his understanding of OT scripture. Paul is not claiming to know what a living Jesus actually said (Paul never met any living Jesus). That line in Corinthians is not evidence that Paul knew the words spoken by a living Jesus ... and a dead human Jesus, cannot "speak" to Paul or anyone else!.


The problem in all of this is that you are attempting to clutch at straws as evidence to support your belief in Jesus. But straws such as that line in Corinthians cannot be evidence of Jesus because Paul has already told us that all such information about Jesus came to him from his understanding of what he thought was meant by OT scripture (plus he thought that he saw visions of “the lord”, and thought he “received” the word of God). He is not, as far as any of us can honestly tell, quoting words from someone he had never met and who he thought was by then dead.

Not exactly. In the same letter to the Galatians you are talking about, Paul says: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians 2&version=NIV

... As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,[a] just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

They examined his Gospel, told him it was OK for Gentiles but not Jews. He has already compared his Gospel to the one preached by Jesus' Brother.

James has a problem with the purity laws not being observed, but he doesn't at any point say; "Hang on a second, I never had a brother called Jesus. Who's this Jesus bloke you keep going on about?".

So in Galatians he tells us he got his Gospel from "no man", but he also tells us that the people who did know Jesus, also knew about Paul's Gospel. They weren't overly fond of Paul's Gospel, but I think if he'd invented a totally fictional Jesus, they might have mentioned it.

Ebionite (Early Jewish Christian, if you prefer) traditions centred around a wholly human Jesus, not a wholly spiritual Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

Tim, would you now consider answering my question to you from post 486?

Is there a verse where Paul says that Jesus' teaching about divorce is part of Paul's gospel?

In case it wasn't clear, that would be the teaching Paul attributed to the "Lord" in 1 Corinthians 7: 10-11 and his gospel which he discussed in Galatians 1 and 2 (unless you have another passage for that in mind). I don't know where to point you for the requested verse. (But please see below, Ian may have found something.)

And Ian, I was curious about the hypothesis of one of your related questions (I am happy to see that you and Stone are now discussing your differences directly with each other - that really is the only feasible way):

If Paul is quoting what he thought a visionary ghost had told him, ...

You then go on, and seem to say that that is a discussion-worthy possibility

The fact that Paul might have believed that a ghostly vision of a dead Jesus had spoken to him, is not evidence that a real human Jesus ever lived or ever said the words that Paul may have thought he heard in a rapturous religious dream, is it!

Is there any verse in Paul's letters where Paul says that Jesus ever spoke with him, or otherwise conveyed words personally to him, either before or after Jesus died?

Acts has Paul testify to a risen Jesus identifying himself, complaining of Paul's behavior and predicting what turns out to be a meeting with Ananias, all by spoken words. Nothing there concerns anything we've been discussing here recently. And famously Paul quotes Jesus about giving in Acts, maybe meaning the not-yet-crucified Jesus (or maybe not; nobody else in Paul's or Luke's generations whose writing reaches us has that quote).

But is there anything in Paul's letters themselves that claims any direct exchange in words from Jesus to Paul? You seem to have something like that, since you write

He is telling people what he received from his visions of the Lord according to his understanding of OT scripture.

We know that this teaching is flatly contrary to Jewish Bible law on divorce, so Paul's words about the Lord's teaching can't be coming from there, nor from his own understanding of what he is contradicting. So, do you have Paul saying that he got the words from a vision? Just the idea, maybe? Whatever you have from Paul will be welcome.

Thank you both.

 

[IanS]

Not exactly. In the same letter to the Galatians you are talking about, Paul says:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...02&version=NIV

Quote:
... As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,[a] just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.


They examined his Gospel, told him it was OK for Gentiles but not Jews. He has already compared his Gospel to the one preached by Jesus' Brother. .

Well first of all, as some of us have been pointing out repeatedly in all these various HJ threads - it is far from clear that this person “James” was ever a family brother of Jesus. That entire idea comes from just three words at the end of one sentence in a Christian copy circa.200AD in just one of Paul’s letters, where it says “other apostles saw I none, save James” … “the Lords brother”.

Afaik, Paul never mentions any such thing about any “lords brother” ever again. Though he does often refer to brothers and brethren in the faith of Christianity.

Also, this same James apparently wrote his own gospel, but nowhere in any extant copy of that gospel does he claim to be the brother of Jesus.

So I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to proceed as if we knew that this same person “James” (and there are quite a few different people called “James” in the bible, where they are often mixed up as to who is who), ever was a real blood brother of a living Jesus. So that’s the first thing we have to say re. “James” .

As for what Paul preaches as his “gospel”, and the fact that the people he met in Jerusalem, eg James, Cephas and John (whoever any of them were) knowing what sort of thing Paul had been preaching - why would that be unusual? Why is it a surprise that James, Cephas and John as the pillars of Christianity would know what Paul has been saying about his belief in Jesus and the correct interpretation “according to scripture”?

The fact that they each knew the other persons preaching (ie their “gospel”) has no bearing at all on whether Paul knew what Jesus had actually said to anyone.

James has a problem with the purity laws not being observed, but he doesn't at any point say; "Hang on a second, I never had a brother called Jesus. Who's this Jesus bloke you keep going on about?".

But that has nothing to do with what we are discussing either. I’m not sure where you are trying to go with that line of argument. Lets recap a moment - afaik this is supposed to be a meeting which Paul had 3 years after his vision of Jesus. But it’s only 20 or 30 years later that Paul is supposed to have written the three words “the lords brother”. So at the time of the meeting about 25 years before Paul wrote his letters, there would be no reason for James to say “hang on a second, 25 years in the future I foresee that you will write a letter where a copy turns up 200 years later with three words added at the end of a sentence describing me as “the lords brother” … how is James in c.36AD going to object to what appeared in a Christian copy from 200AD?

And that’s apart from the fact that if the words were ever said by Paul to James at that meeting, and that is not what Paul’s letter says anyway!, then it might have been obvious to James that Paul was talking about various brethren believers as brothers in the faith.

So in Galatians he tells us he got his Gospel from "no man", but he also tells us that the people who did know Jesus, also knew about Paul's Gospel. They weren't overly fond of Paul's Gospel, but I think if he'd invented a totally fictional Jesus, they might have mentioned it.

Well firstly on those points - afaik Paul does not say that any of the people he met had ever known Jesus anyway. And he certainly does not demonstrate any truth in any such idea by telling us anything that anyone revealed to him about a real living Jesus. So afaik the fact of that matter is - nowhere in any of Paul’s letters does Paul ever describe any information about a real living Jesus that he got as in any way credible from anyone he ever met.

Ebionite (Early Jewish Christian, if you prefer) traditions centred around a wholly human Jesus, not a wholly spiritual Jesus.

All sorts of people may have believed that Jesus was once a real person. But the problem is, as we have pointing out in all these HJ threads, it appears there is actually zero evidence that anyone who ever wrote about Jesus had ever met him! (except of course in their religious dreams!).

 

[TimCallahan]

For crying out loud, I already did that -- in detail -- at the top of the page here --

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117203&page=12

All right, so you disagree with my position, but that wasn't what you were after -- I thought. I thought you were after my position, period. I gave it -- in that post -- as a direct response to your invite -- which was identical to the wording of your post here!

How in hell does that previous post at the top of page 12 not give you your answer? There, I give you very clearly just where I'm coming from. If you don't like it, you don't like it. But don't say I haven't supplied it! I have!

WHY ARE YOU REPEATING THE INVITE HERE?!

Stone

I apologize if i missed your position. It's frankly difficult to pull it out of all that verbiage.

Now, would you care to answer the rest of my post?

 

[TimCallahan]

Tim, would you now consider answering my question to you from post 486?

Is there a verse where Paul says that Jesus' teaching about divorce is part of Paul's gospel?

In case it wasn't clear, that would be the teaching Paul attributed to the "Lord" in 1 Corinthians 7: 10-11 and his gospel which he discussed in Galatians 1 and 2 (unless you have another passage for that in mind). I don't know where to point you for the requested verse. (But please see below, Ian may have found something.) . . . (mega-snip material addressed to Ian . . .

Well, the phrase "not I but the Lord," does say it was a teaching of Jesus. Of course, Paul says his gospel came from a direct revelation of Jesus. I does occur to me that Paul might well have heard of some of Jesus teachings, some of those he was opposed to when he was persecuting the Christian sect. Memory being as tricky as it is, he could easily have decided that his visionary Jesus taught them to him.

On the other hand, he clearly felt that his visionary Christ Jesus wanted to include the Gentiles into Christian belief without them having to first become Jews by way of circumcision and observing the dietary laws. It's pretty clear from Gal. 2:11, 12 that James is opposed to these ideas and Peter is vacillating concerning them, which seems a bit odd if Jesus had had preached that these laws no longer applied. Thus, I would see this aspect of Paul's gospel as part of his own deluded belief that Jesus had taught them to him in a vision.

 

[Brainache]

Well first of all, as some of us have been pointing out repeatedly in all these various HJ threads - it is far from clear that this person “James” was ever a family brother of Jesus. That entire idea comes from just three words at the end of one sentence in a Christian copy circa.200AD in just one of Paul’s letters, where it says “other apostles saw I none, save James” … “the Lords brother”.

And all of the early church fathers, and Josephus...

Afaik, Paul never mentions any such thing about any “lords brother” ever again. Though he does often refer to brothers and brethren in the faith of Christianity.

Also, this same James apparently wrote his own gospel, but nowhere in any extant copy of that gospel does he claim to be the brother of Jesus.

That Gospel appears to have been written centuries later with the express purpose of denying that James was Jesus' brother. But the cat was already out of the bag by then.

So I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to proceed as if we knew that this same person “James” (and there are quite a few different people called “James” in the bible, where they are often mixed up as to who is who), ever was a real blood brother of a living Jesus. So that’s the first thing we have to say re. “James” .

Yes the bible is a confusing mish-mash of rewrites, overwrites and spin, which is why we need to rely on extra-biblical sources. Sources that aren't preoccupied by the Blessed Virgin schtick. When you do that, most of the confusion disappears.

As for what Paul preaches as his “gospel”, and the fact that the people he met in Jerusalem, eg James, Cephas and John (whoever any of them were) knowing what sort of thing Paul had been preaching - why would that be unusual? Why is it a surprise that James, Cephas and John as the pillars of Christianity would know what Paul has been saying about his belief in Jesus and the correct interpretation “according to scripture”?

The fact that they each knew the other persons preaching (ie their “gospel”) has no bearing at all on whether Paul knew what Jesus had actually said to anyone.

I didn't say it was surprising. But if they knew Paul's Gospel, they knew it was about a god-man called Jesus. If Jesus never existed, James, Cephas and John (apostles before Paul), would no doubt be aware of that fact. Don't you think?

But that has nothing to do with what we are discussing either. I’m not sure where you are trying to go with that line of argument. Lets recap a moment - afaik this is supposed to be a meeting which Paul had 3 years after his vision of Jesus. But it’s only 20 or 30 years later that Paul is supposed to have written the three words “the lords brother”. So at the time of the meeting about 25 years before Paul wrote his letters, there would be no reason for James to say “hang on a second, 25 years in the future I foresee that you will write a letter where a copy turns up 200 years later with three words added at the end of a sentence describing me as “the lords brother” … how is James in c.36AD going to object to what appeared in a Christian copy from 200AD?

And that’s apart from the fact that if the words were ever said by Paul to James at that meeting, and that is not what Paul’s letter says anyway!, then it might have been obvious to James that Paul was talking about various brethren believers as brothers in the faith.

You missed the point that Paul's Gospel is about Jesus. It's irrelevant whether or not James was his brother, as a disciple of Jesus he should be aware of whether or not Jesus was a man. Paul's Gospel includes things like; "He was born of a woman under the law", "died and was buried" etc, not things you would say about a spiritual being. No one takes Paul to task for humanising an abstract concept of "salvation", they took him to task for preaching against the Law.

Well firstly on those points - afaik Paul does not say that any of the people he met had ever known Jesus anyway. And he certainly does not demonstrate any truth in any such idea by telling us anything that anyone revealed to him about a real living Jesus. So afaik the fact of that matter is - nowhere in any of Paul’s letters does Paul ever describe any information about a real living Jesus that he got as in any way credible from anyone he ever met.

He doesn't tell us what he had for breakfast every day, either. Can we assume from that that he never ate breakfast?

He says that James and Cephas and John were following Jesus before he was. He says that Pilate killed Jesus. He calls James "The Lord's Brother". He knew when Pilate was governor, he must have had some idea how old these people were.

Do you think he means they were following a teacher called "Jesus" without actually meeting a teacher called "Jesus"? I don't.

All sorts of people may have believed that Jesus was once a real person. But the problem is, as we have pointing out in all these HJ threads, it appears there is actually zero evidence that anyone who ever wrote about Jesus had ever met him! (except of course in their religious dreams!).

Well, there are the epistles of James and Jude. There is evidence, just not direct evidence.

 

[eight bits]

Tim

Well, the phrase "not I but the Lord," does say it was a teaching of Jesus. Of course, Paul says his gospel came from a direct revelation of Jesus.

Thanks for getting back to me.

You and I agree that Paul says that the teaching on divorce is a teaching of Jesus. We also agree that Paul attributed to a revelation of Jesus Christ the teachings about which Paul wrote in Galatians 1: 11-12, which he had preached, past tense, apparently to the Galatians to whom he's writing.

I suspect we might also agree that "the gospel preached by me" includes the gospel that Paul recites immediately after the history of his dealing with the James gang, Galatians 2:15-29 (end of chapter):

We, who are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles, who know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? Of course not! But if I am building up again those things that I tore down, then I show myself to be a transgressor.

For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ;yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

That's signature Paul evangelism: justification by faith and not by works, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; the Son of God has loved me and given himself up for me. Clearly this is just the sort of thing somebody might take away from a private religious experience, and none of it is anything you'd need to check with a bunch of retired fishermen pursuing a second career as religious preachers.

So, the question I still have is whether there is there a verse where Paul says that Jesus' teaching in a different letter addressed to a different audfience on another occasion about an entirely different topic is also part of Paul's gospel mentioned as having been preached in Galatians.

Is the question unclear? Should I be asking you first what teachings you think Paul meant by "the gospel preached by me," past tense, in Galatians? Then I can could ask what verse says that that set includes the marriage teachings Paul presents in 1 Corinthians.

 

[TimCallahan]

. . . (mega snip) . . .
So, the question I still have is whether there is there a verse where Paul says that Jesus' teaching in a different letter addressed to a different audfience on another occasion about an entirely different topic is also part of Paul's gospel mentioned as having been preached in Galatians.

Is the question unclear? Should I be asking you first what teachings you think Paul meant by "the gospel preached by me," past tense, in Galatians? Then I can could ask what verse says that that set includes the marriage teachings Paul presents in 1 Corinthians.

I would assume that any teaching Paul put forward, he assumed to be that of Jesus. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're driving at. As far as I can tell, Paul's gospel was that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, atoned for the sins of all. Thus, the separation between Jews and Gentiles meant nothing (see Gal. 3:28). It's also evident from 1 Cor. 7:29 - 31, among other verses, that his gospel was apocalyptic.

 

[Brainache]

I would assume that any teaching Paul put forward, he assumed to be that of Jesus. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're driving at. As far as I can tell, Paul's gospel was that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, atoned for the sins of all. Thus, the separation between Jews and Gentiles meant nothing (see Gal. 3:28). It's also evident from 1 Cor. 7:29 - 31, among other verses, that his gospel was apocalyptic.

And yet Paul is still saying Widows/Widowers can re-marry etc as if it might be a bit of a while to wait. Whereas Jesus appears to be saying it will happen soon enough not to have to worry about such things.

I guess as time went by, more and more people were dying and that darn apocalypse kept not showing up...

Don't worry Fundies, I'm sure it will happen very soon...

 

[eight bits]

Tim

Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're driving at.

I'm not driving at anything. I am asking you a question, based on some statements you made.

As far as I can tell, Paul's gospel was that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, atoned for the sins of all. Thus, the separation between Jews and Gentiles meant nothing (see Gal. 3:28). It's also evident from 1 Cor. 7:29 - 31, among other verses, that his gospel was apocalyptic.

Yes, I think that Paul, a Pharisee, believed, before he ever heard of Jesus, that dead people would rise at the end of days, and could see for himself that at other times, dead people didn't rise. He might also believe, before he ever heard of Jesus, that righteous Gentiles would stand side by side with righteous Jews at the end of days. Since Paul believes that Jesus has lately risen from the dead, it follows that his gospel, along with his entire worldview, was necessarily apocalyptic: the end of days were here, and the separation of Jews and Gentiles can cease.

These are things he could work out for himself without the James Gang's or anybody else's help, and if Paul is as learned a Pharisee as he says, he needs nothing from Jesus, either, except a visit establishing that Jesus is alive, and a confident belief that Jesus had died. Jesus needn't say a word to Paul to supply all that Paul needs to make the inference. (That's good, because Paul doesn't say that Jesus spoke to him about what Paul preached to the Galatians.)

OK, so far so good. I notice that Paul doesn't say in 1 Cornthians 7: 29-31 whether or not this recital was part of the gospel he preached to the Galatians. No biggie, the subject matter and his general approach to it there are broadly consistent with what he said in Galatians.

My question arises because 1 Corinthians 7: 10-11 doesn't have anything to do with any subject discussed in Galatians 1 and 2. It's about ordinary people's marriages, an entirely different subject presented to an entirely different audience. It would also seem that unlike something Paul can work out for himself simply by seeing a living Jesus, Jesus needs to say something here - in particular he needs to instruct Paul that what's in the Jewish Bible is wrong.

To make a long story short, then, I can't see any reason to associate 1 Corinthians 7: 10-11 with the gospel Paul preached to the Galatians, whose origins Paul described to those people.

So, is this, too, in your view, part of Paul's gospel which he preched to the Galatians, with the effect that these teachings are covered by Paul's statements in Galatians 1 about origins (he got it from no man, it was something he received by a revelation of Jesus Christ)? If so, then is there a verse which says that it should be viewed as such? If you prefer to offer some different or some additonal basis for connecting them in that way, then that's great, too.

 

[Stone]

I apologize if i missed your position. It's frankly difficult to pull it out of all that verbiage.

Touche. Pakeha has submitted a better version --

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9603160&postcount=443

Now, would you care to answer the rest of my post?

Paul's quotes from Jesus are no more directly from Jesus than the parallel Q sayings in Matt./Luke or the sayings that dovetail with those in GMark or GThomas. The only difference is that Paul's come slightly earlier in the textual strata, so they're going to reflect a slightly earlier stage in this "game of telephone" that is typical of half the documentation we have for half the fringe figures of ancient times who were not lucky enough to be kings, generals, etc. That's the only thing that gives Paul's quotes any distinct value.

Look, I'm perfectly familiar with all the rote arguments in response -- Paul never encountered the human Jesus, he says he got his revelation from no man, his commerce with Jesus's own associates was minimal, and bla bla bla. Fact is, I'm not in a minority of college-educated secular readers -- or of secular scholars -- when I read Paul's quotes as reflecting an ongoing process in which he interacted with plenty of Christians both as a persecutor and a defender.

For you, it makes more sense that any knowledge he has comes from his hallucinations; for the majority of secular scholars, OTOH, it just makes much more sense that his knowledge comes from the accumulated type of knowledge that any reasonably alert follower of the thinking of his day would have had. It is fully comparable with what a persecutor of Martin Luther King like J. Edgar Hoover might have known about King's thoughts and actions. Obviously, Hoover didn't know King's associates intimately. But he knew enough about King to know some of the things he said that made him dangerous in Hoover's eyes.

Ultimately, this is all old-hat stuff, both from me and from you. All we have are seven measly texts of seven possibly authentic letters. So impressions HAVE to play a part here. It's unavoidable. The fact is, secular 21st-century specialists have now published their impressions in depth based on highly educated sensibilities often independent of any denominational bias -- though irrational tin-foil-hat conspiratorialists using scant evidence deny that absence of bias -- and the whopping majority of educated secular readers, including me, find these modern secularized studies and their informed perspective persuasive.

This is not a fruitful exchange. It just gives each of us a chance to rehash our impressions of the state of play of the most updated scholarship in 2013 and to massage our egos accordingly. But it gets us no further because we cannot add any new info that the scholars don't already have.

In addition, I cannot read Koine Greek. Can you? I read translations and, contextually, I find Paul's discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians to be a blatant example of Paul's squaring off Jesus remarks that are perfectly familiar to his readers with extra glosses of his own. Your impressions are totally different from that. I don't see any way of bridging that at all. Neither of us can bring any new info to the table.

Moreover, this is the very exchange that I've had with countless other Netties for the past five years. I've also read and observed and lurked over countless other such exchanges as well. The educated secular academic consensus is that Paul's quotes come from his ongoing experiences with the Christian community, both as an associate and a persecutor, and the context of the chapter on marriage in 1 Corinthians seems to blatantly bear that out. A fringe outlook only is that no human interaction is behind the context for Paul's discussion on marriage -- or on anything related to Jesus -- at all. DUH. No surprise there.

I just don't find any of the latter persuasive after five+ plus years of digging into all this fringe material. Fact is, I now find far more bias in such ill-educated speculation than I do in secular peer-vetted scholarship coming from the academia of 2013.

I know from experience that this exchange is infinitely cyclical.

Enough already.

Stone

 

[tsig]

Touche. Pakeha has submitted a better version --

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9603160&postcount=443



Paul's quotes from Jesus are no more directly from Jesus than the parallel Q sayings in Matt./Luke or the sayings that dovetail with those in GMark or GThomas. The only difference is that Paul's come slightly earlier in the textual strata, so they're going to reflect a slightly earlier stage in this "game of telephone" that is typical of half the documentation we have for half the fringe figures of ancient times who were not lucky enough to be kings, generals, etc. That's the only thing that gives Paul's quotes any distinct value.

Look, I'm perfectly familiar with all the rote arguments in response -- Paul never encountered the human Jesus, he says he got his revelation from no man, his commerce with Jesus's own associates was minimal, and bla bla bla. Fact is, I'm not in a minority of college-educated secular readers -- or of secular scholars -- when I read Paul's quotes as reflecting an ongoing process in which he interacted with plenty of Christians both as a persecutor and a defender.

For you, it makes more sense that any knowledge he has comes from his hallucinations; for the majority of secular scholars, OTOH, it just makes much more sense that his knowledge comes from the accumulated type of knowledge that any reasonably alert follower of the thinking of his day would have had. It is fully comparable with what a persecutor of Martin Luther King like J. Edgar Hoover might have known about King's thoughts and actions. Obviously, Hoover didn't know King's associates intimately. But he knew enough about King to know some of the things he said that made him dangerous in Hoover's eyes.

Ultimately, this is all old-hat stuff, both from me and from you. All we have are seven measly texts of seven possibly authentic letters. So impressions HAVE to play a part here. It's unavoidable. The fact is, secular 21st-century specialists have now published their impressions in depth based on highly educated sensibilities often independent of any denominational bias -- though irrational tin-foil-hat conspiratorialists using scant evidence deny that absence of bias -- and the whopping majority of educated secular readers, including me, find these modern secularized studies and their informed perspective persuasive.

This is not a fruitful exchange. It just gives each of us a chance to rehash our impressions of the state of play of the most updated scholarship in 2013 and to massage our egos accordingly. But it gets us no further because we cannot add any new info that the scholars don't already have.

In addition, I cannot read Koine Greek. Can you? I read translations and, contextually, I find Paul's discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians to be a blatant example of Paul's squaring off Jesus remarks that are perfectly familiar to his readers with extra glosses of his own. Your impressions are totally different from that. I don't see any way of bridging that at all. Neither of us can bring any new info to the table.

Moreover, this is the very exchange that I've had with countless other Netties for the past five years. I've also read and observed and lurked over countless other such exchanges as well. The educated secular academic consensus is that Paul's quotes come from his ongoing experiences with the Christian community, both as an associate and a persecutor, and the context of the chapter on marriage in 1 Corinthians seems to blatantly bear that out. A fringe outlook only is that no human interaction is behind the context for Paul's discussion on marriage -- or on anything related to Jesus -- at all. DUH. No surprise there.

I just don't find any of the latter persuasive after five+ plus years of digging into all this fringe material. Fact is, I now find far more bias in such ill-educated speculation than I do in secular peer-vetted scholarship coming from the academia of 2013.

I know from experience that this exchange is infinitely cyclical.

Enough already.

Stone

No, impressions do not have to play a part unless you feel under some compulsion to argue for Jesus' existence.

 

[Stone]

No, impressions do not have to play a part unless you feel under some compulsion to argue for Jesus' existence.

That's baloney. Specialized professional Greek scholars read passages like the Paul chapter on marriage as indicating a presumed degree of familiarity with Jesus's remarks on the part of Paul's readers. One cannot get away from dealing in educated impressions right there. But fringe proselytizers with an axe to grind insist that their impressions are that nothing Paul writes about Jesus references any human interaction at all. So their impressions and those of today's professional scholars are at polar extremes. Once one tackles a disagreement like this, impressions are front and center. Some impressions may be INFORMED impressions reflecting years of in-depth study in the cultural and linguistic ways of an ancient time. Other impressions may reflect wishful thinking only. But it's all impressions.

And if you want to ad-hom your way through imputations of "compulsion", modern bloggers like the mythers trying to discredit decades of painstaking secular scholarship are obviously much more irrationally compulsive than professional researchers generating peer-vetted scholarship under the most rigorous conditions.

Stone

 

[Belz...]

Am never certain when T.C. is being snarky and when not. His itemizing here of so much of the "platform" of the mythers

Be advised that I stop reading a post of yours as soon as I spot this word.

 

[Belz...]

Well firstly on those points - afaik Paul does not say that any of the people he met had ever known Jesus anyway. And he certainly does not demonstrate any truth in any such idea by telling us anything that anyone revealed to him about a real living Jesus. So afaik the fact of that matter is - nowhere in any of Paul’s letters does Paul ever describe any information about a real living Jesus that he got as in any way credible from anyone he ever met.

Bears repeating...

 

[Belz...]

And all of the early church fathers, and Josephus...

Yeah but where do those come from ?

So impressions HAVE to play a part here. It's unavoidable.

Or, alternatively, we could just say that we don't know and can't conclude anything yet.