Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

(Gal 1:1)

An apostle sent "from men" is clearly a follower of the Pillars (as "some sent by James" in Gal 2).

But who is an apostle sent "by a man"?

Here "man" seems to be used in opposition to Jesus Christ.

For Marcion, the same pillars were apostle sent "by a man", insofar they believed that Jesus (who sent them) was a man, and not rather one in the form - and the form alone - of a man.

Hence I think that even if the passage is authentic (given the fact that it makes really a lot of sense if read according to marcionite lens), then also Paul is specifying that Jesus is not a man.

Not a man in the more obvious meaning of man: a concrete human being.

The difference between Paul and Marcion is that:

1) Marcion is assuming that the "man" who is believed to send apostles is the same Jesus Christ, but only when seen (wrongly) with Jewish-Christian lens, as a Jewish prophet or messiah, and not as the his real nature: an alien divine being in the form of a man (but without being really a man).

2) Paul is assuming that the "man" who is believed to send apostles is the negation of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ was not a human being for Paul. And also for the Pillars before him. Hence he is specifying that he doesn't consider Jesus a historical person lived on the earth in the recent past (or even still living). In this way the Galatians can be secured about the fact that Paul is a true Christian: his Jesus Christ is not a man but a spiritual being.

Why there was an evolution from 2 (Paul) to 1 (Marcion)?

Because in the time of Paul the risk was to confuse a spiritual Christ with an earthly Joshua redivivus (the Egyptian, Theudas, etc).

While in the time of Marcion the risk was to confuse the alien Christ of the higher god with the Son of the Demiurge, the god of the Jews.

... Paul is specifying that Jesus is not a man.

He says that Jesus Christ is not a man, by which Paul means the post-resurrection spiritual Jesus (hence his additional reference to "God the Father, who raised him from the dead").

But he admits that the pre-resurrected Jesus was a man in 1 Cor. 15:20-21:

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

And he explains how the man Jesus became a spirit in 1 Cor. 15:42-45:

The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

He focuses on this post-resurrection spiritual Jesus Christ because, as he says in 2 Cor. 5:16:

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.

He's playing on the root of emissary meaning "sent one." This is an important link with Moses who is repeatedly "sent" by God to Pharaoh and Israel and so the "apostle" of God. https://books.google.com/books?id=pzo6K ... an&f=false

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

(Gal 1:1)

An apostle sent "from men" is clearly a follower of the Pillars (as "some sent by James" in Gal 2).

But who is an apostle sent "by a man"?
.

but it says he wasn't.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am Here "man" seems to be used in opposition to Jesus Christ.

Not necessarily 'in opposition to', but different to.

Read some books in the OT, where angels are referred to as as a man or the man eg. the begining of chapters of Zechariah -

Zech 1:7-11



Zech 2:1-6

An apostle sent "from men" is clearly a follower of the Pillars (as "some sent by James" in Gal 2).

But who is an apostle sent "by a man"?

I think your parenthetical remark points to the meaning of "by a man." "From men" refers to a follower of the pillars or other apostles and elders (like those mentioned in Acts 15:6), and "by a man" refers to a follower of James specifically. I think he is slighting James (and his followers) here because of what happened in Antioch.

I think they're both ("from men"/"by a man") a jab against Jewish Christians (by which I mean Torah-keeping Christians) in the same way as 2 Cor. 3:1-6:

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The exact prepositions are probably important:


The preposition ἀπό generally indicates the ultimate source of the authority: human beings are not the ones who sent Paul (God is). The preposition διά is better suited for the agent or mediator through whom the authority flows: no human being acts as mediator between Paul and God (only Jesus does that). The prepositions matter for Paul elsewhere, too:

John2 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:46 pm

... Paul is specifying that Jesus is not a man.

He says that Jesus Christ is not a man, by which Paul means the post-resurrection spiritual Jesus (hence his additional reference to "God the Father, who raised him from the dead").

Hardly so. I remember a proposition of prof Hurtado (unfortunately I don't preserve the link) where he says someway that “for the apocalypticist thought, the future is already present”, meaning that if Jesus is Christ after the death, then he is Christ also before the his birth, hence there is no “Jesus man” for Paul even if there was a historical Jesus.

But the my point is another: if Paul wanted only distinguish apostles sent by men versus apostles sent from Christ, then why did he introduce another class of apostles, those sent “by a man”? Who is the man in question?

Only my answer above gives the solution, I think and I believe.

Paul is denying absolutely that Jesus is a man, while his later heir Marcion is denying that the man “Jesus” represents the true Christ, since the man is only a hologram, believed wrongly a Jewish man by the judaizing apostles (in Marcion's view).

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 4:00 pm

and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom [δι᾽ οὗ] are all things, and we exist through Him.

What do you think is meant by "through whom are all things, and we exist through him"?

nightshadetwine wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:23 pm

Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 4:00 pm

and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom [δι᾽ οὗ] are all things, and we exist through Him.

What do you think is meant by "through whom are all things, and we exist through him"?

I think what is meant is that Jesus was and still is the agent or mediator of creation. The Jesus Hymn in Philippians 2.5-11 has Christ Jesus existing with and as God from the beginning; the Johannine prologue explicitly has "all things" coming into being "through him" (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ), using the same preposition.

1 Corinthians 8.5-6 itself is based on the Shema (Deuteronomy 6.4-5), the locus classicus for monotheism, and yet Paul makes room for Jesus somehow in its formulation.

Greek and Roman philosophers had a tradition of using different prepositions to speak of God or of the idea of divinity. For example:


There is also Asclepius 34, attributed to Apuleius, which says that omnia enim ab eo et in ipso et per ipsum ("for all things are from him and in him and through him," referring to God, deus).

Paul seems to be doing something similar to speak of God (the Father) and Jesus (the Son).