Jesus of Ramathaim

[ddt]

That said, about Peter and James, I truly don't know. Paul really doesn't give us all that much about them, even for such a confabulation.

It's, of course, possible that they were just like in the Gospels. I.e., that Peter actually was Jesus's best buddy -- in my rich Jesus reconstruction, even his caravan guard, to explain that pesky sword -- and that Jesus did have a biological brother called James.

The fly in the ointment I find with that, is that Paul assures us that

A) he preached Christianity long before ever meeting Peter or James, based on no more than his revelations (whether they be dreams, hallucinations, or just finding references to Jesus in the OT, take your pick), yet

B) when he does meet Peter and James, so accurate is his story from revelations, that Peter or James have nothing to add to it.

Which is odd if Jesus was a real person that Peter and James knew.

We're speculating in this thread anyway, aren't we?

What about the idea that Paul pulled a John Edward on Peter and James and did a bit of cold reading to convince them his Jesus was the same as Peter's and James'?
"Hmm, I see a - Chi"
"A cross?"
"Yes, a cross, that's it."

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, let's look at the sequence Paul describes in Galatians, off the top of my head:

1. Paul has his revelation (in whatever form that may have come.)

2. Paul goes for three years into Arabia to preach. He explicitly mentions that he did NOT consult with anyone about it before going into Arabia.

3. Paul goes to Damascus. We don't know how long he stayed there, but obviously enough to be enough of a nuisance that the king personally dispatches troops to essentially besiege his own city to catch Paul. I'm guessing it took more than a day

4. Paul goes to Jerusalem, stays with Peter for two weeks, meets James too. Conspicuously enough, although part of what Paul is conveying is that eventually he did get confirmation from those too, he mentions it at step 6, but not here. Apparently at this point, Paul didn't feel a need to ask anything about Jesus, and Peter wasn't telling him anything. (Then again, if Paul used to persecute Christians and is the guy who instigated Stephen's execution, Peter may have good reasons to keep his mouth shut.)

(Just for the record, some argue that this whole trip to Jerusalem may be a later interpolation. I mentioned this in the other thread. I'm not going to go into that here, since it's not really important for what I'm trying to say. So let's assume Paul did go there.)

5. Paul buggers off abroad for fourteen years.

6. Paul goes back to Jerusalem because another revelation told him to (his speaking to ghostly Jesus was not a one-time thing), and FINALLY runs his story past some random people. (No, seriously, he conspicuously feels a need to mention that he didn't care if they actually had the authority or anything.)

Well, anyway, between #1 and #6, that's almost two decades of Paul preaching and starting churches all over the place. I'd think by that point it's too late to change the major points of his religion, no matter whether he gets them by cold reading or otherwise. You don't go to your churches after 17 years and tell them, "Guys, pay attention because this is important: it was actually Jesus not Bigus Dickus, and he was crucified, not drowned. But I figure we can still keep the cool fish symbols."

ETA:

That said, IF we believe Acts about it (and it's a big IF,) Paul did kind of omit most details when speaking to the Jerusalem group. E.g., his initial asking for permission to preach to Gentiles leaves one more with the impression that James was thinking he's just going to tell Gentiles about the Noahide laws for Gentiles... and then Paul forgets to actually convey even those restrictions. E.g., he doesn't tell James too that Jews don't have to obey the Law any more, but is perfectly willing to go through with a Jewish purification ritual to appear like an observant Jew to James.

Though in all fairness, Paul may not be deceiving only the Jerusalem church. Even to the Gentiles, according to Acts, let's just say that to a group of Pagan Greeks he tells a fundamentally different story than what he was telling his church in an epistle.

At any rate, even according to Paul, he didn't get anything from humans, so even without Acts, he might not have gone in depth into exactly what his beliefs are vs what Peter's beliefs are.

Which kinda makes me just wonder, in the wise words of Daffy Duck, "Was this trip really necessary?" Exactly why does Paul only now want some confirmation? It's clear he could preach just fine for many years without caring if Peter or James have anything to add. And if he does want confirmation, then why does he not do it right? What was the point of all that?

 

[JaysonR]

Alright,

So; I've been holding off because I would like to outline all of this in more depth, but it may be until sometime this weekend before that happens, so I'll toss it out in brief for now and circle back later for more detail as inquired.

Davefoc,
You asked for how the concept could be Hebrew and then Hellenistic; the crossing point.
I take this differently than Hans, as I will be addressing the concepts; how the concepts can be Hebrew that were migrated to Hellenistic.

Jesus comes around during a time where everyone appears to be discussing the end of their peoples, and its a constant social debate as to what to do in their society to stave off their perceived end; which they didn't end up accomplishing.

The traditional standard at the time held by many priest parties (somewhat like political parties today) was that authority was granted through hierarchical means very carefully by those who live clean enough daily to receive and/or interpret the Law into decree.

Jesus hits this assertion face on and opposes it, asserting that the authority of moral judgement (which, for these peoples, was synonymous with State rule; "moral judgement" for these peoples is like "Legislative Law" in America...kind of) was part of the covenant of Abraham, and that since all Hebrew peoples are decedents of Abraham, that all Hebrew peoples have the authority in their blood by inheritance.
He proposes that the solution for survival is to not abstain from helping each other due to decree, but to help each other in spite of decree when there is need to help each other.
He elaborates at length that a moral obligation to their peoples is the highest order, and to separate from each other only weakens their force; and thereby their chance of survival.

This was the Hebrew tangent.

How did this get picked up by Hellenistic cultures?
It is, indeed, an odd instance, as that outline doesn't seem very interesting to anyone but Hebrews.
However, we have folks like Paul to thank for the conversion of the concepts.

Paul appears to see a general concept in this that he seems to think is useful to anyone, and not just Hebrews.
He extrapolates the authority to moral judgement by blood-right and patches the access to this authority by outlining how devotion to the spirit of the concept grants the authority (his elaborations on the admission of the Holy Spirit), and then take the unification tangent of sticking together and tailors that to be regarding those who follow the concepts outlined, rather than any specific race or region of peoples.

So now the entire concept itself has changed.
Instead of being a charge of moving forward to preserve the Hebrew peoples, Paul now presents a general conceptualized and ambiguous variation that is presented as a perpetual life style, rather than a finite solution for a specific crises.

Along side of this, there are other off-shoots that spring up as well that are flavoring the narrative with many Hellenistic tastes, and very soon, Jesus is a sort of demi god religious sect in Hellenistic cultures, and is filled with all of the adornments of that class.

Paul appears to fight both ends of the stick, both against Hebrew movements into Hellenistic groups that assert that they should follow traditions and actions of Hebrew culture, and those more fanciful Hellenistic groups that have elaborated Jesus into a pure spirit of some form that did not live a life of a man among men, or treat Jesus as an evocative power source to some kind of secret and powerful magic.


Eventually, as time moves on, the Orthodoxies emerge and quickly all of these variations floating around cause a huge issue of an identity crises for Jesus, and eventually only a few options walk out alive (pun somewhat intended); one of which is the Trinity branch of Rome, and they become the largest Western cultural influence going forward (Eastern Orthodox doesn't regain some footing until mid-way through the 20th century; though it never died out).

With all of this, comes the requirement to make some sort of standard for all contents explored in the texts that they accept, and some of those ideas are these same ideas listed above; though post-Pauline conversion.

From here, the authority access that was outlined by Paul as being accessed by an admission of the Holy Spirit becomes (in an interesting twist) a reversion back to hierarchical authority because devotion to the concepts (or spirit of the concepts) was being used, and the spirit has been now tailored to be an actual figurehead of the godhead of the Trinity doctrine, and so now those who devote their lives so entirely "into" the Spirit as to remove all other interests in life save for living entirely in 'service to the Lord' are seen as more authoritative than those are just followers and have general admission of the Holy Spirit, and as such, are then the authority to which all others must submit by logical consequence.

Things like the Samaritan concept, which started out (however that tangent was originally formatted) as a Hebrew paradox comparison (a common tool of the Hebrews rhetorically) between Clean and Righteous Hebrews who no one could fault by Law and unclean outcast Hebrew peoples (Samaritans); using their social juxtaposition as a stool for the assertion that aid does not need to concern with Clean, but simply Hebrew, were converted into something that is simply egalitarian in general since the Hebrew context is meaningless, and therefore would otherwise render such concepts themselves meaningless without a conversion to general egalitarian positions (despite plenty of textual citations to the opposite that were generally explained away or glossed over if addressed).


More or less...that's the general gist of it.

Hope that helps.
Oh, and this sympathizes with Hans' non-dirt-poor Jesus as it would be more likely for a decently fairing individual to get wrapped up in the political activist movements of the time and set out to assert a position on the imperative matters of the time, and such a choice would most likely be seen by those who knew someone like this as nuts since just about all activists during this time were killed or faired very poor treatment.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Alternately, it could be just the fact that Paul isn't preaching to the Jews, and seems pretty hellenized himself, so that would explain why he sees Jesus through those eyes.

The general trend in the Roman Empire at the time was away from gods that pull the strings to protect the community and give them good crops and stuff, and more towards personal saviour gods that care about what YOU do and give YOU eternal life.

Not only Paul could be himself touched by this trend, as a literate Greek speaker, but he's talking to Greek speaking Gentiles, not to Jews. In fact he tells us himself that that's the arrangement he has with that Jerusalem group. And some of those Gentiles might be interested in Judaism, like the God Fearers that Dave mentions, but they might not be into it as a way to help the whole community. (In which case they'd stick to the old gods of the community.) So it's probably not hard to imagine how Jesus would end up that kind of a god.

Now I'm not necessarily saying that he deliberately tuned Jesus to his market (though he might have,) but even simple random chance would work that way. If you have enough people starting their own cults, even by sheer chance SOMEONE has to be the best tuned to what the market wants to hear.

Basically it's just that if Paul didn't do that, now we'd be talking about some other guys instead of Paul and Jesus. Like maybe we'd be debating whether Zalmoxis was a real person.

 

[JaysonR]

Quite so...it should be noted that when I state that 'Paul converted the concept...', I am not isolating motive or how overt the action was.
Instead, I am only addressing that there is a conversion point and that it makes sense considering the social divergence and meaninglessness of the Hebraic isolationist interpretations of the concepts to the Hellenistic cultures.

It could easily be accidental.

 

[Craig B]

We're speculating in this thread anyway, aren't we?

What about the idea that Paul pulled a John Edward on Peter and James and did a bit of cold reading to convince them his Jesus was the same as Peter's and James'?
"Hmm, I see a - Chi"
"A cross?"
"Yes, a cross, that's it."

"His" Jesus was a light in the sky perceived in Syria at noonday. Peter's and James's Jesus was a person. Paul denies (as he might well do!) receiving any information about "his" Jesus from Peter and James. James for his part denies that "his" Jesus authorised departures from the Law of Moses. Paul never convinced the James Gang. He convinced some Gentiles who wanted to worship a unique god without being obliged to stop eating sausages or have their genital organs messed about with.

 

[davefoc]

"His" Jesus was a light in the sky perceived in Syria at noonday. Peter's and James's Jesus was a person. Paul denies (as he might well do!) receiving any information about "his" Jesus from Peter and James. James for his part denies that "his" Jesus authorised departures from the Law of Moses. Paul never convinced the James Gang. He convinced some Gentiles who wanted to worship a unique god without being obliged to stop eating sausages or have their genital organs messed about with.

This is pretty close to the standard secular version although told in a more entertaining way.

I have two problems with this version and perhaps they are both just my problems:

Problem 1
It seems like the disputes between Paul and the James gang would be so significant that they couldn't agree on anything. The standard secular story is that the James gang is pushing some sort of religion that doesn't include a supernatural Jesus. Paul is clearly pushing full blast for the idea of a supernatural Jesus. This seems like a lot bigger divide than whether one gets to eat pork sausage or not.

I see two explanations:
A. The James gang morphs into something where Jesus is raised to the level of a supernatural superman and these ideas just pass over to Paul. And Paul's representation of James is fairly accurate.
B. Paul just makes James out to be what he wants him to be. We don't have any other independent references to James so Paul has got a free rein when it comes to telling people about James.

Problem 2
What the heck is the deal with Paul?
Paul just flits around the Mediterranean. There is no mention of where he gets the money to finance these trips. There is no mention of how he goes about his task. Does he just wake up one morning, throw a dart at his map and when it strikes the area the Thessalonians live he just traipses over there and starts proselytizing to random people passing by until he's got enough customers for a tent revival and then he starts preaching until people in his audience start a new church?

ETA: My apologies to JaysonR. I did not mean to ignore your post which I think attempts to address my questions. It is just taking me awhile to fully assimilate it and I went to dinner before the assimilation was complete.

 

[Craig B]

... What the heck is the deal with Paul?
Paul just flits around the Mediterranean. There is no mention of where he gets the money to finance these trips.

Eh?

1 Cor 16:1 Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. 2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. 3 And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem.

1 Cor 9:14 Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. 15 But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.

Believe v 15 if you like. He was collecting money for the "saints" and never touched a brass lepton to cover his own expenses?

2 Cor 8:1 Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia; 2 How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. 3 For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves; 4 Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. 5 And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.

See also this commentary on Paul's financial arrangements. http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/2Cor/Paul-Sets-Forth-Guidelines

 

[davefoc]

Eh? ...http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/2Cor/Paul-Sets-Forth-Guidelines

I was to a degree aware of that stuff and misspoke a bit. What I was talking about was where does he get the coin to fund his crusade initially. I guess though that one could ask that of any of the contemporary big time holy rollers. They started small, built a following and all of a sudden they've got the coin to fund sea cruises.

So the model here, before I've read your link, is that Paul starts small, builds a following some place that he's familiar with, word of Paul spreads, his flock puts together a few bucks so that Paul can take his crusade on the road.

One question: Is it word of Paul that is paving the way for Paul's proselytizing or is it word of the messiah that has come and gone that is paving the way for Paul's proselytizing or is it both or neither?

Just one last comment before I read your link and learn something. Once again it seems possible to make almost any story fit within the known data because almost nothing is known.

 

[davefoc]

Hi JaysonR,
I think I understand the gist of your post now. To put it in my own words:

Jesus is pitching a kind of religious Democracy. Religious authority shouldn't be based on aristocratic requirements. Religious authority should be based on acting in a moral way that helps your fellow citizens to survive as Jews.

Paul, gets wind of this message and morphs it into something that has a more widespread appeal and succeeds in pushing his version of the Jesus message.

Assuming that I have understood your post, it sounds reasonable to me, sort of, and it sounds pretty much in line with standard secular theorizing about the nature of Jesus and the nature of Paul. But what is the real James like and is it likely that he would be interacting at all with the worldly, Greek speaking Paul. What is the relationship of James to the people that are competing with Paul for converts?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

It's not just money, though. Paul even gets people put at his disposal to take care of his needs, for example.

Philippians 2:25: "But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs."

(Incidentally, this verse also illustrates another thing I kept repeating: for Paul an apostle is just a messenger. Epaphroditus as "your messenger" is literally "your apostle" in Greek in that verse.)

But yeah, he's well supplied too: Philippians 4:18: "I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent."

And he assures them in the same verse that their gifts to him are an offering pleasing to God. Nice scam to run, really. "Give me, and you please God."

And the thing about this verse, and why I'm mentioning it, is that here Paul doesn't even pretend it's just some collection for the poor or for some unspecified churches. HE is well supplied by the Philippians' donations, and their envoy takes care of HIS needs.

ETA: and it's not a one-time thing either. 4:16-17 makes it clear that they sent him "gifts" repeatedly, all over the place. E.g., 16 says, "for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need." So, you know, it's not even once every couple of years, but during his stay in a single city he received several such "gifts" from the Philippians.

 

[JaysonR]

Hi JaysonR,
I think I understand the gist of your post now. To put it in my own words:

Jesus is pitching a kind of religious Democracy. Religious authority shouldn't be based on aristocratic requirements. Religious authority should be based on acting in a moral way that helps your fellow citizens to survive as Jews.

Paul, gets wind of this message and morphs it into something that has a more widespread appeal and succeeds in pushing his version of the Jesus message.

In paraphrase, yes.

But what is the real James like

We don't really know.
Assuming the texts are accurate portraits of him, he appears to be a rather simple individual with some tolerance, but not much.

is it likely that he would be interacting at all with the worldly, Greek speaking Paul.

It is possible; Paul and James are in a timeline plausible for crossing paths, and Galatia is not really far from Antioch and Galilee.

What is the relationship of James to the people that are competing with Paul for converts?

That's unknown.

For instance, it's unknown what relationship James could have had with Gnostic-Ebionite groups that might have moved north to the Gnostic sympathetic Antioch region; or what relationship James could have had with Paul's "Judaizers" when writing to Galatia who would have had to pass James' region (though uncertain if they would interact) to reach Galatia.

I can only draw very crude conjectures on this.
If we take all of the events to be some reasonable representation of the interaction between Paul and James, then I would assume that James' position to "Judaizers" would be passive disregard.
James basically gives up on Paul in Paul's constant arguments about how to handle non-Hebrews (to quote Mel Brooks from his Robin Hood film: "Abbot: I hate that guy!").

So if there were a group of Jews wanting to go up to Galatia and teach them Jewish custom and Laws, I would guess that if that event took place after James gave up on talking to Paul, that if that group had talked to James, James' position may have been paraphrased as, "*sigh*...**** it. Good luck with that, but I think you're wasting your time."

If it was prior to James giving up on Paul, then it might remain possible that James may have had some interactive relationship to those "Judaizers" going to Galatia in an attempt to set them straight where Paul had led them wrong.

 

[davefoc]

...

All this seems in the plausible range, but it also seems then that Paul's portrayal of James is intentionally deceptive. Paul pushes the idea that James and company have similar views to Paul's except for the follow the law stuff. But your suggestion and perhaps this is the standard secular view is that James views are completely distinct from the Christianity that Paul is pushing and Paul is throwing him into his pitch to gain some credibility.

It seems like once again we know almost nothing that would allow us to constrain the speculation.

 

[JaysonR]

Yeah...pretty much, despite "Orthodox Tradition"...my opinion of Paul is that he was a jackass if you weren't on his side of the table.

That said, if you take Paul as what he is and use him as a comparative sample against 3rd c CE onward Roman Orthodox dogmatic interpritations of ... well...everything, including Paul's constructs, then you get an interesting thing.

What you get, keeping in mind that outline I offered of how Hebrew-centric conversion to Hellenism, is that Paul doesn't actually propose a "stellar" Jesus with the Trinity and apocalypse and all the rest of the fittings.

Interestingly enough, if someone takes Paul's work and just tosses out Roman Orthodox Traditions regarding the matter, and keeps in mind a much more temporal and localized original tangent (Jesus the activist savior of the Hebrew lands through messages of unification...the Martin Luther King Jr.-style Jesus), then Paul actually helps to understand what that MLK-Jesus message was.

If you look at, for instance, how Paul discusses the "Holy Spirit", then you can see a very clear difference from the later Trinitarian view of the "Holy Spirit" that is drafted up in dogma through cherry picking an argument to stitch together and manufacture a super-Jesus that was at the beginning of time and is part of a Multiple Personality god.

You actually get a pretty good representation of the Hebrew-centric and temporal Jesus following tangent, because the only thing Paul really does differently is unhinge it from being Hebrew exclusive, as Paul takes the liberty of interpreting Jesus as wanting it to not be Hebrew exclusive and a bigger world message (which is probably why he either lied about the vision of Jesus, or someone added that in to justify their dear sweet Paul's authority to change the conceptual access points).

Personally, I more think Paul didn't claim to see Jesus in a vision like that and that some Pauline lover added that in to prove to others that Paul had the direct line authority.

My reason for this is that Paul is labeled as an Apostle of the Law; not something anyone would call someone who they were convinced had seen Jesus spiritually.
James would probably (taking a guess here) make events occur that "magically" ended with Paul being killed if Paul was actually claiming that kind of interaction, as James is clearly a devout Law abiding Jew, and pure spirit forms in Hebrew culture were ALWAYS evil; only an actual and purely physical individual was good....ergo the whole "feel my holes in my hands" tangent to just make sure to take the time to tell all the Jewish followers that this resurrected Jesus was a good figure and not an evil spirit-only figure.

I mean...James wouldn't even want to talk to someone like that...at all.
He would be more prone to let someone like that get stoned to death for dabbling in evil magic in the name of his brother.

So if you remove that one instance of "stellar Jesus" for Paul, then what you are left with is a very non-stellar interpretation of Jesus by everything else Paul was writing.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Just to chip in, I think that if we believe Paul to be telling the truth about that chronology, Paul's epistles are all after he reached that agreement with the Jerusalem group.

If Jesus was nailed circa 32 AD, even if Paul converted like the next day, adding 17 years to that gives us 49 AD. That's the lowest point in time when Paul would have met with James and Peter and gotten them to agree that, yes, they're not stopping Paul from preaching to the gentiles. The other point we can use to get the other end of the interval is that it's 14 years from his fleeing Damascus from king Aretas IV Philopatris. Since Aretas died in 40 AD, Paul can't flee from him any later than 40 AD, so 14 years later it would be 54 AD as the upper limit. And we can work on the lower limit too from there, since Aretas took control of the city no earlier than 37 AD (he got the city from Caligula, who only started his reign in 37 AD), so again, Paul couldn't possibly be fleeing from him any earlier than that. So that gives us 51 AD as the lower limit.

The generally accepted chronology puts 1 Thessalonians very soon after that, as the first epistle we have, and Galatians around 55 AD or so.

So, yes, all of Paul's paranoia about someone from the Jerusalem group coming to lead his people astray are after he had reached an agreement with James and Peter.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Incidentally, since I mention Thessalonians... remember Paul's thanking the Philippians for keeping him supplied in Thessalonica? Well, to the Thessalonians he tells a completely different story, namely that he just worked for his money and didn't impose on anyone.

1 Thes 2:9: "Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you."

In fact, strangely enough, now it's the Philippians who are the bad guys:

1 Thes 2:2: "We had previously suffered and been treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in the face of strong opposition."

(Note that "you" here is the Thessalonians. He doesn't say he had success in Philippi, just that he was badly treated there... although just a year later he'd thank the Philippians again for bankrolling his stay in Thessalonica.)

And, hey, he even calls God his witness on the same page, so he couldn't possibly be lying, right?

 

[JaysonR]

Hans, you are a jewel!
I'm not great with finite nuance timelines and sequential dates interspersing; my strength is more in the area of getting inside of a cultural skin and getting a feel for the psychological motives.

You just helped sync the entire puzzle together.

Paul sees the Jesus construct, and sees an opportunity to expand on it to what he sees as its full potential. He constructs a conversion of interpretation (innocently is becoming harder to sustain as a position).
After retaining the blessing, he then practically forbids anyone from any other tutor than himself on understanding the teachings; which is a bit ironic considering the content of the teachings.

But he's talking to Hellenistic cultures; he needs something that will get them to see him as more valid than other alternatives.
He creates the vision in exactly the manner that is attractive to Hellenism and not Hebrews.

He has the official blessing of the Jews, he has the teachings, he has the attention getting vision of Jesus' spirit, and he appears to be acting differently to various peoples.

We know he plays the "I'm one of you guys" card to Jews and Romans both; claiming each where convenient (such as the right to Roman law over Jewish law).

I'm not set on Paul's death yet, and it's really not clear what the actual charges were against him because every time someone asks him in Acts; he changes the tangent to whatever suits what he appears to perceive are winning points to the given party on hand.

He's like a good cheap lawyer; changing the topic and causing general confusion so to keep the topic away from whatever the charges are, and in many cases continues to ask for different audiences for the trial until at one point, he's being reviewed by Jews who hardly know anything about him at all aside from there's this sect of people like him.
These folks don't even know the charges; heck, Rome doesn't even know what the charges are against him. He succeeds in regularly changing who conducts the trial, who represents the plaintiff, and who reviews the trial several times over (I lost track after about three iterations or so).

He's a silver tongue if ever there is one; by his own favoring texts, this can be observed.

I think a serious audit of Paul's contributions and donations may be worth looking into to see if there's anything else interesting that comes up in lining up the balance of those from what we can gather; basically more of what you have going Hans, regarding his monetary interests.


I'm really starting to think that Paul inadvertently preserved some of the original teaching elements that he had learned, but was really using them for the exact opposite of their conveyance.
There's definitely a racket going on (e.g. who collects money from one place and takes it to Jerusalem for Jerusalem's poor instead of just giving it to the poor where the money came from...in the 1st c CE?).


More to think on; thanks Hans!

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

As I've said before... It's not just that he's collecting them instead of just encouraging people to give to the local poor. He actually forbids the people of Thessalonica from feeding the local unemployed poor (for whom, really, the only real alternative is to sell themselves into slavery.)

Check out 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.""

(And again, he uses himself as an example, and how he earned his own bread in Thessalonica instead of imposing on anyone... although, again, he just thanked the Philippians for keeping him supplied there.)

Seriously, imagine I were running a charity for the poor, and you ran into such a quote from me that those who don't earn their bread just shouldn't eat. Wouldn't that raise all sorts of red flags right there?

ETA: And it's not just about the pagans. His problem is that such poor have joined the church there and are getting fed by his Christians (instead of collecting money for him, presumably.) He actually forbids them from associating with those poor, which pretty much is an excommunication.

At any rate, who is he collecting that money for? Those who already do earn their own bread?

 

[pakeha]

As I've said before... It's not just that he's collecting them instead of just encouraging people to give to the local poor. He actually forbids the people of Thessalonica from feeding the local unemployed poor (for whom, really, the only real alternative is to sell themselves into slavery.)

Check out 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat."" ...

What a strange thing to write, considering Paul himself was obliged to accept financial aid whilst in Thessalonika.
Phil 4:15-18
"15 Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; 16 for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need. 17 Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account. 18 I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God."

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Exactly.

And just to put things into perspective, the time when he gave them that rule may well be within one year of the following conversation with James, that he recalls in Galatians 2:

9. James, Cephas 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.​

I think Paul's way of remembering the poor (i.e., telling his congregations that the poor should just starve) is not quite what James and Peter and John had in mind