Is this the next skeptic meme?
I've seen a couple of people claim Paul's Jesus wasn't a historical figure — that He was either pure fiction or perhaps a spiritual figure who died and rose all within another world.
Their evidence: He never talks about Jesus' life. If we had only the writings of Paul, we would know very little about Jesus' life and ministry. The Gospels, being later than Paul's letters (and probably all the other epistles), could then be fiction, stories created to give life to Paul's mystical savior.
Utter crap? Absolutely. Mostly this argument boils down to "I wouldn't have done it this way, so it's wrong." But that doesn't mean we don't have to address it.
It's true that Paul, as well as the other epistle authors, doesn't say much about Jesus' mortal life.
There are plausible explanations for this. Mostly, I'd say the New Testament epistles are an extended commentary on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. His ministry and teachings aren't the focus of that part of the New Testament.
But is is possible that Paul was preaching a fictitious, or at least purely "spiritual," Jesus?
No.
You can argue against this from a number of things Paul wrote. Most of it, though, is theological — specifically, things that would make no theological sense unless Jesus was real. But since skeptics don't think any of his teachings make sense, that's not a helpful line of thought.
But Paul said three things that place Jesus firmly in real history:
Jesus was descended from David (Rom 1.3).
Though there are skeptics today, it's ridiculous to think Paul thought David was not a real person. And Jesus, according to Paul, was really descended from that real person.
There are witnesses to His post-resurrection appearances (1Cor 15.6).
Paul claims there are witnesses to an event — witnesses who were still alive, that his readers could find. The event, and therefore Jesus, must have happened in history.
Jesus spoke to Pilate (1Tim 6.13).
If Jesus' death and resurrection were purely fiction or an event of the "spiritual world," He wouldn't have been tried in front of Pilate. Jesus made His "good confession" in front of a real, historical figure, so He must have been one too.
Of course this won't be good enough for anyone who's already made up his mind. But that doesn't mean we have to let them get to us. Whatever reason Paul may have had for not talking about Jesus' mortal life, he clearly knew He had one.
Questioning "Paul's Jesus", just falls in line with those that believe that all of us (Christians) have reinvented Jesus for ourselves! Paul had some pretty amazing Holy Spirit encounters as have many of our brothers and sisters in Christ over the millennia. Accepting the Holy Spirit as the operative in us and through us is quite difficult for many in Christendom not to mention the unregenerate.
ReplyDeleteEven if we had no other confirmation of Paul's experience...the love and strength of commitment he exhibited to be able to follow his commission from Christ all the way to the end would in itself be remarkable!
Though there are skeptics today, it's ridiculous to think Paul thought David was not a real person. And Jesus, according to Paul, was really descended from that real person.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that you recognize that Paul could have thought that David was a real person even if he wasn't. Why couldn't Paul have been similarly mistaken about Jesus?
Vinny, you're suggesting that Paul was wrong about Jesus; we're discussing whether Paul was talking about someone he knew wasn't real.
ReplyDeleteFor Paul to be mistaken, though, 500-odd witnesses would have to lie to him. Not impossible, but how likely?
Chris,
ReplyDeleteThe two forms of “not real” that you mentioned were fictional and purely spiritual. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Joseph Smith claimed to have seen the Angel Moroni who could be considered unreal both because he was the product of Smith’s imagination and because angels are incorporeal beings.
While Paul does claim that there were events involving Jesus to which there were witnesses who Paul himself knows, the only such events he identifies are appearances of the risen Christ. Paul does not say that anyone he knows witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion or that anyone he knows witnessed anything Jesus did during his lifetime. Paul says he knows people who witnessed appearances of the risen Christ which, standing alone, doesn’t make Paul’s Jesus any more real than Smith’s Moroni.
Paul does say that Jesus was crucified. The mythers claim that Paul believed that this was an event that happened to some spiritual being on some heavenly plane and I have not reached any conclusions about the strengths or weaknesses of those particular arguments. Assuming that Paul thought that the crucifixion was carried out on the earth by the Romans, that still leaves a wide expanse of time and space in which it might have occurred. Paul could have thought that his encounter on the road to Damascus was a real person who had been resurrected, but he doesn’t provide us with much information to identify that person. Lacking such information, Paul’s Jesus seems as good as fictional to me.
As far as the appearance to the 500 goes, I suspect that Paul did not personally interview all 500. It might well be that a single person told him about the event.
Vinny, you're suggesting that the post-resurrection appearances could happen in our world when the crucifixion and resurrection happened in "another" world.
ReplyDeletePlease tell me you can see how much of a stretch that is. It's not even remotely plausible.
"Assuming that Paul thought that the crucifixion was carried out on the earth by the Romans, that still leaves a wide expanse of time and space in which it might have occurred."
Pilate (1Tim 6.13)
"As far as the appearance to the 500 goes..."
We have no idea how many people he talked to. Any attempt to give a number would be utter speculation.
You're free to believe Christianity is the most carefully crafted hoax in history. Just as long as you don't delude yourself that there's any actual evidence.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteOnce you start talking about supernatural events, I don't know how you decide upon relative levels of plausibility.
It is true that 1 Timothy references Pilate but there is considerable doubt among scholars that Paul wrote that epistle.
If we have no idea how many people he talked to, why did you assert that 500 would have had to lie in order for Paul to be mistaken.
"Once you start talking about supernatural events, I don't know how you decide upon relative levels of plausibility."
ReplyDeleteThen think about lies. If you start with a lie/story that can't be disproven (e.g., a "spiritual resurrection"), why would you screw it up by claiming it impinged upon the physical world?
"It is true that 1 Timothy references Pilate but there is considerable doubt among scholars that Paul wrote that epistle."
Have you noticed the more a text helps conservative Christianity, the more (certain) scholars question its authorship? 1 Timothy isn't in that much doubt.
"why did you assert that 500 would have had to lie ..."
Imprecision, mostly. The point is, you'd have to have 500 false witnesses. How's that go: one person can keep a secret, occassionally two, never three.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteFor Paul, there is no story to be screwed up until it impinged on his physical world. Paul believed that he had received an appearance and a revelation from a crucified and resurrected Messiah. The question isn’t whether Paul thought it more credible for the crucifixion and resurrection to take place on earth rather than in a heavenly realm. The question is where Paul thought it was revealed to him that it took place and the mythicist theory is that he thought it took place on a heavenly plain.
I don't personally know much about the details of the mythicist argument. However, assuming that Paul thought it took place on earth, I don't see much indication that he knew where or when.
As far as 1 Timothy goes, even Dan Wallace admits that “the evidence against the authenticity of the pastorals is as strong as any evidence against the authenticity of any NT book (save 2 Peter).”
My point about the appearance to the 500 is that you wouldn’t need 500 false witnesses. You would only need one person to tell the story to Paul. You might not even need that if Paul thought that it was somehow part of the divine revelation that he got directly from Christ. That might explain why the story did not make it into any of the gospels.
Talk about selective quoting. Wallace's next words: "it [the argument] still cannot overthrow the traditional view."
ReplyDeleteWhy is the 500 important? Because even if 499 hold to the story, it only takes 1 to start a storm if he recants. Given that these 500 were all from a relatively small area, all in the heart of the new Christian community, a turn-coat could make plenty of noise.
Thus 1Cor 15. These aren't angelic visitations; they're physical events. Jesus died, was buried, was raised, and appeared. Not only is this not treated like visitations, the detail about burial loses meaning if this is a "spiritual" story.
I think the very notion is an anachronism.
We also have to remember that we are artificially separating Paul from the rest of the NT here. As I said above, I think this largely boils down to "I wouldn't have done it this way, so it's wrong."
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI was only citing Wallace for the proposition that there is legitimate dispute among scholars about the authorship of the pastoral epistles. I wasn't trying to fool you into thinking that Wallace came down anywhere but on the traditional side. Interestingly, however, Wallace does not seem to give much reason for preferring the traditional view other than that it is the traditional view.
There is nothing artificial about separating Paul from the rest of the New Testament. Paul wrote based on his understanding of Jesus just as each of the other New Testament authors did. The first and foremost way of determining Paul's understanding is by what Paul wrote. Paul does not give any indication that he knew what Jesus said or did during his life nor does he indicate that he knew anyone who knew anything about what Jesus said or did. The fact that later writers attributed such knowledge to people that Paul encountered is not sufficient to establish that this was Paul's understanding.
What is artificial is reading the physicality of the appearance stories in the gospels back into Paul. 1 Corinthians 15 gives no details about anyone eating with or conversing with the risen Christ, or touching him. In fact Paul says nothing about what his own experience was like.
BTW, I am not at all convinced by the pure mythicist theory that Paul thought of the crucifixion and resurrection as events that took place in some spiritual dimension (although I haven't read that much about it). I suspect that Paul thought that Jesus was a real flesh and blood person who had walked the earth. However, Paul also thought that Adam was a real flesh and blood person who had walked the earth. The question is what reasons Paul gives us for thinking it. Since Paul doesn't seem to know much about Jesus' time on earth and he doesn't seem to identify any source of information other than supernatural revelation, I don't think he gives us much evidence for a historical Jesus.
"There is nothing artificial about separating Paul from the rest of the New Testament."
ReplyDeleteOf course there is. Have you ever wondered why Paul doesn't stop to explain who Peter or James are? No, because we know his readers knew who they were. For that same reason, you don't stop to explain who Paul or Jesus are. In the same way, there is no reason to suggest Paul's readers didn't know who Jesus was.
Removing Paul from the context of his community can make it appear he had room to make up whatever he wanted about Jesus, but it's nothing more than an intellectual exercise. This is an anachronism -- by which I mean, this whole concept would be foreign to a first century Jew.
But since the mythers, like the birthers and the truthers, want to treat absence of evidence as evidence of absence, we can play the game for the moment.
Do you bury spirit being? Of course not. Paul clearly says Jesus was buried. He goes through the whole died, buried, raised sequence and then goes straight to "appeared" without any kind of transition. There is nothing to suggest that the died-raised happened in a different time and place than the appeared. It can only be so if you read this theory back into the text.
I fully agree that Paul assumed that his readers had some understanding of who Peter. James and Jesus were. However, the question is what their understanding was. We can’t assume that they knew anything more than Paul knew and Paul provides us with very little information about what he knew. You might like to think that their understanding included the stories and teachings found in the gospels, but the evidence isn’t there. You cannot declare by fiat that stories written decades later were part of the context of Paul’s community.
ReplyDeleteI actually agree with you that there is no transition between raised and appeared in 1 Corinthians 15 and that this is a point on the historicist side of the scale. However, I would note that this is a creedal statement and the only theologically significant time period is the three days before the resurrection because that fulfilled a prophecy. If you look at the Nicene Creed, “For us and our salvation he came down from heaven” immediately follows “Through him all things were made” without any reference to the considerable gap in time between the two events. So I don’t think the lack of a transition is conclusive. That may just be a characteristic of creeds.
I will also repeat that I am not convinced of the pure mythicist position that Paul thought of Jesus as a purely spiritual being rather than a flesh and blood human being. I do think it possible that Paul believed Jesus to have been real in the same way that he believed Adam or King David to be real, i.e., he thought of him as an actual person but did not have any reliable historical information about him. That seems to me to fit the data as well as any other hypothesis.