Is the argument from embarassment evidence for historical crucifixion?

[neilgodfrey]

If 1 Cor 1:23 speaks of "embarrassment" at all it speaks of it as applicable to both Jews and Gentiles for their respective reasons.

What is said to be the stumblingblock to the Jews is not the shame of the crucifixion but the fact that it means death, powerlessness, the opposite of a miraculous sign. Hence Paul in that context speaks of power and exaltation of the believers God has chosen because they accept the crucifixion of Jesus - just as they are wiser than the Greeks for the same reason.

But Paul is speaking rhetorically here for effect. In fact we know from Paul's letters that Greeks did accept Christ crucified and so did Jews. It is a mistake to take that one verse and apply it as a historical datum to the entirety of Jews of the first century just as it would be a mistake to apply it to all Greeks of that time. The fact we clearly see in the letters is that Jews and Greeks did recognize that the crucifixion was indeed the power and wisdom of God.

[mlinssen]

If 1 Cor 1:23 speaks of "embarrassment" at all it speaks of it as applicable to both Jews and Gentiles for their respective reasons.

What is said to be the stumblingblock to the Jews is not the shame of the crucifixion but the fact that it means death, powerlessness, the opposite of a miraculous sign. Hence Paul in that context speaks of power and exaltation of the believers God has chosen because they accept the crucifixion of Jesus - just as they are wiser than the Greeks for the same reason.

But Paul is speaking rhetorically here for effect. In fact we know from Paul's letters that Greeks did accept Christ crucified and so did Jews. It is a mistake to take that one verse and apply it as a historical datum to the entirety of Jews of the first century just as it would be a mistake to apply it to all Greeks of that time. The fact we clearly see in the letters is that Jews and Greeks did recognize that the crucifixion was indeed the power and wisdom of God.

Emphasis mine

1 Τοιγαροῦν (Therefore) καὶ (also) ἡμεῖς (we), τοσοῦτον (such a great) ἔχοντες (having) περικείμενον (encompassing) ἡμῖν (us) νέφος (a cloud) μαρτύρων (of witnesses), ὄγκον (weight) ἀποθέμενοι (having laid aside) πάντα (every), καὶ (and) τὴν (the) εὐπερίστατον (easily entangling) ἁμαρτίαν (sin), δι’ (with) ὑπομονῆς (endurance) τρέχωμεν (should run) τὸν (the) προκείμενον (lying before) ἡμῖν (us) ἀγῶνα (race),
2 ἀφορῶντες (looking) εἰς (to) τὸν (the) τῆς (of our) πίστεως (faith) ἀρχηγὸν (founder) καὶ (and) τελειωτὴν (perfecter), Ἰησοῦν (Jesus), ὃς (who) ἀντὶ (in view of) τῆς (the) προκειμένης (lying before) αὐτῷ (Him) χαρᾶς (joy), ὑπέμεινεν (endured) σταυρὸν (the cross), αἰσχύνης (its shame) καταφρονήσας (having despised), ἐν (at) δεξιᾷ (right hand) τε (and) τοῦ (of the) θρόνου (throne) τοῦ (-) Θεοῦ (of God) κεκάθικεν (sat down).
3 ἀναλογίσασθε (Consider fully) γὰρ (for), τὸν (the One) τοιαύτην (such great) ὑπομεμενηκότα (having endured) ὑπὸ (from) τῶν (-) ἁμαρτωλῶν (sinners) εἰς (against) ἑαυτὸν (Himself) ἀντιλογίαν (hostility), ἵνα (so that) μὴ (not) κάμητε (you shall grow weary), ταῖς (in the) ψυχαῖς (souls) ὑμῶν (of you) ἐκλυόμενοι (fainting).

How and where do you see "clearly" that "the crucifixion was indeed the power and wisdom of God"?
In Hebrew it very clearly speaks of the shame of the crucifixion - it's hard to equate one to the other, isn't it

Paul only claims what you allege here, and applies it only to "those called", τοῖς (the) κλητοῖς (called).
The accusative there would seem to indicate that's is not even that, but the object of the "preaching" in the preceding verse 1 Cor 1:23

The typical Pauline Greek says:

22 Ἐπειδὴ καὶ Ἰουδαῖοι σημεῖα αἰτοῦσιν καὶ Ἕλληνες σοφίαν ζητοῦσιν,
23 ἡμεῖς δὲ κηρύσσομεν Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, Ἰουδαίοις μὲν σκάνδαλον, ἔθνεσιν δὲ μωρίαν,
24 αὐτοῖς δὲ τοῖς κλητοῖς, Ἰουδαίοις τε καὶ Ἕλλησιν, Χριστὸν Θεοῦ δύναμιν καὶ Θεοῦ σοφίαν.

22 Forasmuch both Judeans signs ask and Greeks wisdom seek,
23 we however proclaim Christ impaled, to-Judeans surely a-skandal (we proclaim), to-the-nations however (we proclaim) foolishness.
24 To-them however the called, Judeans both and Greeks, Christ of-God power and of-God wisdom (we proclaim)

It is always difficult to have secondary phrases that are extensions of the main sentence yet seemingly run their own course albeit that they don't have an explicit verb themselves.
But verse 24 most certainly doesn't stand on its own, and even if it did it would only apply to the Judeans and Greeks "called".
So what in fact seems to be said here is the following, loosely translated:

22 Forasmuch both Judeans signs ask and Greeks wisdom seek,
23 we however proclaim, to-Judeans surely a-skandal, to-the-nations however foolishness: Christ impaled.
24 (we proclaim) however To-them the called, Judeans both and Greeks: Christ of-God power and of-God wisdom

There is a distinction made between mere / regular Judeans (to those a scandal "is proclaimed") and "called" Judeans (to those a Christ, power and wisdom of God "is proclaimed").
Likewise, a distinction is made between mere / regular nations (to those foolishness "is proclaimed") and "called" Greeks (to those a Christ, power and wisdom of God "is proclaimed")

So what you claim here is absolutely untenable in every possible way as the two groups are limited to "those called" and it certainly doesn't say that they actively recognise what Paul merely is alleging her - but I'm missing the motivation and argumentation behind your claim. Care to elaborate?

[Paul the Uncertain]

It is a mistake to take that one verse and apply it as a historical datum to the entirety of Jews of the first century just as it would be a mistake to apply it to all Greeks of that time.

Sure, but that doesn't impeach the heuristic which counsels that statements against interest are worthy of special attention and investigation.

Error creeps in when "worthy of attention" magically transmutes into "For Person X to assert statement Y is against X's interest, X asserts Y anyway, therefore Y is factually true," or maybe "Y is an especially old tradition."

No, but it is interesting to pursue why X would say such a thing. In such an investigation, "that one verse" doesn't establish that preaching Christ crucified really was flatly against Paul's interests. It is evidence, however, that Paul was aware that there was something cognitively dissonant about promoting crucifixion as a positive item on Jesus's resume.

Why did Paul do that? becomes an interesting question. Your analysis of how much of a problem venerating a crucified hero really was in Paul's situation is a contribution to the investigation.

(It is one of those curiosities of normative uncertain reasoning that evidence is simultaneously a potential guide to what is interesting as well as a potential guide to what is true. Those are too separate qualities, but easily conflated.)

[neilgodfrey]

It is evidence, however, that Paul was aware that there was something cognitively dissonant about promoting crucifixion as a positive item on Jesus's resume.

It's a "cognitive dissonance" that works as a powerful selling point: the righteous person who is willing to suffer shame, persecution, injustice, etc etc for his righteousness will be "exalted" in the eyes of the "truly wise"; the one who embraces an idea that looks foolish to the wise of this world will be exalted as the wisest of all by the higher powers who look down on all the earthly greats as nothing; those who pride themselves in a religion of miracles will despise those who worship a crucified nothing but the greatest miracle worker of all will laugh at them and exalt those whom they despise in the resurrection.

Those are the sorts of "cognitive dissonances" in one form or another that have appealed to the ancient philosophers and modern religious devotees.

Paul is recycling an old trope from the Jewish Scriptures (and beyond, according to Thomas L. Thompson in The Messiah Myth). Those who say they see are the one's who are blind and those they think are blind are the ones who truly see; those who think they are drinking good water from cisterns have in fact forsaken the source of living water and are drinking from broken cisterns that hold no water at all; the fools think they are wise and scoff at the truly wise by calling them fools; and many others.....

[Paul the Uncertain]

You and I have no disagreement that Paul was a gifted seller of what turned out to be a best selling story.

Paul is just observing that when he approached a prospect, sometimes he failed to close the deal. On those occasions when he failed, the dissonant element was, in his stated view, sometimes-or-often a causal factor, and that the hitch was typically different for Jews than for Gentiles. Not all Jews and not all Gentiles? Fair enough; Paul doesn't give statistics for his assertions.

Of course Paul's spiel could be BS, or empty rhetoric. On the off chance it isn't, then there is a 'psychological' explanation for why Paul might benefit from the not obviously helpful story point about how Jesus died.

Any and all of those might serve as rebuttal to an argument that Paul would be reluctant to preach Christ crucified unless he were impelled to do so by historical fact ... which is more or less the thread-title question.

[neilgodfrey]

Any and all of those might serve as rebuttal to an argument that Paul would be reluctant to preach Christ crucified unless he were impelled to do so by historical fact ... which is more or less the thread-title question.

Which brings us back to the starting point, doesn't it? Are "any and all of those" evidence for historical crucifixion? Are a lot of "maybes" and "possiblies" and "perhapses" and "it could have beens" evidence for a hisorical crucifixion?

[Paul the Uncertain]

Which brings us back to the starting point, doesn't it? Are "any and all of those" evidence for historical crucifixion? Are a lot of "maybes" and "possiblies" and "perhapses" and "it could have beens" evidence for a hisorical crucifixion?

As Polya would have it, they tend to refute a possible ground for believing in a historical crucifixion. Their effect would depend on the force of that ground in the first place. If they had any effect on belief in a historical crucifxion, then they would weigh against it.

[neilgodfrey]

Which brings us back to the starting point, doesn't it? Are "any and all of those" evidence for historical crucifixion? Are a lot of "maybes" and "possiblies" and "perhapses" and "it could have beens" evidence for a hisorical crucifixion?

As Polya would have it, they tend to refute a possible ground for believing in a historical crucifixion. Their effect would depend on the force of that ground in the first place. If they had any effect on belief in a historical crucifxion, then they would weigh against it.

You've succeeded in both confusing and exhausting me. You win!

[Paul the Uncertain]

It's not about winning, Neil. Really not.

You have a valid complaint, IMO, about how the guild typically conducts its affairs. It would plausibly be an improvement for them to be more like their colleagues in the History Department.

For one thing, it would prevent them from making stupid answers to questions that their colleagues might decline to answer at all: "Did Jesus exist? Yes, it's certain that he did."

NOT doing that any more would be fabulous.

But in the long run, "Did Jesus exist? More likely than not, but the available evidence is meager, equivocal, and of poor quality." isn't a stupid answer to the question.

If I understand you correctly, then academic historians would decline to make any answer at all to the question. But to some people, that modest answer might be valuable information to have.

I guess I'm looking for a "middle way" for doing the best possible with questions where the best possible is too poor for academic historians to be interested.

I have no complaint with anybody who chooses to work only on those questions for which their methods are well suited. Basically, what I'm saying is a question doesn't go away because it is uninteresting to people with better questions to work on. Plus, of course, I'm also saying that there exist people who aren't academic historians who are qualified to investigate these "orphan questions."

Those people aren't necessarily in competition with academic historians. They are working on different questions, although both they and the academic historians would fall under a broader usage of the term "historian," that is, "a systematic investigator of the human past."

[Paul the Uncertain]

Just a brief note that I think some people will enjoy an episode of Pete Enns's podcast, #175 with guest Jodi Magness (archeologist and current holder of a religious studies academic appointment), "The Jesus of Archaeology." It's about 47 minutes long.

https://peteenns.com/podcast/

A propos of Neil's and my recent discussion, we have in the first half of the program:

- an attestation of a senior religious studies academic (in the USA) calling all who study the human past "historians," despite Magness's insistence that she is an archeologist and not a historian.

- a clear explanation that there are questions about the human past that cannot be answered by archeology. She distinguishes archeology from history primarily by the kind of evidence involved, material culture remains versus textual remains. Material culture comprises things manufactured by human beings. Magness also acknowledges the existence of "border line cases" like inscriptions which are both material culture and textual.

- In passing, she distinguishes both fields, archeology and history, from the study of human bodily remains, such as bones, teeth, etc. which are neither texts nor things manufactured by humans.

From that last remark, it would seem that she would be willing to acknowledge that there are questions about the human past that cannot be answered from texts or material culture, but which could be answered by the study of human remains, say.

In which case, there are questions about the human past which a historian qua historian would and should decline to answer that might nevertheless be answered, with whatever degree of justified confidence, by somebody else.

The second half of the episode has some amusement of its own, but is off the topic of the current thread, and indeed lacks any Jesus topicality. (It turns out she is an expert in ancient toilet technology and technique, and like so many specialists, loves talking about her expertise ... and some of it is funny.)

Spoiler: Magness's teaching implies that archeology cannot answer questions like "Was Jesus a real person who actually lived?" because for most people who did, archeology cannot identify them individually from the evidence it studies, material culture remains.