How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

The question is not banal. Insofar Paul's identity is built on Saul, we can and must doubt about the historicity of Paul himself.
Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

The following is an example where the Paul of the epistles is simply Saul:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

(Philippians 3:4-6)


The implication is that the Paul persecutor of Galatians is still, simply, Saul. And only him.
Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

The fugue from Damascus in 1 Corinthians 11:32-33:

In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.

...shows the connection Paul/basket just as in 1 Samuel 10:22 there is the connection Saul/baggage:

So they inquired again of the LORD, “Is there a man still to come?” and the LORD said, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

King Saul has a marcionite flavor insofar he disobeyed to YHWH when the latter required the death of all the Amalekites.
Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

The name "Paul" would be then only another name for Saul.

1 Samuel 9:21
Saul answered, “But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?”

It is hardly a coincidence.

So what if Marcion was the first who introduced Paul as the new Saul, after which the true Davidic messiah will arrive, but only for the Jews (the Christians having already their Messiah preceding Paul/Saul) ?

Marcion would have liked the fact that Paul/Saul is a persecutor of davidic messianists, just as the same Marcion would have liked the fact that king Saul persecuted David the YHWH's favorite.

By having introduced the connection Jesus/David, the Judaizers would have made ipso facto Paul an evil Saul persecutor of the true Jesus Christ, and not more of the Davidic messiah of YHWH.

So Marcion would have invented a Paul persecutor to make the point that Saul/Paul persecuted rightly what he believed were mere followers of the Davidic Messiah. After the personal revelation by the Risen Jesus, this marcionite Saul/Paul would have learned that Jesus was really the Son of the Unknown Father and not the davidic messiah of YHWH, accordingly he would have continued the "persecution" only of who (=the false apostles) continued to think otherwise (=that Jesus was the Davidic messiah of YHWH).
Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

We have official evidence by Tertullian that Marcion liked the figure of king Saul, since his failure as king incriminated directly the creator YHWH:

For instance, in this case of Saul, the Creator, who had made no mistake in selecting him for the kingdom, and endowing him with His Holy Spirit, makes a statement respecting the goodliness of his person, how that He had most fitly chosen him as being at that moment the choicest man, so that (as He says) there was not his fellow among the children of Israel. Neither was He ignorant how he would afterwards turn out. For no one would bear you out in imputing lack of foresight to that God whom, since you do not deny Him to be divine, you allow to be also foreseeing; for this proper attribute of divinity exists in Him. However, He did, as I have said, burden the guilt of Saul with the confession of His own repentance; but as there is an absence of all error and wrong in His choice of Saul, it follows that this repentance is to be understood as upbraiding another rather than as self-incriminating.

http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0267/_P1H.HTM

So the choice of Paul/Saul as apostle of Jesus by the Supreme God (not YHWH) would have confirmed in the eyes of Marcion that Jesus was not the messiah of YHWH, since Saul/Paul would have been, just as his precursor king Saul, in perfect antithesis to a davidic messiah.
Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

If therefore for Marcion a connection Paul/Saul would have been hailed favorably as an antithesis against the davidic(=demiurgist) messianism (insofar king Saul persecuted David), how did it happen that the same connection Paul/Saul was seen, and currently is still seen, as pure anti-marcionism of exclusive Acts's creation ?

The answer is in the specific way the connection Paul/Saul is implemented in Acts: Saul/Paul is portrayed very negatively. Emphasis is put on his activity of persecutor of the pious church, and not on the anomaly that the enemy of David is transformed in an apostle of the Davidic Messiah.

The redemption of Saul is a catholic invention. In the OT king Saul dies never redeemed.

So I agree that the Paul persecutor is an anti-marcionite interpolation in the epistles, but the fact that the connection Paul/Saul was introduced first by Marcion doesn't cease to be true with the original absence, in the Marcionite version of the epistles, of a Paul/Saul persecutor.

At contrary, the mere allusion to Paul being a Benjaminite is sufficient to make the point that Paul==Saul, and accordingly that Marcion exalted in Paul precisely his being Saul, the same Saul who in nuce (as proved abundantly by Tertullian about Marcion's views) preserves the theme of the inferiority/failure of the demiurge and of the opposition to the demiurge's messiah.

Saul opposed the coming David just as Marcion (=Paul/Saul) opposed the coming messiah of the demiurge.
lclapshaw
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by lclapshaw »

As far as I'm concerned, there is no Saul in Paulos. Saul is the invention of the writers of Acts.
Giuseppe
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Giuseppe »

lclapshaw wrote: Mon Dec 26, 2022 1:33 pm As far as I'm concerned, there is no Saul in Paulos. Saul is the invention of the writers of Acts.
in support of your thesis, you may always claim that the Philippians passage where Paul says that he is from the tribe of Benjamin is an interpolation based on Acts. But how do you reply to the argument that a Jew who was romanized as Paul had by need to have a previous Jewish name before that he received the name of Paul ? Are there other candidates better than "Saul" as previous name for the Jew Paul? (I assume that even for Marcion Paul was a Jew before his conversion to the Alien).
Diogenes the Cynic
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Re: How much there is Saul in the epistles of Paul?

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

King Saul specifically banished mediums and necromancers (1 Samuel 28:3) until he has the Witch of Endor brought to him. She summons the spirit of Samuel (who she calls "Elohim rising out of the earth") and Samuel tells Saul he's going to lose to the Philistines because he refused to slaughter Amelekite babies (1 Sa. 28:18).

Paul, in his letters, claims to have "chased away the ecclesia of God of God" (ἐδίωκον τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ). It's not clear and never stated why Paul did such a thing, but it's reasonable to suppose that early charismatics were essentially practicing routine magic (healing, exorcisms, prophesying, speaking in tongues, etc. all bog standard practices then as now) and if they were attributing their magical abilities to Jesus or an alleged "spirit of Jesus," then that would be indistinguishable from typical necromancy (which, for the record, was illegal under Jewish law). It was a common belief that the spirits of dead people could be "raised: in some form and used for magic tricks. The spirit was thought to be more potent if it was the spirit of a murdered person. Innocent blood was thought to have more power. The Gospels have Jesus himself likely being accused of this when it says Antipas suspected him of having raised John the Baptist from the dead. Simon Magus was accused of using the spirit of a murdered boy. Using the spirit of a crucifixion victim (real or imagined) could well have been perceived by Herodian or Temple authorities (probably not entirely erroneously) as just street magic con artists, and maybe some Herodian authority was running the Jesus cult away from synagogues. Giving him the name "Saul" would designate him as a persecutor of mediums who eventually has a vision of a risen Elohim. This time Saul doesn't die.

I see no reason to think that Paul was necessarily ever called Saul. He never says that name in any of his letters. It makes sense as a literary device for the author of Acts.
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