Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

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lsayre
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by lsayre »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 3:20 am So, realistically, if we take a passage like:

1 Cor:
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Is there a reasonable way to get from the passage above to a passage in which the name "Jesus" was not actually present originally?
How about:

1 Paul, called to be an apostle by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church in Corinth, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord—their Lord and ours:

3 Grace and peace to you from God, our Father and yours.
Last edited by lsayre on Tue Sep 20, 2022 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

Possibly. But I think somewhere "Paul" had to have written some name that was construed as "Jesus".

This is also interesting, from the epistle of James 5:

"10 As an example, brothers and sisters, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord."

" 14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him."

I've long thought that James, whether "authentic" or not, looks like a writing by someone who had no concept of the Gospel Jesus. Throughout James the writer refers back to figures from the Jewish scriptures as examples of humans to follow and take lessons from, as opposed to Jesus.

In James 5:10, the writer says to look to the ancient prophets as examples of people who had patience and endured suffering. When he talks about them speaking "in the name of the Lord" he cannot possibly mean Jesus, he means Yahweh, well, he means "the Lord" of the "Old Testament". So this is an example of a case where an epistle writers refers to "the name of the Lord" in a way that clearly means the Lord of the ancient scriptures, not some recently living person.

When the writer again mentions the "name of the Lord" in v14 and the Lord in v15, I think it is clear this writer is referring to the Lord of the ancient scriptures, not "Jesus".

Now we read Paul: 1 Cor 5: "3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this."

Clearly, without "Jesus" here, this can be taken to mean the Lord of the scriptures, in the same way that it is used in James.

What about this one:
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

I do think this passage is authentic to the original Pauline letters. I think that whoever wrote the original Pauline letters conceived of "the Lord" as the heavenly son of the Highest God. They may have conceived of this figure descending to earth, or not, its unclear. But I'm confident they didn't think of this figure as the person described in the Gospels.

Might this passage originally not included any name at all? Or might it have included a name, but that name wasn't "Jesus" it some Greek version of YHWH?

As has already been pointed out in this thread, this one is tricky: Cor 1:12 "3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit."

Later revision or was there some version of YHWH here?

These are also tricky:

2 Cor 4:
"4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ."

"Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God."

Later revisions, or was there some other name there? Or did this writer somehow arrive as "Jesus" as the name for the Lord Yahweh?

2 Cor 4 is interesting in many ways. Who is the "god of this age"? Is this a Marcionite interpolation? Is 2 Cor 4 filled with Marcionite interpolation? Clearly v14 requires a name. But is the whole passage secondary?

2 Cor 11: "3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his trickery, your minds will be led astray from sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, this you tolerate very well!"

Another very tricky verse. I don't think a Marcionite would talk about the serpent tricking Eve.

Here is an important clue, Philippians 2:
"9 For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

This is a reference to Isaiah 45:

21 Declare and present your case;
Indeed, let them consult together.
Who has announced this long ago?
Who has long since declared it?
Is it not I, the Lord [YHWH]?
And there is no other god besides Me,
A righteous god and a Savior;
There is none except Me.
22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;
For I am God, and there is no other.
23 I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out from My mouth in righteousness
And will not turn back,
That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
24 They will say of Me, ‘Only in the Lord [YHWH] are righteousness and strength.’

People will come to Him,

Isaiah 45 says that at the name of Yahweh every knee will bow. Is this not a clear indication that the writer views YHWH as the name of the Lord? Is it not clear that the original writer intended YHWH here?

But overall, throughout most of the Pauline letters, if you remove the name Jesus you are left in most passages with a reference to either
the Lord" or "Christ" or "Christ the Lord". In about 95% of these cases, if you read the passage with simply "the Lord" it appears to be referring to the Lord of the Jewish scriptures, not some recent figure.
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John T
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by John T »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 10:43 am In about 95% of these cases, if you read the passage with simply "the Lord" it appears to be referring to the Lord of the Jewish scriptures, not some recent figure.
Is that not what you would expect from the Rabbinic, Masoretic text? They rejected Jesus as the Messiah after-all. What about Israeli sources before the Rabbis took over...after the Jewish revolt?

You know, Son of man?

Got to keep the messiah and the Son of man separated to understand any of this.

Remind me again, just how old is the oldest surviving Masoretic text?
ABuddhist
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by ABuddhist »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 10:43 am I've long thought that James, whether "authentic" or not, looks like a writing by someone who had no concept of the Gospel Jesus.
I recall reading that at least one unorthodox scholar has concluded that James, in its original form, was not even Christian at all, but Jewish. This might be an idea for you to consider if you have not already.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

rgprice wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:29 am To get back to the original point of the post...

In the oldest copies of letters of Paul as we have them, in fact the "name" Jesus doesn't appear, the nomina sacra do.
I was interested if and when this fact would be mentioned as your OP progressed. My advice or position is that it should form a separate chapter of your next book because this fact permeates the entire NT and not just Paul. We have no general theory for the appearance of these abbreviations other than the apparent consensus that they appeared early, probably in the earliest manuscripts of the NT, and that they indicate an editorial stage. Additionally they seem to have also permeated the NT apocryphal (NTA) literature, in particular the Nag Hammadi codices.

The questions surrounding the origins of the Pauline epistles, the NT as a whole and the NTA as a whole, therefore have IMO some form of a meta-layer of separate questions surrounding the appearance, purpose and "authorship" of the nomina sacra.
schillingklaus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by schillingklaus »

Jerusalem Jewish origins of Christianity only exist in the blooming fantasy of Ehrman and other apologists.

Of course, some pre-Christian gnostics, as a poorly maintenable compromise, invented the legend of Adonai Sabaoth being an archon who committed metanoia and became enthroned by Sophia as a second god below the unknown Father, able to interact perceivably with mankind which was impossible for the Father. This is mirrored in late texts like the Hypostasis of the Archons. When the Father was illogically identified with YHWH in order to enforce monotheism, the vacant but extremely important part of the interacting agent was passed to a human figure which had to be predicted by the Law and the Prophets, such as the Christ. This switch caused a lot of redactional fatigue in the patristic literature, the NT, and in the Roman Catholic mass liturgy.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

I've been reading this which I find very interesting: http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/05_2/troyer_names_of_god.htm

In this Old Greek text of the Book of Leviticus, the name of God is written IAW. Skehan, the editor of the text, suggests that the reading IAW is more original than kurios: “This new evidence strongly suggests that the usage in question goes back for some books at least to the beginnings of the Septuagint rendering”.[40] That the name of God was simply written IAO in the Leviticus scroll is very telling, for it is precisely in the Greek Leviticus scroll that one reads about the prohibition of naming the Name of God! IAO can be seen as a transliteration of YAHU, the three-letter form of the Name of God. This tradition seems to have been known by Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) who states that the Jews pronounced the Name of God as IAW.[41] The appearance of IAO in the Leviticus scroll has left many scholars baffled. Is it proof that the Tetragrammaton was still pronounced in the first century BCE?


Another Oxyrhynchus papyrus, POxy 1007 with text from Genesis 2-3 (late third century), does not have the Tetragrammaton, but a double Yod, with a horizontal stroke through the letters making it look like a double Greek Zeta, followed by a contracted Theos. Indicating the Name of God with a double yod has become standard in the later rabbinic tradition. Still today, when dealing about God, Jews write “yod yod.”[71] Here, I would also like to draw the attention to the use of four dods surmounted by four yods in the Qumran manuscript 1QS col.8.


As a conclusion, it suffices to say that in old Hebrew and Greek witnesses, God has many names. Most if not all were pronounced till about the second century BCE As slowly onwards there developed a tradition of non-pronunciation, alternatives for the Tetragrammaton appeared. The reading Adonai was one of them. Finally, before Kurios became a standard rendering Adonai, the Name of God was rendered with Theos.

Yeah. Increasingly I am convinced that in some original layer of Pauline letters, either the name that the writer ascribed to the Lord was not Jesus at all, or that somehow the name "Jesus" was being used to refer to "the Lord" of the Jewish scriptures, not a recently lived person.

Perhaps the writer of the oldest layer of the Pauline letters wrote something like ΙΣ or IY meaning "Yahweh".

Given that the Pauline letters indicate the writer did not subscribe to every aspect of Jewish law, is it not possible then that the writer did not subscribe to prohibitions against saying the name of the Lord, but in fact, similarly to Jehovah's Witnesses, believed that the name of the Lord should be used.

Again I go back to 2 key points of evidence. #1 Philippians 2:10-11 is a reference to Isaiah 45. This indicates that the name of the Lord is Yahweh. #2 James 5:10 clearly uses the "name of the Lord" in relation to "Yahweh" as the writer is talking about the ancient prophets. "10 As an example, brothers and sisters, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord."

It seems to me that the truly earliest form of this movement involved recognition of a difference between Elohim the Father and his son Yahweh the Lord. Followers of this movement did not abide by all aspects of Jewish law. They did not adhere to the requirement of circumcision, nor did they follow the dietary laws. Faith in Yahweh was more important than following Jewish law. They took issue with the teachings of the Temple priesthood and sought to adhere to what they viewed as more authentic, original, aspects of Jewish/Samaritan religion. This included using the name of the Lord and recognizing the separateness of the Son from the Father.

It is perhaps the case, that these writing were then misinterpreted by Gnostics and/or Marcionites, with the name of the Lord being understood as a human name "Jesus" that was talking about someone on earth. The original Pauline letters were then expanded upon and revised, first by Gnostics/Marcionites. It is from this misunderstanding of the original Pauline letters that Gospel narratives were derived, centered about the figure "Jesus". The Gnostic/Marcionite Pauline letters were then further altered by the proto-orthodox.
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DCHindley
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by DCHindley »

rg,

With a little imagination, anybody can think up ways to take whatever direct evidence we have (literary remains, letters, archaeology, etc.) and slice & dice it into just about anything.

With my hypothetical "original" letters (written by a historical Paul who is not in any way related to the Jesus movement), which were in turn edited in the form we now have now (which added the Christ theology/myth using an anonymous commentary and editorial additions to try to make it look like the original writer also held high christological views), it is not necessary to see hidden codes or abbreviations for sacred names to explain any mentions of "kurios."

In the "original" letters the word kurios referred both to God, or to human lords (like heads of extended households under whom his addressees), but to the person who made the commentary and the editor who inserted them into the original letters the word almost always meant Jesus and/or Christ. In simple terms, if the word KURIOS is not linked to a written definite article, the reference is to YHWH. When the use is part of a quotation from Judean scriptures, we can compare the wording to the Lxx/OldGreek to the original Hebrew. When I have done this to books like Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Galatians, this seems to be the general rule, although in some cases the Lxx/OldGreek may not follow this rule.

Whoever my hypothetical commentary writer and the (later?) editor were, they already held a "high" christology and venerated a divine redeemer figure identified with a Jesus, with the title Christ, which IMHO has to be a rationalized solution to the problem of the Judean war and destruction of Jerusalem and all the social fallout that came with it, that had converted a Judean claimant to the kingship of Judean into a divine redeemer figure. To these folks, they used a definite with KURIOS and the term always meant Jesus and/or Christ.

The letters as we have them are not Paul "working it out" as he went along, but a foreign POV, developed decades later, imposed upon them.

The original Paul just wanted natural born Jews to be accepting of gentiles who venerated the Judean God, and for those gentile venerators, to feel as though they too will inherit the fruitful kingdom promised to Abraham's seed in Genesis.

The redactor felt that his group (former gentile converts to Judaism attached to a gentile wing of the Jesus movement) had figured out what the significance of the defeat of the Judeans and the destruction of their temple should be, was MUCH BETTER than Paul's message (in his humble opinion). There may have been a bit of social overlap between the members of these two communities, and the later redactors whom I have proposed may have published the books as we have them to proselytize the Paul followers, who were leaderless and also demoralized by the crushing Judean defeat in that war.
schillingklaus
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by schillingklaus »

Probability is a non-negative sigma-additive measuer on a sigma algrebra over a non-empty base set with total measure 1.

Most blunder is done by people tacitly assuming independence and identical distribution without any justification. Cariier is the worst of all freaks as he even fails to specify a base set, let alone a sigma algebra and a measure.
rgprice
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Re: Possible the original Pauline letters never mentioned Jesus?

Post by rgprice »

But I think there are good reasons to conclude that the original write of the Pauline letters did not have "Jesus" in mind when writing these letters. Again, lets look at James 5:

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9 Brothers and sisters, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Indeed, we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about, for the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

12 Above all, brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “Yes” be yes and your “No” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

13 Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. 14 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded its harvest.

It is really abundantly clear that when this writer in these passages mentions "the Lord" this writer is talking about the figure from the Jewish scriptures. The figure of YHWH written about in those writings. This is the Lord described in the story of Job, the Lord described in the story of Elijah, etc. This writer says to "call on the name of the Lord." This writer clearly means to call on the name of YHWH. Who is going to raise up the sick? It is the Lord of the scriptures. If this letter were not in the New Testament, and didn't have the name Jesus in the greeting, there is no way anyone would think that this writer was ever talking about any recently living person, it clearly appears like a typical Jewish writing talking about the Lord of the scriptures in ways that Jews normally would, except it advises to "call on the name of the Lord", in contradiction to the more common first century Jewish prohibition against doing such a thing.

Now, when you read the Pauline letters, 95% of the time, when the name Jesus is present, the context looks almost identical to what we see above from James.

Lets take 1 Cor 1 as an example.

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Christ, both their Lord and ours:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Christ.

4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the partnership of his Son, Christ our Lord.

v7 shows what's going on here. They are worshiping the Lord of the scriptures, identified as the coming Messiah, who is yet to be revealed.

10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but that you be knit together in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel—and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

Paul is calling on the name of the Lord here just as advised in James, when it clearly meant the name of Yahweh.

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Christ here is being described almost identically to how Philo described the Logos.

26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 In contrast, God is why you are in Christ , who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Again, the Lord is almost synonymous with Philo's Logos. And again, the reference to the Jewish scriptures indicates that the writer associates the Lord with the figure in the scriptures.
Last edited by rgprice on Mon Sep 19, 2022 3:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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