lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeffrey William Gillette) (04/13/85)
[]
The battle cry of theologians in the early years of the 20th Century:
"Away with St. Paul - give us the pure simple words of Jesus!" And why
not? Was Christianity founded by Paul or by Jesus? Was Jesus a
theologian? Did the early church turn the world on its head by the power
of their university degrees? And even a cursory look at the words in red
will show a picture of Jesus as enlightened and tolerant (or do they
merely show him as ambiguous). Perhaps Harnack was right: Jesus gave us
a way to live, and Paul turned it into a religion!
The question, in fact, goes well beyond the 20th Century. It seems that
Paul was an embarrassment to the 2nd Century church also. His most loyal
adherents were the gnostics (who liked his emphasis on intellect), and
Marcion (someone has said that Marcion was the only man to understand
Paul - and he *mis*understood him). There may be more than a little
truth in the rumor that, had the pastoral epistles (1,2 Timothy & Titus)
not shown up and "domesticated" Paul in the eyes of the Great Church, the
apostle to the gentiles would have drifted off into the same obscurity
reserved for other sectarian and heretical writings.
BUT, St. Paul's writings did not drift off into obscurity. At the most
crucial stages in the history of the church it was to Paul - not to the
Gospels - that theologians turned to makes sense of Christianity. What
is there in these short letters that could command the undivided
attention of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and the like? Even at
the end of the apostolic times, the writer of 2nd Peter calls Paul's
letters Scripture (graphoi) - the only New Testament writings called
Scripture by another New Testament author!
St. Paul wrote eight or ten letters to specific churches, answering
specific questions with specific advice. Yet to focus on the specific
details of Paul's instructions would be to miss completely the apostle's
true genius. In fact, Paul is at his weakest when he attempts to give
specific instructions. Consider 1 Corinthians: in chapter 11 Paul
explains how a woman is to act when praying or prophesying in the church,
yet in chapter 14 he commands that women must be silent in the church!
In the same letter, Paul informs us that the very laws of nature dictate
which hair styles are appropriate. Needless to say, Christian thinkers
have not turned to these passages in moments of supreme spiritual
enlightenment.
The real genius of St. Paul lies in his penetrating insight of human
existence. Thus Paul writes of the anguish of the person who desperately
wants to obey God's laws, yet can't find the power within himself, and of
the victory made available through the Holy Spirit. And Paul meditates
on the "wisdom" of the Cross, and the new life made available to us
through faith in it. And, note especially, that this same Paul claimed
that, in Christ there is no freeman or slave, no Jew or Gentile, no male
or female, but all are equal. Paul's genius was his intense perception
of what it means to be human - warts and all; how God has intervened in
our existence through the life, death, and (most importantly) the
resurrection of Jesus Christ; and what sort of new existence we can enjoy
as God's own people.
By the way, for the benefit of historians, Paul's letters are the
earliest witnesses to Christianity. All the authentic Pauline epistles
were written before 60 AD - 5 years before the earliest Gospel (Mark),
and at least 30 years before the last Gospel (John). The words in red
are not the words that Jesus said. They are the words the evangelists
thought he said, the words he might have said, and, sometimes, the words
he should have said (or so they felt). I suspect that a good deal of
history can be gleaned from the pictures of Jesus presented by the
Gospels, but it is simply not fair to say that Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John give us history, while Paul gives us theology. Every book in the
New Testament is primarily an *interpretation* of God's work through
Jesus.
Does Paul speak to you? It depends on what you want to hear. But don't
make the mistake of seeing the trees and missing the forest in the
apostle's letters. And don't make the mistake of believing that the
words in red ink are any different than the words in black ink.
Jeffrey William Gillette duke!phs!lisa
The Divinity School
Duke Universityhutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (04/16/85)
[ bugs are forbidden to wear excessive ornamentation and may not teach ] In article <1013@phs.UUCP> lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeffrey William Gillette) writes: >[] >By the way, for the benefit of historians, Paul's letters are the >earliest witnesses to Christianity. All the authentic Pauline epistles >were written before 60 AD - 5 years before the earliest Gospel (Mark), >and at least 30 years before the last Gospel (John). The words in red >are not the words that Jesus said. They are the words the evangelists >thought he said, the words he might have said, and, sometimes, the words >he should have said (or so they felt). I suspect that a good deal of >history can be gleaned from the pictures of Jesus presented by the >Gospels, but it is simply not fair to say that Matthew, Mark, Luke and >John give us history, while Paul gives us theology. Every book in the >New Testament is primarily an *interpretation* of God's work through >Jesus. > > > Jeffrey William Gillette duke!phs!lisa > The Divinity School > Duke University Oh dear. And from someone who ought to know better, too. The "words in red" are very likely to be exactly the words which Jesus said, barring the vagaries of translation. Remember we are dealing here with people who were NOT paper or television junkies. They depended for the most part on very well trained memories for what we (with our plentiful paper and pencil, and our lazy untrained memories) would tend to write down. So, there would be a number of people around who actually recalled the exact words Jesus used. When possible, they also had scribes present, who were (according to the Gospels) often set there to take an accurate record of what Jesus taught so the Sanhedrin could discredit him as a false teacher if that was what they found him to be. Some or all of these records would have been available during the Pentecostal expansion and undoubteldy would have been used to teach with, especially since the Sanhedrin, for a while, also had Christians on it. The structure of many of Jesus' sayings shows them to be direct quotations from Jewish Scripture (no surprise, eh?). Some others are rephrasings of some Scripture, using popular forms (especially Essene teaching forms). All of these would be very familiar and very good mnemonic hooks. So, I strongly disagree with the assertion that they are what the writers THOUGHT were what Jesus said, or that they were what he "might have said". There were too many witnesses who were still around, who committed those words to very good memories, for this to be a general case. (Note that there ARE places which support Jeff to some extent. There are variations on the Sermon on the Mount, which look a lot like notes from different parts of a very long lecture. There are variations on the ending of the Lord's Prayer. But the places where conversation is related, or where specific Scriptural quotations are involved, or where Scribes or other trained observers were present, I maintain that there is a good deal of accuracy and that Jeff's claims are not borne out.) Hutch