Was 1 Cor 2:6-8 written to silence the popular desire to know WHY the demons crucified Jesus?

[Giuseppe]

I report a distinct (very optimal!) question raised by GakuseiDon and my two answers:

That's something that I don't really understand about the Dr Carrier/Doherty mythicist position: in a world where nearly everyone thought there were demons flying around, causing disasters and evil, why is it the more "mature" view that Jesus was killed by demons in the air, if that fit into the beliefs of people of the time? Why wouldn't the common people just go "yep! makes sense!" Why try to place the god on earth in a historical time-period at all? Not that I expect you to give a detailed answer to this, it's just that would be an inevitable question that would come up if Carrier mythicism became the mainstream position.

It is an interesting question, surely (I refer to the part put in blue by me). Why "Mark" ehuemerized Jesus is entirely another question (where surely the Destruction of Jerusalem could have a role) but what is interesting about your question is: why did Paul consider "mature" (only for few people) the knowledge that "demons" killed Jesus? While I can't answer to this question, yet I may derive some implications from that recognized fact:
1) the outsiders knew only that the "Christ" was "crucified".
2) the mere Christian "brothers" knew only that the Christ was crucified by demons.
3) only the "perfects" knew that Christ was crucified by demons "without knowing who he was".

The effect of the point 1 is that some Pagan or Jew could suspect that Christ was a real historical man crucified by Romans for sedition.

The effect of the point 2 is that the Christian "brothers" could imagine or need some fantastic reason why the demons would have crucified Jesus: did Jesus realize something of extraordinary on the earth to derive the attention of the demons against him?

The effect of the point 3 is that the "mature" Christians are "mature" since they don't need of other explanations to explain the death of the Christ, differently from the ignorant outsiders and the mere "brothers".

This is a possible answer to your (very optimal) question.

In addition, my second observation:

It is possible to interpret the same 1 Cor 2:6-8 as the Paul's reaction against who was inventing - already in the time of Paul - some historicist legends about Jesus to explain WHY he was crucified by the demons.

The best way by Paul to destroy in advance these rumors is to give himself a REASON of the death of Jesus: the demons didn't know who he was.

Hence the natural question would be: against which kind of historicist legends about Jesus was Paul polemizing, if he wrote 1 Cor 2:6-8 to stop their diffusion?

I think that the Gospels were not still in circulation in the time of Paul.

Therefore the only possible historicist legends about Jesus were something of very similar to the following:

The whole creation that came from the dead earth will be under the authority of death. But those who reflect on the knowledge of the eternal god in their hearts will not perish. They have not received spirit from this kingdom but from something eternal, angelic. . . . The illuminator will come . . . Seth. And he will perform signs and wonders to scorn the powers and their ruler.

Then the god of the powers is disturbed and says, “What is the power of this person who is higher than we are?” Then he brings a great wrath against that person. And glory withdraws and lives in holy houses it has chosen for itself. The powers do not see it with their eyes, nor do they see the illuminator. They punish the flesh of the one over whom the holy spirit has come.

http://gnosis.org/naghamm/adam-barnstone.html

In short, in these pre-70 historicist legends about Jesus, in an immemorial time Jesus had performed "signs and wonders" on the earth to scorn the demons and move them to kill him.

[Giuseppe]

It seems, by reading 1 Corinthians 1-2, that Paul wanted to minimize a lot of rumors about what ''Christ crucified'' meant really.

He was aware that, if one invented some reason for the demons kill Jesus, a reason different from the his reason (the ignorance of the demons on the identity of Jesus), he could do so - and did he do so? - by inventing a presumed Gnosis revealed by Jesus to the men before the his death (accordingly a death happened after the revelation of that Gnosis) on the earth.



Against that vain ''Gnosis of this world'' (the same one preached by the enemies of Paul in Corinth?), Paul opposed his Gnosis, but he reserved it only for few people:

 

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; 7 but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; 8 the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;

[iskander]

1Corinthians 2
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.


Where are the demons ?

[Giuseppe]

Therefore, if I am right, the first Christians to place a revealer Jesus on the earth - revealer of a Gnosis to men and as such provoking the wrath of the demons against Jesus - were Gnostic Christians in Corinth, probably the followers of Apollos.

All this before the 70 CE.

As such, the entire post-70 synoptic Gospel tradition was a tradition opposed and rival to this pre-70 Gnostic tradition.

[iskander]

1Corinthians 2
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.


Where are the demons ?

Paul is speaking of the mystery of god and Paul asserts that intelligence, knowledge, tradition and status do no help humanity to know God-- revelation is the only way to the truth of God

In the, De Servo Arbitrio , Dr Martin Luther explains 1 Cor2 :8 very well in his answer to Erasmus.


"And, (1 Cor. ii. 8,) he saith, that none of the princes of this world knew the wisdom of God.

What then must he think of the rest, who asserts that the princes of this world are the slaves of darkness? For by princes, he means those greatest and highest ones, whom you call 'men renowned for talent.' "

[iskander]

1Corinthians 2
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.


Where are the demons ?

Paul is speaking of the mystery of god and Paul asserts that intelligence, knowledge, tradition and status do no help humanity to know God-- revelation is the only way to the truth of God

In the, De Servo Arbitrio , Dr Martin Luther explains 1 Cor2 :8 very well in his answer to Erasmus.


"And, (1 Cor. ii. 8,) he saith, that none of the princes of this world knew the wisdom of God.

What then must he think of the rest, who asserts that the princes of this world are the slaves of darkness? For by princes, he means those greatest and highest ones, whom you call 'men renowned for talent.' "

1 Cor 2. 9 continue to expand the problem facing humanity , namely their inability to know the wisdom of god.

"But this life or salvation is an eternal matter, incomprehensible to the human capacity: as Paul shows, out of Isaiah, (1 Cor. ii. 9.) "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive,the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." For when we speak of eternal life, we speak of that which is numbered among the principal articles of our faith, when we say :' and the life everlasting'.

Paul tells us what 'free-will, avail us with respect this article in 1Cor 2 : 10 " God ( he says ) has revealed these thing unto us by the Spirit" -- which means that, unless the spirit reveals them, no man's heart would know anything about the matter, so impossible is it that man could ever apply himself to seek it or seek after it."
De servo Arbitrio

[iskander]

Paul is writing for the living and there is a need to warn them against the seductive and imposing professors, princes etc of his age : Paul is saying that revelation is the only way to know the wisdom of God.
1Corinthians 2
"1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters,* I did not come proclaiming the mystery* of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified"
Paul is not trying to be more ' clever' than anyone.


4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,* but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God."
Scripture makes the straightforward affirmation that revelation informs humanity of facts . There is nothing obscure or ambiguous about that. These facts are beyond the capacity of humanity to learn by themselves, whoever those men and women could ever be : the mighty leaders of our society ,wise and learned as they are fare no better than a lowly carpet maker...


The archons are a mere footnote in the teaching of Paul in 1 Cor 2. The surface of the earth is the sub lunar space and the malicious are the devils.

[iskander]

Paul is writing for the living and there is a need to warn them against the seductive and imposing professors, princes etc of his age : Paul is saying that revelation is the only way to know the wisdom of God.
1Corinthians 2
"1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters,* I did not come proclaiming the mystery* of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified"
Paul is not trying to be more ' clever' than anyone.


4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,* but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God."
Scripture makes the straightforward affirmation that revelation informs humanity of facts . There is nothing obscure or ambiguous about that. These facts are beyond the capacity of humanity to learn by themselves, whoever those men and women could ever be : the mighty leaders of our society ,wise and learned as they are fare no better than a lowly carpet maker...


The archons are a mere footnote in the teaching of Paul in 1 Cor 2. The surface of the earth is the sub lunar space and the malicious are the devils.

This is what Paul was explaining: the meaning of the death of one man

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