To prevent a serious hi-jack of that thread, plus it is quite a compelling debate on its own anyway, I decided to start this thread. I would be interrested in seeing what gets discussed here, and I hope that some of the LBMB fundies who lurk here still can contribute.
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
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To which should be added the question, did Paul just make up this “Jesus” fella out of whole cloth?
(Speaking of whole cloth, in Cecil Adams’ article on the shroud of Turin, http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html, he says that Jesus could not have been made up because the Gospel of Mark first appeared in print about 40 years after Jesus’s alleged crucifixion, and 40 years is, in Cecil’s opinion, too short a time for a mythical person to be fabricated so convincingly that everyone believed he was real. To which I say, in the words of Monty Python’s argument clinic, “No it isn’t!”.)
Right on, Adros.
I try to give Paul the benefit of the doubt, but if ever there was someone who seemed like just an opportunist in the whole NT, this is the guy. Of course, if
you were Satan, and you wanted to screw up God’s plan, wouldn’t you make sure to get some misguided teachings wedged into the Good Book somewhere? I know I would.
And, when the Catholic Church composed the bible, perhaps their leaders wished to do the same.
(So again, FriendOfGod I implore you, if you really want to be a believer, you must act with the Holy Spirit, and not a book written by men.)
The whole faith versus works issue is confusing. There is the story in the Gospels where Jesus points out the women giving money at the temple. A few women gave a portion
of their money to the temple (which I presume, went to the poor) while one woman, while giving less money, gave all her money to the temple. While the other women were
doing a "good work" by giving to the poor, the lone woman was acting out of faith (since she would then have nothing to provide for herself with she would have faith in God's
daily bread, etc.). Jesus hence points to faith as being more important than "works" (let's call them worksA). However, Jesus also points to the importance of other works (lets
call them worksB), such as teaching the good news. And I think this is basically where the confusion lies. Performing works if you do not have true faith will get you nowhere,
while having faith alone, while strictly OK in and of itself since having faith should bring about worksB, might still want for worksB if you put too fine a point on faith alone. But if
you have faith, as this women did, she couldn't do worksA (such as giving money to the poor as she gave it all already).
Confusing? Yep. So you can see why Paul and Peter might have been talking past each other.
Although many have argued that Paul reshaped Christ’s teaching himself, for whatever reason (making it more palatable to Gentiles, to fit his own agenda, etc.), there is another interpretation. Read the works of G.A. Wells (“he Jesus of the Early Christians”, “Did Jesus Exist?”, “The istorical Evidence for Jesus”, and others). His argument is that we should take Paul’s writings – generally agreed to be the oldest in the NT – as the starting point. Wells believes that Jesus did not even exist, and that the portrait drawn in the later Evangelists was a creation of a later time, made to fit the idea of Christ that had developed by then. In other words, the Evangelists reshaped the Christ of Paul. Interesting take on the situation.
Paul??? Maybe Mark, or Matt, or John. But not Paul. The writing styles between Paul and any of these others are different enough that I doubt it could have been Paul’s idea, if you want to make a fabrication argument.
Well, I feel the need right now to say that I was under the impression that in spite of Jews pissed with the persecution at the hands of Christians who claimed otherwise (among other groups), a dude named Jesus did in fact exist - as much as we can say anyone from that period existed as a fact.
No less a source than Cecil Adams told me this…
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Paul didn’t make up a lot of the things JC did in the Bible, or whether the guy was in fact messiah…
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
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Yeah, but then why isn’t Paul in the Gospels, or would that have just been too obvious a shout-out? Peter makes the cut, as do 30-odd other people (rough count). Seems that scholar has it bass ackwards.
Paul’s letters do center around a Messiah/Christ figure that Paul himself named “Jesus.”
For example, the Book of Romans is one of Paul’s letters. The NIV translation of Romans 8:34 reads: “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died–more than that, who was raised to life–is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”
So Paul not only mentions some guy named Jesus, he calls him Christ, and he says that this Jesus fella died and was resurrected and now sits at God’s right hand. And if that same story doesn’t also appear in each and every one of the Gospels, I’ll be a chimpanzee’s uncle.
Paul is not part of the Gospels as JCs words and teaching do not directly appear in Pauls works.
No serious Historian or Biblical commentary doubts JC existed as a real historical person ie : Asimov, “Don’t know Much About the Bible”, by Kenneth Davis, “Idiots guide to the Bible”, Oxford History, and finally Cecil himself. All well known Skeptics and truthseekers, and in the main, not known as “religous” sources. Sure we can’t PROVE JC existed, but you can’t prove Ceasar did either.
As for Paul, my Church holds he was “inspired” to start his evangalizing, but his letters to the Churchs are just letters from an important Church Father, not inspired or the word of G-d.
IMHO, he was neither. But (again, IMHO), he was a big time opportunist (I’ve met quite a few, and why would there not have been as many back then as there are now?).
I loved the SD’s feature of Atheists For Jesus. I’m certainly not an atheist, but I’m absolutely not a Christian either. And I agreed 100% with the AFJ’s on the subject of Paul.
Once again, I’m forced to point out the same inconvenient fact:
Folks, if you believe Jesus was a sweet, lovable, non-judgmental hippie who believed in “peace, love and doing your own thing,” while Paul was an old meanie who imposed a bunch of rules… you really don’t know what you’re talking about!
Facts are facts. COnsider that…
Sweet, lovable, inclusive Jesus NEVER tried to preach to non-Jews. It was mean, old exclusionary PAUL who argued that the words of Jesus were meant for everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike. If Paul hadn’t fought tooth and nail on this point, Christianity today would be a tiny, JEwish fringe group, if it existed at all.
Sweet, lovable, hippie Jesus NEVER suggested that Mosaic law should be done away with. Jesus followed all the kosher laws, and his Apostles, the guys who knew him best, continued to follow Mosaic law to the letter. It was mean old PAUL who said Mosaic law was no longer essential. So… if you want to follow Jesus while shunning Paul, I suggest you start keeping kashrut PRONTO. And start stoning adulterers and homosexuals. And stop shaving. And…
Whenever Jesus proposed an amendment to Mosaic law, he made the requirements TOUGHER! It was JESUS who said that anyone who LOOKS at a woman lustfully has sinned in his heart! Indeed, C.S. Lewis put it well: the most frightening words of Scripture come from the mouth of Jesus, while the words that give us the most hope of salvation were written by Paul.
Now, if you don’t believe in the existence (or divinity) of Jesus, this is all irrelevant. I merely point out that those “Christians” who want to keep Jesus and dump Paul have NO FREAKING CLUE what headaches and heartaches they’re letting themselves in for. Jesus was NOT who they want to think he was, and neither was Paul.
Paul may not be in the Gospels, but he is prominent n Acts, which everyone, believer or not, acknowledges as written by the same person who wrote Luke. There’s no reaso for Paul to show up in the Gospels – he never says in his letters that he ever met the pre-Resurrection Christ. Luke portrays him as unaware of the Christians until the stoning of Stephen.
Even if you do not believe in the existene of a historical Christ (as with Wells and a number of others ), that does NOT mean that you believe that Paul “made him up”. The argument that has been advanced is that Paul believed in a figure who had been crucified a some indefinite time in the past. There are very fw indications in Paul’s writings about when this was supposed to be, and those who advance this theory are skeptical about the few mentions that would seem to peg Christ’s life to a definite period of time.
The view is not without its difficulties, I’ll admit.But it’s still an interesting hypothesis.
If you want ttally different yet equally heretical view of th ife of Jesus, read Morton Smith’s books – “The Secret Gospel” (Smith finds and translates a hitherto unknown fragment of an apocryphal text – very interesting work by a serious scholar) and “Jesus the Magician”. The latter book contains a lot of material I’d heard about but never read before (such as the charge that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier named Panthera), but here are what seem to me to be leaps in logic that are not at all warranted.
Astorian, you have posted this before, to the letter, and I have replied before. JC made it clear that the Law must be folowed until he gave his life for our sins, until then, he had not died as the “ultimate sacrifice”, and so all the OT Law was still in effect. It was Peter and James (JC’s brother*, NOT Paul who deceided that the OT Law would not apply, based on their recollection of the Word. Paul did argue for it, but his voice, then, was not very important.
It was JC who said “The Sabbath was made for Man, not man for the Sabbath”, and also said several other Laws were being interpreted too strongly. He Healed on the Sabbath, for example. His views on this were somewhere between the essenes and the Pharisee, He disagreed strongly with the Sadducees, who were very “reactionary”.
JC’s original mission was to the Jews, but he began reaching out to more and more gentiles as he went along.
Now, I could quote the Gospel’s here, to back all this up, but I don’t think everyone wants to see that.
Yes, JC had a brother, several in fact.
Cal, Luke was Pauls Secretary/Doctor, but Paul did seem to write some himself.
Even if Paul really was the driving force behind the spread to Gentiles, and even if Jesus wasn’t being “sweet lovable and inclusive” (although why would he talk to nonjews? they would not have listened to him any more than i listen to the Jehovah’s who stop by every once in a while. He was preaching from a jewish tradition, for an interpretation of jewish law.) it still stands to reason that Paul may have done so to increase his own standing (see ‘opportunistic’ in thread title) or even to spread a good belief system preaching kindness to other man, which happened to be made up.
But the j-man never stoned anybody, and in fact kept company with adulterers and prostitutes, all kindsa unclean people. He broke Mosaic law on many an occasion (his apostles picking fruit on the sabbath because they had no food (i think that’s the story), healed on the sabbath, in fact did quite a lot of things that the law said he shouldn’t do. And as for paul doing away with jewish law, well see his reasons i posited in #1
Exactly. Jesus was preaching a purity of heart. Such purity was possible by following jewish law, but the law didn’t cause it. Jesus distilled the best of Jewish teaching into a beautiful morality, and amy good morality is going to be a little tough to live by.
The main argument that i got out of the OP was this: The letters of Paul were written before the gospels were. A good 40 years, i think. So perhaps paul made this dude up, and started writing letters and making a church, and 2 generations later the gospels got written down. With a lot of groundwork made up be paul earlier incorporated into them.
my question for the other side would be- when the hell did paul do this? he was writing to pretty established groups, with a lot of structure. it had to be a long time before he wrote the letters. after all, if i sat down today and fired off a bunch of missives to people about this religion i recently made up, i truly doubt many people would take me seriously, especially not enough to start a cult. and (hopefully obviously) he didn’t make the religion up after writing the letters.
and the early church wasn’t that big or powerful. paul received some pretty rough treatment on behalf of such a small group (although i guess he could have made that up if he was already making the rest up), and didn’t seem to get that much glory in his earthly days. what was his motivation?
earliest Gospel is Mark, AD66, but it contains quotes that most believe were much earlier, likely written down during JC’s time.
Earliest Pauline writing is likely 1 Thessalonians, about AD50.
In AD 50, there were still a lot of folks who had met JC in person, so it would be a little hard for Paul to have “made him up”, not to mention there was James, JC’s brother, whom we have written records showing he was executed (true, they just say James, the brother of Jesus, so it COULD have been another Jesus), and Peter. Romans during the time of the persecutions, had no doubt that JC had been a real man, altho they considered him a false God, of course.
Jesus initiated a conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well. A no-no on a couple counts, such as initiating a conversation with a Samaritan woman.
Jesus also made allusions to the stone the builders discarded becoming the cornerstone, and that he had another flock.
I think this part of your argument doesn’t hold up.
Paul doesn’t say that Mosaic law is not essential, he says that Torah never had the power of salvation; in fact it exists to show man that he is sinful and incapable of ever living up to God’s standards. Jesus said he came to fulfill the law. Paul, recognizing that Jesus fulfilled the law, puts his faith in Jesus, not Torah. This is again the faith vs works argument. Paul, as a Jew and a member of the Sanhedrin (I believe), respected Torah. He just didn’t see it as a pathway to salvation in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Yes, this is true, but it was Jesus’ way of saying that what you do is less important that what is in your heart. The commandment to not covet is the only one which concerns motivation and thought. But Jesus pointed out that murder starts in the heart and mind of the murderer. Paul didn’t contradict this notion, AFAIK.
The reason the most frightening words in Scripture come from the mouth of Jesus is because that Jesus, although he is savior, is also God and therefore allowed to judge mankind. Any other writings are commentaries on Jesus and God, and don’t carry the same punch.
As for the OP, opportunists who make people up out of whole cloth usually do so for their own gain, not so they can become victims of police beatings wherever they go, become a hunted man, get tossed in jail and eventually executed.
Unless you believe that those aspects of Paul’s ministry were made up too. Then everyone would have to be in on it, like Luke and Peter, and Barnabas, who, even though he didn’t write anything that survives, is mentioned by more than one person, and Timothy…
It’s a vast right-wing conspiracy, folks. Face it.
Ben: << So Paul believed in a physical resurrection, wounds and all? >>
Yes. The concept of a “spiritual” resurrection, of the soul but not the body, is relatively recent. Pre-Christian Judaic thought (and, indeed, Orthodox Judaic thought up to present day) also believe[d] in a physical resurrection.
On the question of Jesus and Mosaic Law
DAVE: <<Jesus initiated a conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well. A no-no on a couple counts, such as initiating a conversation with a Samaritan woman. >>
Daniel: <<. He Healed on the Sabbath, for example >>
Neither of those is a violation of Mosaic Law, as far as I am aware. Talmudic interpretation says that [almost] all laws can be violated to save a life. (The [almost] is technical, because there are a few basic tgenets where one must accept martyrdom rather than violate them, such as idolatry.) I am certainly not aware of any Mosaic law forbidding a man from talking to a woman at a well. Happened alla time in Old Testament stories.
General comment
If you believe that Paul had an authentic visit from a dead-and-now-alive Jesus, then the interpretation is much as Daniel cited: that Jesus’s sacrifice replaced Mosaic Law (and specifically Temple sacrifice) as a means of atoning for one’s sins.
If you do not believe Paul had an authentic visit, then Paul was the world’s greatest PR man, who created a religion of such universal appeal.
Dave: <<Paul doesn’t say that Mosaic law is not essential, he says that Torah never had the power of salvation; in fact it exists to show man that he is sinful and incapable of ever living up to God’s standards. >>
This is the crux [ahem] of the matter. Up until Paul’s time, the early Christians preached to Jews within the confines of Mosaic Law. Paul overturned that. The Jewish response, then as now, was that God doesn’t lie, and God doesn’t pull practical jokes on people. God gave the laws of the Torah and said they were eternal. He did not say, “eternal until I change My mind” or “eternal until you’ve learned that you can’t fulfil them perfectly.” Which is the essential break between Christianity and Judaism.
Samaritans were not Gentiles in the way that I (an Irish-American) am.
Samaritans were Israelites, just like the Jews. They were descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, just like the Jews. They believed in the one God (though they tended to use the name Elohim rather than Yahweh), just like the Jews.
So, what made Samaritans loathsome to many Jews? The so-called “lost tribes” of Israel (Reuben, Simeon, Napthali, Asher, Dan, Gad, Zebulon, Issachar, Joseph) were conquered by the Assyrians, some time before the descendants of Judah were captured by the Babylonians.
The difference is, during the time when the Jews (descendants of Judah) were captives in Babylon (and later Persia), they maintained their faith, their identity, and their racial purity. The “Israelites” (the other tribes) intermarried with the Assyrians.
THAT’s why many Jews hated Samaritans- NOT because they were “foreigners,” but because they were fellow ISraelites who hadn’t stayed pure.
When Jesus talked to Samaritans, he could claim (quite rightly) that he was ministering to a fellow Israelite, someone who had a share in God’s original covenant with Abraham and with Moses.
On the other hand, in the Gospel of John, Jesus pointedly avoids meeting with GReeks who want to mett him.