Yeah, but the debate is about whether there were any creedal ideas in Paul's time that involved Jesus, and my take on it is that, "yes, without a doubt but it is highly doubtful that anyone but Paul had taught Messiah crucified, who rose from the dead, and was presenting himself in the bodies of select visionaries".spin wrote:Actually yes, it does. It says that commentators should stop retrojecting notions of creedal formulae into the text of Paul, because those notions have the great possibility of being anachronistic. We should accept that our ideas on creeds are formed from the fourth century and stop using the notion in the context of Pauline literature.Solo wrote:That does not help much now, does it ?spin wrote:3. our creedal notions come from established Christianity.
spin wrote:I don't know what you are saying with the comment after the "but". Paul is a Jew and personally adhered to the Jewish faith, but offered God's salvation to non-Jews through his savior. I don't see why you would think that Paul would oppose the personal "beliefs" of other Jews, such as those in Jerusalem.Solo wrote:True, we do not know what the Jerusalem sectaries believed about Jesus, but we know (sort of) that Paul was first opposed to their beliefs (creed) and then tried to convert them to his.
No, Paul offered salvation through Christ to Jews and non-Jews alike. His specialty might have been Gentiles, and I believe it was simply because he was more successful with that group than with the learned Jews, but he is clear about the universality of his creed:
1 Co 1:23-24 ..we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Rom 9:30-33 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame."
The passage in Romans shows very clearly where Paul departed from the perimeter of Judaism. For Paul, faith was without a doubt superior to the adherence to the law and set him against the Jerusalem Jesus sectaries after his conversion experience. Before his revelation, he would have broiled against them because they were naïve in the extreme in their belief in the restoration of the old kingdom in Rome's presence, for their beliefs in the reality of "signs" and evidently also for their lack of piety.
see abovespin wrote:If there is anything specific in Romans you'd like to bring to the discussion....
Well read again the verse and this time do not omit the bolded part!spin wrote:No. You need to contextualize his comment with the previous verse. He wasn't going use great rhetoric nor wisdom, instead just Christ crucified.Solo wrote:Well why not ? And what about 1 Co 2:2 μὴ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν καὶ τοῦτον ἐσταυρωμένον. That does not indicate to you that someone else preached Jesus (perhaps Christ) alive and well ?spin wrote:The stuff about Paul persecuting messianists does not help get any closer to a Jesus before Paul. There were obviously messianists before Paul, but were any of them Jesuine? How would you know? We can't tell from the letter to the Galatians. Maybe Paul proselytizing Jesus to Roman Jewish converts?
Well, yeah maybe, Paul served it hypothetically. How about Gal 3:1 though ? surely someone was bewitching Paul's flock with a different messianic vision, wouldn't you say ?spin wrote:Again, context is your friend. He does not say that anyone has preached a different Jesus (αλλον Ιησουν). It is a hypothetical. He uses the name of the messiah as was revealed to him in that hypothetical.Solo wrote:How about 2 Co 11:4 : εἰ μὲν γὰρ ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἄλλον Ἰησοῦν κηρύσσει. You are not reading it- as someone suggested here to me recently - that Paul meant literally 'another person named "Jesus"', are you ? Because it would seem way more reasonable to read that as "someone preaching Jesus differently" than according to the gospel of Paul.
Transparent meaning it is perhaps not but the sentence has structure which allows logical operations which assure us that Paul heard about something or someone he now calls "Jesus Christ" and it was "kata sarka", i.e. not from God. Again, we do not know what it was and can debate it, but we know that Paul relates to this object differently after his revelation then he did previously when he heard of it through regular information channels. You are not going to deny that, are you ?spin wrote:And don't the alarm bells start ringing? Paul learned of Jesus through revelation, so how can there be a "we" in "we have known Christ according to the flesh"? Who is this "we"? For me the verse is problematic. It doesn't allow itself to be taken the way you wish, but it also doesn't provide a transparent meaning.Solo wrote:And then there is 2 Co 5:16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Again to a meat-and-potato semi-Christian like me, this would logically entail Paul knowing about what later became the object of his worship from other people, before he had a revelation about the Risen One.
Best,
Jiri