The problem of Paul

[GordW]

Hi Gord:
It is unfortunate indeed that he never knew the historical Jesus, never made any serious attempts to get to know his family, and actually never mentioned him. He just talks about the mythologized Christ of his creation. Thus, the Christianity that has come down to us from him is Pauline rather than "Jesuine."

Clearly Saul/Paul never knew Jesus the man. Both he and the author of Acts agree on that. And certainly he does not talk much about the life of Jesus in his letters. But then remember that outside of Romans (which was written as his way of introducing himself to the Roman Church, whom he hoped/planned to visit soon) the letters often appear to be addressing questions or issues that have come back to Paul. We have no idea what he may have taught about Jesus in his initial visits to those communities (and others). We do know that for Paul the crux of the faith was the Easter event --cross and empty tomb.

 

[chansen]

But there most likely was no empty tomb, or resurrection. Further, we know that God is a construct of Pagan gods. Paul just looks like the Joseph Smith of his time, with direct revelations instead of seer stones.

 

[JRT]

Had there been no war with the Romans, a basic tenet of the Gospel would not have found traction: Jesus' status as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices and THE atoning death for sin. Jesus' predicted the imminent destruction of the Temple and its sacrifice system and this destruction paved the way for Jesus' status as the fulfillment and end of the Jewish sacrifice system.

One of the tests for prophecy fulfillment is that the prophesy must clearly have been made prior to the event predicted. Since none of the gospels were written prior to the destruction of the Temple, this makes Jesus actually predicting that event somewhat problematic. I do agree that his death has certainly been interpreted "as the fulfillment and end of the Jewish sacrifice system".

 

[Inukshuk]

I go in circles around Paul. More questions, than answers. What if James had been able to lead the 'Jesus movement'? What if Paul had continued to travel east? I am convinced that Jesus was without ego ~ I do not feel the same about Paul. Was Paul consumed with inner conflict?..."wretched man that I am..."

 

[revsdd]

I go in circles around Paul. More questions, than answers. What if James had been able to lead the 'Jesus movement'? What if Paul had continued to travel east? I am convinced that Jesus was without ego ~ I do not feel the same about Paul. Was Paul consumed with inner conflict?..."wretched man that I am..."

Everyone's consumed with inner conflict of some sort. Paul was just open and honest enough to admit it. When he writes words like "I don't understand the things I do. The things I shouldn't do are the things I keep on doing, and the things I should do are the things I'm unable to do" he speaks to me, and I suspect he speaks to everyone, although most want to pretend otherwise. Then, to avoid the obvious implications of those words, we instead occupy ourselves with the fascination over what was Paul doing. Was he secretly gay? What was up? We do that to avoid applying his teachings to ourselves by facing our own issues and acknowedging our own inconsistencies. What are we unable or unwilling to let go of that blocks or hinders our relationships with God or others? It's easier to condemn and dismiss Paul as outdated than to actually read ourselves into his teachings or to try to understand what he writes in his own context.

Paul, of course, was a product of his times and what he writes, he writes within that context. He was remarkably flexible and interested in other cultures. I, personally, don't believe he was sexist or mysogynistic. That's anachronistic - reading a current idea back into the past. By the standards of his time he was remarkably enlightened. Mutual respect between masters and slaves was revolutionary. (And applying the words and principle to slavery in the American south, as many did, was wrong, since slavery in the Greco-Roman world was a very different beast.) "In Christ there is no male or female" would have been a radically inclusive idea in his day. The fact that he mentions female co-workers in Christ is fascinating. We speak disparagingly about "wives, submit to your husbands," but generally ignore that the words immediately before were "submit to one another" and that what follows is an instruction to husbands that puts far more onus on them - "love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it." That should leave no room for abuse or disrespect or selfishness if it were listened to.

There are also parts of Paul's writings (think of Romans 5 & 6) where he struggles with both sin and grace, and at times seems to take an almost universalist approach.

Paul was remarkably enlightened for a man of the 1st century, and in my view he gets a very bad rap from modern interpreters who insist on judging him through contemporary lenses rather than by his own context and culture.

 

[Hermann]

Paul was remarkably enlightened for a man of the 1st century, and in my view he gets a very bad rap from modern interpreters who insist on judging him through contemporary lenses rather than by his own context and culture.

Hear, hear!

My granddaughter, who studied him in her ancient Greek/Roman history studies, and wrote her master thesis on him, thinks he was a highly (self?)educated Greco/Roman Jew, who was partial to Stoic philosophy before his conversion experience. We know little about this experience, but I speculate that it somehow connected him with Jesus and his teachings, and that's why he made Jesus into the mythical Christ and the figurehead of the religion he propagated. Otherwise, the choice of a Jewish figurehead for a Roman religion makes little sense, given the Jewish-Roman tension of the time. It seems he did his best to "de-judaify" the Jesus movement and make it into a religion palatable to gentiles.

My granddaughter, in her research, detected many similarities between Paul's teachings and traditional Stoic teachings. I am currently reading Seneca and notice the similarities myself. Stoicism was a popular philosophy among educated Romans. By mixing Stoic teachings into his new religion, Paul may have made it palatable not only to the uneducated public but also to educated Romans.

 

[Waterfall]

Did the other disciples consider Paul to be a disciple?

 

[Hermann]

Did the other disciples consider Paul to be a disciple?

After Jesus' death, maybe. After all, Paul enabled them to spread Jesus' message beyond their wildest dreams!

 

[Waterfall]

Can you explain that Hermann?

There are only seven authentic letters written by Paul in the NT: 1Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians and Philemon and the rest are written by others. So we have 7 other books of the OT, speaking on behalf of Paul, all claiming Paul as an apostle or disciple. If we take away all of the books written by Paul or someone else "on behalf of Paul", we really aren't left with much.

The Book of Acts has conflicting accounts of Paul's "conversion" and is not written by Paul himself apparently, and Paul's own authenticated account does not match the one's in Acts. In fact his own account in Galatians and Corinthians, his conversion story is brief and doesn't match the other stories in Acts.

 

[Hermann]

Yes, Waterfall, the seven authentic letters by Paul aren't much. But to a historian, they mean a lot, given that they are the only authenticated documents in the Bible, preserved, no less, in the original Koine Greek they were written in. Everything else in the Bible is "pseudo-biographical," and more or less influenced by early church politics and propaganda.

From a faith perspective, it matters less. We just read everything, discern it, and get out of it whatever is meaningful to us.

 

[revsdd]

Can you explain that Hermann?

There are only seven authentic letters written by Paul in the NT: 1Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians and Philemon and the rest are written by others. So we have 7 other books of the OT, speaking on behalf of Paul, all claiming Paul as an apostle or disciple. If we take away all of the books written by Paul or someone else "on behalf of Paul", we really aren't left with much.

The Book of Acts has conflicting accounts of Paul's "conversion" and is not written by Paul himself apparently, and Paul's own authenticated account does not match the one's in Acts. In fact his own account in Galatians and Corinthians, his conversion story is brief and doesn't match the other stories in Acts.

There could be nine. There is a difference of opinion in the scholarly community about 2 Thessalonians and Colossians. In fact, one of my New Testament professors at the Toronto School of Theology argued that 2 Thessalonians was Paul's earliest letter, predating 1 Thessalonians, and that the church numbered them wrongly. Also, there are only 13 letters of Paul in the New Testament, 4-6 of which (Ephesians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus and possibly Colossians and 2 Thessalonians) that are pseudepegraphical, although I would argue for the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians and Colossians.

Earlier, you raised the question of Paul's apostleship. It seems to rest on 2 pillars - his conversion experience, which is portrayed as a direct encounter with Christ, and his acceptance by the other apostles when he visited them in Jerusalem. It's clear from his own letters that his apostleship was questioned by some. Every letter he writes starts by stressing his status as an apostle, as if he's trying to convince his readers or confront those in the communities to which he was writing who questioned him. We know that Paul had opponents who disagreed with the nature of the gospel he proclaimed to the Gentile world. Generally called "the Judaizers," his opponents appear to have argued that Gentiles had to obey the Jewish law if they became Christians (and, specifically, that they had to be circumcised.) Paul took the opposite view. It was likely these opponents who questioned his authority as an apostle, and therefore his authority to teach as he did. It's not clear who the Judaizers were. Some have speculated that Peter was among them, based on Paul's own admission of differences between them, but it's not clear.

 

[Waterfall]

Thank you for that information. When you speak about Paul and Peter, didn't Peter claim he was the one with the authority to minister to the Gentiles. And wasn't this what Paul claimed about himself? Does it matter that they both did this or did Paul step on Peter's toes, so to speak? Paul does seem to contradict the teachings of Jesus at times(or did he), so possibly Peter knew this?

 

[Hermann]

There could be nine. There is a difference of opinion in the scholarly community about 2 Thessalonians and Colossians. In fact, one of my New Testament professors at the Toronto School of Theology argued that 2 Thessalonians was Paul's earliest letter, predating 1 Thessalonians, and that the church numbered them wrongly. Also, there are only 13 letters of Paul in the New Testament, 4-6 of which (Ephesians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus and possibly Colossians and 2 Thessalonians) that are pseudepegraphical, although I would argue for the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians and Colossians.

Earlier, you raised the question of Paul's apostleship. It seems to rest on 2 pillars - his conversion experience, which is portrayed as a direct encounter with Christ, and his acceptance by the other apostles when he visited them in Jerusalem. It's clear from his own letters that his apostleship was questioned by some. Every letter he writes starts by stressing his status as an apostle, as if he's trying to convince his readers or confront those in the communities to which he was writing who questioned him. We know that Paul had opponents who disagreed with the nature of the gospel he proclaimed to the Gentile world. Generally called "the Judaizers," his opponents appear to have argued that Gentiles had to obey the Jewish law if they became Christians (and, specifically, that they had to be circumcised.) Paul took the opposite view. It was likely these opponents who questioned his authority as an apostle, and therefore his authority to teach as he did. It's not clear who the Judaizers were. Some have speculated that Peter was among them, based on Paul's own admission of differences between them, but it's not clear.

Yes, the scholarly community agrees that there could be nine. Those two you mentioned could or could not be authentically Pauline.

 

[revjohn]

So where does Paul stand with people these days? Revered, reviled, or just recognized for the smart but flawed man that he was? Would Christianity have been better or worse without him? Has he been unfairly treated by some of his critics?

It probably depends upon which scholar you read last.

I'm still plowing through N.T. Wright's "Paul and the Faithfulness of God." It comes in two volumes and the second volume is almost three times as big as the first. It was probably too ambitious for a summer reading.

At any rate Wright is of the opinion of that Paul is mostly misunderstood and he makes a very strong case that most of Christianity, especially those who put a lot of stress on Paul have no clue who Paul is or what Paul actually says.

Wright identifies Paul as a 2nd Temple Pharisee (which actually means quite a bit more than most Christians realize). He also takes time to establish the worldview that Paul operates out of, making the identification of 2nd temple Pharisee important.

So, as far as Wright is concerned (and I find his argument compelling) Paul is misunderstood by his critics and champions alike.

It would be difficult to summarize Wright in a brief paragraph since both volumes together run to roughly 1500+ pages.

 

[Waterfall]

revjohn I would love to hear more about what you "discovered" about Paul from your reading. Such as why is it important to know that Paul was a second temple Pharisee?

Did Wright explain why Paul is more dominant in the NT rather than, say, Peter or James?

 

[revsdd]

I've not read Wright's book, but one simple explanation as to why Paul dominates the New Testament might simply be that he wrote more.

 

[Mendalla]

One could also take the cynical position that it's the winners who write the history books. Had another sect or faction in the church ended up in control, maybe he would have been less dominant when the canon was set.

 

[revjohn]

why is it important to know that Paul was a second temple Pharisee?

There are a finite number of words in most languages and a finite number of ways those words translate into other languages.

Without knowing that Paul was a second temple Pharisee and what that means we begin to presume that the words we recognize in Paul mean precisely the same thing to him as they do to us.

When Paul speaks of God is Paul speaking of the God we "know" as 21st Century Christians in the affluent west who are emerging from the ashes of Christendom or does Paul speak as a 2nd temple Pharisee from the first Century? Do the words Paul uses then mean what we understand them to mean now?

That kind of thing.

Did Wright explain why Paul is more dominant in the NT rather than, say, Peter or James?

Only that we have a plethora of manuscripts attributed to Paul and much less than are attributed to Peter or James. This really isn't an unusual phenomenon when dealing with writings from antiquity. How many writers of Roman history in the same period as Paul do we know of? How many were there? Why did only such and such a work by so and so survive?

One of the things about canon is that there are manuscripts which were not included but still exist. Some branches of the Christian tree even put some of them in their canon.

While Mendalla's point is true, the victors write the histories the annals of history are not so pristine or absolute. Also, when the early Church was duking it out over this or that article of faith and point of doctrine they did it by correspondence. A wrote point a. B takes issue with point a and writes rebuttal a and depending on the strength of the argument the fur flies in letter after letter and or book after book. At some point somebody (typically an ecumenical council) decides A or B win the argument and the loser's stuff (theological works) were scheduled for destruction and everyone was on the honour system to turn things in or burn their personal copies.

Some stuff got turned in other stuff didn't and parts quoted by the victor remained untouched in the victor's works.

Rome was not interested in hunting down dissenters. Rome was interested in maintaining order. Keep your head down and your mouth shut and you survived so long as you blended in with civic life. Attend the festivals and go to the circuses. That doesn't change when they move from the pantheon of Gods to a monotheistic bent.