2 cor 5:16 as interpolation

[Giuseppe]

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

It hasn't never convinced me at all the idea that kata sarka here is referred to the verb "to know" and not to Christ.
From the other hand, it is quasi impossible that Paul knew a historical Jesus: his silence about a HJ in the epistles is very much sound beyond any imagination.

Therefore I am going to suspect the verse 16 as interpolation by a historicist Christian.

Without that verse 16, the conclusion in verse 17 follows more easily from verse 15.

The "therefore" of the verse 16 is totally without sense, at contrary of the "therefore" of the verse 17 (that is very much logical).

But why did the interpolator insert the verse 16?

To explain the silence of Paul about the HJ, giving the same reason given today by the likes of Ehrman: Paul wasn't interested about the HJ.

I suspect the interpolation as an anti-gnostic one. The gnostics considered any "psychic" people as mere people kata sarka. Only the "pneumatic" people were superior people. By remembering Jesus himself as one kata sarka, the catholic interpolator is exhorting the gnostic readers to revalue the flesh and also the hoi polloi, because Jesus himself was one of them.

[Giuseppe]

When human people are considered as people kata sarka:

Somatics/Hylics: The body of the human being composed of flesh (sarx) which is a form of matter (hyle) albeit endowed temporarily with biological life. In plain English- these types of souls depend on the flesh to tell them right from wrong. The 'worldly' people. Pure emotion and living in the now for pleasure. The collectors of exotic cars, homes, and million dollar gems are just as likely to be somatic souls as is the person who obsessively and compulsively hoards food, clothes, or any other easily collectible and likely-to-be-obsessed-over items as if their life depended on it. They put their worth in the things they have collected. If their things suddenly disappeared or were taken away from them they would feel worthless as a human being

http://gnostic-unrest.blogspot.it/2009/ ... atics.html

The simple possibility that Jesus is seen kata sarka, as a 'wordly' man, does confirm both the his historical existence, a reason for Paul to ignore him, and especially (maybe the thing that was most important among all), the his humanity ''in the flesh'', revaluing it. In this way to be ''kata sarka'' - or to be seen ''kata sarka'' - is not more a despisable thing.

[Giuseppe]

I am soundly indebted - more solito - to the great mythicist Gordon Rylands, for the following remark:

It has been argued that II Corinthians v, 16, affords evidence of Paul’s belief in the humanity of Jesus, where we read “ though we have known Christ after the flesh.” But, in the first place, this verse-proves too much, since we know that neither Paul nor those for whom he wrote did in fact know Christ in the flesh. This alone should have made the verse suspected. And, in the second place, on purely textual and critical grounds, impartial consideration must lead to the conclusion that the verse is an interpolation. The sequence of thought in verse 17 follows directly upon that in verse 15, and is awkwardly interrupted by verse 16, which is clearly intrusive. Any reader of critical perception can easily see this if he will read verses 15 and 17 consecutively, as follows: Christ “died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature." The second of these two verses draws a conclusion from the reasoning set forth in the first and preceding verses. Between the conclusion and the reasoning is thrust verse 16, which has no logical connection with them, and contains a different thought altogether : “ Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh ; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know him so no more.” This is in the form of a conclusion to the reasoning in verse 15, but it does not follow from it at all. Verses 13-15 contain a train of reasoning, then follow two quite different conclusions, of which the one in verse 16 has no logical connection with the previous train of reasoning, and the one in verse 17 follows naturally from it. Verse 16 not only does not in any way complete or elucidate the verses whieh precede it, but very awkwardly cuts them off from the conclusion to which they are directed.

(Evolution of Christianity, p. 147-148, my bold)

[DCHindley]

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

It hasn't never convinced me at all the idea that kata sarka here is referred to the verb "to know" and not to Christ.
From the other hand, it is quasi impossible that Paul knew a historical Jesus: his silence about a HJ in the epistles is very much sound beyond any imagination.

Therefore I am going to suspect the verse 16 as interpolation by a historicist Christian.

Without that verse 16, the conclusion in verse 17 follows more easily from verse 15.

The "therefore" of the verse 16 is totally without sense, at contrary of the "therefore" of the verse 17 (that is very much logical).

But why did the interpolator insert the verse 16?

In my highly speculative and has-to-be-wrong POV, in which a later editor "updated" Paul's letters, which originally had nothing to do with Jesus or Christ, only how gentiles could share in the promised land of milk & honey promised to Abraham by God, to make a running commentary on them from the POV of the editor who was a Christian who held a somewhat fully undigested high Christology about Jesus. You can see that he is often at odds with Paul over many issues, adding his glosses and other tweaks to provide what he considered his superior POV. Why? I can't say, other than that his circles must have encountered followers of Paul who they thought might be receptive to the high Christology of his circles.

As for the wording, it can seem that he was saying "Whatever Jesus was as a human being in the past is irrelevant now that we gentile Christians have devised a much much better alternative (the divine redeemer idea)." It is kind of additive. However, grammatically, I don't think it means this, but I have mislaid my notes.

While Paul simply said that gentiles who believe that there will be a future superabundant age centered on Judea can participate in it as equals to Abraham's physical descendants simply on account of their belief in it really happening. The editor, adds belief in the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ to that schemata, but Paul's original scheme already let the gentiles in the door without any conversion of circumcision, so adding a level to this does not make a lot of sense to me.

DCH

[Bernard Muller]

I have my own take here on the verse and the passage:
http://historical-jesus.info/20.html

Cordially, Bernard

[Giuseppe]

I have my own take here on the verse and the passage:
http://historical-jesus.info/20.html

Cordially, Bernard

I quote Bernard:

Because "according to the flesh" (Greek: 'kata sarka') cannot mean here "in person" (neither Paul or his Corinthians met Jesus in the flesh), the sense in that context appears to be "according to worldly ways" (Collins' dictionary definition for "worldly": "not spiritual; mundane or temporal"). Please note the NIV Bible renders 'kata sarka' here as "from a worldly point of view"; the NRSV translates the same as "from a human point of view".

Really, I don't think that there is co much difference between to see kata sarka Mr. X and to see Mr X kata sarka .

I think that for the Gnostic readers - to whom the passage was addressed by the proto-catholic interpolator - the construct kata sarka did mean the same negative thing, in both cases if referred to a person or (only) to the way of seeing that person. Basically, if I consider someone as a very materialistic (in a negative sense) person, I am despising him just as I would do if I see him according to a materialistic point of view (for example, under a cyinical consideration).

But the meaning of kata sarka is partially revalued by the proto-catholic interpolator: surely the materialistic view or the materialistic person is not a spiritual view (or a spiritual person), but at least Jesus was seen as materialistic or in a materialistic way, and only this matters to make the anti-Gnostic point against the Gnostic despise of the flesh.

DCH

in which a later editor "updated" Paul's letters, which originally had nothing to do with Jesus or Christ,

This was similar to the view of Arthur Drews, even if in a reversal way (for Drews, the mystical author was the original).

Again, Gordon Rylands doesn't follow Drews on this point. He thinks that the editor was not a particular person, but there were a lot of later editors, therefore making it quasi impossible to determine precisely the ''true'' passages of the historical Paul.

[Bernard Muller]

to Giuseppe,
I think you take the meaning of 'kata sarka' in 2 Co 5:16 the wrong way:
Even the not Christian NRSV translates 'kata sarka' in verse 2 Co 5:16 "from a human point of view", which is fairly common as the meaning of 'kata sarka' in Paul's epistles:

And Paul can be demonstrated to use this expression in the same epistle with that connotation:
2 Cor 1:17c "... Or the things I plan, do I plan according to the flesh ..."
2 Cor 5:15a "... we regard no one according to the flesh"
2 Cor 10:2-3 "But I beg [you] that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh."
2 Cor 11:18 "Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast."

And, sometimes, "according to the flesh" is presented as the opposite of "according to the Spirit" (which is Paul's preferred way, by far!):
Ro 8:4-5 "[There is] therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those [who live] according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit."
Ro 8:13 "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."

Cordially, Bernard

[Giuseppe]

to Giuseppe,
I think you take the meaning of 'kata sarka' in 2 Co 5:16 the wrong way:
Even the not Christian NRSV translates 'kata sarka' in verse 2 Co 5:16 "from a human point of view",

I am not disagreeing about that at all, Bernard. My point is that, being kata sarka better translated as ''from a human worldy of view'', it doesn't introduce a so strong difference from the other meaning (the person of Jesus as kata sarka). For the gnostic readers, Jesus was not carnal (even if on the earth): he was seen ''from a carnal point of view''. If even Paul saw Jesus from a carnal point of view - the point of the interpolator - then the carnal point of view was not so negative, after all, pace the Gnostics (and their worship of the Solus Paulus).

[Bernard Muller]

To Giuseppe,

If even Paul saw Jesus from a carnal point of view - the point of the interpolator - then the carnal point of view was not so negative, after all, pace the Gnostics (and their worship of the Solus Paulus).

So you are admitting that 2 Co 5:16 makes sense as written by Paul.
And "saw" is not in the verse. It is "have known".

Cordially, Bernard

[Giuseppe]

To Giuseppe,

If even Paul saw Jesus from a carnal point of view - the point of the interpolator - then the carnal point of view was not so negative, after all, pace the Gnostics (and their worship of the Solus Paulus).

So you are admitting that 2 Co 5:16 makes sense as written by Paul.

I think that I have written in a clear way:

If even Paul has known Jesus from a carnal point of view - the point of the interpolator - then the carnal point of view was not so negative, after all, pace the Gnostics (and their worship of the Solus Paulus).

Paul couldn't have written that verse because he was talking about all other things, in the verse immediately preceding and following the interpolated verse 16.

And because it is impossible that Paul had known (or heard about) Jesus ''from a carnal point of view''.