The Revelation of the Mystery Hidden for Ages

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
Irish1975
Posts: 1057
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:01 am

Re: The Revelation of the Mystery Hidden for Ages

Post by Irish1975 »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:52 am Many works have further been written on the influence of the OT on Paul's letters. His entire mission, it is arguable, derives from his reading of Isaiah's prophecy of the good news going out to the "isles". His self-portrayal is arguably based on the Isaianic "prophecy" of the Suffering Servant.
Trying to find the “center” or “core” of Pauline thought is about as successful as the quest for the HJ. I am not denying the presence or even the dominance of the scripture-fulfillment theme in the epistles. I just don’t think everything can be reduced to that, because there are fundamentally heterogeneous elements in “Paul.” But you are not really addressing the distinctiveness of the passages on the hidden mystery, or taking account of the absence of midrashic/prophetic conceits in these texts, as noted in my previous post.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: The Revelation of the Mystery Hidden for Ages

Post by neilgodfrey »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:39 am
Trying to find the “center” or “core” of Pauline thought is about as successful as the quest for the HJ. I am not denying the presence or even the dominance of the scripture-fulfillment theme in the epistles. I just don’t think everything can be reduced to that, because there are fundamentally heterogeneous elements in “Paul.” But you are not really addressing the distinctiveness of the passages on the hidden mystery, or taking account of the absence of midrashic/prophetic conceits in these texts, as noted in my previous post.
I was thinking back to the point where I entered the discussion where I was responding to Turmel's point about a gloss or interpolation making a muck of an original Pauline letter. I was taking the part of Turmel when he argues his case for identifying an original layer of "real Paul" beneath the Marcionite and Catholic additions. I find some of Turmel's reconstructions questionable and am not going to bet my house of T being right here, but I thought identifying the words of Paul to make sense of a letter that otherwise reads as contradictory nonsense was a reasonable step in this case. Maybe we both have some reservations about the totality of Turmel's case.

Apologies for overlooking the other passages you note as addressing the mystery. Some of the books you cite are not considered authentic Paulines, but that's only removing the question to a step back.

Different interpretations of Ephesians, for instance, are possible. "Hidden in God" can be read as applying to the deeper meanings of all Scriptures. (It appears in some sources, the Jews actually saw the Scriptures as an embodiment of God, but this view is not necessary for the point I am making.) The deeper meaning of Scriptures was hidden in God's thoughts and he chose to reveal that meaning of the scriptures at a certain time to key persons like Paul. So I don't think there is necessarily a contradictory meaning here.

In the earlier verses of Ephesians 3 we read that the mystery that was hidden is that gentiles will be made one with Israel -- verse 6. I would have thought that that mystery is elsewhere written in Paul's letters (and Ephesians, as you point out, is referring readers to other letters) as a revelation of the meaning of God's promise to Abraham. All nations are to be blessed in the seed is, presumably by God's interpretative revelation to him, an anouncement that gentiles will be united by the new seed that was represented by the former child of promise, Isaac.

I'm only putting this out there as an alternative to Turmel's point about a particular contradictory mess in a passage in Paul. It's just another way of reading the passage he finds problematic.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The Revelation of the Mystery Hidden for Ages

Post by Giuseppe »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:39 am
Trying to find the “center” or “core” of Pauline thought is about as successful as the quest for the HJ.
What I like about Turmel is surely the originality of the his thought about the historical Paul.

The originality I am talking about is the following:

it is clear that Turmel was a proponent of the historical Jesus as anti-Roman seditionist as a lot of others there out, but while any other proponent of the hypothesis (see, for example, Bermejo-Rubio) assumes that Paul was the evil "betrayer" of the original Jesus (and they are obliged to do so because they assume the mysticism in the epistles as authentically pauline), while they accuse Paul as the first Christian who "deliberately" depoliticized the sect in a pro-Roman direction, instead Turmel, who has just purified Paul from his mysticism (by considering the latter as a marcionite and catholic product), considers the historical Paul as anti-Roman as well as the historical Jesus, only as one more prudent and cautious.

Surely this is much original, something I had never heard before.
Post Reply